I hear blue

August 24, 2010 by pmelcher.

As we all try to figure what sells, or could sell and for how much, one exercise that we should all rather play with is how our images are viewed and interpreted.  Maybe, just maybe, that would be the key to value.

 We are still very far from understanding perfectly how our brain interprets visual input, mostly maybe because we always thought that all our visual input was via our eyes.

We are not so sure anymore. what if colors emitted some special sounds that we hear instead of see. What about perspective ? Can we feel perspective ?

Is it possible to see without seeing? and what this does tell us about photography ? And how blue could become more blue if only we could hear it.

 

Seems there is much more to what we see than what plain photography can capture and we are just beginning to understand how we understand the world around us. It is becoming clearer to us that what we need to provide, as visual providers, is much more than what a lens can capture.

Posted in technology, commercial stock, multimedia, Search, filter, editorial | Print | No Comments »

Crowdtaste this !

July 26, 2010 by pmelcher.

So.. No idea what to shoot next ? well, why don’t you get your camera to choose?

This company has launched a prototype that can tell you if the image if the image you are about to shoot is aesthetically nice or not . The camera , in itself, is not much. It is actually a camera phone ( Nokia). However, it is linked to a website, Acquine, that permits users to rank images based on their taste. The result is a database of images ranked by “crowd taste”.

Nadia from Andrew Kupresanin on Vimeo.If you look at the result on Acquine, the “Aesthetic Quality Inference Engine” , you will not be surprised. The highest ranking images are  very predictable and …mmm.. boring.. Boats floating in front a Mediterranean looking scene, Landscapes, dull portraits, it’s like a catalog of dull images. But that is what you get when a crowd votes, isn’t it ? You will not see a World press in there.

This camera, and even just the site, is a great tool for microstocker or commercial stocker that would like to fill in the blanks of common taste . It is perfect for those who perpertuate the idea that an image has to be composed properly and well lit in order to fullfilits requirement.

However, it is a better tool for those who are to create. What to avoid. How to stay away from banality. What not to shoot. What to avoid.

Technology can sometimes bring us horrible, horrible tools : This is one of them.

Article on Wired here

Posted in Search, technology, commercial stock, No sense, web 2.0, filter, prosumer, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

Of unintended consequences

July 6, 2010 by pmelcher.

So, the French minister of Culture ( at least they have one) descends to the Arles photo festival like a conqueror and announces, probably very proud of himself, that he and his photo committee he created a while back,  will create a photo portal. A French one, in three languages ( French , English and ???).

70,000 images are supposed to be made available to the public and amateur thanks to this portal. Nothing is said about what photography, from where, edited by whom, for what purpose ? Just 70,000 images; Et Voila. Packs his stuff into his limo and goes back to take a early afternoon nap in his hot office in Paris.

And we are left to wonder: From the country that has laws banning street photography, from the country that has created  social laws responsible for the death and suffering of many photo agencies and their photographers, from the country that has banned citizen photojournalism, that is all they could come out with ?

If they really wanted to help photography, the French government would do a few things : Repel the law that forces everyone to blur faces of people in public spaces, repel the law that makes illegal to photograph a news item if you are not a professional, repel the law that makes photo agencies responsible for more than 75% of free lancer contribution to social security. This is what is killing photography in France, not the lack of a “tri langual pro/amateur photo” portal.

If they really wanted to save photography, wouldn’t they help photography live and breath instead of creating a useless on line museum that will cost millions and sit unused. France already has one huge portal of photography for professional called PixPalace. Why create a state sponsored competition ?

Why don’t they rather make an institution that gives out grants and supports young ( and not so young photographers) in their projects? Why don’t they reward websites or print magazine for their usage of photography? Why don’t they create incentives instead of museums ?

There might be a long time before this online photo portal ever sees the day of light since everything take a long time in France ( years, decades). It is just so very frustrating  to see a minister who made a movie about the Rapho agency, who contains such great  photographers as Robert Doisneau, Édouard Boubat, Denis Brihat, Jean Dieuzaide, Bill Brandt, Izis, André Kertész, Yousuf Karsh, Jacques Henri Lartigue, Janine Niépce, Willy Ronis, Emile Savitry, and Sabine Weiss, continue to support a law that would have made these photographer unable to practice their trade.

Furthermore, in a society that is about to ban the wearing of Burqa’s because it hides women’s face, it is quite ironic that they force publications to hide the face of people in photographs.

I have an idea : Let’s go on strike.

more , in French

Posted in Search, celebrity, magazine, technology, No sense, photojournalism, france, editorial, filter, law | Print | 1 Comment »

The new and the Old

May 24, 2010 by pmelcher.

When technology meets photography, handled by creative minds, this is what you get :   The Museum of London has just launched an iphone App that mixes the present with the past.

Works only in London, for now : You point your iphone camera to a location and  you can click on the “3D view” button and the app will recognize your location and overlay the historic image over the current view. See examples below. Of course they do not have an images for everywhere you go, so they give you a map where you can play with this historical enhance reality.

It’s free to download so if you are in London, and you have an Iphone, you should really try it.

