Briefs are a basic guide as to what to shoot – they are based on what sells. Lite members must use Briefs to upload, whereas Elite and Elite+ do not, although it’s really a very good way to discipline yourself and to help you shoot the right subjects, whatever your RooM status.

As a collection, it is vital RooM offers diverse and relevant content to our customers across a wide variety of subject categories. It is equally as important that our contributors are shooting the most up to date, targeted and locally relevant images that inspire them. That’s why we have Briefs, available via the RooM website and app.

Briefs are designed to fit around your life. We’re saying it in words, so you can say it with pictures. Our Briefs follow 3 very simple Golden Rules:

• Golden Rule no 1: Know what sells.
• Golden Rule no 2: Know why it sells.
• Golden Rule no 3: Know how to shoot what sells – not what sold last year, but what will sell.

Our art directors carry out extensive creative research into the most current trends across social networks, advertising and the influence people like you have on brand marketing.

We frequently gather feedback from our customers, and scrutinize sales data to understand exactly what our customers are buying and what they need next. Not only that but we use our knowledge and your talents to tell our clients what they want before they know it!

From this research our art directors created categories relevant to the most commercial stock photography subjects. Each category has a specific Brief that describes what clients are looking for.

We are the only stock agency that researches and targets this way.

Uploading to RooM couldn’t be easier; we’ve built a process that ensures you will find a brief that matches our client’s needs, and is relevant to what you want to shoot. Check out or 5 Steps below:

• Choose a Category:
  Lifestyle, Wellbeing and Food (Check out the Category tips for more information on shooting Lifestyles, Wellbeing and Food)
• Choose a Sub-Category:
  Families, Children and Babies
• Read the Brief:
  Be sure to fully read the Brief and make sure your image is relevant.

Description:
We want you very best images featuring families. Images can include parents, children, grandparents, families with pets, families at home or outdoors, families on vacation, portraits, family lifestyle.

Important notes:
Only upload work you have explicit rights to and remember, we will request a model release for each person featured in your image before it can go live. We also highly recommend you upload the largest file you have for each image – if a file is too small or too filtered we will not accept it.

Go out and shoot or upload an image you’ve already shot that fits a Brief.

• Your image should be at least 3MP in size. You must make sure you upload the original full size file from your phone or camera, so don't upload the Instagram version where possible, as it will have been compressed.
• Don’t over manipulate the image with fancy effects and make sure you don’t include any branding or logos in the shot, for legal reasons.
• If there are any recognizable people or buildings in your shot, then you’ll need a release. We will be unable to sell your images without the appropriate releases. For more information on Releases check here.
• Once you've captured the photo, you can upload it using the 'Upload' button next to the Brief's description - but the image must relate to the Brief or it will not be accepted.

Any recognizable people or buildings in the image will require a signed model or property release for us to be able to offer your image for sale.

• In order for your images to sell, people need to find them, so you must add appropriate Metadata to your image.
• Start by adding a Caption. This should describe the subject and what’s happening in 3-8 words: Mother, baby and dog.

  

• Next, add some Keywords. Keywords are a series of words that describe an image so that it can be found. They should be comma separated: house, labrador, family, woman, mother, day, adult, baby, female, south Africa, portrait, outdoor, person, dog.
• You will also need to add any model and property releases you have for the image. In this example two model releases, as no property release will be required.
• For your convenience RooM has approved a number of model and property release apps that you can use. Only the app version approved by RooM can be used. Download approved Model and Property Releases.
• Optionally, you can also choose to add a Description and Location to your image. Image buyers often need more information about an image before they will buy it. By adding more info to your image you are making it more likely to be found and therefore sell - but make sure all the information you add is relevant. If it's a dog, it's not a cat ;)
• Location details allow us to identify where you and your images are shot, so we can provide location specific Briefs that match the locations you’re used to shooting in, it also helps clients when they are deciding on whether an image might be appropriate.

• Once you've uploaded an image, our expert Curators will review your image to ensure it meets our Technical and Creative Guidelines – we must believe it has a good chance of selling to take it – and that releases have been added where required.
• If your image is approved, we will assign it to be offered for sale as either Royalty Free or Rights Managed - based on our extensive knowledge of what is the most suitable license for each image. Find out more about the different licenses here.
• Our Curators may also reject your image, based on Technical, Creative or Legal reasons. Don’t be disheartened! Check out our RooM Contributor Guides for further information on what issues we look for to ensure it doesn’t happen next time you upload.

• Your image has gone Live, what next? Keep uploading! We've built RooM to reward users who time and time again hit our quality benchmark and upload the right images.
• You can find more answers to commonly asked questions in our FAQ.