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Archive for the flickr Category

A genius talks

Man I love what this guy has to say :

Photo burqa

There is more than oil spreading in the Gulf of Mexico. There is also a veil of secrecy slowly being pulled upon the effects of the spill. In the pure tradition of “If you can’t see it, it doesn’t exist”, more and more rules and regulations are being implemented in order to block photographers .

“According to a news release from the Unified Command, violation of the “safety zone” rules can result in a civil penalty of up to $40,000, and could be classified as a Class D felony. Because booms are often placed more than 40 feet on the outside of islands or marsh grasses, the 65-foot rule could make it difficult to photograph and document the impacts of oil on land and wildlife, media representatives said. ”

This rule, made by the Coast Guard, not BP, comes on top of an already existing rule that  no media flights could go below 3,000 feet, due to restrictions from the Federal Aviation Administration.

Those restrictions are all to the honor of photography and it’s power. They are instituted out of fear of the impact that photography has on the collective mass. The same way as the Bush administration had banned any images of US soldiers coffin, or the Sri Lanka government had succesfully blocked any images of the war on the Tamils, this administration has no problem putting limits on what and how events can be photographed.

If you thought that the long awaited emergence of citizen photojournalism would come to the rescue, think again. Out of hundreds of images posted on Flickr, all are from GreenPeace or Nasa. None from the common man. As if the problem did not exist.

Photojournalists, more and more, are forced to break the law in order to get the right images. Not only their standard of living has plummeted, making it harder to be motivated, but they are now faced with either jail time or extremely steep fines. There is a war being waged against photojournalism at a time it is already at its weakest. If the forces of photo censorship succeed, our world will become we can forget about democracy. We might not understand it fully, but these are our eyes that they are trying to cover. It is a our ability to make a sound judgment that is threatened forever.

If photojournalists around the world are being blocked from taking pictures it’s because they are annoying.  They are revealing aspects of our lives that others do not want you to see. They  pull the curtains and denounce. If they are more and more being denied access, it’s because their images can do a lot of damages to an otherwise well kept lie.

There should be thousands and millions of images of the BP oil spill in the Gulf. Every American should go and take pictures of the situation. Post them all on Flickr or other places for everyone to see. A giant visual against BP, against blocking photographers and finally against a way of life that is killing us all.

No one should be allowed, ever, to restrict the work of photojournalists. There should be a fine for people preventing photojournalists to do their work and their safety and well being should be guaranteed by law.  They should have the same rights, and protection, as any other civil servant of any well balanced democracy. Instead of being restricted, they should be given extended special privileged access to news events.

They say the tree that falls in the forest where no one hears it makes no noise. Could we say the same about events happening away from cameras? soon?

Blowing a Candle

I don’t get it. It’s Monday, I don’t get it. People in this industry used to be really upset with Flickr and Creative Commons. Mostly because creatives and editors worldwide could get free images in exchange of a credit, or an electronic pat in the back. Scores of ad campaigns or magazines started to use unbelievably cheap images instead of “professional” images from Stock houses.

At the end of last week, Flickr and Getty announced a joint tool that allows Flickr members to call upon Getty to license images for them. Isn’t that what we all wanted ? Well, maybe not via Getty ? But to give uneducated photographers a way to get a proper license fee for their images and for ignorance to stop devaluating our industry?

Weren’t some of us looking for a way to counter the useless and dangerous spread of Creative Commons in our trade ? Well, the “license via Getty” tool is allowing just that.But, from all the thread in the Blogsphere, no one seems happy. Sure, Getty Images is taking an unbelievable 70% commission on every sale. However, they made the initial investment to create the technology, they are the ones supplying the billing and knowledge network. Furthermore, according to the press release, they have no intention of selling those images at microstock levels, but rather at accepted Right Managed price.

This can only be good for the dying commercial stock industry : Less free or ultra cheap images on the market. Yet, everyone complains. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t see any other company offering such a service to Flickr users.  Corbis, who had struck a deal with  Webshot in afailed attempt to provide content for their defunct microstock start up Snapvillage, has certainly not offer the same deal to its users. Maybe they should. Maybe all Commercial stock agencies should offer the same to any and all photo sharing site, instead of complaining.

