July 25, 2011 by pmelcher.

Rex Features Press Release ( as I do not have time to write about it )

Management Buyout sees Rex Features retain independence

London.  25th July 2011.

Rex Features, owned by the Selby family since Frank and Elizabeth Selby launched the company in 1954, today announces that it is to pass control to its staff, management and a small group of individual investors.  While the Selby family will retain a significant financial interest in the business, the current Director of Sales and Marketing, Larry Lawson, takes on the position of managing director.  The management and staff of Rex will remain as it is.

John Selby, Mike Selby, Sue Selby and Martin Hillier will continue to support the Company and this, combined with the comprehensive knowledge and experience of Rex‚s staff, will ensure a seamless transition as well as the Company‚s continued dedication to contributors and clients.

Larry Lawson said „The company is in a strong position: Rex has managed to continue growing its business in difficult economic circumstances and can truly claim to be the world‚s largest independent photo agency.
What makes Rex great is that it continues to be a photographers‚ agency with a phenomenally diverse range of suppliers and a vast catalogue of material. Our reputation for expert photo editing around the clock, coupled with efficient prompt payment to all contributors will continue to ensure that we are the first port of call for both photographers and clients.

The company has recently taken on a number of new staff, and we envisage opportunities arising to expand the team further as we produce and place more and more live news and features material.  Rex has an excellent international distribution network, with many long-standing relationships built up with agents and clients around the world. Our US business, Berliner Photography in Los Angeles, provides Rex with a fully operational production and sales office and is poised to make further significant inroads into the US market.

Rex‚s reputation for honesty, integrity and traditional values will remain at the core of the company. It is this priceless asset, combined with Rex‚s proven ability to adapt to the constant change in the media industry, that gives Rex its commanding position in the world market.  I want to make this business even more successful and we will be investing our energy and resources to do so.‰

John Selby said „Since its foundation by our parents, Rex Features has gone from strength to strength largely as a result of our strict adherence to our core values of fair dealing and good service to photographers and clients alike.  Rex Features has enjoyed a great reputation within our industry and we are very pleased to be able to pass on the running of this Company to our „extended family‰, the management and staff.  I am very confident that the brand we have built up over the years between all of us will thrive and continue to play a key role in the provision of editorial imagery to the media and all picture users around the world.‰

About Rex Features:

One of the world‚s leading independent producers of editorial photography, Rex Features has an international reputation as a premier source of images and features for the world‚s media.
All the IT systems are produced in-house by experts and the simple, fast and efficient website is considered to be the „Rolls Royce‰ of websites within the industry, as is the internal picture-handling system, Lightbox.
Rex‚s online database contains 6,000,000 pictures, with thousands of new ones added daily, the intuitive keywording gives customers easy, fast access to any image 24 hours a day via www.rexfeatures.com. In the unlikely event that the desired image can‚t be found online, a rich archive of over 15 million hard-copy images, and friendly, knowledgeable researchers are there to help clients find just the picture they need.
Rex has offices in London and Los Angeles, and partner agencies around the world.
With over 57 years in the business, Rex is famous for its range and depth of images ˆ be it personalities, news and features, travel, business, animal, humour, lifestyle, fashion, music, historical or stock images.
Excellent, personalised service has won invaluable loyalty from clients and photographers alike, and the quality of our images sees its work used every day across all media platforms.

Posted in celebrity, finance, transaction, editorial | Print | No Comments »

July 21, 2011 by pmelcher.

They say that 95 % of communication is non verbal. This is the realm of photography. It explores and transports through time and space the world that resides outside the Word. Confusingly enough however, we tend to give much more credit, and emphasis, to the written/spoken word.

Our newspapers and magazines spend more space on word than they do on photography, forgetting so often the famous adage that an image is worth a thousand words. We seemed convinced that if we do not read it, or hear about it, it cannot really be real. So, an amazing amount of energy, time, and money is spent on collecting data that can then be transmitted via words when a few images could easily, and more powerfully, do the same. Centuries of dubious philosophies however, started by Plato himself, has taught us not to believe in what we see. A concept that  we still carry well into the 21st century.

However, how many times have we witnessed a scene without hearing a word and immediately understood what was going on : people arguing on a street corner, a women paying for cloth in a store, a kid receiving his first ice cream of the year, all do not need a word for us to understand fully. No explanation needed.It is, in fact, how we understand our world best. Dogs, our best friends, can communicate with us without a word. 

That is what photography is all about, the third language ( words and music being the first two). If your photographs explain, then they have done their duty. If they just replicate, then they are no better than a mirror, or worse, a photocopy machine. No one has every been ecstatic in front of a well done photocopy.

 Photography is about the 95% of our communication that is non verbal. Not a word and yet a universe of comprehension. A vehicle of understanding that even Plato would have enjoyed.

Posted in commercial stock, focus, license, photojournalism, editorial | Print | No Comments »

July 20, 2011 by pmelcher.

The news cracked like thunder in the middle of a hot afternoon : Corbis has just acquired Splash news. The quiet giant has just eaten up the lean mean paparazzi machine. It is a surprise.

