April 25, 2011 by pmelcher.

Photography has always been about Time. and Space.  When one presses on that button, both are frozen, captured and can thus be delivered elsewhere in Time and Space. That was then.

The makers of the GigaPan, a machine that takes multiple images of a scene with various focal lengths in order to reconstitute it into a massive file have now launched the Time Machine GigaPan.

The GigaPan is well known for allowing viewers to zoom in and out of a photograph without losing any definition, as well as scrolling left and right, giving users more control on how they view a photograph. Now, with the addition of time lapse, one can also travel through time.

The advantage ? A scene is no longer static and one can zoom in ( or out) at specific moments . More user control.

Is this the future of photography ? While the concept is very appealing, giving still images more depth than they could ever dream of ( yes, Stills can dream too) , the file size is already a huge drawback. Furthermore, not all subjects can be time lapsed ( and unlike the current trend, nor should they), nor that all subjects are good candidates for zoom in scrolling.

However, some can be and actually gain depth from this new technology. This is where GigaPan would love for you to help. Join in there project and discover, with them, what would work with this. Come on, when was the last time someone asked you to participate in the future ?

Posted in magazine, technology, multimedia, Search, slideshow, news | Print | No Comments »

April 19, 2011 by pmelcher.

Always a late entry in the continuous flow of photographic awards, the Pultizer is still a very a very, very honorable one to receive. Mainly because it is one of the oldest ( the oldest ?), but also because it is so tied with sister, the written press. This year’s crop has made no discovery of young talented 20 year old who grabbed his camera and got the scoop of the year. None of that.  Rather, the jury went for established professionals with years of industry background and strong financial backing. Is that wrong ? Not at all. photography should not be about who you are, how you did it, but  about what you show: the photograph.

This year’s winners also show that while newspapers might be a dying breed, newspaper photogrpahers are certainly not. They still photograph world events with the same passion and commitment as ever.

That is exactly what the venerable Pulitzer showed this year . One little thing, however : Can someone redesign the site so it does look and feel it was made in the 70’s ? especially, can we make a little effort to display the photographic winners a tad better ?

See winners here :  Breaking News : Pulitzer 

Posted in magazine, technology, newspaper, photojournalism, editorial, slideshow, news | Print | No Comments »

April 12, 2011 by pmelcher.

It’s the content stupid ! well, no more.

Some time ago, if you were lucky enough to have created an image that all wanted, you could easily sit on it and wait for your phone to ring. Not really anymore. The center of the business gravity has shifted. To those who create value around the content.

The downfall of journalism is a good example. The great site of journalism are not doing as well as those who couldn’t care less about quality. The Huffingon Post beats the New York Times. Sure, traffic will tell you a different story. But, finance will not. While the NY Times is struggling to find ways to create dollar value, the Huffington Post sells for more than $300 million. Why ? Because they are in two different businesses.

One is obsessed at creating content, the other in monitizing content. And, right now, the money is in those who know how to monitize content.  In photogrpahy, the same shift has happened. You could be the greatest photographer alive, it wouldn’t matter if you didn’t know how to create value around your content. Those who have experience in doing so are the publishers.

They can take cheap text from one place , a cheap photograph from the other and voila, done. Why ? Because in the internet age of fast and free consumption, people do not expect value for their money as they do not pay. They are fine in receiving what they have paid for : not much.

Thus, why should publishers pay a premium for any photograph ? They will not retain viewers longer, nor will it guarantee  fidelity . Rather, what they focus on is the volume and the management of expectancy. As long as they deliver the little that is expected from them when it is expected from them, than they will create traction. And Dollars.

Why bother paying for an exclusive image when that image can be copied and pasted in thousands of websites within minutes ?  Why pay more for a photograph which will grab someone attention for less than a second before they move on ? It would be a waste of resources.

Rather, it makes much more financial sense to have a repeated pattern of offering over and over, with accurate consistency, the exact expected result. That is where the revenue resides. Within a context, not within the content.  Furthermore, a context can be managed, not content. That is the economy we see all around us and that is why photography, by itself, has little or no value. It is just a very small brick of a much wider context.

