The greener side of pastures

January 30, 2009 by pmelcher.

Internal rumbling continue at Getty Images. In exchange for promising to freeze any layoff for the next six months, they have implemented a no merit /raise increases/bonuses for 2008. With the ad market being dramatically reduced and editorial photography market shrinking every day, it is not really a big surprise. Corbis, apparently, is doing mini layoff rounds, letting  20 people go at the time instead of the batches of  hundreds it was notorious for. According to popular photography forums, it also seems that its Microstock division, Snapvillage, is a ship lost at sea. They have not changed their home page for months, not updated their blog, and probably worst, do not reply to their members. Is it a sign that they might shut it down? we shall see.

Finally, last but certainly not least, fame photographer Frank Micelotta has resigned from his position at Getty Images. Official photographer for such artists as Beyonce, Madonna and Britney Spears among others, Frank is well known for his numerous iconic images. It is a blow for the Seattle based photo agency, as they will lose a very influential photographer. Is this the first of many ?  We shall also see.

Posted in celebrity, magazine, editorial, news, corbis, getty | Print | 1 Comment »

There will be blood and other great news

January 28, 2009 by pmelcher.

According to the New York Post, Time, Inc. is refusing to pay the additional 7 cents per publication asked by one of their distributor as of Feb 1.  With its circulation already diminishing on most of its title, this might result in a titanic battle of wills between the two companies. Obviously the distribution company does not want to lose the business of the biggest publishing company in America as well as magazine outlets, like Wal Mart surely do not want to loose the revenue. It is yet to be seen how other smaller publishing company will react, as they do not have the financial backbone Time, Inc has.

Obviously, this has huge impact on editorial photography.

More details here

On a completely unrelated note ( OK, not so much), New York Magazine  has just come out in this weeks edition with a multi-page photo essay spread with just images and small captions on the last representation of a Broadway play. Its reminiscent of the Country Doctor by Eugene Smith in Life magazine. No wonder it is the only magazine I subscribe to. Their usage of photography is not only genius, it is heartwarming.  Although there is a Web version, you should walk run to your newsstand and buy it.

Posted in celebrity, magazine, Newsweek, newspaper, TIME, finance, photojournalism, editorial | Print | No Comments »

Tilt shift and Time Lapse

January 27, 2009 by pmelcher.

Watch it full screen. very cool :Metal Heart from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.Also, this one, from Israeli photographer Eyal Landesman.

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | 1 Comment »

Democracy and Photojournalism

January 22, 2009 by pmelcher.

AFP, AP and Reuters said no. Getty Images just went for it. As a new President enters the White House, a new photo policy seem to emerge. After the really bad images of him backstage watching the results of election night posted on Flickr, Obama, or his administration, has broken tradition by making the first images of him in the Oval Office a handout.

The major wire services boycotted these images saying that it has always been a tradition to let their own photographers shoot these images. Offering the same set of images taken by a White House photographer ( Peter Souza ?) is not acceptable.

While the White House, and maybe Obama himself sees this as more democratic, the journalistic world sees it as an attempt to manipulate and send out well managed propaganda images. If the Bush administration had done the same, the media would have been up in arms showing how the Republicans were trying to control the media and the message. Because Obama did it probably with the intent of being more democratic, it seems to pass.

Because these are White House images, it seems that more distribution channels ( read, photo agencies) had access to them then if had been a pool wire service photographer. In that, it is probably a good thing. However, since the image was taken by a staff photographer of the White House whose mission is to ehnace the message, there was no objectivity in the images. None of these images were taken to shown his first day at work in his new oval shaped office, but rather to make him look good.

Journalism is taken very seriously in the United States of America, and like the separation of Church and state, there is a clear separation of State and Media. One cannot control the other, regardless of the intent. Controlling what images come out of the White House is not a step forward in democracy. What would be more of a democracy move would be to let other photographic news outlet access to photograph the president’s work.

Posted in web 2.0, license, photojournalism, wire service, news, editorial, getty | Print | 6 Comments »

Capturing or retaining ?

January 21, 2009 by pmelcher.

While two of the United States magazine distributors are raising their rates in the worst economic period possible, adding a potential $1 billion in cost to an already battered publishing industry, it has become clearer that the photo industry needs to brake out of  its traditional chains.

According to the New York Post, two companies who are in charge of distributing  magazines in the US are raising their fees next month. As circulation is dropping for everyone, due to the combine forces of the relatively free internet and the cost saving reaction of most consumers, this hike could spell the doom sooner for some of our most famous magazines. Circulation, or getting your magazine to your readership, is extremely expensive in America as it is a tremendously big country. Unlike Europe, it is badly networked by railroads, thus all major transport are done by truck and roads. It is full of little towns all over he place. You get the picture : Magazine publishers are at the mercy of these distribution companies if they want to have any circulation (not unlike other countries ).

