April 18, 2007 by pmelcher.

Corbis: If I see one more article praising Steve Davis for the great work he has done at Corbis published in a major US newspaper, I will stop reading newspapers. After the declining New York Times ridiculous press release, it is time for the Seattle PI to think that running a company for 10 years without a profit is a sign of intellectual prowess. And it is not if he didn’t try. Back in 1998, Corbis had announced that it would be profitable by 2000. And they said the same every year after that.(Here is an article from March 2006 saying they would be profitable in 2006). On a side note, even before taking officially his new position, Gary Shrenk, also known as Steve The Second, has fired half of the management team, in a show of respect to the old tradition set forth by his glorious predecessor. “The pope is dead, hail to the pope !”

Virginia Tech: As an old pro, I couldn’t not resist checking who would get what images from the shootings on their website. Getty took a while to get images on its website and at the end of the day ended up only with a few images taken after the actual events. WPN had the first images of the shooting or at least taken around the same time. Nothing very interesting, mostly images of policemen walking about with guns. I couldn’t check Polaris, because you need a name and password. Corbis had a edited down version of what Reuters had. After all, we all know that Reuters is really bad at editing. Atlaspressphoto had the best material and rather quickly right after Associated Press.
But really, what I wanted to see was two fold: The so called citizen journalistic reaction and if “alternative” licensing site would have anything. Flickr members took a long time to upload anything and up to now have only limited images. Bad quality, not interesting. Scoopt.com did not appear to have anything of value as they had a picture of motorcycle racing accident as the picture of the day. French multimillion dollar Eyekea had nothing. On the pro side, neither Photoshelter nor Drr had anything either.

I believe it takes more than having a camera in your hands to take pictures. Although, I am sure, the great majority of students present had cell phones with camera in them, none took a picture.I wouldn’t have either, because the difference between a pro and an amateur is that the amateur will try to save his life first, while a pro will try to take pictures first. So much for citizen journalisms. If these sites fail to carry the same images that the photo agencies have and that professional image buyers are looking for, then they are nothing more than overpriced microstock platforms.

As I have had written before, there is much more to licensing images than just slapping a price on an image and posting them for sale. You have to either create or fulfill a particular demand. It is not the quantity of images that matters, it is the quality. In so far that quality is the relevance of the image to a particular need. Bakeries do not bake million of cakes in the hope that some will sell, they bake a few that they know people will purchase.

Posted in flickr, photojournalism, wire service, corbis, getty | Print | 9 Comments »

April 14, 2007 by pmelcher.

A lot has been said about those who contribute their images to microstock sites or the free photo sharing sites. A lot of bad things, mostly, said by professional photographers. But an article in the NYT of today just juggled a thought I had years back as this trend was rising. Is it really a wave of amateurs or is it the rise of a new breed of pros? What defines a pro photographer, especially in the commercial stock world? Some have studied and have a degree in photography. great, but that does not make you a good photographer. Others declare themselves pro as soon as they sold a few images. Microstockers can now say the same, big deal. I, even thought not at all a photographer, have had some of my images published. No big deal. We tend to consider a pro someone that makes a living from their craft. I know a lot of photographers who, although they try, cannot even say that. So what is, really, the difference, if any?

Maybe it is time that the magnate of the photo syndication mafia start looking much closer to what is going on rather then just smile and walk by shaking their shoulders in disdain.

Equipment and the process have become much easier to handle. What used to be a big ordeal: getting film, loading, taking 24 or 36 images, seeing the result a week later, looking at crappy 5×7, putting them in a box never to be seen again has come a long way. Now, first and foremost, you can shoot and edit immediately, and erase, and shoot again, and again. and get better.

I know a lot of photographers who never went to photography school. They learned by trial and error, just like the amateurs are doing now. You get my point.

