It’s important that you understand that YOU always retain copyright ownership of your images.

We do not sell the ownership or copyrights of your images to our clients. Instead, we license the right to use your images to our clients and charge them a license fee. This license fee is then split between you and One Shot.

Absolutely! At all times you'll retain copyright of your images. By joining our team of contributors, we become your agent and you allow us to sell the right to use your image on your behalf to our clients. For each license purchased by one of our clients, you will receive a commission.

You can apply to become a contributing photographer in 3 easy steps:

1- Click here to apply (you can also hit the "Apply now" button at the top of the page).
2- Fill out the form. Make sure you follow all the instructions otherwise your application will be delayed.
3- Click the submit button.

Done!

We review all the applications received once a week, on Fridays. It generally takes us 2 weeks to review an application.
Note: in specific cases, it may take us a little bit more time, for instance if we have received a lot of applications or if we have to ask you for more details.

Just been told you've been accepted? Congratulations mate, you're one step closer to being able to start submitting your images! We now only need to finalise a bit of paperwork and set you up in our systems. Keep an eye on your inbox, you will receive an email from the team with more details shortly.

The details of our terms and conditions can be found here.

You should have received an email detailing why we were not able to accept your application.

If the reasons why you have not been accepted is because we feel you are not ready yet or that your technical skills are not up to our high standards, do not get discouraged! Read our feedback thoroughly. It will help you understand what you need to work on and perfect.

If you really want to contribute to One Shot, we encourage you to re-apply in 6 months - 1 year with some new material, once you feel you have made progress.

Yes, we do accept applications from amatNZD photographers as long as they are able to submit high quality images that follow our guidelines. AmatNZD photographers' contributions will be subject to the same high standards as professional photographers.

Our minimum age to become a contributing photographer is 18 years-old. However, in very specific cases, we could invite a photographer under the age of 18 to join our team but will need to get his/her legal guardian's written consent.

If you are not 18 years-old yet and would like to join our team of contributing photographers, contact our team first to discuss.

The majority of the photographers we are working with are based in New Zealand. However, depending on the quality of your work, and if you manage to capture images that "look Kiwi", we may be interested in working with you. So, if you are a Kiwi photographer who lives in Australia, do feel free to apply! Same goes for non-NZ photographers who have fallen in love with New Zealand.

This is a mandatory step of our application process. We need to check your files to see that they meet our technical criteria, so that we can guarantee our clients the images we supply them can ‘go the distance’, whatever they want to do with them, from the smallest thumbnail on a website to a 10m mural at Auckland Airport! Make sure you follow our guidelines and specifications or it may delay your application.

Generally we expect images to be taken on professional grade cameras and that you can supply a file as follows:

• Native pixels (the original size captured in-camera not resized/interpolated).
• Minimum 16 megapixel, preferably 22 megapixel or higher
• Adobe RGB colour space
• Set to 300 dpi resolution
• Saved as Jpeg of high quality (10 or 11 in Photoshop, 80-90 in Lightroom).
• Finished file (dust spots removed, colour corrected, no layers etc)
• No watermark

As indicated in the article "What are the specs of the hi-res files I need to submit to you?", our preference is for images which are taken with professional photography gear and follow our guidelines.

Having said that, if you are able to take jaw-dropping images with another device (such as a smartphones, tablets) and if your images are  8 Megapixels or more, set on the largest file size, and highest quality as a jpeg, we may be able to make an exception for you. If this is your case, please contact us to discuss.

Images can currently be licensed on One Shot under either the Rights Managed (RM) model or the Royalty Free (RF) model:

RIGHTS MANAGED IMAGES (RM)
This is our premium inventory. Images in this collection are priced according to how and how long they are used. RM Images are carefully controlled to ensure they are only used in the way they have been licensed (e.g. on a brochure for 1 year, in a social media post for 1 week etc.) and that clients competing in the same industry don’t end up using the same image.

ROYALTY FREE IMAGES (RM)
Images in this collection are priced according to filesize and can be used for as long as a client wants. No control is kept over who is using each image so it can happen that two competing clients end up using the same image at the same time.

