August 4, 2010 by pmelcher.

From a Photo Editor job posting at Time, inc, the world’s biggest publisher of magazine in the world:

-Excellent editorial judgment and eye, must generate story ideas and identify topics to cover, must react to news.
-Edit and build various online photo galleries, notably never-seen LIFE archival content and LIFE.coms weekly feature: The Weeks Best Photos
-Oversee and perform the digital restoration of LIFE archival photos (basic retouching and color correction)
-Experience negotiating and managing usage rights and rates for digital, mobile and video content
-Assign, produce and direct original photo essays
-Liaise with Editorial, Legal, Sales and PR Teams in the execution of featured content packages
-Manage freelance staff
-Strong eye for young talent
- Must be creative in terms of doing more with less for less and must be ready and willing to do so

Revealing, isn’t it ? Especially the last phrase, which could be rewritten like this : Must be capable of getting the best images for peanuts and not complain about it. Ever.

This is symptomatic of the photo world today : Publishing companies profiting from the recession to squeeze top talent into a dilapidated photo department and forcing them to put pressure on photographers.

When will we see photo editors salaries only constituted of the money they save ?

Here is you budget. Whatever you do not use for photo purchase, you can keep for yourself.

Thus putting photo editor in direct survival competition with photographers.

As long as the publishing companies keep on treating photography as a necessary evil that needs to be crushed into “misc.” category along with other parasite expenses, nothing will change.

And, as long as there is photographers or photo agencies willing to accept this pathetic treatment , nothing will change.

O yes, if you wondered why we all had to sacrifice ourselves: 

Time Inc. Operating Profit Jumps 50%, Ad Revenue Climbs 4%

Posted in celebrity, license, magazine, Good Enough, Corpocrates, newspaper, SIPA, news, editorial, photojournalism, TIME, getty | Print | No Comments »

July 22, 2010 by pmelcher.

So, it seems that most people would consider that we have reach a turning point in our industry. Which one, no one is really sure. Let’s see if we can fix that.

What happens when people are asked to perform the same task for less  compensation they are used to receiving ? Well, they use the same skills they have always used but in less time, as they try to augment the number of jobs they can perform, in order to increase their revenue ( or at least keep them flat). Thus, they come out with more or less the same product or service, but just less worked upon. It caries less quality, less commitment, less attention to details.

When amateurs entered the  commercial stock market via microstock, they where very lucky. No one was looking for high end quality images, just images that did the trick. Art Directors and Graphic designers, using microstock, were looking for images that fit their needs, but no more. And that was fine because their was no masterpiece in there. As the market grew, contributors quickly realized that this was number games. The more images you could upload in the least amount of time could render selling via microstock a profitable proposition. And so they did.

Today the market, both from  amateur and pro offering , is filled with these images. They are ok; they are Good Enough. Because the image buyers are also under the same budget/time constrain, they are quite satisfied with that offering since they also will not spend the time to research more.

And so, here we are, in 2010 in the “Good Enough” market.  This middle place between perfect and not so good. It’s a comfort zone that satisfies all the available element : Time, Budget and Expectation. Those who handle the budget, those God-like figure that stand omnipotent behind any photography job , have unleashed a new powerful attribute to our everyday lives. And we all have  followed. Photo agencies have also lowered their standards and have accepted images they would have never accepted 10 years ago. There is nothing wrong with that : 10 years ago, there was no market for “goodenough” images. Today, there is.

Of course, the snake eats its own tail. This widening of the market allows more contributors to enter their offering, because that is the only thing they can do : Good enough images.

Who suffers ? Well quality suffers, obviously. Since it is not rewarding anymore to spend a lot of time on images, no one really does. If someone is happy with a half done job then that is great. Perfectionist suffer as their market is diminishing.

Who else ? Well, image consumers, obviously. They don’t get to see great images anymore. Just illustrations that didn’t cost too much to purchase and fit the need. No more, no less.

And don’t think for a second that this is a microstock only issue. Photojournalism, celebrity, sports, portraits,  wedding, every aspect of the photography world has been affected by the “Good Enough” mentality. Publications are quite satisfied in publishing good enough images and nothing more. Look at Time and Newsweek, for example. They are now full of wire service images which are the supreme masters in providing good enough images.

Even websites, supposedly on the cutting edge of  media publishing, use images by the pound, regardless of their quality. They are not looking to secure rights to superb images : Just those that fit the need. Who cares if their are not great, they didn’t cost much.

It seems to be fine with everyone : They pay less, they expect less.  Readers, especially online since it’s free, also know they cannot be demanding.

Maybe at the tail end of this recession we will see the resurgence of the exceptional, the high quality, the amazing.  For now, however,  it seems  we will  continue to fill our lives with good enough and dream of a better future.

Posted in license, web 2.0, celebrity, magazine, commercial stock, prosumer, flickr, editorial, transaction, finance, photojournalism, Microstock | Print | 2 Comments »

July 19, 2010 by pmelcher.

