January 28, 2010 by pmelcher.

Must be something in the air… First, there is the mighty Getty, the company  that has invented photography according to it’s CEO, who launched a new interface. Users can now select what country they are from so they can get a more customized offering.  Here is how it looks:

That looks great, right? Except, they forgot the USA. Which is their biggest market . Man, those meetings must be fun.

Than, there is the always funny Corbis. In an interview for the BJP, a highly place executive try to explain the recent Veer  realignment from high end RM to microstock. Never mind this fits perfectly in Corbis’ history of destroying the brands they acquire, he says : ” To make that happen, he explains, Veer will ‘remove rights-managed images from the site when we launch the new offering.’ However, Nerland tells BJP that the images will continue to be sold on the Corbis website, which is targeted at ‘more traditional and sophisticated customers.”

“sophisticated customers” ? Does that mean Microstock customers are trash ? a bunch of trailer park hoodlums with greasy fingers ? Do they smell bad too ?

The same person proceeds to intelligently explain: “Nerland assures BJP that overall prices for royalty-free images will not go down as a result. However, he adds, ‘some images might migrate down in terms of price point, especially for content that we own.’”

Aaah, that makes sense: price images according to who owns it instead of their quality. Sure. So if they acquire Cartier-Bresson collection tomorrow, that would be cheaper than images of that schmuck over there who loves to shoot businessmen shaking hands. Brilliant !

Told you. Must be something in the air. The Corpocrates are loosing it.

Posted in technology, commercial stock, No sense, finance, getty, corbis, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

January 27, 2010 by pmelcher.

Before we go any further ( we spoke about the Ipad here already anyways), we need to point out something extremely important. There are people in this industry, when they talk, you listen. Jonathan Klein is one because who knows what other damage he will create with his roller company  and he lies a lot ( according to Klein. “We were the first people in the world to sell an image online,”). Ellen Boughn is another.

For those who don’t know Ellen ( are they any?) , let me explain : Ellen is one of these extremely rare person that have done it all. From editorial, to commerial stock, royalty free and Microstock, she has been deeply involved in every facet of this industry. Unlike others, she has gotten herself dirty with all aspects of licensing images from production to sales, from little to giant corporation. She has seen everything and pays attention to everything. She has an insight that is only surpassed by her intelligence. There is nothing that scares her and she has the curiosity of a 10 year old. She has met everybody that is anybody in this business and yet respects everyone the same way. She has a passion for photography that would put to shame anyone. She is so good that his master himself, Henri Cartier Bresson, offered her a signed print, something that he extremely rarely did.

To top it all, she is an independent thinker. She will tell you things the way they are, regardless of the consequences. She knows no camp but excellence and truth. Her incisive mind can be brutally honest  because she is not scared of anything or anyone.  She is an encyclopedia of knowledge that you will never read anywhere ( unless she publishes more books). She is one of the reason why I love this industry so much : It attracts some of the smartest, intelligent, witty, knowledgeable people on the planet. People with a vast culture and yet  constantly curious about everything.

Why do I write this ? Because Ellen has started her on blog. And if you only read one thing, that should be it. Amateur, pro, super pro, whatever side of this industry you are, this should be the first thing you read. You will never be offered such a rewarding experience, for free. So, stop reading this and go bookmark her blog and hold on to you socks.

http://www.ellenboughn.com/blog

We are not worthy..

Posted in license, multimedia, magazine, technology, commercial stock, Magnum, web 2.0, photojournalism, getty, Royalty free, corbis, editorial, transaction, Microstock | Print | 5 Comments »

January 26, 2010 by pmelcher.

We are going to see a lot of desperate moves this year, in the photo industry. In an attempt to stay afloat in a depressed market, photographers, as well as photo agencies , will resolves to off the chart, crying for help, strategies. There has been many examples already, like the name your own price to pennies a pictures, none succeeding in making anyone rich or succesful. RF is already plagued with so many discounts and “special offering” that last all year that it is now almost impossible to purchase them at full price anymore, even if you wanted too.

