November 27, 2009 by pmelcher.

 See corrections made by a company insider:

From Randy Taylor :

Photographers (or photo agencies or other creditors) who are owed money by SA Eyedea Presse (more commonly known as Gamma or Gamma Presse) who are not French have only until November 30th 

December 27th to file a court claim for any monies owed to them.

(This information comes from a friend in Europe. As a former contributor of images to Gamma, this was news to me. It is a compelling call to action for any non-French photographer who has images with Gamma or subsequent business entities now controlled by the bankruptcy court under the umbrella of Eyedea.)

Eyedea 

Eyedea Presse, a company inside the Eyedea holding, and not the holding, filed for bankruptcy protection on july 30 2009. An insider who is looking to let everyone know what’s happening advises that, “For the moment they are still trying to save what’s left of the agency after having [fired] most of the staff. An administrator is considering which of its debts are and can be paid, including photographers’ copyrighted sales made during the recent past, but BEFORE July 30th 2009. Any sales after that date must be paid [normally] until the court orders the liquidation of the company.

Eyedea Presse is being run by an administrator and is under ‘observation’ until the 30^th of January 2010, at this moment the company will return to the commercial courts who will judge the viability of the business to continue, the owners of the company will be staking the case for it to do so and have no plans to apply for liquidation.

The letter from a court-appointed administrator in October calls for all claims to be made by November 30, 2009. After this date, no claims will be considered under French law. (There might be an extension for those who can read French and figure out the dates, but better to file by the original deadline).

November 30^th is not the date for claims to be made by photographers overseas. That is the date for French photographers.

Some photographers have said that sales reports have not been sent for a long time, making it impossible to file an exact claim. And some have not received the administrator’s notice (see link below).

The insider close to the situation says “I suggest you send a registered letter with return receipt (or use some other verifiable courier such as Fedex) BEFORE NOV. 30 to the administrator stating that you reserve your right to make a claim and that you give some estimated figure to be verified by a later audit to confirm this estimate.”

All overseas, photographers, like the French ones, have received or will receive from Eyedea Presse a letter telling them how to, to whom and for how much to make their claim, this is a legal obligation of the bankruptcy procedure, under the control of the administrator

The Good Samaritan further conveys, “The appearance of Gamma’s lack of proper communication with its FOREIGN photographers suggests that they are planning to freeze out [their] due rights and payments.”

Even if Eyedea Presse wished to do this, it cannot. It is being run by an outside administrator, appointed by the commercial court, who is obliged to run the company by the rulebook.

The official notice from the administrator is geared more towards those who have invoices, bills or other clearly defined debts owed. It provides guidance of what the court is looking for in your claim letter, which should also include:

- a reference to SA Eyedea Presse
- a statement that you have a claim in the insolvency proceedings
- the date on which the debt was incurred and its amount (if known)
- that you want “reservation of title” in such claim
- the assets of Eyedea covered by the guaranty you are invoking (if known)
- any supporting documentation (ie, sales reports, invoices, etc.)
- a statement of the facts on a separate piece of paper that you personally certify as true, that is also dated and signed

The letter that overseas photographer have already received or will receive includes all the necessary information to make a claim without having to go through files for past documents for proof, i.e you sign the form and send it to the address supplied.

A copy of the official notice from the administrator is at this URL:

http://randytaylor.com/documents/Gamma-Eyedea-Claim-Notice-05OCT09.jpg

Your certified claim should be sent to the following address:

Maître Valliot
Administrateur Judiciaire
41 rue du Four
Paris 75006 France

A second/duplicate letter should also be sent to the law firm handling the action at this address:

SCP Becheret-Thierry-Senechal-Gorrias
1, Place Boieldieu
Paris 75002 France

A few notes: Readers are reminded that they have only until November 30 

December 27^th 2009 to file a claim. The sooner, the better. The claim must be done in writing, preferably with proof of delivery. Fax and email are not accepted. And, this is about the French company Gamma (Eyedea). It has nothing to do with their past American partner for many years, which was Liaison Agency.