Sure, this is a great deal for Getty who now, more than ever, doesn’t have to rely so  much on professional photographers to offer valuable commercial stock . Those who are solely shooting for stock are, once again, being blown a huge hit. But then again, they had their golden years and should have by now realized that their business model is obsolete. No one will miss them.

It is also a huge blow to the Creative Commons lovers and other “images should be free” prophets. It will only help the widening market to know and understand that usages of images should be compensated for, and for a reasonable price.

So, although we might not be huge fans of Getty on this blog, we reasonably give them a big Kudos for advancing the cause of our industry with this move.

Humpty Dumpty in Dublin

At your tables, chairs set…ready ? 1, 2, 3.. Go . The freshly renamed  Centre of Photography ( Cepic) Congress  is about to start in Dublin, Ireland, in what is now an annual gathering of photographic convenience stores. Wide computer screens boringly pushing one lifeless image after another, hundreds of neatly arranged 4 seats tables ( no more, no less), a huge hall of sedated whispering, and every hour, on the hour, the delicately pre-arrange ballet of musical chairs. The only thing that changes, year after year, is the location. But does anyone even notice?

The CEPIC congress is  Einstein’s definition of insanity at its best : Doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results.  Punctuated by “talks” from self-proclaimed “experts”, “gurus” or “coaches”, whose only claimed to photo knowledge is to have been recently vomited from an highly paid executive position at one of the photo corporations, it repeats, year after year, the same pattern of stubborn  blindness. Year after year, its resembles more and more a meeting of eggs in a closet whose shells show signs of heavy cracking.

Why this assembly of  Commercial Stock photography suppliers continue to be so closed on itself, so violently persistent in its obsessions, so un-creative, so resilient to change, is becoming a boring mystery.

The grand old pompous  IPTC Consortium will hold it cyclical marathon session repeating over and over the same things, demanding full respect by obstination, claiming high and loud that is it a standard when it can’t even get two software companies to agree on  the same field name.  The Plus coalition will continue to speak highly of its endless and obsolete development, announcing more and more board room agreements that are never implemented. The same faces, the same voices will take the stage, (also behind tables), to fill the stuffy word space with vague and inconsequential statements, in front of a sparse and half asleep audience. Finally, night after night, all will reunite to wash the whole thing down with huge amount of free alcohol.

Sure, the CEPIC is relevant because it allows for agents and suppliers to meet at one place and one time, do their little business, and go back home, agreeably satisfied with a job well done. It gives everyone who attends a sense of safe continuity, the sense that, after all, everything will be alright.

Here is what to expect : More will be said about microstock (snooze), vendors will painfully try to sell software solutions to agencies that do not have any money to invest, arguments will be made about switching to licensing video (really ?), old timers will parade the halls looking for some self-gratifying recognition, lots and lots of notes will be taken on blocks, pens will be given away, and people will cross each other saying ” Sorry, I don’t have the time to talk, I have a meeting with…”, all day long. There will be more talks about how keywords will save you, search is key and of course, a lot of comparing size of collections.

Something new ? Of course, social media will be discuss ad vomitum : Twitter will save you, you GOTTA have a Facebook account,  viral this and viral that, Youtube, Flickr, Foursquare , Tumblr,   along with SEO and Google this and Google that. If you do not have or working on a Ipad/Iphone apps this year, you will be considered a loser. You GOTTA have an App.

People will also hear that you need to create a Niche. Because that is only way to survive : a niche. In other words, they will tell you to get out out of Getty’s way, because you can’t compete, and find a corner, where, hopefully they will not find you.  Problem is with this strategy is that a succesful niche is not a niche anymore, its a target. And, in industry where everyone, absolutely everyone is looking for  market share, becoming a target is not good news.

They will also tell you about Freemium, as they have freshly come out of reading the book, forgetting to tell you that the only companies that can afford Freemium strategies are those that are very well funded. Or to think “Long Tail” because it’s a cool concept, no knowing exactly what it means.