When you submit an image via our online submission system, you can choose which way you want this image to be licensed. If you can’t decide which collection a specific image should go into, you can leave it to us to decide when we make selections.

Please note that The Shutter Club is a 100% royalty free collection.

Short answer: to make more money! We love people images, and our clients do too. But here’s the catch: any image with people must be supplied with an acceptable model release form in a digital format. We require model releases for two reasons:

1. Model releases are generally not needed for editorial uses (magazine and newspaper articles) but for adverting/promotional uses they are MANDATORY. Images are MUCH more valuable if they are model released as they can be sold to advertising clients who pay higher fees than editorial clients. Basically, you will be making more $ money $ from the image if your model signs a model release.

2. Having a signed model release protects YOU, us and our clients from any potential legal actions from a model. YOU need to ensure you have a release to prove that your model allowed you to sell his/her image for an advert, for instance, as you are responsible in case of a legal action.

If you do not provide us with a model release for images that include people, we will not accept them. So make sure you get on top of this! We recommend the “Easy Release” App (for Apple and Android) as the best way to record and store releases.

Our mission is to support the photographers we represent and maintain a sustainable business model – which is why we do not sell images for $5 a pop.

To give you a rough idea of our price range…

RM IMAGES: Prices range for $75 for a one-time social media post up to several thousands for campaign use over multi-media. With RM images clients can also request exclusive use of an image (i.e. preventing others from using the same image) for which they pay higher fees.

RF IMAGES: Prices start at around $25 for a mobile resolution file up to $639 for a hi-res 300dpi file (large print quality).

After you become a One Shot contributor and submit images, any images accepted into our collections can still be used by you in your own self-promotion, website, social media etc. However you are not able to sell the same images (or similar images) directly to clients.

In other words, your images can appear on Instagram / Facebook / website etc, but any commercial / editorial enquiries need to be directed to us once an image has been accepted into the library.

Where images are used for editorial purposes (magazine and newspaper articles and book publishing) we request that the client prints a credit to “Collection Name / Photographer's Name”. Unfortunately not all clients are as diligent at doing this as we would like but we do follow up with them if we notice a credit hasn’t been printed.

Where images are used for advertising purposes, sometimes clients do add a credit and we thank them for that. But be aware that it is common practice in the advertising industry for the photographer to not be credited

Our point of difference (over the many bazillions of images that can be found on the web) is the “Kiwi-ness” of our images. The people, the clothing, the houses, the locations, the light, the icons – we have our own distinct and often subtle ‘look’.

Our clients can see that our images are genuine, authentic images of New Zealand and that us Kiwis are being shot in our "natural habitat". This is why our clients are prepared to pay more. So, the more you can ‘capture’ our uniqueness, without being obvious or cheesy, the more saleable your images will be.

It’s not because we are a stock photography agency that we’re looking for static, boring or lame images. On the contrary! We’re always on the lookout for fresh, modern and creative content. From images that make us go “WOW!” to the ones that make us go “AHAHAH”. What we want to see is authentic high quality shots of New Zealand, through your eyes.

So whether your speciality is macro-photography, landscape photography, people, commercial or conceptual shots, keep shooting what you like, the way you like. If you love creating colourful pop images then stick to that! If your signature touch is moodier, more romantic we want to see that in your images too.

But be careful… Sometimes, less is more! Most of our clients are creatives. Their designers may want to do their own modifications so that the image they purchase matches their artistic direction. So, often a ‘clean’ image will be more useful as a stock image than a heavily processed/treated image.

We sell a lot of landscape images and we’re always looking for fresh, new images to keep our regular clients satisfied.

Today, “everyone” is a landscape photographer. HOWEVER, NOT EVERYONE is a GOOD landscape photographer. We see a lot (like a LOTTTTT!) of landscape shots every day so, to be accepted, your landscape images will need to be:

• of an exceptionally high quality; and/or
• different in style compared to existing images; and/or
• of places not already well represented in our collection.

Absolutely! We’re of course interested in more than landscape and people images: Food photography, macro-photography, nature and wildlife, conceptual shots, illustrations in relation to New Zealand, we accept everything and judge on an image by image basis so be sure to submit a variety of images. We'd love to see the whole scope of what you do.