Photographers, photo agencies and related have no experience in building value around their images. They sell a raw material that has devaluated because the refineries, those who transform it in consumables, the publishers, only use them as small elements of their final product. They are not the product.

Can it be changed ? Maybe. No one has really tried to create a publication with exclusive or high end photography only. Mostly because those who have tried with text, like the New York Times, have spend a lot of money and failed. Up to now.

Will it change ? It will certainly if paywalls start to be successful . Because as soon as people pay for content, they expect the content to match or surpass the value they paid for it.

Thus, the future of photography, or at least the future of photography  online, depends on the success of paywalls.

Posted in celebrity, magazine, technology, license, Search, finance, photojournalism, web 2.0, editorial | Print | No Comments »

April 7, 2011 by pmelcher.

A great tribute to a great man, of a period when photo editing was so much more than just getting the “cheapest one”.

from the NPPA

Posted in magazine, Magnum, license, multimedia, photojournalism, editorial | Print | No Comments »

March 15, 2011 by pmelcher.

It used to be that photojournalism could be done by everyone. Lately, this seem to have shifted.

When Bob Capa decided to go cover the Spanish civil war, he took with him ( or was it the opposite ?), photographer Gerda Taro. Probably because she died much earlier than Capa ( in 1937), her work is less extensive and much lesser known.

When Margaret Bourke - White photographed the Death Camps at the end of World War II for Life magazine, no one cared if she was a woman or not. Her images told the story and that was that.

Today, more and more, it seems that photojournalism wants to define itself by its gender. More and more, do you see cooperative, workshop, panels, etc for women photographers only. As if your gender was  influential in your photo-journalistic process . Who are we trying to fool ?

I have worked with many, many women photojournalist and I can tell you that if i hadn’t known, I would have never been able to tell the gender by just looking at the images. There is the same talent, or lack of, whether you wear a skirt or not .

It seems that political correctness has now started to reach the shores of the previously sexless island of photography. It appears that some people, with a highly develop social conscience, want you to know what sex was that photographer whose picture you admire. As if it made any difference.

Readers hardly read a photo credit, so why would they care ? Photo editors, the talented ones at least, a gender blind as long as the story is perfectly visually told. So who is behind this and why ?

And if was this was such an issue, why not create a group for black photographers, Jewish photographers, Muslim photographers, gay photographers, or left handed photographers ?

It is bad enough that photographers find the need to categorize themselves in one activity ( Sports, fashion, news, celebrity, etc..) but now they will also have to pick an appropriate social group ?

Why ?

To protect their photographer group against other photographer groups ? Or to make some kind of stupid statement that women photographers are better than men photojournalist ? or have more sensibility ? or are more tuned in other people misery ? Or is it to influence women photo editors to hire women photographers first because of gender wars ?

This self segregation of an already endangered species of artisan is not only ridiculous but pointless and harmful. It will only lead to creating a unnecessary distraction to those who only want to create, publish or view great images.

Posted in magazine, Waste of time, celebrity, No sense, editorial, photojournalism, news | Print | 1 Comment »

February 11, 2011 by pmelcher.

No slightly blurry, underexposed images. No, “look at me, I took these pictures with a broken down Holga standing on one foot” pictures. No, “I am so much more important than the story I am photographing” reportage. No, “look at my Lego skills dude”. Nope.

100 % pure photojournalism. This year World Press Awards are a photojournalism feast with a buffet of the highest quality. Sure, there are more independents than agency photographers ( who cares ?)  . Sure, little Getty images in favor of much more Panos ( I wouldn’t bury Getty just yet). Sure, much more color than Black and White. But that is irrelevant. The World Press Awards is not a crystal ball.

I would question the decision of using a portrait photograph as the number one winner. Not because the image is bad nor that the subject is not worthy. Not at all. I would question it for its potential consequences. Now, every photo reporter in shorts is going to think that the best way to cover a story is to take a bunch of people, stick them in front of a white wall and declare it photojournalism. This trend  is already plagging countries like France and this might make it more universal. Regardless, that should not be the jury’s problem.

I love the slap in the face given to AFP and Getty by attributing Daniel Morel Haiti’s images a well deserved award. I am sure they considered the little girl image as a first prize for a long time.