In the footsteps of Getty Images, other smaller agencies beleive that the subscription model is the way to go. Enter Photoshot ( at least in Germany) . Owners of such collection as : NHPA, Bruce Coleman, UPPA, Woodfall Wild, Oceans Image, World Pictures, Photos Horticultural, StarStock, Talking Sport, World Illustrated, Photoshot Archive and Photoshot Creative, it is now offering…are you sitting down ?  Unlimited use of Photoshot’s rights managed images for 3 months for a flat monthly fee of only Euro 400 per month.

Right : for $400 Euros, you can use as many images as you want, for editorial use ( and some advertising) for three months. The license for these images , actually last for a year, if you read the fine print. So, for what used to be the price for a full page in a magazine, for a week, you can now publish 3 months of the same magazine.

The thought is probably that you will like the images soooo much that once the subscription is over, you will continue to purchase images from Photoshot at full price and make them unbelievably wealthy. Here is the reality. Why would anyone in there right mind go back to purchasing the same images for a regular price, when you got them for practically free. The exact same images.  Also, how is a three months subscription helpful to anyone besides a company that does not intend to use images after three months. Finally, if some of theses collections are commission-based, it will be a nightmare to track and pay those photographers.

The real issue here is that, even for non subscribers, you have devalued your collection so much that no one can take you seriously when you then ask for regular prices. How do you explain why an image that use to cost pennies before, suddenly goes back to hundreds, if not thousand of dollars ? if it is cheap trash, then it should remain so.

Of course, this company is not the only one, nor the first one, to turn to irrational pricing in order to save its bank account and keep creditors at bay. But, like the others, they just damage the market for the rest of us that have not lost our minds. As we once said, the photo industry is like driving a car, if you don’t know what you are doing, you are a danger to the rest of us.

Posted in license, celebrity, magazine, commercial stock, No sense, finance, getty, editorial, transaction, Royalty free | Print | 1 Comment »

January 21, 2010 by pmelcher.

We have done a bad job. A terrible job. If picking a photograph is all about its price and not its quality than we, the photo industry, have made a terrible job at selling our work.

Every time an editor, whether  from an ad agency or a magazine decides to use an image because it is cheaper than the others, that means we have all failed to advocate for the real value of photography. We have failed, all of us, Photographers, agents, photo agencies to make the new generation of image buyers see the real value in our images. Thus the current situation.

It’s not the fault of microstockers that prices have gone so low in the RF world, it is the fault of the original traditional RF sellers. They are the ones who have devaluated the work so much that consumers have no issue  at purchasing from amateurs. It is the fault of a complacent industry that has not been capable of maintaining some degree of high end quality, an industry that has put on the market a lot of crap for obscene prices.

People or companies have no problem paying high prices for products they see as being of high quality and that brings added value.  Ever since the adoption of digital,  an overflow of redundant images  has saturated people’s mind into believing that photography is a commodity. It’s not just the commercial stock photography world. Editorial has seen an explosion of quantity, to the point that some photographers will submit the same images to multiple agencies, who, in turn submit to the same outlets. What are the editors to think ? Why pay a premium for such a deluge of redundant images ?

If prices are dropping, it’s your fault, not Getty’s or microstock. It is the natural consequence of fighting competition with over production. Too much of a product on a market has always brought prices down.

If this industry wants to survive,  it is going to have to recognize that it is guilty of its own demise and do something about it.  It will have to recognize that like the Easter Islands, it is cutting its own trees to the point of self- extinction. It will have to do something about it.

Do What, you say ? Cut the edits to a minimum, stop distributing the same images via different distributors. Quality is scarce, and people pay for quality, eliminate the bad and the medium, stop thinking in terms of volume, throw out the bean counters and hire the artisans, the creatives, the bohemians. learn to say no : no to poor or medium quality, no to bad prices, no to redundancy, no to habits, not to quantity, no to the easy way.