There had been rumors in the photo agency world of Getty looking to purchase Splash, to fill their last hole in their overall offering but nothing about Corbis. It is even more of a surprised as Corbis had seem to have abandoned the editorial market after it had shut down their own editorial production department. They were just re licensing agencies like EPA, Zuma and Retna. With this acquisition, Corbis is now back again on the front line of the hottest photo market : celebrity .

According to official news, most everyone will remain at Splash. It will still be run by co founders Kevin Smith and Gary Morgan. It will also be operate as a separate brand, much like Corbis Outline.

One of the main question is how will Corbis manage the high end celebrity approval Outline in parallel to the down to the ground gossip charged  Splash without facing the anger of publicists and celebrities.

Finally, the official press release blames high operational cost as a reason for Kevin and Gary’s decision to sell. If the current situation of other photo agency in this space is any indication, falling rates must have also been a strong factor.

More official info here 

Posted in Pacific coast news, Corpocrates, celebrity, finance, editorial, transaction, corbis | Print | No Comments »

July 10, 2011 by pmelcher.

Let’s face it, you are waging a losing battle. In fact, it’s not even a battle because one side has won already. Every time you sign up for a social network, be it Facebook, Twitter or Google +, you are faced with TOS ( Terms of Service) that are pure rights grabbing, making it a very dangerous proposition for you to share your images. Yet, everyone tells you that the only path to success is to have your images on these sites.

So, here are three core facts that you need to know about Social Networks:

- There is still no such thing as a free lunch. If someone offers you something for free, it is only because they get some kind of benefit out of it. You can be sure they will find a way to monetize your images.

- If you use a service for free, you become the product : what do you think Facebook, Twitter or Google + sell ? You. Your interaction on their sites is what they in turn sell to advertisers. That includes your pictures.

- They need the legal right to share your images. In order to show the images you post on their site to your friends and family, they need the legal right to do so. Since there is no way for them to know who are your friends, family or others ( nor do they care) , they make you agree to a blanket agreement stating that they can share them with everyone.

So, if you think you can sign up for a social network site that will protect your intellectual property, you are sticking your big left toe in your eye. It is just not and never going to happen. The answer ? Deal with it.

Accept the fact that if you post your images on a social network site, there is a 110 % chance that you could loose complete control of that image. Play along . If you post pictures of your 3 years old nephew at your cousin’s barbeque party, you have not much to worry about. Besides a few polite likes from your relatives, not much will happen to that image and it will soon be forgotten along with the other 10 million images uploaded to Facebook in a month. However, if you post the only image of a plane crash landing on the Hudson river, well, get ready for it to be grabbed and spread around.

Here is the irony. Photographers or photo agencies will post their images on social network sites in order for them to be seen, appreciated and dare we say it, shared ( ouch). Isn’t it the intended purpose of posting these images that they will end up in front of the eyes of a wealthy photo editor who will either purchase it or hire you ? And since you do not know him yet, the only path is via friends of friends re-posting it ? Should they all ask you for permission and pay you a license fee every time they do ? In other words, you give them something to share but you don’t want them to share.

Well then, quite a paradox . Ownership of an image doesn’t lie solely in managing its usage. It is also embedded in it. If you have a style, a talent, a point of view and an identity, your image will always speak your name, credit or no credit. Better yet, people who see your images will want to track you down in order to find out who is the talent behind those photograph. If they don’t, well, that’s because you failed as a photographer.

So what should you do with all these rights grabbing, soulless TOS that you keep on facing every day? Adapt.

They are not going to change because they are at the core of how these social networks make money. Not so much by licensing your images, obviously ( everyone knows there is no money there), but by using them to grow their network and thus selling more people to advertisers. And for that, they need the right to do what they damn well like with your images. Forever.

Keep that in mind next time you post images on any of these sites ( and others).  Your choices :

- Do not upload images

- Watermark your images

- Upload only images you are ready to give away

Either way, stop bitching and moaning about a new TOS like there was anything you could do about it. Although it might feel like it sometimes, it is not your platform, it’s theirs. They will do whatever they think is appropriate to generate revenue from it . They don’t owe you anything, you do.

So stop wasting your energy and time . Get back on your saddle and figure out  how you too can benefit from their services intelligently without loosing your pants and shoes ( and your sanity). Eventually the ecosystem will find a balance.

Posted in technology, Tweet, Social Media, Waste of time, digg, license, flickr, prosumer, web 2.0, transaction | Print | 1 Comment »

July 8, 2011 by pmelcher.

It is because we compare that we are able to judge. A photograph is nothing more than a tool for comparison. When someone looks at a photograph, he compares the content with his real world information. If there is a match, many things happen : for example, the person will automatically add the colors if the image is in black and white. He will also add sounds and smells if the scene and objects are familiar. Finally, the viewer will add a context to make sense of the content. However, there is so much that we can add to make a photograph more familiar. That discrepancy between what is seen and what is already known is exactly what the talented photographer is looking for. The subtle balance between what you know and what is new. He creates a bridges between your personal living experience and that of an unknown person by forcing you to fill in some elements and discovering the others. If an image is too familiar, it quickly becomes boring; If it is too foreign, it has no interest : great photography exists right in between.

Posted in Social Media, focus, Search, editorial | Print | No Comments »