Posted in technology, lens, multimedia, web 2.0, filter, photojournalism, editorial | Print | No Comments »

The unobserved Life

May 4, 2010 by pmelcher.

There has always been a major obsession in our lives. From prehistoric times to today, we have feared the same demon.  We have crafted a lot of fixes and patches but it has been really recently that we have seemingly find a cure.

A sense of definition.

This demon we live with is the constant fear that we might be living useless lives. Lives that start on a birthday that we celebrate year after year until we perish, leaving, seemingly, nothing behind. We have struggled and we are still struggling to find meaning in everything we do, however trivial. Since we are incapable of defining what a meaning would be, we leave it to others to define it. After all, what better way to give depth to something than having it seen by others. Same goes for our lives.

Enters photography : For the last 150 years, it has made many, many lives meaningful. Not only by making lives finally visible by others , but making the lives of those who photographs them, meaningful. It would have been incredibly hard for Gandhi, for example, to have made his life, and his actions meaningful without photography. His force, his presence was made a lot stronger, and effective, thanks to those photogrpahers that brought us the images of an almost naked frail old man defying the biggest empire of the time. But this is a bad examples, as Gandhi’s life and action always had a meaning.

What about the middle management, married, one kid man around the corner from your house. He is living the simple regular life, the one made of 8 hours labor days, busy house keeping week ends and sometimes  interrupted  by the common tragedies (death, unemployment, sickness, loss). Where is the meaning of that life?

Nowhere. Until it starts getting more dimensions by being photographed and seen. Photographed by friends, family, passer bys and ending up on Facebook, Flickr, Twitter. If any of these images goes viral, a simple ignored life becomes suddenly highly meaningful. Never mind that the meaning might be puerile, it is still a meaning.

Photography has put an end to the dreadful unobserved life. Probably for ever. What started as simple drawings in a cave somewhere in the South of France that said “look, I am here and I did this” has evolved to today’s ” Look at me, I learn to jet ski during my vacation” photograph ; I exist.

In between Gandhi and your neighborhood, there are thousand upon thousands of lives that suddenly spring into meaning because and only because of photogrpahy. That man in front of the tanks in Tiananmen square, the  monk that burned himself in Vietnam, that other man holding his bandage as he walked away from the London bus explosion. Or that woman who held her baby after an earthquake. or even Paris Hilton ? What would be the meaning of her life without photography ?

Fear no more the darkness of oblivion, photography is here.

In the cacophony of individuals screaming for attention and thus justification, some have even taken photography to yet another level. It is no only who they photograph who’s life become amplified, it is also themselves. Its not longer “look at me, I exist”, but rather, “Look at me  looking at others, I exist”. This has lead to everything from a variety of extremely brilliant photographers to a pool of highly pretentious narcissists.

Regardless, what we have let quietly slip into our lives has now become the primary form of “existence justification” for all of us, something unthinkable . The question now, as the cries for meaning increases, how do manage it?

Posted in celebrity, technology, flickr, photojournalism, filter, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

To kill a parasite

April 29, 2010 by pmelcher.

What is new is not always good. While everyone is trying to figure out where the world of licensed photography is going to, others are taking advantage of the void by figuring out parasitical way to profit from it.

We already do know that Google has figured out how to make money, and huge sums of it, by cashing in on others creative content. By slapping ads on the creation of others, they are the ultimate business parasite. At least, with Adsense, they have offered the creators a share of the income generated. Typical of a long tail type of business, they are, however, the only ones to really profit from it.

With a company called Pixazza, they have figured out how to feed upon the photography world. If you are not aware of it, Pixazza offers website the ability to attached on any image they publish, a pop up window that invites you to purchase the same clothes as the ones wore by the celebs in the images.

Websites that participate get a commission on every sale of clothes that is generated from their site. The photographers who took the images? nothing. Pixazza actually uses the image as a selling tool yet gives nothing back to the photogrpahers, only to the publishers. In theory, and maybe in practice, a publisher could easily purchase a license for an image and make a profit from it. Interesting no. Sure, it is not much different then what is going on in magazine or more traditional ads on website. After all, it is the business model for editorial publication to make a profit from ads attached to their articles and layouts. But in this case, instead of being a generic ad, it is actually 100 % dependent on the photograph and its content.

So now, on top of publishers making money on your images, there is this new company, who have done nothing more than create a piece of code. Do photographers see their income grow too from this added value ? nope.  Does Pixazza care? Certainly not.

It doesn’t seem like much right now for those not shooting celebrities, but it will very soon . They have just extended their offering to travel and sports images. And that is only the begging. Soon, any image will have this parasite on it. The near future, if all goes well ?

Well, why do you think Google invested in this company? Because it fits perfectly its business model. the parasite kind: Attach an ad to everything on the internet. The next step ? Well Google might decide to purchase Getty, make all the images available for free to everyone, as long as Pixazza is attached to them. Can you imagine the revenue they would get ? And the damage they would do to the photo industry?

However, they don’t even have to go that far. If Pixazza is succesful in implanting themselves on every website, they could make a huge fortune without ever paying a dime to photographers. Ever. Your images would become ad platform without you ever seeing a penny from it. Pretty cool, no ?