Of course, that would only work if all the industry would agree to a voluntary simultaneous move  to  clean up the market. That is not going to happen. It’s like trying to get all the nations to clean up the environment. Not happening either. Like with any panic situation, everyone digs in, trying to grab whatever they can before it is too late.  Like a city being looted by its own inhabitants. Everyone for themselves !! Throw as many images on the market of whatever quality. It’s asphyxiating.

So, instead of writing me an email about how depressing my entry is, or how its not very nice, or how I should write more optimistic thoughts, or how I am so wrong but do not even deserved to be explained why, step away from this blog and go review your images. If you are an agency and you have a photographer submitting the same images to you and to others, dump him/her. If you have  more than 50 images of the same subject, dump the rest. If you are a photographer submitting to an agency that already has 150 photographers shooting the same things as you, leave. If your images don’t sell anymore or for little money, shoot something completely different. In very small precious amount.

Don’t blame the others for the mess we are in and instead of digging your nose in your smart phone and tweetering some crap no one cares about, take control and preserve the space in which you live. Limit yourself. Redo your edits, over and over. And when you are done, do it over. Eliminate, reduce, clean. Pick the 5 best images. not 500. or 5,000.

If you stop treating the marketplace like garbage, it will stop treating you like trash.

Posted in magazine, commercial stock, celebrity, newspaper, editorial, photojournalism, Royalty free | Print | 3 Comments »

January 20, 2010 by pmelcher.

If you haven’t seen Matt Stuart’s photography, you should stop everything you are doing now and take a look. His style his brilliant, his humor, pointy, his handling of perspective, a pure delight,  his mastering of composition, well, a masterpiece.

Do not go to fast through his images because you might miss something . The revelation usually happens in the background, where our eyes usually do not wonder.

If Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank  had had a son, it would had been Matt Stuart. Enough bla bla. Take a look :

Posted in lens, magazine, photojournalism, slideshow, editorial | Print | 1 Comment »

January 19, 2010 by pmelcher.

So you would think that with all the problems that online publications are causing to the print magazine industry, they would fight back in some manner. The print paper world would be all gang ho in trying to secure its predominance as the primary source of news and information so that the crowds would rush to purchase copies. But no.

It’s a complete lethargy. Well, at least in the USA. Take editorial photography. As much as they care if an image has been used in a competing publication, they completely ignore anything online.  They seem to be completely oblivious to the fact that they come out sometimes with the same image that has been seen previously for more than a week on numerous websites. As if no one paid attention. However, with some URL’s drawing millions of visitors , and most, the same people they also try to attract, it should be hard to ignore.

Yet, they continue to ignore the reasons for their decline. Partly to save money ( as if it is going to help) , partly because a completely blindness to the forces that are shaping their market. If I have seen an image numerous times, for free, online, I am going to be a bit upset if I see it, again, days, weeks later, in a print publication I had to pay for. If it happens once, I could ignore it. If it happens issue after issues, I would want my money back.

No other industry has this approach to its consumer. Movies only show trailers, music have just snippets ( of  course, I am not mentioning stolen material) and you pay to hear/see the full version. If all was available online  a week before they could be purchased, it is doubtful that a lot of people would pay for them.

Magazines, in some sort of oblivious superiority,  continue to publish , week after weeks, month after months the same images already seen online more than once. Maybe they think that if they ignore it, the problem might disappear. Maybe they think that by the time they come out, readers will have forgotten what they had seen just hours ago on a website. Maybe they just think that their support is so superior than the digital, no one will notice.

The second issue with this, a bit more hidden, is that photogrpahers and photo agencies provide website with a free first right  at a lesser fee than  what a print publication would pay. In other words, website get to use the same image, much sooner than print for 10% of the price that a magazine pays to use it a week later. Does it make any sense ?

In France, for example, no magazine would ever publish an image that has been used on a website previously. None. Photo agencies or photographers do not have a problem with that since website pay so little, it is not even funny. Thus, readers can be sure that will discover new image in every issue. And with just cause, they paid for that, and other privilege. They paid to purchase a  product that do not consider them like fools. They pay for originality. They pay for what they value.

