Getty Images Becomes the Flickr Picker Upper

Once upon a time, if you wanted to make money from your Flickr photos, you could turn to a site like Photopreneur for advice.

Now, thanks to a new "strategic partnership," there's another way: Capture the attention of Getty Images. The gist, according to PDN Online:

Over the next several months, Getty editors will invite select Flickr photographers to contribute some of their work to a new collection that will be available on gettyimages.com. Flickr will not be a party in the licensing and will not take a cut of the fees.

In an accompanying interview, Getty's CEO Jonathan Klein explains what kind of Flickr photos they'll be looking for: "That the image is relevant, that it is of the appropriate quality, that it is saleable, that it has the relevant releases attached to it, and that it's creative and innovative."

What's on Flickr that Getty wasn't already offering? Authenticity. "Advertisers are looking for authenticity," Klein commented to the NY Times blog Bits. Though already Getty runs iStockPhoto, a collection of amateur photographs, they feel that photos available on Flickr are higher quality and so are worth more.

Flickr has an official FAQ on the deal, and there's a longer one posted on Strobist. And PDN Pulse thinks the winner here is Getty.

The key thing to remember: Getty will come to you, you don't go looking for Getty. (Confidential to Getty: Have you considered EdgarDiazRocks yet? Or Grundlepuck? Slightlynorth? Or a few dozen other awesome Seattle photographers who participate in our pool?)

"Photographer Down!" by ReeBeckiSupergirl, from our Flickr pool. Thanks!