The Cepic congress is a big feel good gathering, like a giant therapeutic group hug , where everyone leaves satisfied that everything will be alright and to continue business as usual. It’s a soporific ego satisfier, a yearly lobotomy. Everyone pats each other cracked egg shell fully knowing that only accepted growth business model is to screw each other.

For CEPIC to one day be relevant again, it needs to go through a violent change. It needs to elect young Presidents ( 30 or younger), it needs to invite speakers from outside the industry, it needs to start looking 5 years ahead and not 10 years backwards. It needs to bring image buyers, photographers, creatives, thinkers. What it really needs is to come out of its highly reactionary protective bubble and destroys those crippling walls that they think are protecting them.

The unobserved Life

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?

Image Search : The Future

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.

Everything you knew

Photography has a long way to go..Compared to other digitized creative forms, like music, it is light years behind. And, for once, that could be a good thing. Like the youngest brother of a family, it can learned from it’s elders. For once, it has not yet been touch at full impact by the whole free file sharing tsunami that hit music a while back. Certainly the dams are leaking and breaking, but we are no where near what the music industry has experience.

Unlike the music industry, the photo industry is not that organized. It has a myriad of little associations biting at each other, with little or no resources, it is deeply fragmented in small to very small businesses and it has no support from giant manufacturers. But this is not the point of this entry.

The story of David Cope, very well explained in this article  (careful, it is long) is a great example of things to come. In a nutshell, for those that are too busy, it explains how this music composer, rather than writing music himself,teach his computer how to do it. At first he experimented in replicating styles of well known composers. At first, with little successes, as he had forgotten to add their flaws ( or styles). But when he go it right, it turned into one of these Shakespearean monkeys ( you know, the ones you put in a cage with a typewriter). This was not enough for him, so he proceeded in developing one that could compose complete originals pieces of music. That is where he reached a new milestone. The result was so good that many music critics loved it. That was before they knew it was a machine that had composed it, and not a human being. Than the rhetoric changed and David Cope is still being cursed at. While he is getting ready to make his work more available, the debates still rages on: Mainly, is art made by a machine still art ?

His point, well taken, is that it doesn’t matter if he uses a pen and paper or programming code to compose, it is still art. The Human being is still behind the creation, he is just using different tools. Photography is still far from being able to be produced by a machine. We have face recognition, sound detection, automated color correction,  highly sophisticated light readers, but none yet really can work together. In theory, they could. And in theory, one could program all the parameters of David Lachapelle’s past work and come out with an almost  perfect suggestion of what his next images will look like . We would still need a human being to set everything up and take the picture.

But let’s take this a step further. In theory, we could give every parameter of a photographer works and produce, in a computer, a CGI image of the next shoot. Completely automated. No need for camera, lights, studio, models, nothing. Everything could be created artificially either by taking existing images and reconfigure them, or simply create new ones. Or, instead of replicating someones style, create a whole new one. Create a picture, or a series of picture, at a touch of a button.

This is coming our way. Faster than we think. If you are worried of the myriads of microstock shooters, just think of what happens when anyone, even without a camera can create stunning images without ever leaving their desks, for a fraction of the cost. Just think about it. Everything you thought you knew bout photography is yet, again, about to change.

( As I was writing this, French newspaper Le Monde published this article about the same issue, but for text journalist.)

Flying solo

Anyone can take a picture…that is the lesson Flickr and Microstock has recently taught us with a “pie in the face” method. It doesn’t take that much skills to create images that could use for licensing by someone else. Much less then painting, writing music, writing ( properly) or any other creative activity. Furthermore, technology has really improved the ease of access. Most images that we see today, even taken by pros, could have never existed 15 years ago because cameras, lenses and everything around it was just not that good. However, as much as photography is becoming more and more accessible, great images remain an act of creative magic. And its a talent, if not a gift.