In the upcoming or ongoing debate about online pay walls, how many of the newspapers, magazines and others will take the step to guarantee original photography ? Because if it is to see another slideshow made of pictures from the trilogy (Getty, AP, Reuters ) that you can see anywhere else, I doubt people will be happy. And if they are not happy, well, they won’t pay. A pay wall will only work if people want to get in. And people will want to get in if the content inside is not something seen elsewhere for free.

The war between original content ( expensive) and  cost cutting  (cheap) is raging with  cost-cutting seemingly winning most battles these days. However, creating something for cheap that no one wants to pay for is not at all a guarantee of success. Once the CFO’s and their bosses finish destroying the very nature of what made their companies successful in a rarely seen slaughterhouse of talent, there will be only a few standing. And those will not be the ones that are the cheapest to operate but those who have found the zen like balance between originality, quality, cost and timeliness.

Photography will always be here to offer  all of this and much, much more. We know it, we are just waiting for them to understand it.

Posted in license, newspaper, celebrity, magazine, Newsweek, TIME, photojournalism, editorial, transaction, finance, wire service, france | Print | No Comments »

January 18, 2010 by pmelcher.

When smart people are combined with top end technology, something magical happens. Spiderpic is such a example. Brainchild of Ginipic, who had already launch a multiple database desktop application, Spiderpic is not only an image search portal but also serves as a price comparison site.

To top it all, it is very simple to use : enter a search parameter and hit enter. You will be offered a variety of images  from different sources. Up to now, nothing really revolutionary. However, once you decide which image is right for you, you can click on it and there it will show you its price on different site. Same image, same size, all the  different prices. Thus, you can make the right choice and purchase it at the lowest licensing cost.

Of course, SpiderPic only works with microstock companies for now. but it works extremely well. The implication of such a deal are multiple. First, if widely used ( it is in Beta for now), it will drive the microstock companies into a price war that might leave many on the floor. It might also convince more users to go exclusive with one provider, as too avoid a drop in their revenue. Finally, it will put a full stop at the slowly growing cost of microstock.

Since about 90% of the microstock content is available on different competing sites, price shopping, especially with such a great application, will certainly be the new microstock sport very quickly.  The company, Spiderpic, will make its income via the referral programs of the  providers. The more usage, the richer they will get. Furthermore, since the hole process is automated, they can run it with as low as two people.

Some microstock companies might be tempted to block access to their database to hide their prices. Not a good idea if and when Spiderpic becomes popular. They might just be ignored by image buyers altogether. Others might decide to make their pricing less obvious, by having a very low call price, enhance at download time by “hidden” fees. Finally, others might require more obstinate memberships ( Shutterstock, subscriptions, etc) in order to keep their current customer base.

Regardless, this tool will put the microstock industry in a tale spin, forcing  marketing department to find other means to attract buyers than just low pricing . It will also make very difficult for  any company wishing to increase their prices to do so without loosing a lot of customers. Finally, its ironic, that the microstock industry finds itself pin down to their original appeal at time when they all thought they could slowly and discreetly increase their rate.

Regardless, this is a great tool. Now, if it could also do traditional RF and maybe one day, RM, that would be great. In the mean time, I very highly recommend you try it..and use it.

Posted in Midstock, license, technology, commercial stock, Search, keyword, Royalty free, transaction, prosumer, Microstock | Print | 4 Comments »

January 14, 2010 by pmelcher.

There is nothing worst for a photographer, like for an actor, to be typecast. For Dennis Stock, who passed away this week, that is what happened. Ultra famous for the iconic images he took of James Dean just before he became famous, he had to drag this notoriety like a canon ball tied to his foot throughout his whole career. To a point that few people know the rest of his work. Which is a shame.

Dennis was a relationship photographer. Unlike Henri Cartier Bresson or Capa , Dennis wanted and needed to know his subjects very well before he would photograph them. He had to see their insides before taking pictures of their outside.  Maybe that is what he took out of his two weeks assisting Eugene Smith.

