August 28, 2008 by pmelcher.

As I was walking down the street in Manhattan earlier today, avoiding other busy pedestrians thinking about work, I noticed a bumper sticker I had never seen before. On a red background, it read : “Save the Mountains”.  Not sure if it was a serious one but regardless, it made me wonder. How come we haven’t seen a “save photography” or “save photographers” sticker yet. After all, the industry is  in more danger than mountains.

Here are a few reasons:

- Overcrowding : Like anything that we human beings like too much, we tend to use it and abuse it until there is nothing left. We are over fishing, over farming, over driving, and in the process, killing everything associated. Photography, thanks partially to Flickr, but also digital, is not only everywhere, but done by everyone. Boundaries between pros and amateurs are melting faster than the polar ice and everyone that use to have a job directly related to photography is in  more danger than Polar bears. It is not just photographers bearing the weight of the overcrowding of this field. Photo editors are also being laid off as magazines or newspapers are either shrinking or shutting down.   Photo agencies will soon also suffer from the saturated market and will start reducing staff as they will not be able to sustain their growth. After all, if photographers are seeing lesser commission, you can be sure that agencies are making less revenue.

- Technology : No one needs a photo editor at Flickr. Why? because Flickr edits itself. Newspapers website are shrinking down and more and more relying on wire service feeds. Just post the feed as it comes in, or automated it. Not very hard to do. No one really needs so many photographers either anymore.  Remote control cameras now cover what took a sleuch of photographers to do. And they don’t complain. Amateurs are shooting as well and can now very easily contribute. Although not yet successful, it would not be hard to see an agency entirely made up of amateurs. Heck !, you could get the Olympics, or the Conventions well covered by amateurs, if you organized yourself well. Thousands of eyes in every different position possible. Imagine the possibilities.

- Intellectualism : Some of our best publications have been taken over by over thinking. In a desperate effort to differentiate themselves from the commons, they  have been taken over either by “new” photojournalism or “new” fine art. Nouveau Photojournalism, we have spoken about. Holga happy reporters who seem happiest in images where you see the less. Nouveau Fine art has taken the opposite approach and is hyper realist. Close up images of uncooked eggs, deserted parking lots at night fall with heavy greenish tungsten light,  snapshot-looking photography with visible flash effects, anything that looks desperately real and slightly unappealing is in fashion. Both agree that if the image disturbs you in any manner, than it must be good. Especially if you think it is a bad photograph. Then, it is probably genius.

- Microsoft : It was a good world when Microsoft did not care about photography.  We were all left to build our own digital world with whatever tool we wanted. For a while, we had to deal with Adobe’s monopoly on photo editing, but that was disappearing. However, recently, The big Redmond giant has been working its way into the field. And we all know what that means. Nothing will ever be the same anymore. No need to explain more ( Corbis anyone?).

- Blogs and opinions : Everywhere and everyone has an opinion. Everyone is an expert. Everything and nothing is written about photography. It is exhausting. It is all over the place and nowhere. Someone should regulate it. For once thing, all the old farts that have been teaching photography in colleges for more than 20 years should be forced to retire and certainly not allowed to blog. They are frightening.  Anyone that has not sold or licensed images for a living should not be quoted on professional blogs because they try to take pictures in places where it is not allowed. It is pathetic. All these blogs are screaming for attention and readership and will write almost about anything as long as they do it everyday. Including publishing boring press releases on the size of a collection. Its obscene. stop it. It is okay not to write anything if there is nothing to say or not to publish a press release because it is stupid. Yes, I know, I do not have to read them.

All these are reasons to start a “save photography” movement. We could have fund raising parties with Karl Lagerfeld as our Keynote speaker and dance the night away. Have cool hats and T shirts with our logo. and finally, make bumper sticker that I could stick on my car…if I had a car.

who is with me ?

Posted in technology, commercial stock, magazine, multimedia, editorial, flickr, corbis | Print | 1 Comment »

August 22, 2008 by pmelcher.

I am no friend of fair use.  “Fair Use is a USA law that provides for the legal, non-licensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author’s work under a four-factor balancing test.  In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include:

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. the amount and substantially of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.”