The same goes for licensing images. Everyone claims they can sell pictures. However, it is not true. let’s take a few example, if you don’t mind. Microstock shooters. Sure they can take equivalent quality pictures as your average traditional RF/RM guy. But can they sell it ? Nope. They have to rely on the savvy tech marketing magicians of microstock sites like Istock or Dreamstime to make that happen. They could start their own microstock site with only their image, priced at even lower than any competition and yet see nothing. Ok..not convinced. Well, let’s jump into photojournalism.  We are all familiar with great images that never get published. Why? Because images do not sell themselves. It’s a tragic myth.

More and more, one can see popping up all over the internet, sites build by young geeky entrepreneur offering to let photographers sell direct and cut the “middleman” or agency. They make people beleive the age old myth “if you build it they will come”.  The more independent photographers create independent selling websites ( not the portfolio kind), the more they dilute and isolate their work.

Why do you think a lot of these database site scream high and loud how many images they contain ( 15 million, 43 million, 5 petratrillion..) ? Because they understand that the promise of a wealth of content is more important to most buyers than quality. They are looking for a solution, not a great image. Something that will fit well and appropriately in that space. They couldn’t care less if it was used before, like they couldn’t care less if their care is mass produced and others have the same model with the same color.

Think selling images in a big database is the solution ? wrong again. You can try, but there is no guarantee. Furthermore, the bigger the collection, the more chance your images have to be ignored . Great IPTC info ? Depends on what you call great: what you put in or what those guys in  Bangalore put in ? Or those so self proclaimed expert? Mmm.

So what is it ? Great marketing ? Sure…but do you know what that is ? and how to achieve it ? Probably not. If you did, you would not be reading this but instead, be enjoying a nice coktail on the porch of your summer house looking at the sunset dip into a deep blue sea.

Admit it. You don’t know. You have no idea how to sell images. It takes talent, like shooting great images. Whether learned or natural, it’s not something most photographer have. Great athletes have agents, great actor have agents, why do you think photographers don’t need any ?

Because building a searchable website with a shopping cart is easy, and cheap ? And that, with a kick-ass SEO strategy will make them millionaires? Well, let’s think of who have succeeded up to now…What? no names come to mind? However, photographers with crappy websites ( or none at all) that are doing very, very well…many.

So, next time someone comes to you with a turn key solution that promises to cut the middle man and make you truly independent, you can beleive them, because that is exactly what it will do for you. And nothing else.

The unpredictable laws of meaning

You know there is a problem when a company selling you a service treats you with superiority and disdain. Somewhere in the sale cycle, someone hates the fact that they should be at the client service and not the opposite.

Take software solution companies, for example. They usually work in a vacuum creating  some software solution that they decide is very cool and once finished, look around to see if there is a market for it. There’s usually a market for everything. Once they find the market, they approach the “non software” people in a attempt to sell it. Because they usually fall on non technical people who have no clue on how difficult it has been to design and implement what they are trying to sell, they are quickly branded as “idiots”, “retards”, or “useless”. Nevertheless, the software company still needs to make money to cover the costs of creating and maintaining there operation. So they reluctantly continue  selling their product/services to the “incompetent idiots” that are not understanding the genius behind the applications they are buying.

The software companies stay very very close to their software peers in order to compensate and gather as much praises from them. After all, a praises from a peer is so much better than one from your clients. They couldn’t care less what their customers say about their products and what improvement they would like to see, as they see them as inferior that are only there to pay their bills. Like monkeys trying to explain to you how to operate your car. They come to really disdain this relationship whereby they have to take money from “idiots”. All they want is to be recognized as the new Google, get millions in funding and be admired by other programmers.

There is no love in a application creator/client relationship. We have seen it and we still see it in the photo industry. Since going digital, and especially after the billions spend by Yahoo for Flickr, a little flock of software companies, mostly start ups, have knocked on the doors of this market. And reluctantly did so. From database management to image recognition, they have found and develop some interesting tools for this market. However, they disdain the fact that they have to rely on poorly technology educated photo people to make a living.

What are the signs of such companies ? Well, first and foremost, very poor communications skills. Do not return emails or phone calls or take a very, very long time doing so. Would you answer quickly to someone you despise ? They certainly don’t.

