January 8, 2008 by pmelcher.

Beyond the flashy fancy mini sites that Corbis and Getty Images have throwned to press release hungry industry newsletter and blog sites, I did a little search of my own.

If you click on any or all of these icons below, you will probably find some of the most amazing and less seen USA Election coverage. There is an advantage of being a photographer from a non “accredited” agency like Reuters/EPA for Corbis and Getty/AFP for Getty: you have no rules to follow and you get to shoot what you want.

It makes for some pretty amazing images: (click on any logo below and enjoy)

These are only a few. No Press releases. No mini sites. Just hard and pure work. VII, DigitalRailroad, Magnum, Contact Press and others had not yet made anything visible as I was writing this entry. I am sure they will. There has never been an election like this in the USA before and probably will never be again. While Corbis and Getty have gone the wire service way ( 100 photos a day covering everything and nothing), these guys are going both for the historical and the emotional route. Because the next president of the United States of America, whether the rest of the world likes it or not, is going to be the major news for the next 8 years.

Minimum.

I agree with my friend Pino Granata, Photography without passion is not photography, it’s only bored microstock.

Posted in SIPA, TIME, newspaper, alexa, Cnn, magazine, keyword, google, news, corbis, editorial, wire service, photojournalism, getty | Print | No Comments »

January 8, 2008 by pmelcher.

So many things to talk about so little time. First there are patents being pended about photography. Empire type companies Corbis and Google have both leaked, “by accident”, that they had files for patents on processes that have to do with photography. Corbis, for one, who actually has a “director of pricing”, registered a process that would seemingly automate pricing. One aspect of it, besides being closely inspired by Wal Mart structure ( Wal Mart sends more wood to an era who they see will soon be hit by a hurricane or tornado), is that is seems to want to increase the price of an image based on its popularity. The more an image is bought, the more its price goes up.

Now, don’t take me wrong, but my understanding of image pricing was quite the opposite. The less an image has been used, the more one can ask for a higher price. Especially, my dear friends, if the clients wants to guarentee that no one else would use the image. Corbis definitely move in mysterious ways . Like Hell, the path to profitability is paved with good intentions.

Furthermore, this, “the more people want it, the more I will make them pay” pricing schemes (sounds like buying tickets to a rock concert) is already being applied by Dreamstime and maybe other microstocks. Ah well, the patent covers more area, so just maybe, maybe, Microsoft’s little brother will one day proudly walk around daddy Gates house showing that he too can get a patent.

Google, on the other hand, continues its destruction of photography. They have just filed for a patent that can read any text within an image. This will allow them to scout the internet’s billion of photographs and look for any written text that lies within an image instead of the image itself. Thus, if you have a great image of US troops in the streets of Baghdad, for example, that happen to walk in front of a McDonald sign, your image will be classified under McDonald instead of war. It will strip the intent of your image in favor of whatever text might be in it. This will be reducing photography to its mere reality reproducing function. Yes, I know, the intend is to be able to “read” the images that have been taken for Google Maps on the street level and allow for someone to search for a restaurant or store based on its name. However, if unleashed to more than the robotic camera sitting atop a van, it could really, really damage image search.

On the technology level, I am quite amused to see that the CES has more to offer the photography industry than ImagingUSA happening at the same time. ImagingUsa is a professional only trade meeting being held one a year. It is being held in the retired state of Florida and seems to showcase the same products and faces every year, with a few very rare exception. On the other hand CES 2008 ( Consumer Electronic Showcase 2008) is full of innovative, crazy products that will make the photography world change in the next years. Do not forget that the photography market has exploded and is now fully driven by amateurs and gadget driven passionate. Companies have seen in the Flickr users and other Microstock members a very attractive source of income who knows no traditional boundaries. From studios in a box that allow your 5 year old to take object photography like a pro to HD video and still point and shoot cameras, the future is at CES. While pros gather in Tampa to see how they can maybe enhance their current business and work flow, amateurs flock to Las Vegas to grab the newest piece of technology. One will fall behind, the other will reinvent how to take images. This is where the new photographers will come from, not from Tampa.

Pro photographers, it seems, are looking in all the wrong places these days, in a desperate attempt to salvage and protect their business. The barbarians ( read non pros) have already crossed the gates and they are invading with much more than their sheer numbers. They have no expectations, no legacy, no traditions, and nothing to build on. They, however, have free minds and a lot of will.

Posted in keyword, Midstock, technology, lens, web 2.0, prosumer, corbis, law, slideshow, flickr, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

January 5, 2008 by pmelcher.

The next big thing will be a photo agency that distributes all other photo agencies. And independent photographers. Think about it. When Getty Images entered this market, it was with the simple idea to aggregate the content of multiple photo agencies that they viewed as too disperse. To regroup into one location the content of many small agencies. To consolidate. At the time, the technology would not allow for any other model than to place this content into one giant server and index it. So Getty went about to acquire and combine.

With the advent of Google, we now know that this is no longer necessary. One can do a search over millions of websites from one location without hosting any of the content. Google Images shows us a glimpse of what could be done with photography. Instead of spending millions of dollars into content creation and hosting, a carefully crafted company would index the millions of licensable images worldwide and make them available for purchase from one location.

No need for hosting, acquisition, database management and everything else that is very costly. No editors, indexers, no imaging, none of all these costly human beings that complain a lot. Already Getty and Corbis have taken baby steps into this formidable market. Using the old model of a central server, they license material from agencies they have no control over. Mostly in Royalty free, but also in niche sectors. Science Faction or Minden Pictures are good examples. Corbis does same with EPA and others.