Man I love what this guy has to say :

Posted in license, multimedia, Search, TIME, celebrity, magazine, E Reader, commercial stock, technology, web 2.0, prosumer, news, corbis, getty, editorial, transaction, flickr, photojournalism, finance, Microstock | Print | 3 Comments »

July 13, 2010 by pmelcher.

 ( the issue with the player has been fixed)

A great and insightful interview of VII Manager Stephen Mayes. You want to understand where the photo industry is going, you have to listen to him :

Thank you Gerald Holubowicz

Posted in magazine, technology, lens, multimedia, Search, editorial, photojournalism, news | Print | 3 Comments »

July 12, 2010 by pmelcher.

The Long love affair between photography and Media is over .

Because the editorial world is replacing experience photo editors with journalistic background for inexperience pixel pushers that are ordered to select the cheapest images, regardless of quality, they are opening the visual airways for steep competition.

A bit like traditional Royalty free opened the door to microstock by increasing prices and leaving a huge marketplace vacuum, magazines ( web or print) are leaving a wide open space for quality photography.  Because they still thinking terms of gatekeepers, they beleive the audience will follow them into whatever they publish. Problem is, this is the internet : the many to many market. They are no gatekeepers anymore, just influencers.

More and more, out of frustration to see great images go unpublished, photo agencies or photographers are doing their own editing/publishing. Zuma Press, with their Double Truck magazine was one of the first ones. Probably fed up of not seeing great images published in their rightful format, aka double page, they proceeded in doing their own magazine, featuring the images they liked the most. Is it a runaway success ? No. But it was a first.

Since then, a lot of photo agencies have launched their own blogs, featuring their own images, since their traditional clients would not use them. Not because they were bad, but because they were unwilling to pay a decent price for them. Some of these blogs, like X17online.com have become leaders in their markets. Photo agencies like VII have also launched  their own magazine, also in frustration of never seeing some of their great coverage go unpublished.

The result ? The public now has access to other sources of photography, previously hidden from them. They can see and compare. Gatekeepers are being challenged by influencers.

The smart publisher are the ones that will quickly realize and capitalize on this. Drop the most traveled image rat race for the lesser traveled side road of quality.

Here’s the deal : A well designed magazine with high quality- exclusive content will have no problem raising a successful paywall. The same way as people have no problem paying for very expensive Jewelry at Tiffany’s, or Cartier, they have no problem for paying for something they feel has value. They will not never pay for same middle of the road content. It’s not Pay walls that do not work, it’s what it’s what is behind them.

So here is the evolution of photography : More and more, creators of photography , disappointed of not seeing their best work being published, mostly because of unbreakable subscription deals made with mass providers, will start self publishing . More and more, those precious eyeballs that all want to retain so desperately will start navigating elsewhere and spread their attention span to other non mainstream sites.

The tide will be even greater when a critical mass will start understanding that they are not seeing the best , but the cheapest . Photographers will start combining their content with others and create their own outlets. Photo Agencies will gain momentum in their self publishing efforts. The media outlets that have spend millions to raise and maintain their brands will start being eclipsed by a guy and a computer.

Don’t think it can work ? Wireimage has been very succesful for many years in charging consumers to have access to medium  access to their images. No downloads, no editorial, just access to bigger thumbnails. Strangely, that model has never been replicated while their is no reason why it wouldn’t work elsewhere.

Editorial publishers are dropping the ball on their suppliers and forcing them to become their own competition. Or go out of business. Does that make any sense ? All that while lying to their clients. How long will that last ? Even with the advent of Ipads and E readers, this will not continue long.

Maybe the fall of Newsweek, and right behind, Time magazine, has a lot to do with that. If you have paid attention, you would have seen that in the last 4-5 years, they have reduced their image content to everything Getty/AP/Reuters in order to save money. Result ? Same images you all have seen on the web, but a week later…And then they wonder why people don’t purchase them anymore. They have laid off so many great photo editors that there is no way they can even find a great image anymore. In other words, they have both killed what had made them successful.

In other words, if photography is in crisis right now, its because Media is dying of a long slow agonizing death and trying the bring it along. Trouble is, photography can live without Media, not the opposite. These times are about to show it.

Posted in celebrity, magazine, Newsweek, E Reader, license, TIME, news, editorial, photojournalism, web 2.0, getty | Print | No Comments »

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 »

July 5, 2010 by pmelcher.

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?

Posted in web 2.0, magazine, lens, flickr, photojournalism, law, editorial, news | Print | No Comments »

June 27, 2010 by pmelcher.

If you have been like most people and keeping an eye on the world soccer cup, you might have noticed something quite interesting. Well, at least if you are watching it on ESPN, the US sports channel in charge of transmitting the games live.

This year, at least that we have noticed, the cable network has added a new twist : extreme slow motion. No, not extreme slow motion on the actions that led to a goal or a failed goal attempt. Not at all. That has been used forever. Extreme slow motion on expressions.

