June 8, 2010 by pmelcher.

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.

Posted in IPTC, keyword, license, Plus, commercial stock, technology, flickr, slideshow, getty, Royalty free, corbis, transaction, CEPIC, finance, Microstock | Print | 6 Comments »

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 »

April 19, 2010 by pmelcher.

Commercial stock photography is all about problem solving. The first is how to make a living shooting commercial stock. One way to do it, is to solve other people’s problems.

When image buyers go to a Web site, it is because they have been asked to provide a solution to a very specific problem: They have text, they have a layout, they have a concept and they have a client with a message. The task: fill in the visual space with the perfect image.

Seems easy in theory. If what’s needed is a picture of a tool, get a tool. If it is a concept, it is much harder.

A photographer’s job, one that shoots stock, is to preempt this problem and solve it. The more common the problem, the more successful the image. Potentially.

How does one figure what problems need to be solved worldwide? In a way, it is not that hard. As humans living in the 21st century, we share common experiences. We seek solutions to a lot of tasks and issues. Our lives, in a sense, are a continuous search to alleviate problems. And unbeknown to us, many are shared by our peers.

So, photographing our own problems, or at least solving them, is productive. Figuring out what the next problem will be is a better way to be a successful stock shooter. The image of the solution, however, should always be tied to the problem.

Once this is understood, that a stock photographer is a problem-solver, a big step has been made. But it is not all. A stock photographer should also know how to create meaning. And for that, we need to dive a little deeper in how the brain functions.

Our eyes, in a way, are very stupid. We receive light, and it bounces into the back of our brains, at the primary visual cortex, which only sees and recognizes basic shapes, like circles, squares, triangle, etc. However, this is not the end of how we interpret a photograph in our brains. It actually goes from there to at least 30 other different places in our brains, some of which we are still figuring out what actually they do.

Some we know:
We will skip quickly over the ventral stream, which is the “what” of our brain that recognizes what an object is and what it does. Sort of the catalog section of our brain. Photographs share this space, in the frontal lob, with words, and how we interpret them. We will also fly quickly over the dorsal stream. That part of the brain creates a map of where the object is. A sort of 3D GPS system that puts the object in perspective to its surrounding.

What is interesting is a third location where the information bounces, and that is called the limbic system. That is deep inside the middle of our brain and very old. Old in the sense that it has been with us throughout our evolution. The limbic system is the part that “feels” those basic emotions, from satisfaction to fear.

Those three parts are what create meaning for a photograph and what every single human being has in common, including your potential client.

That is what stock photographers should go after: create meaning. Images should tickle that part of our brains that recognize, put in perspective and make us feel emotions, because it also makes them valued.

When a creative director or a photo editor is looking for an image, it is not just a problem they are trying to solve, but a meaning they are trying to convey.

If you look at the stock industry, with photo libraries boasting millions upon millions of images, it is easy to see that maybe 90% will never sell. They aren’t useless; they just have no meaning to anyone.

Commercial stock photography, in order to strive, has to offer an emotionally meaningful solution.

Posted in copyright, technology, Magnum, commercial stock, license, multimedia, editorial, photojournalism, keyword, pictogram, news | Print | 1 Comment »

April 12, 2010 by pmelcher.

The acquisition of Plink by Google marks the debut of a potent revolution for the photo world. Not because Plink is a special company, nor that Google really cares about the photo world, but for the technical implication that it implies.

As it is frequent with Google, it is not the company they purchase, but the talent.  Plink, if you do not know, is a company that does  ( did ?) visual search. Take a picture of a painting and it will find the original along with the information. All from your cell phone. Nothing really new : LTU Technology has such such for the Iphone and Idee or Picsout could easily replicate same in ten minutes if they were not so busy trying to find a sustainable business model.

No, what is interesting is the what they how Google intends to expand this technology and use the migrating talents. They will integrate with Google Goggles , their project of photographing with your cell phone a place, object etc and returning a search result.Thus eliminating text based queries. The smarts ones here can see where we are going with this

For that to happen, Google needs to improve object recognition technology. If anyone can do it, and do it well, they can.  There will now be a thousand companies competing in that field, if only to  be  hopefully acquire by Google ( which is a more popular exit strategy then doing an IPO, these days). So what does it mean for the photo world?  Well, at first , the end of manually entered text keywords. With this, an image can be scanned and all content automatically identified and added to the keyword list. Goodbye to the thousands ( mostly in India), that currently provide this process manually. The hard, if not very hard part, will be the conceptual keywords.

What is fresh ? what is happy ? what is “in love”  ? Computers will have a very hard time to decipher human emotions and concepts. It’s not impossible, just very hard. However, 90% of the process will be done already.

It will place Google in a very advance part of the search technology as it will not be easy and simple to replicate. It will accelerate the camera to desktop cycle for photo agencies that use it well, it will make Microstock even more automated and cheaper to process.