With ad buying falling and circulation dropping, some publishers were hoping a price decrease would give them a well needed boost. This circulation cost increase will not permit that. I suspect that the weeklies, who also have the added pressure of not being timely anymore, will be the first to drop. There will be less magazines.

If you add the internal pressure of cutting cost and those diminishing photo budget, all one gets to see these days are pictures of those photo agencies that have succumbed to the  subscription model. It used to be that wire services where were photo editors would go if nothing else was available because everyone had access to the same images. But today, it is the opposite. Seems exclusivity, or at least having a different image then your competitor, is much much less important.

So what is a photo agency to do ? Create its own viewership. After all, it is not that their images are bad, but rather unfordable to most photo editor. And not because they are expensive, really. They are just more expensive. This trend of only seeing subscription base imagery is only going to increase, shutting out whoever refuses to accept these rules. And the most frighting part is that websites are probably the biggest consumers of that model.

Papparrazis agency have been the first one to do it. X17, quickly followed by Splashnews and others have already created their own market for their images, racking huge traffic and revenues for their self published photo blog. To the point that some magazine refuse to work with them because they feel they have become competitors to their publication and stealing precious advertising revenue away from them. Even Getty images has been toying around with this for a while now, using Jammd.com and ex - viewimages.com as a testing ground. Smaller agencies will not be left behind. One of the most recent project is one by Aurora photo . On a page solely dedicated to Obama’s inauguration day, they have posted their photographers coverage of the historical event. If they can’t sell these images to the traditional media, they can still get them to the viewers out there.

It’s a fair battle and great photography will prevail against reduced budgets. If photo editors are unwilling to fight for great and original content,  it will still find viewership. Because publishers do not control the medium anymore, the users do. Remenber, Google owns our browsing experience, not Time Warner. It is a failed and obsolete approach to believe that there is no viewership outside the traditional editorial brand names. Readership is not disappearing, it is just shifting. Thus the smart agencies, like Aurora, or others, will capture it while media companies will desperately try to retain them.

Posted in celebrity, Search, magazine, technology, Aurora, google, web 2.0, news, editorial, wire service, photojournalism, getty | Print | 1 Comment »

Social photojournalism

January 18, 2009 by pmelcher.

It’s web 2.0 for news. msnbc.con launched the first salvo today by publishing a “photosynth” of an Obama stop. Unlike traditional photosynth, it is an aggregation of images by one photographer and it sorts of defeats the purpose of the technology. A real one would have included thousands of images taken from different angles at different times. But the idea, and the effort is there.

Cnn.com, not to be outdone, is planning one for the inauguation. It is asking its users to send their images so they can be mashed up into a giant photosynth. Maybe they will pull out some images of Flickr. The result, should it be vastly followed, could be very interresting.

Albeit still in reasearch mode, this is the first time, in my knowledge, that a major news outlet will be using user generated content to create an exclusive rendition of a news event. It beats anything an agency can provide and will have some unexpected results. Furthermore, it will entice spectators to be actors in informing the world of a specific historical event.

It was we said all along, photojournalism is not dying, it is just evolving..

Update : MSNBC.com posted a photosynth made of wire service images and a couple of hired guns… Its the “non social” version of social journalism.

Posted in web 2.0, multimedia, magazine, technology, prosumer, flickr, slideshow, msnbc.com, photojournalism, editorial | Print | No Comments »

Getty not Ready anymore

January 15, 2009 by pmelcher.

Getty Images is to phase out its rights Ready scheme. according to an announcement to its contributors, Getty Images wrote :

“Through constant communication with our customers over the past two years, we’ve learned that in addition to the need for simpler, faster licensing, customers also want to maintain their ability to very precisely fine-tune their licensing.

Therefore, we have decided to evolve our rights-managed creative stills pricing to include improved flexible license packs, incorporating our learnings from the rights-ready model. Once the improved license packs are in place for rights-managed, we will phase out the “rights-ready” model for creative stills collections.”

Apparently, Getty’s attempt to make RM as flexible and easy as RF has failed. Probably due to a lack of flexibility of the Rights Ready model and repeated frustration from clients confronted to a licensing agreement that did not apply to their needs. So they are back to the drawing board, apparently taking som cues from the  PLUS coalition Flex Packs. Does that mean Getty is going to raise its pricing ? doubtful. Rather, it seems, they are going to give their Account Executives more freedom to hand out more market specific licenses. In such a harshly competitive market, Getty apparently does not feel powerful enough to  yet raise their fees  although they now control much of the US market and have decimated their close and not so close competition. However, like any other, it still has to deal with Microstock as well a a shrinking print editorial market and an immature online market.

