A couple week-ends ago I found myself with some free time on a nice sunny day, so I went into Detroit to take photographs, my small way to help out by providing positive images of Detroit for stock photo needs – I had a blast! Spent over an hour at Eastern Market, caught some new shots at the museum area, finally got a photo of the Motown museum, and even hit the Heidelberg project. Wonderful to get away and get some shots!
Things that went well:
- Did some advance planning re. locations so I focused on ones that were kinda close to each other and I could have a general order I wanted to go in.
- Got lucky in having an Eastern Market truck parked in just the perfect position to capture it.
- Asked permission of vendors at Eastern Market, and hung out, taking the time for scenes to present themselves. Some said no, no worries, I respected that, but most of them were quite willing to let me take photographs.
- Put the next location on my GPS, but also was flexible if I saw something else I wanted to take a photo of on the way, like the museums area, had not planned on going back there but when I realized I was nearby I stopped in – Drives the GPS crazy when I go beyond the desired route, but that’s part of the fun. After I’m done it gets me back on track to my next stop.
- Always nice to have someone who wants to pose just for the fun of it, I always go along, why not?
- Trying new angles in old places, like the thinker in this Detroit Institute of Arts photo:
- Took photos of many people at the Motown museum in addition to getting my own shots.
- At Heidelberg project again waited for the scene to present itself, e.g. people walking past the house vs. the house by itself. Took a while to wait for people to walk past it, but much better photo:
Now to clean them up and submit them to Shutterstock, and then the other websites. To see all the Detroit photos that are on my Shutterstock portfolio, click here.
Best wishes on your photography adventures,
Susan
Susan Montgomery Photos 
(I can’t seem to get this answer after Yan’s question, so sorry this is not following her question) To the question about permissions – If you are in a private place you do need permissions. For example, I got permissions for photos I shot at a roller derby game, they were delighted to have me shoot photos as I offered them with free shots for their own use. I also got permissions for ones at a book reading – I knew the bookstore owner a bit and was friends with the author. So when it’s an event like that, yes you need permissions, but to shoot from a public street for editorial purposes you don’t. I heard back from Shutterstock and they had no issues with the Eastern Market photos.
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How did you get the property / model releases for those images?
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Glad you asked – I submit them to Shutterstock as editorial images, so they can be used for articles, etc. but not for commercial purposes. For editorial images you don’t need property releases. You can read more about this at http://www.shutterstock.com/blog/2008/03/how-to-use-editorial-use-only-images/
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Do we need to any permits to take the photos for editorial purposes? Thanks for answering.
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