Not sure, finally, about the Google Street award. Isn’t that a funny subject for a magazine to put together but really not a World Press award contender? Furthermore, aren’t we fringing on copyright infringement here ? I suppose that was the World Press jury “social media” moment.

Now, if magazines ( especially in the US)  would only have the talent to publish more stories like these, the world would be a perfect place ( well, almost). If publishers worldwide would recognize how important these images are to their publications and pay a decent price for them, that would be heaven. Until then, we can hardly say that Photojournalism is dead ( or even dying for that matter). Congrats to all the winner and a double cheer to the talented jury.  ‘Nough said :

Posted in TIME, license, magazine, Social Media, photojournalism, wire service, news, editorial, slideshow, getty | Print | No Comments »

February 6, 2011 by pmelcher.

One of the interesting aspects of the launch of The Daily this week, for those of us who are in the business of licensing images, is how to price those images.

Traditionally, an image license takes in consideration the circulation of the publication. And with  print, it is no problem. A publisher will decide how many copies to print and hope that they will all sale. Thus, the circulation is clear, cut, precise.

With an Ipad only publication, well, at first, there is no circulation. The publisher releases an issue and waits to see how many people will download it. Thus, the real circulation numbers are only known after the issue has been replaced by the new one.

So how do you price that ? Well, the best you can do is price the license based on known numbers. Those would be the ones of yesterday’s issue and hope they will be close enough.

But what if it’s a new circulation and it has no previous numbers? Do you use zero as the circulation number ? probably not.

It used to be that the publisher took all the weight of the publication cost.  By deciding how many copies to print, they would, in effect, also decide the cost of an image. Now, it is up to the licensor to partly take over that responsibility. They have to try and figure out the licensing value of their images based on an educated guess. There is a good chance they will always be too low.

In a perfect world, the image license fee should be decided at the end of the day ( for a newspaper, like The Daily) based on how many downloads. It would be possible if the publisher would share these numbers with you. While they are more than willing to do so  with advertisers, they will not with image suppliers.

An ” intelligent image” could report back to you and automatically bill your clients based on downloads, at the end of the day. It would be fair, especially if your image( s) where instrumental in provoking a spike. Otherwise,  you are left to play a guessing game with a blindfold.

Slightly related :

Like everyone else, I have been following the events in Egypt. It is hard to say, and maybe see, the image or images that will remain as icons of this movement. However, they are plenty going around. However, one unnerving  item is Time Magazine. On their website ( and maybe in print), they have there sideshow by Dominic Nahr from Magnum. While the image are good, there are two main aspects that are wrong:

- One : they call it “Time Exclusive photos: The Clashes in Cairo.” . This make it sound like they are the only ones to have covered this event. Which clearly they are not.What is exclusive is that you will only see Dominic Nahr’s coverage of the clashes on Time.com.

Not sure if anyone cares.

- Two: The whole page has to refresh every time you switch to the next photograph. You would think that for a publication own by Time Warner, we could expect a better site design than one done by a 11 year old in 1994. Come on people, it’s 2011!!

Posted in magazine, license, Canada, technology, E Reader, multimedia, newspaper, finance, slideshow, photojournalism, TIME, editorial | Print | 1 Comment »

February 3, 2011 by pmelcher.

Sometimes, away from the screams of the mainstream media’s ADD ( Attention Deficit Disorder) , you fall on some incredibly powerful story. This is one of them.

Beautifully photographed and edited by photographer Piotr Malecki.  ‘Nough said.  Take a look :

Posted in magazine, multimedia, photojournalism, slideshow, editorial | Print | No Comments »

January 24, 2011 by pmelcher.

It’s started when Royalty Free wanted to find an easier way to price images. Someone, somewhere ( history forget his/her name) suggested that images should be priced according to size. A bit like a bag of potatoes .  The bigger size, the more expensive.

Back in the late 90’s, that made perfect sense. To use a photograph in print, you needed a bigger size than for web usage.  And , since websites were poor experiments, that was fine.

Fast forward to 2011 :  Microstock , the irreverent child of Royalty free, has full embraced it’s elder’s pricing structure. A small file size is cheaper than a big file size.