Bon courage,

Randy Taylor

Posted in license, magazine, photojournalism, finance, transaction, editorial | Print | No Comments »

November 25, 2009 by pmelcher.

It’s right around the corner. Actually, you can already hear it’s footsteps. E-magazines are coming and coming fast. From Hearst Magazines preparing its own player to the formation of biggest coalition of magazine publishers, from the upcoming Apple tablet ( maybe) to the current Kindle, publication are pro actively preparing their full digital migrations. It’s not a fad but a survival issue.

Already the New York Times and the WSJ are available on the Kindle for a subscription. They will all use images. If the web traffic is any reference, photogrpahy is one main reason for traffic. So how are you going to price them ?

Will you be happy to license your image by file size ? Good luck. The digital version of these magazine will need much smaller size than print magazine, thus allowing them to feed themselves on your lower priced content.

Will you apply the pathetic rates currently applied for online usage. From $5 to $40, that will certainly not help your bottom line, unless if you want to reach it very fast.

Will you do a subscription deal a la Getty? Unlimited use for a flat fee. Good luck here too. As digital takes much less space and has a more rapid turnaround, they will have used most of your library for a miserable flat fee in less than a year.

Finally, will you continue to let them tear away all the IPTC information that you so painstakingly added to every single one of your files

So, what is the solution ? Well, for once, unlike with the web publication, you should have a strategy, and a very clear one. You should not react to people coming to you saying” It’s new, we don’t know if its going to work, we have no budget ” and let them have your pictures for a -low fee. Why ? because as it might not currently look like it now but for editorial, those E- magazine will become your main source of income in the next coming five years. And if you let them, they will put you out of business.

So, before you accept crappy prices because you think that “any sale is better than no sales” mentality or that you get lured into this “oh, but it is great publicity” trap, think about how what you agree to now  will affect you in five years

One solution is to  continue to price your images related to circulation. It is much easier to track circulation online or on a E device than on print. If they start with a low subscription, the license fee can be low. And as their circulations rises, your licensing prices should too. That is simple enough, no ? You share their effort and grow with them. Since your images are partly responsible for their growth success, its only fair.

Don’t wait for your useless trade association to help you with this as they apparently couldn’t care less. None of them have come out with any recommendation nor analysis. They just want you to pay your fees and collect sponsorship money.

Talk to each other : use Facebook, Twitter,  or the phone. Do not agree on pricing, because that is completely illegal. But agree on licensing models that make sense. Organise meetings, discuss, challenge each other. Ask your agency what they plan to do and how they plan to face this new pricing challenge. Make them think.

It would be nice, for once, to see this industry to be creative and pro active. Don’t you think ?

Posted in license, multimedia, Search, celebrity, magazine, commercial stock, technology, focus, newspaper, web 2.0, transaction, editorial, law, finance, PACA, photojournalism, CEPIC, getty | Print | No Comments »

November 24, 2009 by pmelcher.

For those who still think that Google Images is a great tool to find images and that it is somewhat the savior photography, I suggest they perform a simple search for “Michelle Obama“, the first lady of the United States, and apply a “face” filter.

This is what you get on the first page:

regardless of your political opinions, this is a revolting and pathetic search result for images. When confronted about this, Google hides behind its sanctified algorithms and claim innocence.  I am the first to praise the ability for technology to make our lives easier. However, technology without morality is violently dangerous and destructive for any society.

Freedom of speech, sure, as long as it doesn’t become freedom of insult. Robots, bots, algorithm to find the right images, sure, as long as the results are pertinent to the search. This is a good example of a world without photo editors. This is your images on Google.

UPDATE : Google refuses to acknowledge failure of it search algorithm. In an article published in the Los Angeles Times today, Google Inc. spokesman Scott Rubin said  :”It’s offensive to many people, but that alone is not a reason to remove it from our search index. We have, in general, a bias toward free speech.”.

While it is commendable for Google to support free speech, this is not the reason people are upset. The issue here is how an obviously inappropriate image of the first lady of America ends up on as the top result on a search for her name.  This is a complete failure of their search algorithm. Obviously, someone typing “Michelle Obama” and using the “Face only” filter is looking for a head shot of her, not a cruelly photo shopped image. If this type of result was offered on professional image licensing platform, like Getty, Vorbis or Alamy, clients would never come back.