Incredibly fortunate to have worked as an assistant for some of the greatest name of photography early on in his career ( Eugene Smith, Gjon Mili), he also had extremely good contact with the photo beast of the time , Life Magazine. Unlike other original Magnum photographers, he was not known for his nice, cuddly ways. Direct, sometimes harsh, he did not hesitate to say what he thought, regardless of the consequences. His images somewhat reflect this. They are direct, have no artifice, and can be cruel sometimes. However, that was the cruelty that comes with reality and he never apologized for it because he didn’t feel responsible. The world as it is.

Dennis Stock photography could be separated in two  phases: His people years ( Hollywood, Jazz, Communities) in the first half of his career  and his nature years.  Somewhere in his photography search, he must either have become very disappointed with people, as he completely stop photographing them until his death. Maybe it was because he wanted to escape the incredibly suffocating success of his James Dean images and show that he could do great images without a human figure in them.

What is certain, is that like one his mentor Eugene Smith, he worked on his stories for a long, long them. He was nt a snaphot shooter, not an opportunity snapper. Weeks, months, if not years was not an uncommon period of time for him to complete a story. That his why he does not leave a huge body of work, but rather a very selective passionate vision of the world.

Every time a great photographer dies, it is another eye on the world that closes.

Magnum in Motion did a great piece on Dennis Stock and his work :

Posted in magazine, Magnum, celebrity, multimedia, slideshow, photojournalism, editorial | Print | 1 Comment »

January 11, 2010 by pmelcher.

Photography should be a revolutionary act. It should be a kick in the establishment, the common, the mundane. It has to be an act of revolt against banality and conformity, a powerful explosion of new ideas. It should be as violent to the mind as a thousand thunderstorms. It should rip apart the accepted social fabric . It should denounce, point, accuse and solve. In one frame. It should be a declaration of war to everything we take for granted and accept as obvious.

It should incessantly question reality with the passion of a martyr. A constant question mark, it should make our leaders fear it, and our priest denounce it. It should know no frontiers, no borders, no cultural identity. It should have the same impact East of Bangkok and South of Lima.

Photography should be lifted high and proud by those who request to change the world as a constant demand for reform and social changes. It should beg for perfection, over and over, pointing at all the little details of injustice, abuse, destruction and greed. It should rattle every misconception until they break into a pathetic silence.

Too much of what we see today in photography ( thank you, commercial stock) is a sea of banality, of repetition, of dullness. It is status quo and no more. A long straight road of  boring pre digested concept. Like a TV dinner : Please reheat and serve hot. Millions upon millions of images that rote just a few days after being exposed, so much full of artifice they are. A constant stream of annoying visual buzz that we hardly notice anymore.

Photography should shove you out of your chair, make you react, force you to rethink everything you ever took for granted. It should stop you dead in your track and make you want to change your whole life, and the ones of those around you. It should haunt you  in your sleep, follow you all day and make you feel naked. It should empower you to make that change you had in you. It should break the heavy top that sat on top of  that lava revolt you have in you. Break the ice of indifference you so conveniently ignore.  It should not be a warm cosy blanket that keep you warm in the middle of a cold winter night but rather the violent act of removing it and exposing you to the freezing winds. A window blasted open.

Some aspects of photography are dying because too many have forgotten the revolutionary roots of photography, its iconoclastic heritage. As it becomes more common it also becomes more dull. Slowly, the reign of the medium is taking over. Medium quality, medium content, medium effect. Photography is becoming pretty, useful, a business. It’s an industry of expectedness, where chance and luck disappears in favor of technocrats shooting bullet points.

It should never live in a sales channel or exposed to RPI’s. It should never suffer the humiliation of being included in a compilation or a theme. It should never be treated as something you search for in a immense repository of banality. Finally, it should never suffer the assassination of being sold via a subscription.

Posted in google, license, celebrity, commercial stock, web 2.0, prosumer, news, editorial, photojournalism, Royalty free | Print | No Comments »

January 10, 2010 by pmelcher.

