30+ years of documentary photography, is there a repository, stock photo agency &c

back in the day there used to be stock photo agencies that loved this sort of work,
but there aren't any stock agencies left, aside from the ones where people dump images
to be rented for not much $ to the lowest corporate bidder. sorry for my bitterness ...
i have 30+ years of documentary images, most of it LF that i am trying to find
some sort of place to submit to ... i've thought of starting a library
on my website with info, or an instagram account or
something like the 1800+ of images on flickr at the MIT libaries
(kepes-lynch collection ) ... the user agreements on instagram, and other places
tend to push me away. i don't even post images of commercial or habs work on
linkedin because their user agreements make me think that if i post there i am kind of
out of luck. not really sure if putting them anywhere would be much different since
i don't digimark them with a homing beacon.
if you had hundreds or a thousand images you wanted to make a library of,
what would you do, aside from keep the dpi count low so they can't do much but make
a screen saver on a candy bar phone...

Well I dunno: Library Of Congress or Smithsonien maybe?

Might as well forget stock photo agencies. Unless you are very lucky you will end up giving away your work and even paying some agency to market it for you.

Register your own domain and do your own website. That way you control rights and licensing fees and any sales use. Figure some images will be stolen and used so be sure to formally register copyright of everything you put up. Doing so will give you a leg up on going after those who steal and use your work. Formal registration means a good IP attorney may take an infringement case on contingency as Attorney's fees are awarded in Federal Court(US) if you win. Be sure to include a copyright notice on each image shown as removal of a copyright notice puts the infringer in the class of losing any defense that they did not know.

Get good at DMCA takedown notices and even better at going after any thief who may have financial means to pay. You may well find a good IP attorney and infringement cases will pay for your retirement for years to come.

If you want it done right so you have control you will have to do it yourself. Even if it means hiring some High School computer whiz kid in the neighborhood to set it up and/or run it for you.

What's wrong with a good old shoebox?

If there's no financial opportunity involved (likely), I'd put them on flickr with good tags. They've given up on stock photo sales there.

jp
i think that might be what i am going to do ...

On Flicker: Does that mean that the images are effectively in the public domain?

hi drew

maybe they will be. architecture, urban views, streetscape contextual views
are important, and there is always an interest about how things are or used to be ...

i am also thinking of putting together a few blurbooks down the road that have images in them ..
kind ofworking things out as i go along ....

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Drew Bedo

On Flicker: Does that mean that the images are effectively in the public domain?

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No, but you can specify whichever licensing you want on a per image basis and it will show up in that spot when someone views a photo you put up.

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Look into Alamy.