This law does not even require that someone get a permission from the author or, at least,  informed them of such usage. Guess common courtesy does not exist in US copyright laws. Obviously, “non- licensed” means free. Fortunately, most people do not abuse this law that is widely open to interpretation.
This law has been in existence for a long time and is to me, much more damaging then the potentially upcoming Orphan Work Bill. After all, in this case, one knows the copyright owner but is still allow to use his/her work for free and without having to be polite about it.
Created to help scholar use reference work without going bankrupt, it has become the principle doorway to common copyright infringement.
Why not offer a small $1 licensing fee for those poor scholars that cannot afford paying full price. Or a special “education” fee, like Apple does with its computers. ( mmm…you have to see how much the US University charge per year/per student . Wonder what they do with that money instead of paying artists).
The idea is that every work used should be compensated, regardless of the amount. There has been work done thus compensation should be applied.
However that is not the worst. A famous blog situated on one of these new community based portal ( no, not DigitalRailroad) has been using an insane amount of images. At first, it seemed that since it is a professional blog, created with the obvious intend to drive traffic to its Collection, it would be properly licensing these images.
Imagine my shock ( and awe) when I heard that it does not. It recently used an image from a very well known photo agency that it ripped from another online legitimate publication and used it, along others, on its blog. No permission and no money exchange.
When asked why they would use images without licensing them when they are in image licensing business?  they  responded, “I can’t answer that question.”
They did pull the image down, only to be replaced by another from another agency. Probably without permission. What compels a company that is itself in the image licensing business to not pay for images that they clearly use for promotional usage?  Especially after screaming loud and clear they would be spending over $1 million in marketing this year. Is there no % in that budget to pay for licensing other people images ?

It would be nice, and honest, for that company, to clearly define their policy on the usage of photograph and stop claiming their are the defenders of the photographers when they boldly rip images from other sites like cheap second hand robbers.

Posted in copyright, technology, license, No sense, editorial, transaction, law | Print | 3 Comments »

August 19, 2008 by pmelcher.

  According to Sellingstock.com, the CFO of A21 just quit. Left his company. Just like that. Not surprising really when you look at A21 recent  numbers. Rising cost of operations, lowering sales, the company is heading straight for a wall, head first. Amusing part is that the only two other public or ex public companies in this business have also posted negative results for the second quarter of 2008.( Jupiter and Getty). None of them have signaled community portals( Alamy or Photoshelter) as the cause of their financial suffering . Some have accused the rising price of oil ( ya, right) and, others more bluntly, the ever shifting move from traditional commercial stock to Microstock.

Even if Getty and Jupiterimages saw Microstock coming, they both underestimated its impact tremendously. It is no longer in the original 8% of existing Getty customers that istock is eating in, but rather 25% and growing. Jupiterimages is struggling to integrate their own microstock offering into photos.com hoping to elevate the price per image. Who will be the first to shut down some of its more traditional divisions in order to save the leaking ship ?

No one knows how Corbis is doing in these hard times. Surely, their Snapvillage is not a player in the microstock field, and if the public  companies revenue are any indication, they must be hurting too. In a Bill Gates kind of way. More layoff before years end ? definitely. But not just at Corbis. expect Jupiter, A21, Getty and others to lay off some weight.

There are no clear solutions for these companies. They were build with very expensive infrastructures that do not work well with lower pricing. Although Getty’s project used to be an Internet company only, they have lost their objective and have fallen  heavy into the overhead trap. When they purchased PhotoDisc, they were going to go all speed ahead in high technology/low headcount. Apparently they got sidetracked, allowing Istock, Dreamstime, Shutterstock to continue and achieve what they only dreamed of achieving. Buying Wireimage was cute but will certainly slow down their growth considerably. They have inherited a mastodon of inefficiency, who was busier to reach high market shares rather than being profitable. Results: lots of personnel, huge operation cost, a big mess and waay too many photographers. Jonathan Klein even said himself at the last Getty shareholders meeting : Mediavast was never profitable.

Everyone knows that Getty purchased Wireimage to get rid of it, not to make it grow.

