The use of photography in graphic design had its birth way long ago, back in late 1920 decade, when Herbert Bayer, after leaving Bauhaus school, where he was the teacher of  “Print and advertising Workshop”, started to study the interconnections between “advertising science” and psychology.
He started then to integrate photos in his work, with montages and screens, in order to give more dynamics and expressiveness to his creations and make of them what he called “an architectural framework“.
Those really were first photo montages of graphic design history.

In our days, with the use of computer graphics the use of pictures in any kind of job is a must.

Recently I’ve read an article in a blog that stated: “it is useless to spend a lot of time in Stock Photography websites to search for the right shot while you possibly have a nice camera and you can do the shot yourself”.
I personally STRONGLY disagree with this point of view.
Unless you are an experienced photographer yourself, I firmly believe that a paid job is not the moment to make experiments and play with the brand reputation of your customer!

An image in a website, in advertising or any other printed composition is never just a “shot”.
It has, in a first instance, the task to grab attention.
It has then to engage, beautify, tell a story, create desire, and all of this it must be done being consistent with the image of the brand.
To make it short “it has to sell”.

Your photography necessarily must be “professional”: if photography misses the mark, your brand message will be diluted, if not damaged!
After you’ve spent so much time brainstorming about a message that compels, it must be supported by compelling imagery.
Notice also that if you need your image for printing, professional quality is necessary to guarantee quality reproduction.
Never think customers won’t notice it: they will, whether consciously or not.

Furthermore, if you use photos with people you NEED to have the Model Release, a legal document signed by subjects portrayed, that grants you the permission to use and publish the photo.
I have read a lot of times on various design groups on Usenet, both about people that got into trouble because they used a picture without legal permission and others that were bragging about suing others because they used one of their shots, so, I always use professional stock photography.
A thing you have to know, however, are the differences between various kind of licenses:

• Royalty Free is the most common and affordable license type, often called just RF. As the name says, you can use the image purchased as many times as you want without paying an additional royalty. They have usually good prices, that may vary according to the company of your choice. The only downside is that these images are not exclusive.
• Rights Managed license (or RM) gives you exclusive (but time-limited) use of a stock image. This means that if you buy this kind of license you are the only one to use the image in the period specified in the contract. Photos can be used only for one project and for a period of time, sometimes even only on specified geographical areas. This is an expensive licence, but it protect you brand from competition using the same image.
• Extended/ Enhanced licenses. Not every company offers this kind of licenses, which extends the use of a previously licensed work. You have thus the permission to increase the printed copies featuring the image, to use it for resale purposes or for other method of distribution. It is advised to carefully read the contract, as uses allowed vary from company to company.
• Subscription. This is pretty new, it is not available everywhere also, but this kind of offer is quickly expanding. You pay a monthly fee, often choosing among different price plans, and you can download a set number of photos of your choice. This is probably the best deal if you have to download images often. As a plus, you usually have no limitation about the use.

Here are the stock photo companies that, to my opinion, offer the best value for money:

Getty Images

Probably one of the most famous and one of the first to offer licensed images, since 1995. According to what they say, every months about 4 million people utilizes their website. You find there award winning images, illustrations and even videos and music. Their new offers are The Flickr and the Vector collections.

Thinkstock

A great offer for a great value. They have subscription plans that allows you to download up to 25 images a day in a database that has millions of images.

Jupiterimages

Another huge collection of photos of famous photographers and a lot of niche collections. They often propose discount. Actually you can have 10% discount with the promo code in the home page.

To finish, some sample images from these websites:

The Brazilian design studio PS2 created this beautiful self promotional typographic memory card game.

This concentration game consist of 20 pairs of card, each one with a different type family.

Set has some extra cards with a typographical glossary and the explanation of the sentence that names the gift: “the quick brown fox jumps to over the lazy dog”.
The package also contains a text about the evolution of type design, locating in history each font used in the cards.

Set is the annual gift to customers and friends of the graphic design universe and of the agency and comes in a limited edition of 300 numbered copies.

JUST BRILLIANT.

Some Spec:
Principal Type: Univers Condensed, by Adrian Frutiger
Paper: Condat Silk + Matte
Colors: Pantone
Finishing: Lustre Lamination + Die Cut

Click to view a larger image

Here it is again the list of my 10 favorite readings of the week.
Let’s start.