That would be fine if the market had remained the same; But , it hasn’t.  With more than 14 million units sold in 2010, the Ipad has kicked wide open the door of publishing. At the recent CES ( Consumer Electronic Show), no less than 80 different tablets were announced. In the mean time, print is slowly choking under the combined weight of its rising costs and  growing irrelevancy. Websites are now starting to suck all available resources, including budgets.

In other words, the market for images is going 100 % digital. Which means that publishers, advertisers, designers need much smaller files. For example, an Ipad image needs to be 1028 pixels on the large size, at 130 dpi. No more. That means the markets is going to need more and more of the smaller files. You know, those that cost the less. To the point that the larger files, the XXL’s, might never get sold anymore.

Since Royalty Free ( microstock included) has made the wrong assumption that smaller image files were always going to be a marginal market, they are entering this new market totally under priced. They are practicality giving away the small file sizes in order to attract visitors.

If they were smart, they should reverse their pricing scheme. Make the large files the cheapest. But, for various reasons, that would never work. One of the most obvious reason would be that no one would understand why bigger is cheaper ( or smaller is more expensive). That is just not the way we think.

The second irony  is that cameras are also producing larger and larger files  while the market for images needs smaller and smaller files.

It is just a mistake to beleive that only editorial images are being affected by this shift to digital usage. Advertising will follow where publishers are going , as well as brochures, books and practically  everything else. Even billboards will end up fully digital. It is just a question of time.

The challenge of the next five years will be how to re invent the pricing structure in order to take full adavantage of this new demand, not only in pricing but delivery methods.

Posted in technology, commercial stock, E Reader, magazine, license, Royalty free, editorial, finance, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

January 13, 2011 by pmelcher.

Strangely enough, the future of photography is in curation. With the onslaught of images invading the web in an ever growing pace, the task of finding the right image is becoming more and more arduous.

Strangely, because it is mostly in the editing department that companies are making cuts (pun intended) . The recent trend has been to let go of talented photo editors and curators, in favor of poorly designed algorithms , crowd-controlled selections or freshly out-of-internship semi-volunteers.

One would think that for website boasting millions of images, the ability to get to the right one would be a priority. But, because of the sheer volume, it has become  almost impossible to  have it done by human. While sites like Flick ( billions of images) rely on a sophisticated secret sauce of “rules” that allow certain images to bubble up, others, like microstock companies, rely on penny paid armies of humans spread out across the world. Still, the results is overwhelming.

For now, the burden is on the searchers. They are now the curators forced to push their way past irrelevant images to find the right one. It can be paralyzing .

Thus, the next step is to deliver the right image to the right person without them having  to cut through pages and pages of sub par or irrelevant images.Because the volumes have become inhuman, the solutions offered are also inhuman : Each company are intensively trying to develop their own Google like algorithm  that will  magically extract the correct result. Is it working ? no. will it work, maybe.  None, however, has thought to hire professional photo editors that could create a highly edited collection of perfectly selected images : The best of breed.

However, that would solve a lot of problems. Sure, there would be less choice. However, there would be much, much better results. See, the “Long Tail’ theory has polluted the photo industry in making people think that the more you offer, the more chance you have to be successful. A bit as if your local supermarket decided to carry everything ever made. Sure it could be appealing but could you imagine the size? Even Walmart decides what to carry and what not to carry.

Algorithms can not only be beaten, ( Google is constantly changing theirs) but they tend to create averages. Actually, they look for conformity. Thus promoting more of the same .Crowd sourcing ? well, that is also a source of average conformity. Crowd photo editing site like Fotopedia or Acquine  are a good example of the results you get :  Middle of the road images that everybody likes or that no one hates. Not really the curation that is so badly needed.

In order to different itself from the masses of camera crazy photo enthusiast, the photo industry needs to stop trying to compete with Flickr and its offering and start heavily editing its content for perfect results. It needs to reach out to those incredibly knowledgeable photo editors that the publishing industry has dropped and tell them to work their magic.

The future of photography business lies in its ability to continue to be a medium of excellence . For that, it needs to shed its goodenough branches in favor of its prettiest blossoms .

Posted in magazine, license, technology, commercial stock, Good Enough, Social Media, Search, web 2.0, editorial, Royalty free, photojournalism, flickr, prosumer, Microstock | Print | No Comments »