Google, of course, cannot admit publicly that his search algorithm is a failure. That would send it’s stock price in the abyss as it is the core of their business. May this be a warning for those who still see Google and its image search as the perfect tool for photography.

Update 2:  Here is Google version of free speech ( apparently, its all relative) :

Posted in Search, celebrity, technology, No sense, keyword, photoshop, filter, google, news | Print | No Comments »

November 23, 2009 by pmelcher.

There is more to the story than just numbers. Much, much more. And the official media ignores it. But what the photo industry is currently experiencing is much, much more than just a few layoff.

What we are seeing is the disappearance of  knowledge. Most of the photo editors being let go from magazines, newspapers, websites are those who have spent many years building the foundations of our industry withtalent. They are the ones who knew a great image from a bad one, who could spot a talented photographer from the masses of mediums ones. They are the ones who created “names” by publishing their work. They are the ones who did look at photo books,  went out to exhibits and photo festivals, no only to see and discover new talents but to personally connect with those they already knew.

Those “numbers” that  appear almost daily on the sheets of bored journalist where passionate about their jobs and about photography. They still are, they just can’t find jobs anymore. And the more the talented, the more experience, the more chances they have to be fired. Why ? Because they cost the most. When companies look to cut cost, they always go for the highest salary, which usually means for those who have the most experience. And when companies hire, they look for the cheapest, even if they have no or little knowledge.

The positions of the talented photo editors are now being handle by  Art Directors, who perceive photography as a “block” that needs to fit in a layout, or to young, inexperience professionals that are given the task of finding the cheapest art, regardless of quality.

In the case of art directors, they probably always felt that the position of photo editor should have never existed and rather be a subset of their duties. Because their title contains the word “art”, they just feel it demeaning to have to talk money with suppliers.

Other replacement of the experience photo editors are the young, entry level professionals. Raised on Flickr, microstock and Google Image, they are immediately given the task to find the cheapest photography as possible. They hardly know anyone, or anything, about photogrpahy, nor do they care. They probably spend more time on Facebook and Twitter than any photography website and feel that they could, should be doing something more important in their lives.They are being paid low salaries as to reinforce the idea that finding and picking images for a website, or a magazine is as degrading as service hamburgers at the local McDonald’s.

No wonder then that prices are dropping like dead flies.  The current and new crop of image buyers see absolutely no value in photography besides being a huge boring time waster. It is incredibly difficult to explain  photography to someone who doesn’t care. Especially when they see it as a job (in the worst way) rather than a passion.

There is not much the photo industry can do to revert this trend. We cannot convince publishers to spend more money and hire experience photo editors . They do not see the value. They do not beleive that great photography will bring more readership, thus more advertising. They are in survival mode right now, just trying to weather the storm. We cannot explain photogrpahy to young bored professionals because their passion is elsewhere and they couldn’t care less.

All that remains to do is quietly put our heads in our hands and cry.

Posted in license, magazine, technology, Search, google, editorial, photojournalism, flickr, Microstock | Print | 2 Comments »

November 18, 2009 by pmelcher.

We often hire photographers at PictureGroup for shoots all over the United States. In order to find the appropriate ones, we use a combination of tools. Our number one remains recommendations. To us, there is nothing more valuable then when an editor, or another photographer that we like and trust recommends another photographer. There is not only a certain guarantee of quality but also very important, a guarantee of professionalism and business knowledge. Because, regardless of quality, if a photographer doesn’t deliver the proper files at the right place at the right time, than it is useless. It might sound ridiculous in the XXI century but there are still many photographers who hardly know how to properly FTP images.

Regardless, our second tool for hiring photographer is the almighty web. Contrary to what many would like you to think, we try to avoid Google. Why ? Because the results are very of poor quality. The photographers that surface to the top in a Google search are not the best, the most talented or the most relevant to what you are looking for but those who have spend many hours on building a SEO. And the most talented in this are the Commercial/ Wedding photographers. They are also helped by the fact that Google will advantage them because they are the most searched for. Google has recently added most click results after a search in their ranking. Nothing against these, but they are certainly not the type we are looking for. So, based on our experience, here are the do and don’t does of a photographer if they want to be found and hired on the web.

