A rather big parallel universe to the photo industry is the copyright industry. According to the Copyright Alliance, “The U.S. core copyright industries accounted for an estimated $819.06 billion or 6.56% of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) in 2005.” That, of course, includes music, graphic, video on top of photography. One has to assume … Read More →
Funny thing about newspapers and magazines these days. They have a hard time jumping over the fence and taking full control of their future. It is obvious that dailies and weeklies, in their current format, have no chance of surviving against the web. But they all think of their web presence as a supplement to … Read More →
One thing that has always bothered me is why the commercial stock companies always offer discounts on their images and never the editorial photo agencies. Hold it ! I am not saying they should. If you go on Royalty free websites, there is always, always a promotion going on. Get 2 images for the price … Read More →
There are some that still combat royalty free in what seems to be an unfounded hope that it will disappear. Others that turn a blind eye towards microstock and its user generated content. If I can’t see it, it doesn’t exist. Then, there are those who strongly believe that this whole technology thing is just … Read More →
It seems that image tracking company Picscout is seriously advancing on a new way to generate revenue from blogs with the imminent launch of Picapp, currently in Beta testing. The principle is simple. You get a free image to post on your website as long as you accept advertising on it . A bit like … Read More →
We all know that black and white, Holga / Lensbaby enhanced (?) with a touch of personal sensibility photo “journalism” is a dying breed (thank G~d !) and that it has created in its wake a lamenting song of despair : Photojournalism is dying. Well yes, bad photojournalism, the one that desperately tries to mix … Read More →
Just returned from 3 days of Paca international conference in Sin city. How appropriate to have held the yearly convention in a gambling town full of hard core, die hard risk takers. Our industry, the photo industry is very similar in its model. When we take images for stock, we purchase lottery tickets. we invest … Read More →
I went to PictureHouse NY this year, not as an exhibitor, but as an image buyer. It was a very rewarding experience. The first, and probably foremost experience was the terribly empty and deserted video footage room. With at most 5 distributors, but none of the big players, they must have stared at each other … Read More →
“Digital Disciples make up the second-largest group (35%) and consider themselves serious amateur photographers“. According to The Kodak Photo Futures Report, the same Disciples are “the most likely to explore photo editing software and have ambitions to make money from their hobby”. Who knew? First who knew that Kodak was still in the photo … Read More →