The next 3 years will see the industry giants engage in any and all enterprise that will help them cut their cost to a minimum while not engaging in significant investments. Not an easy task if they want to also grow at the same time. Certainly less of an easy task when lesser size companies are starting to move on the next step. Mostly European, these companies have grown organically using the more slower pace path of reinvesting their profit. Much more careful on their investments than the big loud 3’s, they have now reach a level of financial strength that they can now start to retaliate.

Some are acquiring, others are merging. While the corporate mend their wounds, alliance are forming  in the back alleys of the industry. Interestingly enough, most have hired ex Getty, Corbis or Jupiter staffers who have learned, from within the beast, what not to do. These agencies are extremely ambitious and battle savvy. They have all they need to succeed : knowledge, relations, expertise, endurance and cash. Most will never publicize their acquisition or mergers because they couldn’t care less about what the rest of industry knows. They have drawn a very precise path and their definition of success is  far from Wall Street . Very far.

The race is far from over : Neither Getty nor Corbis have succeeded  cornering the market. In fact, both have abandon the idea as they realized it is almost impossible. While Corbis is still figuring out how to turn a profit, Getty has spend the last 10 years acquiring companies they felt they could not compete with or create internally. Like pasting dollars bills on their obvious shortcoming.

JupiterImage is surviving only thanks to its internet properties while A21 keeps on borrowing money. Neither have a bright future, not, at least , in the photo licensing world.

A reasonable expectation is that our universe is about to see its giant stars implode. They are about to break apart because, similar to  the laws of the universe, they cannot survive under their own weight. Too much manpower, bureaucracy, equipment, replacement, fiscal obligation are making them crumble.

They ate too much.

Posted in Jupiter, technology, commercial stock, finance, corbis, Royalty free, getty, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

August 12, 2008 by pmelcher.

- Misconception No1: Photojournalism is not being killed by celebrity photographers. In fact, photographers that cover the celebrity scene, weather red carpet or street photographer have the same ratio of good to bad photographers than in news. It takes some of the same skills to cover news and celebrity. Regardless. Time or Newsweek have not increased their celebrity photography coverage. They just have just lessened their news coverage.

- Misconception No2 : Editorial photography is dying. What is dying are the daily and weekly print publications. Newspapers, magazines, and old brands. They cannot compete with the speed of  news anymore. What is dying is the image that is formatted for a print support with a rectangular format. What is dying is the photography taught in school and colleges today. There is a new medium for editorial photography that has never existed before, that knows no boundaries will it be in size, amount, artifact and pricing ( the Internet). What really is dying here is an old mentality.

- Misconception No3:  Video will replace stills. Take a look at the amount of video images coming out of the Olympics. Hours and hours of footage. Now, tell me who will sit down and edit film pumped out at 25 frames per seconds to find the right image ?While you think, look at this great gallery done by Stern magazine and see what can photographers can do.

- Misconception No4: Anybody can shoot great images these days. Why would anyone say that when pro photographers have always used the same equipment as amateurs. This is not like dentistry or chemistry where the tools are hard to find, let alone the knowledge. Photography has always been easy to learn and the equipment always available to anyone. The only part that has changed is how easier it is these days to share. But really good images created by amateurs have always been around. Not as accessible, that is all. Its not the equipment that matters in great photography, it is the person holding it

- Misconception No5 : If you produce a lot of images, you can make a living with your photography. A rule of thumb more in the stock photography world than in the editorial one. It was true for a while when it was expensive to distribute images to clients. Today, it is a dangerous thought. Quantity will slowly be replaced by quality as the market will no longer be able to support myriads of photographers hoping to make a living. Image buyers will no longer be capable of keeping up with offer and start closing doors.

- Misconception No6: A photo editor knows a lot about photography. A photo editor only knows a lot about the photography used in their publication. He or she works, breath and sleeps in a very confined universe. Their ability to make one publication look great almost never  translate in making any and all publications look great.  That is why very successful photo editors never leave the publication they work for. They grow into them.

- Misconception No7 : Blogs about photography are useful. Besides posting press release they never read or repeating something they read elsewhere, they actually do not help much. Only a very few escape the ego narcissistic trip of the popularity contest and give out extremely valuable insight. They are extremely rare. The rest are operated by hit counters.