1. No Music. I have music in my office, thank you, and I really do not need you to supply yours. It is very annoying, especially if you are trying to browse in a public place and suddenly your computer starts playing some crappy RF song. I am here to find a good photographer, not a radio station.

2. Keep the flash and slideshow at a minimum. I have nothing against flash but when a whole site is just flash based, I move on. Although I have a very fast connection, I really don’t have the time to wait for some flash animation to load. You are not the first or the last website I will visit so please help me in my job. If you slow me down, I will hate you forever. Also, thanks for the slideshows but I prefer navigating at my own pace. Some images, I would like to study more, others, I couldn’t care less. I am an adult and know how to click.

3. Make it simple. I love cool sites for what they are : Cool sites. But when I am looking to hire a photographer, I have neither the time nor the will to try and figure out riddle navigation. It is distracting and not useful. I just want to see images, not great navigation tools.

4. Portfolio : Have many for your different interests. I don’t mind if a photographer has a people, architecture and animal portfolio for example. I will look at the one that interests me and not the others. Just don’t mix everything into one.

5. List your  clients. Very, very important. That will tell me that you have done work for similar clients and it will boost my confidence in your ability to deliver by 100%.  Please don’t lie.

6. Contact info. It should not be an afterthought. Put it in a very obvious place where I can easily copy and paste it. I understand you are afraid of spammers, but I am not one. If you make it impossible for me to add your contact info into my system, I will get frustrated and that is not what you want. I don’t mind if there is a few phone numbers and one email, as long as any of those allows me to reach you immediately. All our jobs are rush and I need to know if your available or not. If I can’t reach you, I will move on.

7. Be everywhere. Don’t stop at just your website. We use Photoshelter, Sportshooter, Photoserve, Lightstalker, Blackbook, WorldAssignment and other database to find our photographers. You should too. Google is neither the beginning nor the end of a search. Be where your clients are. Most of these sites are inexpensive or free so why not post some of your best images there and linked them back to your site ? Help yourself be found.

8. Location. For us as well as many other people looking to hire you, location is one of the first search terms. With these crunch time, we , like many others, need to find a photographer in a particular city because we have no travel budget. So the city where you work must be very clearly visible . It is your second most important asset after your photography skills.

9. Bio. I like to know who I am dealing with. No, not your personal life and religious affiliations, but a short, well written bio that speaks of your photographic direction. Make it so I can feel that we have briefly met and you seem like a nice person to talk too.

10. Update it. Please, please. Don’t build a website and leave it orphan. If the latest picture on there is a bad scan from something you shot in the 80’s, however great it is, that is a complete turn off. You are only as good as your last three jobs. It can be six months old, that is fine, but not 6 years. Same goes if you have a blog. So many times I see blogs with three sparse entries a few years old. If you can’t update it than please don’t have a blog. It is not are requirement. No blog is much better than an unmaintained blog.

Hope these tips help a little. Of course not everyone looking for a photographer online will have the same requirements but these are certainly very, very common. Remember, you website should be like a seductive introduction to yourself, a bit like a speed dating exercise where you are not aloud to talk.

Posted in celebrity, magazine, technology, commercial stock, Search, google, editorial, slideshow, photojournalism, web 2.0, news | Print | 3 Comments »

November 14, 2009 by pmelcher.

Is creativity limitless? Can we go on and on creating new pictures that have never been seen or are we going to reach a point where we will start going into circles and re-shooting the same things over and over again? Is there a point where nothing will be new ?

Creativity is the lifeblood of commercial stock, whether micro, RF or RM. Without it, rates would plunge and photography would finally become a commodity, if not completely free. We have always taken for granted  that creativity was unlimited and that we would always be able to create new and original content. But what if its not. What if it is like oil, a limited resource and exactly like oil, we are starting to see the beginning of its end.