Let’s review. Up to now, USG, or User Generated  Content, has dramatically and irrevocably changed the Commercial stock photography landscape. It has brought it down to a commodity by not only bringing the prices down to, well, the prices of a commodity, by making it even more widely and easily available ( no need to call a bored Account Executive anymore) and finally, by not passing the cost of production to the customer. No real news here. However, will it stop here ?Definitely not. UGC has made some roadway in the Video footage world ( Numbers not really available, yet), as well as in the editorial space.  The commercial still space is so overcrowded that, besides the companies offering the distribution ( Istock, Fotolia, Shutterstock), no one will be making money anymore. The top photo producers  of this space are all suffering 40% or more decline in their income and it is certainly not due to the Recession. It also shows no sign of picking up. It’s a dilution effect, quite expected for a Long Tail type of business. So what next ?The editorial space. We have seen some somewhat failed attempts up to now. The news oriented site like Scoopt and others did not succeed in creating enough traction to get consistent exposure to allow them to become a major distribution channel. Demotix, lately, was the talk of the town during the Iranian revolt, only to quiet down ever since to a mere murmur. Without regular income, it is also destined to fail.  News is a very hard, yet not impossible, segment to convert to UGC.  Mostly because the market is already very well served with wire agencies who can deliver pinpoint images extremely fast. Amateur do not have, yet, the reflex to send images out very quickly. Furthermore, they are the first one to be evacuated of a dangerous area, if they don’t leave themselves first. Finally, with current prices and lack of medium, it doesn’t have the appeal of volume that the commercial stock market has. Doubtful that a company will ever succeed in being a UGC only news photo distributor but not impossible that one of the existing distributor, be it Istock, Shutterstock or Getty increase their demand and offerings. Of course, since they will no longer incur the cost of helping a photographer get those images, they will be more apt in lowering their prices if needed.But what about other editorial spaces. Celebrity for example ? Shutterstock is already being trying to perforate it by helping amateurs cover movie premieres and other events that need official credentials. It is unknown how much success they have had in licensing those images, but if credit in publication is any indication, it is inexistent. Not many have followed yet because of the poor prices, huge already existing volume and the added cost of production. After all, Shuttertsock needs a full time person to call, email or fax those publicist and get approved to cover. Not something they do for their commercial stock contributors. Finally, since the red carpet coverage is also already invaded by low pricing photo agencies , it doesn’t make  the UGC pricing special or appealing in any way.What else ? Well there is the street paparrazi stuff. With rumors of images being sold in the thousand , if not millions of dollars, it is a very interesting space. No credentials needed, no risk involved. With celebs twittering their every move or blogs exposing their schedules openly, it is very easy for anyone to find them. If you add the flock of Fame whores who demand to be taken in pictures, well, there is plenty. And you do not need much. Even a cell phone is adequate to snap a celeb in the street. No need for heavy or expensive equipment . And since prices are still quite high, the appeal of lower priced images will be a huge draw for some dying publications. Thus those companies who have been living quite nicely thanks to a small army of tip filled street paparazzi are slowly seeing a rising competition of week end paparazzi’s who would gladly take half of what they are making. If not, 1%. Because like the UGC crowd, they have other jobs and could really care less. Having a picture published will be a treat by itself.Of course, existing Pap agencies are doing all they can to avoid such a leak. They now all offer, on their site, an upload button for those amateurs seeking a representative. But that will not be enough to stop the bleeding.These Pap agencies all know that is doesn’t require any skills to take these images, as they themselves have been employing hungry beginners, fitting them with cameras, showing them where to press the button and telling them where to go. But in this game, the masses have the lead as every celebrity has a neighbor. It will not be long now before we see this market also become flooded with part time shooters looking to make a quick buck on a sunday afternoon. It will not take long now before the prices of street celeb photography will tumble to un-previously known depth.Sure, most people in the photo industry will not care. However, as walls keep crumbling down, everyone is affected. Like an earthquake, it is just not the epicenter that suffer damages.

Posted in celebrity, magazine, commercial stock, license, photojournalism, getty, news, editorial, Microstock | Print | 6 Comments »