- Misconception No8: Every Magnum / VII photographer is a great photo editor. Why do thousand of photographers flock to have their portfolio edited by another photographer? It would vaguely make sense if one would want to be that photographer or replace him/her. And even so, photographers are the worst editors of their own work. But what makes a successful photographer a better editor than a non photographer ? If anything, if they see a great portfolio, wouldn’t they  try to dissuade that person from stealing their job?

- Misconception No9 : There is still room for a news agency. With AP, AFP, Reuters, Getty, EPA, DPA and other wire services employing some of the best photographers in the world while controlling most of the sales channel, it does seem obvious. There is no more oxygen. The best one can hope to do is represent a small pool of extremely talented photographers and help them get assignments, but even that is not a given. If they are extremely talented, they really do need much help. So what makes all these agencies try to cover events like the Olympics with 1/10 of the resources the others have with medium to mediocre photographers( crumb photographers)? Hope ?

- Misconception No10: Free photography will save the world. or a new pricing.or a association of good willing people. There is only one thing that will save photography, if it actually needs saving. It’s photography. great photography

Posted in magazine, celebrity, Magnum, Newsweek, commercial stock, newspaper, TIME, news, editorial, wire service, photojournalism, getty | Print | 4 Comments »

August 8, 2008 by pmelcher.

 There are more and more photo business news websites yet:

- London Features International, a photo agency that has been in business for more than 20 years, crashes and burns and hardly no one even mentions it or comments on it.

- ASMP gets $1,3 million dollars LAST YEAR and only reveals it now (and only because PDN was spilling the beans). They are “not sure” what they will do with it yet. Guess they need more time to think. Is it just me or someone is fooling someone ?

- If I had half of a brain and was somewhat concerned about the Orphan Work legislation, I would look into this Copyright Clearance Center who apparently does collect money for usage. There just might be an interesting answer there, no ?

- Jupiter Images finally reveals its revenues for the last quarter and it is worse than anyone could have ever imagined. They are in negative growth with a stock price close to being under the limit.  The corporations are hurting badly, what does it say about  the rest of the industry ?

-  Microsoft Pro Summit invited spoiled little kid Thomas Hawk ( not his real name) to its Pro Summit. Anyone care to react ? The guy is a neon light loving Flickr happy rich kid with nothing else to do than blog hours on about his iphone and media center and he is considered a pro by Microsoft ? Anyone feel insulted here ? ASMP guys ?

- Its August 8 and the Digital journalist website is still in July ? Does anyone worry or care  anymore ?  ( Ok, they are always late)

- Brian Storm and his team are also moving to Brooklyn . Who in the photography world can still afford Manhattan ? Besides Corbis, obviously. Does anyone know ?

These are all important questions and no one seems to take them seriously. Someone needs to be in charge here. any suggestions ?

Posted in Jupiter, celebrity, magazine, mediastorm, web 2.0, editorial, flickr, corbis | Print | 1 Comment »

August 6, 2008 by pmelcher.

The photo agency industry continues to complain and whine about its condition, endlessly consummated by demons it has created.

For one, it has created this endless pool of incredibly mediocre photographer that has for far too long managed to make a living taking pictures. Its not amateur photography that is getting better, it is just pro photographer that are getting worse and lazier. The over reliance on a defunct principle that they were the only one to own the channels of photography sales made photo agencies indifferent to the quality of their product. After all, it was them or nothing. Even Getty, who once believed it could corner the “distribution of image” market and set it own rules got a nasty wake up call when Istock through the first kick and Flickr the second punch.

Today, the photo agencies have a lot of excess weight. Photographers they keep because of old friendship or by pure habit, endlessly submitting the same images in the hopes that the Golden age will soon return. While they wait, in absolute stubbornness, the majority have decided that playing with pricing will offer them a new opportunity.

Amidst unverified rumors that their competition is doing the same, prices are being slashed to levels that have never been seen and that defies even the law of gravity. Since print publications are not doing so well either, everyone is more than happy to comply, bringing the whole market to a spiraling absurd end. To top it all, Angelina’s twins selling for an allegely $14 million just adds more photographers in the pool, hoping that they will too, one day , hit the jackpot.

