Pictures of athletes with obscured faces

[GarethKelley]

Hi everyone,
I'm knew to the forum, and admittedly, not particularly gifted at the stock photography world so I'm looking for a bit of advice. Mainly around legality of images...

My main genres of photography are wildlife, landscape and nature in general. But I do also partake in some sports photography.
Last year I photographed a couple of motocross events here in the UK and I just wondered where I stood in regards to uploading those images to Alamy for sale?

The riders faces are obscured by their helmets. Some of the images may contain bystanders/spectators that will be out of focus. There may also be some branded banners/posters that will be out of focus.
Majority of the images will be of riders either airborne, cornering or on straightaways with a dragged shutter speed. The only branding in these instances will be on the bikes and riders themselves.

Now, my question really comes down to legality and the requirement for model releases? Obviously when photographing an event with over 200 riders I don't have the time on the day to run around the paddock trying to get every rider and parent to sign a model release to allow me to market the images. Will I land myself in any bother. I know the copyright of the images is mine, I took them after all. But they are of other people, so I thought I'd be best seeking knowledge on this.

I have done a browse of images for sale on Alamy just searching "Motocross" and there are images there suggesting the model releases haven't been obtained. Based on that I could have just taken the gamble and thrown them on. But I like to do things right, so I thought I'd better ask.

 

Many thanks for your time folks, I look forward to hearing from you!
All the best,
Gareth.

[Steve F]

Hi Gareth,

It's very easy. Go to Alamy Image Manager. On the optional tab for your selected people, put how may people are in the image. Any part of a person that can be seen counts as a 'person' based on Alamy's rules, even a finger on the edge of a shot (it doesn't matter if the person can be identified or not). On model releases, select 'no'. You're done, that's it. It's not your responsibility as the photographer for how an image is used, it is the purchaser's responsibility. You are expected to provide as much accurate information about the image as possible, but that's as far as it goes (and the optional tab is even 'optional', but I would highly recommend you complete it). Alamy provides guidance and assistance to purchaser's on how the photos can be used.

 

So you can put your motocross images on, no problem.

 

Steve

Edited May 15, 2020 by Steve F

[GarethKelley]

2 hours ago, Steve F said:

Hi Gareth,

It's very easy. Go to Alamy Image Manager. On the optional tab for your selected people, put how may people are in the image. Any part of a person that can be seen counts as a 'person' based on Alamy's rules, even a finger on the edge of a shot (it doesn't matter if the person can be identified or not). On model releases, select 'no'. You're done, that's it. It's not your responsibility as the photographer for how an image is used, it is the purchaser's responsibility. You are expected to provide as much accurate information about the image as possible, but that's as far as it goes (and the optional tab is even 'optional', but I would highly recommend you complete it). Alamy provides guidance and assistance to purchaser's on how the photos can be used.

 

So you can put your motocross images on, no problem.

 

Steve

 

Thank you very much Steve.

That's incredibly helpful. So the responsibility falls to the end user of the image to use it correctly.

 

Many thanks again.
Gareth.