It is not by accident that many times, on this blog, photography has been compared to oil. Like it, Photography is a raw material that is only introduce to the mass market as a finished product ready to be consumed: A framed print, in a magazine, on a website, on a billboard. Never as is. Like oil, it is extracted. Not from the grown, but from the reality surrounding us. And like oil, the volume of its production can affect its pricing negatively. Even Mark Getty famously said, referring to photography :  ” Intellectual property is the oil of the XXI st century” . Thus it came with little surprise when stumbled on this chart :

Created and published by Overthink IT, it  matches the Rolling Stone Magazine 500 best songs list and when they where released with the world production of crude oil . Interesting, isn’t it? For multiple reasons.

Lets pass on whether Rolling Stones Best song list is actually the best songs. We all have our opinions on that. Rather, lets focus on when they were released and how they seem to perfectly match the extraction of crude oil. We could debate ad nauseum why the two graphs match so perfectly, from the increase production of Vinyl records to pollution affecting our R&R perception.

What is interesting here, is the appearance of a decline of creativity production indicating a possible drying out, exactly like oil. Like Oil, it is immediately consumed and has a rather short lifespan. Like Oil, creativity needs to reach farther, deeper, and in more expensive grounds to sustain. Like oil, this could be a tragedy.

What is causing this decline ? In stock photography, the  sheer volume of cheaper cameras associated with the extreme facility for copying is certainly a huge factor. Furthermore, the limited amount of topic covered by commercial stock is also a factor: Business, medicine, lifestyle, etc..it’s always the same concept that need imagery and hardly if none new ones appear. Finally, it just could be associated with it’s inherent inability to creating a self sustaining value

Is commercial stock photogrpahy headed the same way is non renewable energies ? quite very possibly.

Posted in license, commercial stock, No sense, getty, Royalty free, Microstock | Print | 1 Comment »

November 10, 2009 by pmelcher.

The current photo industry and newcomers apply a completely flawed logic to licensing images. It is too often believed that if an image is largely seen, it will be licensed. The thinking come from primeval logic. It goes like this:

- if an image is not seen, it will never be sold. (which is a truism). Therefore, if it is seen, it will sell.  (which is a complete myth).

With the age of the internet, thousands upon thousands of would-be entrepreneurs has set up shop with image archiving platforms thinking that it will be all the necessary work to be performed to make lots and lots of money. Just make sure that images can be seen, search and paid for and voila !! its done.

Even as the short history of the web proves otherwise, it remains a very potent dream. There are billions of images on Flickr or Photobucket that will never, ever be sold. and more are being uploaded as you read this. And they also will not sell.  beyond those platform, there are many many more with e commerce capabilities. Snugmug or the defunct DigitalRailoard are other examples. Sure, it is easy to create a platform where images can be seen and purchased but it doesn’t mean they will be sold.

What a large number of photo gurus misunderstand with the success of Istock is that it was build with customers first. if you recall, the first people to put images on the site were people who needed images. It was an exchange platform. As it started charging a fee for downloads, it kept on growing as those same customers were selling their images to other customers.  Many other microstock companies have launched since and are not understanding why their sales are flat.

This myth has also affected how images are edited. Before digital, every precaution was taken to only keep  the best images. Now, the same mentality applies through various argument: Better more than less, let them decide, you never know, better uploaded than not…and so on.

But the same rules applies. A digital crap is still a crap, even if it can be seen by millions. The reason images do not sell these days are exactly the same as they were pre Internet. They suck. No one wants to buy them. Whether they are on the Getty images site or some obscure lousy website.

It would be interesting to have one day an industry wide survey on what percentage of images are actually licensed compared to the overall size of the database. 4%? 8% ? 10 % ?. The same survey would probably also show that the most carefully edited images databases also have the highest yield ratio.

What is captivating is that it very often the same people that complain that industry has too much content offering that will turn around and explain to you that if an image is not seen, it will not sell. Thus feeding the same beast they complain about. It is the same people that will copy another succesful niche with subpar images that will also complain that there are too many images available.

So let’s not contribute to this problem and let’s call a cat a cat: making images visible or accessible does not create value . Let’s destroy this myth once and for all. and while you ‘re at it, delete all those crappy images.