If I was running a photo agency right now, which I am not, I would be looking and contacting all these potential talents. This is a goldmine waiting to be taken. Yes, Flickr was bought by Yahoo but no ones stops you from contacting some of the great photographers there and offering them a real job. Before Microsoft and other image buyers do it for you, while you sit there, complaining and waiving your arms up in the air. Remember, it is not Flickr that is interesting, it is the images that they host. That should tell you something.
It would be nice to see the “professional” stock photography industry lend a helping hand to all these emerging talents instead of either ignoring them or putting them down. This is, after all the new crop of professionals. Why do the NPPA, ASMP, PPA, and other self proclaimed churches of photography, not offer free classes on syndication, business affairs, 3 months trial membership ?

Why doesn’t PACA or CEPIC offer them a guide on how to choose the best representation and agency ?

Why doesn’t the so called “professional photo community” offer a helping hand to these new arrivals before they get eaten by sharks ? Because they think it will make them disappear? as in” if I ignore a problem long enough, it will cease to exist”?

I don’t think so. It is only going to become a bigger and stronger trend. And the ones that will survive this surging wave are the ones that will accept, embrace and adapt to the challenge. The others should look for another job, quickly.

Posted in yahoo, web 2.0, flickr, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

April 13, 2007 by pmelcher.

Friday is a good day. It is a good day to review the week past. And for that, the first thing I do is head straight to the week in pictures from MSNBC.com. A great place to see some of the best images of the week and also vote and compare your choice with that of thousands of non-professionals. It should be a required exercise for photo editors around the world to compare their choices with those of viewers and see if they match. It should also be a routing exercise for photographers as well and see which images are appreciated the most and try to find out why? is it subject, is it composition?

Very hard, some weeks, to decide, which one is the best, as 2 or 3 images seem to be equally strong. I tend to vote for those that took some photographer thinking. Although there are many great “lucky shots”, I am a big believer in thought photography, the kind that yield great results because you can feel the actual photographer’s work, thinking about lighting, angle, composition, where chance is less a factor than professionalism.  One of the mental tools I use is asking myself the question:”If I was in the exact same circumstance, would I be able to take the same image?”. If the answer is no, than it is a winner for me. If the answer is yes, however, I then ask myself: “would I be able to put myself in such a position? be there at the right time ?”. Because being at the right place at the right time is also a key attribute of a talented photographer.

My winners are usually the images  for which I ask myself in complete bewilderment:” How did he do that?” . Where magic is perfectly synchronize with emotion, where what is going on in the image makes me feel that I saw it with my own eyes and was deeply touched by it, whether it was happinesses, sadness, compassion, or revolt. And unlike a feature story, these single shots might not explain a whole story, but when they do, they do become stuff of legends.

Remember when you had decided to be in this business because you loved looking at pictures? Go ahead: Happy voting.

Posted in photojournalism, msnbc.com, editorial, news | Print | No Comments »

April 11, 2007 by pmelcher.

Brian Storm Mediastorm has been nominated for the Webby Awards. “Hailed as the “Oscars of the Internet” by the New York Times, The Webby Awards is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet, including Websites, Interactive Advertising, Online Film & Video, and Mobile Websites.”

It is free to register to vote and anyone can do it. So, if you are like me and think that Brian Storm’s production are the future of photojournalism, drop what you are currently doing, log in to People Voice Awards , select the Broadband and Magazine category and cast your vote. It will take you no more than 5 minutes and you will feel really good about it. If you want to feel even better, inform everyone you know, post it on photo bulletin boards, make some noise.

Isn’t time you did something for the photojournalism world ?

Posted in msnbc.com, slideshow, editorial | Print | No Comments »

April 10, 2007 by pmelcher.

I received numerous links to a New York Times article this morning, announcing, in a very smooth, borderline official press release, that the Chief Executor of Corbis title has officially been transfered from one lawyer to another. Must have signed a lot of papers to make this happen.

