Biology Fortified, Inc., and Know Ideas Media are leading an effort called AgBioPix. Our goal is to make accurate, interesting, and inspiring images of agriculture, ag research, and biotechnology more widely available to media, bloggers, and more.
Click here to submit photos to the AgBioPix project.
To learn more, watch the video from Know Ideas Media and read below.
Read about Pixabay on Todayville: Let’s Fix Farming’s Photo Woes
How it works
Media outlets need photos to illustrate their stories, but don’t always have a photographer who can zip to a location to take a photo for a story. That’s where stock photo websites come in. They provide searchable photos that can be purchased individually, or by subscription.
Where do the stock photos come from? Anyone can create and submit stock photos. There is no prerequisite knowledge about the subject matter. The end result is that public-facing images about agriculture, biotechnology, and more are shaped by people who don’t know much about them. What can be done?
Our strategy is to collect farmer-submitted, scientist-submitted, and our own photos we’ve been taking over the years, submit them to stock photo sites, and accurately tag them with information that will allow members of the media to find photos where they are looking for them. We’ll also submit photos to the free site Pixabay to make them available for social media and bloggers. Eventually, if we can get enough quality photos in the right places, we can start to see the visual landscape change around farming and research.
Photos wanted
Here is a list of the kinds of photos that are most needed. Check back later; this list will be updated as AgBioPix expands!
Farming & Agriculture
- Farms growing different crops around the world
- The process of farming, such as plowing, planting, harvesting, etc.
- Spraying crops with fertilizers, pesticides, and more, with accurate descriptions and proper personal protective equipment (PPE)
- Impacts of climate change on agriculture, such as drought, floods, land being abandoned.
- Crops suffering from stresses like pests, diseases, weeds, drought, etc.
- Farm animals being cared for, fed, roaming, being milked, etc.
- Biotech (GMO) crops being grown on farms
- Organic farms
- Small landholders, farms in developing countries
- Vertical farms, urban farms
Research
- Plants in greenhouses
- Plants in research fields, plots, space-planted nurseries, etc.
- Animals used in research (farm animals, lab testing animals, etc)
- Tissue culture (plants, animals, micro-organisms)
- Transgenic (GMO) organisms in the lab (all stages)
- Side-by-side comparisons of varieties
- DNA gels, sequencing images, biotechnology tools
- Scientists collecting samples, examining plants and animals
- Examples of biotech foods in labs, markets, and homes
Submit Photos Here!
Find out More
AgBioPix is just beginning, but you can follow along on Twitter with the #AgBioPix hashtag. Check back for updates and more links.
Royalties
But wait, don’t some stock photo sites give royalties or fees to photographers? Who will get that money? Hopefully, AgBioPix will become an incredibly successful project with thousands of dollars coming in. If that happens, Biology Fortified, Inc (a small, independent non-profit) will create a fellowship program for science communicators. We already have plans for such a fellowship based on our successful mentoring of new communicators. We have submitted grant proposals for a communication fellowship to multiple funding organizations – if you are or know a potential funder, please let us know! That said, it’s much more likely that such royalties or fees will be a few dollars a month at most, which will be gratefully folded into our operating expenses to keep this site running.