No one else in the industry had followed Getty in the Rights Ready model, either for fear of lawsuits or simply because they didn’t believe in it. Either way  it is now, at least for a while, going to be history.The idea of facilitating licensing of RM was not a bad one, but it failed to address clearly the main reason why people need RM : exclusivity. Unfortunately, since Getty is no longer public, it will be close to impossible to know how this change will affect their bottom line.

Posted in license, commercial stock, transaction, editorial, Royalty free, getty, Microstock | Print | 2 Comments »

The project that Getty killed

January 14, 2009 by pmelcher.

According to Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, Flickr was inches away from releasing FlickrStock, allowing users to license their images for a fee. Apparently Getty convinced the Yahoo executive that an exclusive deal with them was much better.

Getty protected its valuable Istockfoto asset thanks to this deal and delayed the opening of the flood gates. I would love to have heard how Yahoo was convinced to drop such potential revenue. Or is getty paying them a fee to be their “exclusive” representative ?

more here

Posted in Midstock, license, technology, commercial stock, No sense, yahoo, getty, flickr, prosumer, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

Welcome to Tuesday

January 13, 2009 by pmelcher.

it’s a master/slave relationship, isn’t it ? Wire photographers only get published because their masters have clients. And wires, although they would never admit it, have clients because of the photographers/slaves. One would be nothing with the other . Take a wire service photography left in the wild and he could never find a client, as he is incapable of supplying any client with the breath of scope that a wire agency can. Thus, a bit a la Henry Ford  division of labor, a wire photographer is only a small part of the fabrication process. And like Henry Ford’s worker, none can afford the finished product, can they?
However, a wire service could never have the clients they have without the photographers they employ.  Thus, although the Master in this relationship, wire services are also completely dependent of their “slaves”.

- As we are talking wire service, I would find it incredible if not all the news/events photographers not carry the new Sony camera as a second or third camera Its 10 Megapixel and always connected. Its like having a high quality cell phone. Imagine shooting and thanks to the Complementary ATT 3G connection, uploading to your picture desk in seconds. How cool is that ? I want one:
click below:

Finally, wouldn’t it  be great if we could create an equivalent project for photography:

Thanks Mom !!

Posted in multimedia, license, technology, Search, web 2.0, slideshow, wire service, photojournalism, editorial | Print | No Comments »

The Gatekeepers

January 5, 2009 by pmelcher.

Can Photography exist outside of its current boundaries ? Is it possible for photographers to create and to sustain on a market that they create and manage directly.

Lets step back for a bit. Photography has always been accessed through gatekeepers, or otherwise called magazines. It has evolved through other forms of publications but the model has always been the same, whether it is a website or a magazine. Clients, viewers, have always been served photography through the passage of photo editors who censored and edited who, what and how images are seen. A little bit like radio and DJ for music and musicians. But the rules, they are changin’ aren’t they ?

Flickr, like Napster before, has opened up the distribution channels of photography. Like the original Napster, no one is making money with this, but mentalities are being changed drastically. Publications no longer absolutely in control of what images get to be seen by the public like record companies no longer control what music is being listened to. Of course, no photographer, today, has completely bypassed the traditional gatekeepers. There is no one that has the notoriety of an Annie Leibovitz and it does seem quite impossible to do these days without first being published in the pages of Vogue, Harper’s, Vanity Fair or other magazines.

But for how long ? Why would it not be possible for a photographer to achieve the notoriety of a Robert Frank, for example, without ever been published outside of its own website or/and Flickr. And thus generate not only a huge following but impressive revenue. After all, we all have been witness of the impressive impact of online viral marketing and social sites like Digg. It has made some images extremely popular already, so why not a photographer?  Where there is a high demand, there is a market.

So what of the gatekeepers. Can photo editors and photo agencies alike, continue to control most of the commercial photo market ?  Is there only salvation and hope only if one is part of a succesful sales platform like Getty or Alamy ? Does a photographers have to be a part of many to be seen and sold ? Does one still need the gatekeepers?

For now, yes. The photo industry, unlike music, is a self sustaining industry. Publishers buy from Agencies/established photographers. They have little or no will to go and purchase images in the wild. Although that is changing already. The question is will they ever buy or hire a photographer just because he consistently has a million hits a day although was never published anywhere? Doubtful, as that is not the training of the gatekeeper, oops sorry, the photo editor. Will a photo festival ever expose the work of someone that has never been published but yet has millions of fans online. Very doubtful.

There is no reason to believe that because the photo world has embrace digital technology before the music industry that it will not suffer from the same drastic changes. There is no reason to believe either, that because traditional publishing is dying that photography will disappear with it. Can photographers create and manage their own market ? It will not happen overnight but the answer is : Certainly.

Posted in license, multimedia, magazine, technology, commercial stock, Newsweek, yahoo, web 2.0, editorial, news, slideshow, filter, prosumer, photojournalism, getty | Print | No Comments »