There is no reason for this to stop currently, as none of the photo agencies or photographers seem to mind. Some seem to think this is really great because it’s new and its Google powered, at least financially. Once they see their images licensed for editorial use hijacked into  a commercial , it is doubtful they will still be smiling . But it will be too late.

It’s not new, it’s just evil.

Posted in copyright, license, celebrity, technology, commercial stock, keyword, google, editorial, transaction, finance, filter, getty | Print | 3 Comments »

Image Search : The Future

April 5, 2010 by pmelcher.

The surf wizard. the Photo bot. Give a keyword to a bot, it comes back with the image. Better, enter a concept, or a description. it will then surf the whole wide web and return with an image. Whether from an amateur or pro, it won’t matter. Because the image matters. Like information, the image will come to you, instead of you having to got to the image. That is the future of image search.

If you are not in a rush, it could scout for days, weeks, waiting for the perfect image. It could even us knowledge base intelligence to return the exact photograph, based on thousands, millions, gazillions of queries and rejects/approvals.   It would be hard not to find the right image anymore, extremely hard.

Sure, it could use similar search, as well of graphical input. The technology exists already, it just has not been out in place.  The reason is that technology would not be profitable for anyone but a geek who could care about revenue.

Just imagine : You send a email with a photo description, and like a dog, it comes back with the right image. All you would have to do is license it properly and your done. No more webs browsing in multiple password protected photo collection, no more spending hours on Flickr, Google images or others looking at irrelevant images. You would continue your work as the bot would do the search for you.

It shouldn’t be long before we see this, or very similar product.

Posted in license, focus, technology, commercial stock, Search, keyword, filter, flickr, google, Uncategorized | Print | No Comments »

Google Sapiens ( Update #2)

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 »

Ikea Photography

October 13, 2009 by pmelcher.

While everyone is searching for what commercial stock might become in the future, the Chinese might have one solution and it is quite revolutionary. Researchers from TNList, Department of Computer Science and Technology, Tsinghua University along with a Singapore based researcher, have put together Photosketcher, previously called Sketch2Photo.

The principle is quite simple : you sketch what and how your final image image  should look like and it fetches all the elements on the internet and stitches them together for a final composite image.  Better yet, here is a visual explanation :

This would be a major breakthrough for art directors all around the world. Instead of going to hundreds of stock banks trying to locate an image that remotely looks like  the one they had in mind, they could actually build it from different bits and pieces of a variety of images. Obviously, they wouldn’t even have to hire photographers for photo shoots anymore, at least for those that have common elements in them.

But, before we get there, this is a pretty nifty tool for art directors who would like to create comps to show their clients or  the photogrpahers they are about to hire  what they have in mind.

In the paper, it is unclear where in the internet the search is performed. It seems to be  everywhere, creating a huge copyright headache. Of course, some would argue that since the end result is a composite and thus a new creation, there is no copyright due. Let’s leave the arguing to Lawheads and revue the implication of this new tool.

If the search was only applied  to Creative Common content ( Flickr)  one could probably be free of any copyright issue. Furthermore, one would have the legitimate right to register the new finished product as their own and license it. Think about it. A completely computer generated image created with bits and pieces of images from various photographers would come and take its rightful place next to work from long-time pros. Wow. And some though microstock was bad. Wait until everyone can create photographs.

Currently, the end result is very average as the selection of images does not pay any attention to light orientation and shadows. However, that could easily be an additional search parameter which would allow for extremely realistic end photographs.

What would this imply for editorial photography, especially news ? Major, major trouble. On could easily put together, in any environment, two people that have never met and look very realistic. Our news imagery could suddenly be flooded with hand-made images of events that have never taken place. Would we ever trust photography ever again ?  Doubtful. Photography will have to go through rigorous credibility checking before being branded as real news.

Finally, could this Photosketcher be a hoax ? Doubtful. Finding image via sketching is already widely operational, while automated  extracting already exist ( Adobe has a great one in Photoshop Element). Stitching, as we all know, is also very common. Thus combining all these know application together is not impossible. It is actually not too hard. The whole operation must take a pretty hefty amount of processing power but then we have no information on what type of computer these students have.

This new tool, however amazing it seems to be, has many implication for the world of photogrpahy and will have far reaching repercussions. It’s acceptance and usage will be something to monitor closely for anyone involved in photogrpahy.

See a full explanation in this video:

Sketch2Photo: Internet Image Montage from Tao Chen on Vimeo.

Posted in license, Search, copyright, technology, commercial stock, prosumer, flickr, law, news, editorial, filter, photojournalism, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

Dying in Africa. PART II

October 7, 2009 by pmelcher.

20 minutes to better understand what my earlier post was about. Chimamanda Adichietalks about literature but photography is as much a guilty member of this . We should no longer be the instruments of intellectual colonization.

Next time you embark on a photo shoot, think of where your story will fit in the perception of the country, continent and culture you are about to photograph.

Posted in newspaper, magazine, technology, Newsweek, TIME, photojournalism, editorial, slideshow, filter, news | Print | 2 Comments »