Here and there, ESPN cuts into the video action to bring forth a face, a reaction or  a slow sequence of arms being raised in sour despair. It will focus on a  frustrated scream, an insider smile,  an exhausted look and play it in very slow motion.

Why ? Because real time video brings the action, extreme slow motion video brings the emotion. It is so slow that it could be viewed as a still, or series of stills . It brings the viewers closers to what the players are feeling at that fleeting moment by slowing down time. Almost to a stand still.

This shows how much the still, the ability to stop time is so much stronger than video. This shows  how the two are not interchangeable as some my think, or wish. They are two modes of expressions showing two aspects of the same event. The video is extremely good at showing action, the still is a master in bringing the emotion.

The comparison between stills and video must stop here. The same way as the comparison between photogrpahy and painting stopped more than a century ago. Sure, all these can capture the same event, but what they bring out is not the same. And then should not be compare.

At first, ESPN extreme slow-mo on random “moments” of the game was annoying me as I couldn’t understand their purpose. I am so used, like everyone else, of expecting video to show me actions of a purposeful meaning that I could not figure out why I was forced to see these snippets of “inaction”. Until they started building into me, making my experience as a viewer of these games more emotional. I could finally be more in touch with the players.

And really, that is what sports is all about, isn’t it? It is not just the moves that make a team win, it is mostly about the individual efforts, frustration, happiness, smiles, pains, intimacy, winks, and cascades of emotions that fill each and every players who have spend a lifetime to perform at such a high level. Sure, goals are important. But the feeling of success and achievement in the eyes of the players that made it all possible makes them human. And only a still can catch that.

Posted in focus, magazine, wire service, editorial, news | Print | No Comments »

June 21, 2010 by pmelcher.

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.

Posted in license, magazine, technology, commercial stock, Search, web 2.0, getty, corbis, flickr, prosumer, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

June 15, 2010 by pmelcher.

It’s on the verge of a precipice and let’s face it, it will be hard to prevent it. No, not the photo industry ; Ethics and photography. More and more we are seeing example of photographer being caught altering their images.

The issue is really affecting photojournalism and sports photography. Commercial shooters, Wedding “documentators”,  Celebrity photographers and  snapshooters have been doing all along with no real consequences . Sure, some aristocratic publication might find it awful that such celebrity had had her body airbrushed for this cover. They forget that celebrity photography is also a part  commercial photography. Celebrities are in the business of selling  their image and photographers are their to help them.   We don’t mind when pictures of fruits or cars are heavily retouched, so why do we care when it is celebrities?

The world of photo j, however, is another story. Because of our cultural background, we tend to gratify our sense of vision with the highest degree of realism. That is, between something touched, heard, smelled, or seen, it is the later that we credit with the most credible.

Why ? Because we have been taught that our eyes don’t lie. That if we see it, then its true.”Show me” is probably the most used term to categorically punctuate an argument. So has been the realm of photojournalism: Truly describe a moment in time and space. Or so we thought.

The history of photojournalism is riddled with example of fakes, altered images and other unethical use of photographs. Or where they ? And who decides what is ethical ? Where does these rule come from ?

Eugene Smith was notorious for spending long hours in his darkroom working on his prints ? Does it make any of his coverage lesser? Certainly not. Some other have cropped , enhanced, shadowed or even damaged their negative. After all, Robert Capa famous images of the D Day landing might not have looked like that if they hadn’t been damaged. They look real enough.

So where is the limit, and who decides? With technology making so much easier to profoundly alter images, deleting or adding items, changing the source of the lighting and so on, how can we, viewer, stay protected ? How can we be guaranteed that what we are seeing is the truth?

The short answer : we can’t. It is commendable that Reuters, along with Adobe, are working on trying to make altered files easily identifiable, but let’s face it, it will never fully work. No, the answer is where it’s always been. With the photographer and with the photo editor. If any of these two are ready to lie, than there is no protection. If they adhere to their own work ethic, than no lies will pass.

So, as our news coverage is becoming more and more crowd sourced and as editing barriers are falling, being replaced by automation, it is inevitable that our images will become less and less credible. I am still amazed, for example, that the Iranian Government did not use Twitter for its own advantage by posting images by fake users showing a different story. next time, certainly.

The way to preserve ethic and photojournalism is to have brands. Like we trust the New York Times for the veracity of its information, we could do the same for photographers and photo agencies.  A certain credit will certify a certain ethic. If photographers decide that their work need heavy photo shop, fine, but they should say it out loud. There is no problem with retouching an image, only in lying and trying to let it pass as an original.

If the IPTC consortium would be smart, they would add a requirement to a field that would have a “R” for “retouched” . Make it easy for people to mark an images as altered. After that, its up to the editors and viewers to decide.

Realistically, we will see more and more lying images abound. It’s going to be up to the viewers to be smarter and interrogating what they see. It will also be to the photogrpahers to brand themselves as instrument of truth. But then again, that is really nothing new.

Posted in magazine, technology, Magnum, commercial stock, celebrity, IPTC, editorial, wire service, photojournalism, news | Print | No Comments »