Poor or in existent sales team. Usually handled by an entry level person that has absolutely no power. He/she is obviously at the bottom of the pole at this company, and while usually very nice and understanding, a complete waste of time to communicate with.

No training or well thought out documentation. You either get it, like they do, or you are a complete moron that wouldn’t even understand a step by step instruction, so why bother ?

They want you to come to them. Since their creation is so genius, you should be begging to use it, not the opposite.

Finally, and probably the most important, they turn their creation into a “Solution”. Although they have develop an application that they thought was challenging enough to do, they will come to you as if they have found a cure to your problems. They will take the high road and declare: “we are here to save photography”. They take a superior stand to any seasoned professional and explain with a condescending air of ultimate superiority that they know what is wrong with the Photography business and that their software/app/service is THE solution. All like little messiah, they have a greater purpose than selling their companies services. They are here to save you from yourselves.

Let’s be realist. They are all in it to make money. Lots and lots of money. Nothing more and nothing less. They hide there real intention behind a mask of fake benevolence. Most have this annoying unsaid little scheme that if they can corner the market, they can turn around, raise prices, and get a choking stronghold on this universe. In the mean time they rack millions in investors money with this promise.

While technology is certainly a tool for growth, it is also full of the worst snake oil sellers one can ever meet. Their efforts are not as pure as they say. All of them are trying to make a profit , and as large as possible. So next time they ring at your door, think about their business model. How do they intend to get rich on your back. Sure, everyone deserves to be paid. But, is it worth it for your business ?.How tied up will you find yourself if they succeed in cornering the market ? Who will benefit the most ? You, or them ?

Most importantly, if they then do not respond promptly to your emails ( remember, these guys are on their computers/ smartphones 24/7 ), then you know that they could care less about you. And it’s time to move on.

A piece of Advice (for free)

It’s not photography that is sick and dying, it’s the people that handle it. Sure, there has been dramatic bankruptcies, like Grazia Neri , l’ Oeil Public and now Eyedea Press ( that one was a long time coming). On the other hand, there more than a billion of images on Flickr, more on Photobucket, and Facebook. There has never been so many cameras in the streets and so many people interested in photography. With the Internet, there has never been such a demand, and need for images. Smartphones, Ipad, tablets, netbooks, are only increasing the demand for stills.

Yet, pro photographer can’t seem to make a living anymore, while photo editors have either no budget or are being laid off by buckets. So what is wrong ? Well, for one, it’s those who manage photography that are sick. None of the old and current guard have any idea how to take advantage of this Tsunami of demand. It’s leaking from all over the place. The only made with Flickr was when the original founders sold it to Yahoo. Since, it’s been bleeding cash. Instead of creating tools to allow members to license it, they passed it on to Getty Images to try and squeeze some money juice out of it. It could take decades, if not century for Yahoo to see a return on investment using this route.

While magazines are dying a slow and painful circulation death, there online counterpart have yet to be succesful in generate the same revenue as they used too . Why, because they keep on trying to replicate online what has been a success in print. The fact that its not working doesn’t seem to bother them. They keep on trying.

Photographers still shoot the same thing, the same way, for a clientele that is shrinking, both in size and resources. They desperately cling to old formulas that they hope will resurface some day. Not going to happen. And finally, photo agencies try to hang on the slippery slop of declining revenue by agreeing to cut fees in the hopes there is a trampoline at the bottom of the hill. Not there.

Everyone is playing the waiting game, hoping that some savior will find the magic solution. In the mean time, they are all guilty of killing photography by undervaluing it. It’s has become a commodity, some say. Other offer ridiculous subscription model, feeling comfort in the fact that mass production Getty does it. All whine all day, all night, all the time.

Stop whining. Do . Try. fail. Try again. fail again. Who cares? You will make progress. And if you are lucky ( or smart), it will work. Better than you had ever expected. It’s not obvious. But the market is there. The current model doesn’t work, we can all agree on that. So, try new ones. Take advice from no one. Just do. It will hurt, it will be frustrating, it will be exhausting, it will feel incredibly useless, it will not work. But it’s so much better than whining all the time. Stop waiting for something to happen. Take control.