Posted in No sense, license, technology, commercial stock, prosumer, flickr, Royalty free, getty, editorial, transaction, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

November 9, 2009 by pmelcher.

Getty Images advertising on Splash News photo agency’s blog today. Is this the result of blind advertising or a sign of things to come ?

Unrelated : amusing that Getty would use “Small is powerful” as a slogan considering who they are.

Posted in technology, celebrity, editorial, getty, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

November 6, 2009 by pmelcher.

One of the premises for the acquisition by Getty images of Istockphoto was that customers of the microstock site would eventually migrate to the higher priced imagery placed on the Getty images site. Instead, it has been a growing cannibalization of high end, full price paying customers to the micro priced site.

From the 8% of common customers between Getty Images and Istock at the time of the acquisition, the figure is probably now closer to 20 to 25% .The proof of this increasing trend was indirectly revealed recently in a memo send out by CEO Jonathan Klein to his employees. In it he revealed that revenues for Getty in  2008 were flat and that 2009 doesn’t look much better. At the same time, revenues from their Istock division were increasing, clearly showing a customer desertion of the traditional stock pricing offering towards for low end priced alternative.

If the initial premise had been true, that Getty would be able to migrate those new, low end customers, from Istock to Getty, revenues would have been increasing  strongly.

When Getty had bought Photodisc (RF) and attached it to Tony Stone, the migration had worked. Getty had been successful at migrating some new found customers from RF to higher priced RM . The reason was simple. Traditional RF pricing is much closer to RM pricing and the only real difference was a service charge that would allow a very specific rights management ( Let’s make sure the competition doesn’t grab the same image).

However customers of microstock apparently see no value in switching to neither traditional RF or RM. The image quality is very, very similar, and they do not seem to care a bit about the possible use of the same image by their competitor.  Mostly, probably, because they do not see the image they just purchased as an added value to their brand, service or product. It is just a function, a tool.  Getty, and others, cannot make a valid point for why a similar image with the same rights ( RF) is 300 times more expansive.

So what does Getty do? It devaluates all its collections to  a lower price point ($5 for one image) in the hopes of feeding this buying frenzy. It no longer tries to convince customers to pay more but encourages them to purchase for less, probably giving the last stab at its traditional offering. It also diminishes its services in order to cut cost. They are on a very aggressive path to make all their sales operations fully automated ( a la Istock) as per Johnathan Klein memo. They have also started to take down their in house production facilities as they realized that it was much cheaper to leave the burden of creation to outside, independent free lancers. They have done it already with the Commercial stock  division and are well on the path to doing it in their editorial division. Why have staff photographers when you can have images for free from AFP or Bloomberg ? You pay nothing to produce them. Most Photo agencies already work that way.

So where is all this heading? Well, for the moment, its clearly the policy for Getty Images to become a low priced photo distributor. They want to succeed in controlling so much of the sales distribution channel that they can literally force their providers (photographers and photo agencies alike) to accept their pricing policies . A la Wal Mart, or any retail distributor.

Like Wal Mart, or Target, Getty works for Getty and no one else. They are not around to help this and that photographer, or collection. They are not around to help the MLB or NHL or Soccer league succeed in their photography needs but the opposite. All images providers to Getty are in to make Getty succeed.

Posted in celebrity, technology, commercial stock, license, finance, getty, editorial, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

November 4, 2009 by pmelcher.

How useless is your photo association? ASMP, PACA, NANP and others have been denied a voice in the Google book settlement . Why ? because they requested to be part of the class action suit much, much too late. According to court documents, the litigation regarding Google’s attempt to scan any and all books in existence had started back in September 2005 and these associations just recently requested to be a part of it.

The court probably felt that  the sudden arrival of photo association was more due to the agreed settlement ( or rather, the smell of money) rather than a real concerned about copyright issue.

So, next time you prepare to pay your dues, or you see your image used by Google, for free, thing twice.

full court document here: Photo Association Google Books

Posted in google, copyright, web 2.0, PACA, law, news | Print | No Comments »