But on the horizon are coming very strong alternatives. Spffy from stockphotfinder.com creator Randy Taylor is one candidate while in Europe, Picturemaxx has already cornered the German market. Spffy is still very young and incomplete but is on the right track, while PictureMaxx only needs to be internationally adopted to dominate the market. Both have understood that you leave the content where it is but you make it simple and easy to find.

They are consolidating the industry without spending one penny on acquisition. The key, obviously, remains to build the appropriate search engine that will retrieve the right images from millions of potential candidates. Too many irrelevant results and the image buyers will leave. That is a huge challenge when you do not have control over the metadata who, furthermore, is in no way standardize.

There are ways to solve this which I will not discuss here. Acquisition will soon be an event of the past while distribution partnership will become more of the norm. Getty and Corbis will continue to try to position themselves as those unavoidable distributors, cutting as many exclusive deals as they can. Because the only way to beat such a system is to have an exclusive compelling content and refuse to be indexed.

Why is this a good thing? Well for once, smaller agencies ( in size and volume of images) will be able to compete at the same level. No longer will the pricing or heavy marketing be a decisive factor but rather the image quality. Since everyones image will be comparable to every one else’s, the competition will be more on image relevancy. If that is the exact image needed, then it will sell, regardless of its price or source.

It should makes the price war less relevant. It might destroy branding, which would become quite obsolete after a while, thus easing on the cost of marketing.

Finally, and depending on the politics and ethics of the winning company, create a mega photo agency that could reign as a despot over the industry or a  coop that would share sales data and keyword entries in order to increase the content relevancy.

At the end, as always, the customer, the image buyers will decide.

Posted in Search, IPTC, license, technology, picturemaxx, google, web 2.0, getty, corbis, filter, flickr, Royalty free | Print | No Comments »

January 3, 2008 by pmelcher.

First there was the end of out of focus images. Thanks to autofocus lenses, it is now quite impossible to get a blurry image. You can, however, get the focus on the wrong object.  Now, this company out of California, is working on what they call Refocus Imaging. You can focus AFTER taking the image. Not only that, but you can play around with your depth of field. No need to play around with your aperture at shooting time.
It is still at an experimental level  and the quality is not great but once it is all said and done, one could easily have two or three versions of the same image with the focal point at different places.  The  The Digital Lens™ Platform is composed, for now, of a piece of hardware to mount on your camera and the proprietary software. It also, apparently, captures more light from the same shooting conditions by enhancing  current captors. Be prepared for more post processing time.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we see it integrated in a camera in the next coming years.

see it for yourself 

Posted in lens, technology, focus, filter | Print | No Comments »

January 2, 2008 by pmelcher.

This video has surfaced on some blogs recently. Besides the fact that it is a brilliant presentation done by a man who certainly has incredible talent at public speaking, one should be aware that Larry lessing is not only chairs Creative Commons but is also founder of the Center For Internet and Society. ( A strong advocate for extended Fair use laws)

Look at this 20 minutes video and continue reading below:

Impressive, isn’t ? Makes you almost want to give away all your images in order to help your kids not become criminals. Like every well founded argumentation, it mixes emotions and feelings with what seems to be high level intellectual thoughts to make a point. Very sophistic. That point being that some content should be free to use for creative remixing.

Let’s analyze a bit. Lessing uses three very well done ( and funny, because that certainly helps put your guards down) video to demonstrate his point. If you have ever spend a little time on YouTube or other equivalent site, you would immediately know these are rare exceptions and not the rule. Furthermore, while very entertaining, no one really knows the purpose of these videos. Is this art ? are they fundamental to the existence of our society ? If they had never been made, would we miss them ? Lessing makes it sound like they are and should be.
His point is that copyright owners should be more open to sharing ( that means free), in order to let our kids create whole new content, “learn to sing again”, has he puts it.
Create yes, remix, yes, share their with friends, why not ? But make it public to the world ? mmm, why ? What is the benefit for the photographer when not even a credit is mentioned?
What is the reason behind this video ? Well, simple. For more people to use Creative Commons scheme. Why ?
For one, to break and dissolve the communications between users and creator. There is absolutely no reason why someone who would like to use an image for free in a remix should not contact the owner of the image to ask for permission. It is called Common Courtesy. Creative Commons wants to replace that dialogs with their proprietary licensing model.
Why ? simple. They want to become the gateway for all licenses on the internet, including the paying ones. It is something I mentioned in a previous post. It is all about control.
Don’t take this wrong. I am all for sharing and helping creativity. I do not particularity like to give images for free but have done so and will continue as long as their is a compelling reason.
What I am against is the very wealthy and combative Creative Common and Electronic Frontier Foundation that are trying to take control of the raising mass of UGC by guiding them towards the belief that sharing is better than licensing.
With enough support from the masses, and with the help of the RIAA, they will be able to change the copyright laws with no input from professionals. It is not Getty, Corbis nor the microstock who are threatening your business these days, it these San Fransisco rich kids who are. They will be the ones who will force photographers and agencies to open up their archives for free internet sharing.I say, let’s re-introduce Common Courtesy in usage and have anyone who wish to use an image, even for free, simply ask for permission. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in prosumer, web 2.0, license, copyright, filter, editorial, corbis, news, law, getty | Print | No Comments »