The New York Times, in a very “we are pleased to have the exclusivity therefore we will not write anything negative”, never questions the fact that during his 10 years of “leadership”, the Attila of photography, Steve Davis, has never, ever posted a profit.
After all, it is quite normal to own the rights to more than 100 million images, “including some of the most famous photographs ever” and loose money. It is also quite normal for a company older and better funded than its arch rival competitor, Getty Images, to only have 11 % of the market against 40 %. I guess these days you can trade investigative journalisms in exchange to having the right of breaking the news.

The new CEO, Gary Shank, has a lot of work ahead of him. Unfortunately, he seems to follow the school of Davis’ photo thinking by finding “ the next great group of Corbis photographers”, as he calls the ever trendy crowdsourcing elements. What is wrong with the ones they already have ? If I was a Corbis photographer, I would be highly insulted by this remark, regarding amateurs nonetheless. As in the past, Corbis has always been keen to purchase new collections after finding out they were incapable of returning a profit on the ones acquired previously. What they seem completely oblivious about is the fact that every time they buy an existing profitable agency, they also endanger the livelihood of all the photographers that once belonged to those agencies or collections. Nor do they care, it seems.

If someone with great talent and industry knowledge, more focused on what the market needs rather than trying to please internal corporate culture, would take the helm at Corbis, they could do a lot of damage. A lot. Someone needs to push the panic button now and wake up the sleeping giant. It is not too late. Wether it is Gary Shenk, who seems happier selling rights clearances, for which Corbis does not need to return any commission to anyone, that remains the big question. And will Steve Davis, in his new position of Master in the sky, senior veteran adviser, will let him? After all, if Gary succeeds in making the big C. profitable, it will really make Steve look bad. And that is an absolute “NO NO” in the corporate world.
At least, I was partly right in my predictions for 2007 .

Posted in corbis, getty | Print | 1 Comment »

April 8, 2007 by pmelcher.

Something doesn’t smell healthy in this deal. Actually, smells fishy to me. As I had wrote about it before, I am more and more convinced that the investors sold the company. Above and beyond the owners decision to do so. Someone got really badly on this one. and it wasn’t me. It was clearly a case where the investors, the VC’s, decided to cash in on what they thought was a juicy proposition for them.
The numbers just do not compute. Mediavast has borrowed close to 27 million US dollars form VC investments since they have started. Getty started with 30m. Getty images is now generating revenues close to 1 Billion dollars. Mediavast ? If the selling price is any indication, they must have been around $67 million a year. Medivast, like Getty, does sports, entertainment, news, commercial stock, high end portrait, has an assignment division and unlike Getty, it has a video production department. It has been a rough battle. Mediavast competed against Getty for exclusive rights, mostly in sports, and found the challenge too difficult. Yes, Wireimage finally got the contract with the NFL, but, according to well placed insiders, at a price so high that it was impossible for them to profit for it.
What happened ? Mediavast probably spent millions of dollar to make a million. But did they ever generate a profit?
I am puzzled. No one ever questioned this acquisition. Seems that Getty was able to push the executives of mediavast into a tight corner and went courting the investors. Considering that Mediavast also granted stocks to all new contributors during their first year of operation, the 200 million will be divided in a lot of different hands.

Getty not buying Jupiter Media and buying MediaVast is just another proof of the power of RM. As I said before, RM will be untouched by the growth of microstock. RF might end up devastated. Even the Flickr of the world will hardly make a dent if they ever figure out how to enter the market. Furthermore, what is Flickr and others compared with Photobucket who has more than 2 billion, (yes, billions), images on-line.
Seems to me the market has yet to understand what is really going on. RM is MUCH more profitable than RF. Yet, with the advent of Microstock and other RF companies, everyone is rushing towards simplicity, like they were caught in the headlights.
Apparently we all got it wrong.RM is where the growth is, and that is where Getty is investing. Not in RF or other short sighted, dead end, over used and abused licensing business.

Pay attention. The future is in high end quality images . RM.

Period.

Posted in HOLGA, flickr, getty, Microstock | Print | No Comments »