• Most brilliant is new Zippo advertising campaign. Even if message clearly exaggerate the amount of space taken by discarded lighters, it shows an interesting point of view that probably few of us had considered before. Read a full article on StillAd ;
• Most Useful is The 13 most essential plugin for WordPress by Net-tuts. Even if I don’t agree to all of them because I think some plugin in list are not strictly necessary (don’t forget that each plugin you activate eats resources and slows a bit your wordpress!), there are some I didn’t know. I would add to list Login Lockdown: detect and record IP addresses of every failed login attempt and if more than a certain number of attempts are detected within a short period of time from the same IP range, then the login function is disabled for all requests from that range;
  
• Most stunning is Step into my Cardboard Office from CR Blog. Their article tells about Nothing, a new Amsterdam creative agency that built its internal working spaces with cardboard. Article has plenty of amazing pictures of the studio;
• Most funny is Comments you won’t have seen by DavidAirey.com. I read this clever and wit blog very often and surely there are a lot of graphic design post to point out (I especially like the “Logo of the month” series), but this one was, really, exhilarating;
• Most Interesting is Achieve your goals with Incremental Persistence. I’ve found this article on DevLounge. Very powerful explanation about how persistence conquers all. You can’t miss the linked John Reese article on Income.com too;
• Most Beautiful is a showcase of SmashingMagazine of 40 typography-related websites and blogs. Astounding creativity and a lot of knowledge here;
• Most Inspiring is a DesignM.ag Showcase about landscape photography. Incredibly, the shot of the cypresses has been taken not far away from where I live. Those trees are really famous among photographers here;
• Most Valuable is The Ups and Downs of Business by Chris Tomlison. I’ve found by chance this 5th and last article of an interesting series, so, my advice is to read them all;
• My favorite artist is Jay Horinouchi creates dreamy and intriguing worlds filled with Japanese-inspired creatures. Amazing painting technique. He is having a solo exhibition at Möbius Gallery in Los Angeles until April 7, 2009.

This Sunday, I’ll list my 10 favourite websites of the week.
They may include articles, video and portfolios.
Let’s start.

• Most Comprehensive is Your Rights as a Photographer by Tutorial9.net: a complete and extensive guide about commercial and legal rights when you use your fotocamera, there also are two downloadable samples of models releases;

• Most Creative is A little something to remind me… by CR Blog that shows how photographer Michael Hughes renew the concept of tourist attractions in his new book Souvenirs, where he take a shot of a postcard of them, skillfully merged with the real view;

• Most Outrageous is Shavethepussy.com. Yes, as the name says, you have all the tools to shave a pussy and get a score to win the foam/moisturizer set. Honestly, I didn’t understand if this site was made to really promote the set or the amazing mastery of the flash design, but one thing for sure it gets noticed!!;

• Most Funny is Make my logo bigger video on YouTube. How often customers obstruct us from doing our work with request of the kind: “I want my logo bigger”, “All of that white space is wasted”, “I want more colors”?. Well, it has been created a new set of tools right for this purpose.

• Most Useful is How to Write An Effective Design Brief By JCD Blog. Starting from the definition of design brief itself it analyzes what goals of design could be, then it draws a roadmap through target market, design specifications, benchmark and deadline.

• Most Interesting is Typographic Nostalgia: Bell Centennial by Speak Up. This article talks of the creation of the typeface Bell Centennial, used for the AT&T telephone book, as an update of old Bell Gothic. A lot of good pics of the rare booklet that illustrate the process.

• Most Beautiful is The beauty of old maps by Design Daily. I just love vintage photos and illustrations. Period.

• Most Valuable is 10 Timeless Business Tips From 10 Millionaires by Quick Sprout. From venture capital to savings, from starting a business to investing in ourselves.

• My favourite portfolio: Philipp Zurmoehle at http://www.phillennium.com/ is a fine and creative graphic and web designer from Norway.

It makes one week that Creative Freelancer Conference (an event from HOW MAGAZINE) in Chicago closed its doors.

As its crew itself defines it, it was “the first gathering of its kind, covering marketing, client retention, proposals, contracts, time management, work/life balance … everything the solopreneur needs to know, by creative-business experts who’ve built successful solo careers themselves”.

As stated in the official Website more than 200 creative attended the first edition of this event, where all aspects of a creative business where covered.

If you regret you missed the conference (I do, too, but I’m in Italy, not exactly round the corner after all!) you got to know that now all the resources, links, slides and speeches have been uploaded to the event official BLOG.
This is a real collection of business and creative ideas for solopreneurs that anyone should read!
Let’s only hope this blog will keep on staying alive!

If you want to visit the Creative Freelancer Conference event Website click HERE, while if you want to go to their resurceful blog click HERE.