Licensing

Last updated: October 9, 2026

Every photograph and video clip on this site was made by Szymon Kwiatkowski and is protected by copyright. If you arrived here from a link inside an image file, this is the page that file points to: it explains what you may do with the image and how to get permission for anything else.

In short: the images are not free to use. Viewing them and sharing a link to the page they appear on is welcome. Copying, republishing, or using them in your own work needs a license, and licenses are straightforward to arrange: directly from me, through a stock agency, or as a print.

What you may do without asking

  • View the photographs and clips on this website.
  • Share a link to any page here, on social media or anywhere else.

Nothing on this page limits what the law already allows without permission, such as quotation within its legal limits or private use. Everything beyond that needs a license.

What needs a license

Anything that reproduces the image or clip itself, including:

  • publishing a photograph on a website, blog, or social media account, including as a background, header, or thumbnail;
  • use in print: books, magazines, brochures, posters, packaging;
  • use in advertising, marketing, or any commercial communication;
  • use in film, video, broadcast, or streamed content;
  • incorporating a photograph into a design, product, or merchandise;
  • reselling, redistributing, or sub-licensing an image;
  • using an image to train, fine-tune, or evaluate a machine-learning model (see AI, search, and automated systems).

Cropping, applying a filter, tracing, or otherwise altering a photograph does not create a new work that escapes this. Neither does giving credit. Credit is appreciated, but it is not a substitute for permission.

Licenses available directly

Editorial license: for news reporting, journalism, educational materials, travel publications, and non-commercial editorial contexts.

Commercial license: for advertising, brand and marketing use, packaging, and any use connected with promoting a product or service.

Extended or exclusive license: where you need broad rights, an exclusive period, or use across many territories.

License fees depend on how the image will be used: where it appears, for how long, how many people will see it, and whether you need exclusivity. Two uses of the same photograph can be worth very different amounts, so fees are quoted per request rather than listed. Tell me what you need using the details in How to request a license and you will have a figure quickly.

Licenses through stock agencies

Some photographs and clips are also offered through stock agencies. A license bought from an agency is governed by that agency’s own terms, not by this page, and covers what that agency’s license covers.

Agency files carry their own file names, which differ from the names used on this site. If you hold an agency license and need wider rights, exclusivity, or a version that is not on the agency, write to me with the agency’s file name or image number.

Exclusive rights cannot be granted for an image that is already available through an agency. Ask, and I will tell you which images can be offered exclusively.

Prints

Prints for your own wall are available in the shop. Buying a print gives you the print, not the right to reproduce the image: photographing, scanning, or publishing a print still needs a license.

People, property, and releases

Some photographs show identifiable people, private buildings, or recognizable works. Unless a license says otherwise, no model or property release is held for them.

In practice that means:

  • photographs of identifiable people are available for editorial use;
  • using them in advertising, marketing, or anything that suggests a person endorses a product usually needs that person’s consent, which the license does not provide;
  • landscapes, architecture seen from public places, and photographs without people are generally fine for commercial use, subject to the particular license.

If you are unsure whether a photograph suits a commercial project, ask before licensing and I will tell you plainly. The release status of each image is also recorded in its embedded metadata.

If you recognize yourself in a photograph and would like it removed, or its location details taken off, see People who appear in photographs in the privacy policy, or write to privacy@szymonexplores.com.

How to request a license

Write to licensing@szymonexplores.com and include:

  1. Which photograph or clip: the page address, or the file name (each file name identifies the frame, for example calm-alpine-lake-reflecting-sky-whistler-e2f8.webp). For an agency file, the agency’s name and image number.
  2. How you want to use it: publication, campaign, website, product.
  3. Where: the countries or regions the use will reach.
  4. How long: a single issue, a year, in perpetuity.
  5. How large the audience is: print run, circulation, or expected impressions.
  6. Whether you need exclusivity.

The more precise you are, the faster and more accurately I can quote. Requests are usually answered within three working days.

Credit

Where a license is granted, unless we agree otherwise in writing, please credit as:

© Szymon Kwiatkowski / szymonexplores.com

For online use, please make the credit a link to the page the photograph came from. For an agency license, follow the agency’s credit rules.

Embedded rights information

Every image published here, and every file supplied to an agency, carries embedded metadata: creator, copyright notice, release status, and a link back to this page, written into the file itself in the IPTC and XMP standards.

Please do not remove or alter it. Rights-management information of this kind is protected in its own right under Article 7 of EU Directive 2001/29/EC, and under comparable provisions elsewhere. Stripping it out is a separate matter from the underlying copyright, and it is the clearest possible signal that a use was not accidental.

AI, search, and automated systems

Search and AI answer engines are welcome. They may read these pages, quote and summarize the text with attribution, and show a photograph as a linked preview that leads back to the page it comes from.

Beyond that, the photographs are not free to use. A crawler being able to reach this site is not a copyright license. The images may not be used to train or fine-tune AI models, be reproduced in generated output, or be redistributed by an automated system without a written license.

That license is available. If you develop AI models or build training datasets, the archive offers original travel photography in which every image carries a written caption, an accessibility description, location data, and a recorded release status. Write to licensing@szymonexplores.com.

Rights to text and data mining of the photographs are expressly reserved under Article 4(3) of EU Directive 2019/790. The same reservation is published in machine-readable form in this site’s robots.txt and in the embedded metadata of the images published on this site. Images licensed through a stock agency are governed by that agency’s terms on this point.

Unauthorized use

If you find a photograph of mine used somewhere without permission, I would like to know: licensing@szymonexplores.com.

If you have used one without a license, the simplest resolution is usually to write to me first. Most cases are honest mistakes and are settled by agreeing a retrospective license. Unresolved cases are pursued as copyright infringement, and the embedded metadata described above generally makes provenance easy to establish.

Questions

Not sure whether your use needs a license? Ask at licensing@szymonexplores.com. A short question now is cheaper than an unpleasant conversation later, and I would much rather help you use the work properly than catch you using it improperly.

This page sets out licensing terms in plain language for a working photographer. It is not legal advice, and it is not a substitute for a signed license agreement. The license issued for a specific use governs that use.