How to increase your own 'stock' of photos

A few months ago, City-cost made the announcement that going forward you can only use your own photographs for blog posts and reviews. In other words, you must be the original photographer / owner of the photos you use and you can't use stock photos from other sources. Stock photos are photographs taken by other people that are available online, either for free or at a charge, for licensed use.

For the most part, I welcomed the move by City-cost. I think where possible it is best to use your own photographs. For one, it avoids any potential copyright issues. Moreover, even if you are not the best photographer in the world, your photograph is original. The stock photos you can buy, and even more so the ones you can download for free, online are often used by multiple websites. 

However, there are some instances when stock photos are very useful.  Say, for example, if you are writing an opinion piece about current news. You might not have a suitable photo for the article, but a search online brings up a selection of appropriate photos. Without being able to use them, what are your options? You could use any random photo, but I think most of us like to match the theme of the article. In that case, you could use an online image design website, such as Canva, to create your own original image.

I often don't have the time to create an image, so, thanks to City-cost, I've been building my own stock of photos. Of course, it takes time, but its really easy. How to? Simply - photograph everything! You never know when you might need a photo of, for example, a bird or a boat! Sometimes I go on a "stock photography" walk and literally takes photos of everything I see. Like the photo in this post with "Camera Point" written in katakana. Not something I would photograph normally, but I took it just in case and sure enough it has come in handy!

Have you been building your stock of photos? Any tips you would suggest for building your stock?