Take Florida based photo agency prphotos.com ( created by some wireimage ex pats), for example. Someone there with a brain the size of  sand has decided to offer red carpet images for web usage on a subscription basis. That wouldn’t be so bad if the prices were not so ridiculously low. Some of its offering is as low as  “Under A Penny Per Image”. At that stage, what is the point ? With what seems 5 people on staff, how do they intend to pay their bills?

Do they still believe the internet is the dumping ground of photography ? But more important, what does it say about how they value their photography ?

We haven’t seen the worst of it yet. There will be more of these whacked-cracked photo agencies popping up everywhere, one “smarter” than the other, offering waccadoodle prices in a desperate hope to become the new Google of photography.

Getty, now privately private will soon release a lot of weight ( read photographers) that will in turn compete not on quality but on sub pricing flooding of an already over saturated market with less than attractive images. It will not just hit editorial, but commercial stock as well, until only a few agencies survive. Already photographers have a hard time. If they associate themselves with foot-shooting agencies and their magic potion pricing, they will have to take other jobs to make ends meet.

There is no salvation in stupid pricing. It is just stupid.

Posted in celebrity, magazine, commercial stock, google, flickr, getty, editorial, finance, Microstock | Print | 1 Comment »

August 4, 2008 by pmelcher.

let them eat cake, she had said. As the eyes of the world are turning toward China and the upcoming Olympics, this is a good time to reflect on how photography is evolving. Not as a medium, but as a media.

Getty images licenses a series of exclusive images to People and Hello! for a reported $14 million. No one questions this. furthermore, no one seems to believe that the number is just plainly insane. On one side of the spectrum, images sell at a buck a piece and on the other, at double digit millions of dollars.  Doesn’t make much sense. And I will tell you why : Image pricing was a combination factor of quality/difficulty/usability. The more an image was going to be used, or seen, the more it would cost. The better, or rather, the more relevant the images were, the more its price would go up. Finally, the more an image was hard to get, the more the price would go up. If you look at the RF microstock model, none of the above is true anymore. Does the Jolie twins bring so much value that they will reep sales above $7 million ( assuming People paid half the bill ?) . lets see : Angelina first baby picture sold for $4million. People sold 2.2 million copies at a cover price of 3.95. That is roughly  $ 8.8 million if you complitely ignore the subscribers. If they raised their advertising space rate, they should have broken even. At $7 million, it becomes more of a problem. After all , it is not because she had twins that there will be double the readership, is it ?

Actually, these images have become a story by themselves. They were priced way before Angelina even had the babies. And by whom ? The media. Rumors, speculation, interviews, opinions were running  like a mountain stream in Spring, finally settling around anywhere from $11 million to $14 million.

Interesting thus, that Getty sold these images for the same price as people assume someone would sell these images. Did the  megastar couple take the hint from the crowdsourcing pricing or is it just hype ? After all, the crowd will be more eager to see images that are worth $14 million dollars than a few bucks. Thus both Getty, People and Hello ! profit from screaming that those images were sold for $14 million. It benefits everyone, even the couple who gets to give even more money to charity.

Furthermore, does anyone who has been in this industry for a while really think that competing magazine USweekly or IN TOUCH  stop bidding at 13,999,999 .00 and said we give up ? Or that if the National enquirer had bid $15 million, it would have been in their latest issue ? Publicists and stars want to be in People magazine, not in tabloids.

Who cares if it is not true, really. What matters here is that these images  got a celebrity status, even before they were even taken.

The second incident is the revelation by Newsweek DP that the Olympics will be mostly a .com event. Ex-photography director, Mary Ann Golon had told me that TIME will be doing the same a few months back . Seems that this Olympic season will be online with additional reporting in print. The slow decay of the paper support is becoming more apparent as it cannot compete with the feeding frenzy. Photography becomes free at last of the written word and regains a position of strength. It can live, breath and exist by itself  on an online slideshow that doesn’t need much explanation. This will only continue to erode the news weeklies here and worldwide. It will also put much more pressure on the photographers to fully report with images and not just be an accompaniment to the text. Its good news.

Posted in license, TIME, celebrity, magazine, Newsweek, photojournalism, slideshow, Royalty free, getty, editorial, transaction, Microstock | Print | 4 Comments »