So, while you think on how and what to invest in your keywording  work flow, think about what is just around the corner and about to make your competition more cost effective than you. Think about how to reduce manual labor in favor of automated processes. Think about abandoning those endless discussion about how to handle your keywords because so, it will not be an issue. Finally, if you are a company making revenue solely or primarily on providing keywording, the time to change is now.

More on Plink acquisition here.

Posted in Search, commercial stock, keyword, google, prosumer, web 2.0, Microstock | Print | 1 Comment »

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 »

March 9, 2010 by pmelcher.

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.

Posted in Search, IPTC, license, magazine, commercial stock, technology, keyword, flickr, editorial, Royalty free, transaction, finance, photojournalism, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

February 22, 2010 by pmelcher.

      Tired of Orphan works endless discussion ? Fed up about Microstrock, Getty and Google treating photography as a garbage dump ? Bored of reading self-proclaimed photo gurus telling you that “posterity is right around the corner “? Tired of spending gazillions hard earned dollars ( or pesos, or Euros, or Krons ?) on far away workshop with cynical and decadent reporters who need a new camera and couldn’t give a crap what your name is ? Or are you just loosing your eyesight on another overpriced piece of software supposedly made to enhance your workflow but actually puts you that much further from delivering your images on time ?

Well, if you have a Facebook account ( which, by the way, you should by now), head of to “L’apero du premier Jeudi du mois“. Apparently created by a group of French photographers who just like to have fun, and a drink, once a month  ( on the first Thursday of the month) , it is becoming the place to hang out. Why ? because they have just launched their first photo contest.And unlike PDN or other self righteous photo publication, it is free and fun.

Here are, in a nutshell, the rules.  5 images, coherent, on one topic, which is a pun in French : ” Aperitif: Contact Glasses” . You know, in France, when they go out for drinks, before dinner, they have a beer, or a Kir, or a Ricard, and they wish each other a good health ( “as ta sante”, or “a la votre”) before hitting their glasses together and slipping it away. A good way to push away a bad day and a great way to start an evening. The short photo essay for the contest that runs from March 1 to May 5, should illustrate that.  Simple enough ?

The prizes ? O yes, of course, this is what you win ( if you win):

1 prize : a Camenbert

2nd prize: a bottle of Zubrowska

3rd; Pize : a Ricoh camera

The jury ? : everyone. the images will be posted on Facebook and anyone can vote for their favorite . In June, the winner will be announce. So next time you sit down for drinks with your friends after a long boring day and let your thoughts drift into the friendship space, grab a camera and photograph this precious moment . Who knows, you might win a camenbert.

All info ( in French, for now) at the Facebook page here.

Posted in license, IPTC, copyright, magazine, technology, keyword, web 2.0, editorial, finance, slideshow, photojournalism, getty | 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 »

December 10, 2009 by pmelcher.

It is just a question of time. Not years but probably months. Already a lot of desktop consumer based application are offering a glimpse of its power : Image recognition. Google has recently taken it a step further. Search with Image recognition.

“The concept of Google Goggles is dead simple- a user snaps a photo of an object around them, be it a book, building, text or any other object, and the app will return a search result tailored to for that object” explains mobilemarketingwatch.com.

Say you walk in front of a building and would like more info, just snap a picture of it, submit to Google Goggles and voila. Same goes for CD’s , Books, paintings and maybe photographs too. Still in its infancy, Google Goggles , when launched live, will mark the debut of image recognition  as a replacement of text search. For now, the Goggles project is limited to objects. Soon, once the Google lawyers can figure how to get around privacy laws, it will also work with people too. Meet someone new. Take a snap and in 5 seconds, you will know there whole history. Well, at least the one available online.

What does it mean to the photo industry ? Many, many changes. First, a new way to search. All database will soon be able to also offer such a search to their clients. Google tends to create standards. It is nit a bad thing, except for the technophiles out there. Just imagine: Your metadata could be incorrect and image would still be found.  A few companies already offer this technology but not as deep as Google. LTU tech or Idee, for example, will do image matching . That is, if images look similar, regardless of what is in the image. Goggles recognizes what is in the image and looks for that, and not similar images.

Google new visual search will mainly be a huge help for image key wording. Since its inception, it has been notorious for offering free API’s ( that’s a little backdoor that lets two applications talk together) to its technologies. That will allow savvy programmers to tie an image database to Goggles and have all its image indexed automatically. Those microstock will be all over this technology.  While certainly incapable to add emotion or concepts, it will however facilitate a lot of the tedious work of recognizing content.

Companies like Imense who is currently offering similar technology will certainly take a huge hit. Same goes with Idee and its CD or book Iphone apps.

While there is nothing dramatically new in this technology, it is the shear power of Google already indexed document that will make this a success. They will be hardly any images that will not return a result, besides maybe those “artistic” ones.

If you have an android phone, you can try it now : Google Goggles.

Posted in idee, technology, commercial stock, celebrity, keyword, web 2.0, google, editorial | Print | No Comments »

November 24, 2009 by pmelcher.

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

This is what you get on the first page:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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