February 2, 2010 by pmelcher.

Well, not exactly. The Investment firm MSD managed by Michael Dell, the founder of the famous computers, has acquires 185,000 prints from the Magnum collection. The sum? undisclosed. But it is rumored to be the largest photo transaction in history. The terms, also unclear. Magnum retains the copyright and the  licensing rights.

So what did the MSD acquire ? Well, probably just that : 185,00 prints ranging from the the 1930’s to 1998. The prints will reside for now in Austin, Texas, Harry Ransom Center for 5 years. After that, nothing is known.It is certainly a well thought out coup for Magnum which has been struggling with financial issues for decades and avoided multiple acquisition schemes launched by the Corbis and Getty’s .

This will give them a financial security to continue to operate independently for a long while without losing their cherished independence.It is also great news for photography lovers. Not only Magnum escapes the claw of the greedy corporates and their notorious incompetence but there is a good chance this collection will travel across the world for viewing by even more people.

Finally, since Magnum is a co op, there is a very good chance the photographers themselves retain the majority of this financial downfall and they really, really deserve it.

PS : estimates put the deal at $100 Million. That is about $500.00 per print. Is that a good deal ?

More here  at Bloomberg news 

Posted in photojournalism, copyright, Magnum, finance, transaction, corbis, editorial, getty | Print | No Comments »

January 27, 2010 by pmelcher.

Before we go any further ( we spoke about the Ipad here already anyways), we need to point out something extremely important. There are people in this industry, when they talk, you listen. Jonathan Klein is one because who knows what other damage he will create with his roller company  and he lies a lot ( according to Klein. “We were the first people in the world to sell an image online,”). Ellen Boughn is another.

For those who don’t know Ellen ( are they any?) , let me explain : Ellen is one of these extremely rare person that have done it all. From editorial, to commerial stock, royalty free and Microstock, she has been deeply involved in every facet of this industry. Unlike others, she has gotten herself dirty with all aspects of licensing images from production to sales, from little to giant corporation. She has seen everything and pays attention to everything. She has an insight that is only surpassed by her intelligence. There is nothing that scares her and she has the curiosity of a 10 year old. She has met everybody that is anybody in this business and yet respects everyone the same way. She has a passion for photography that would put to shame anyone. She is so good that his master himself, Henri Cartier Bresson, offered her a signed print, something that he extremely rarely did.

To top it all, she is an independent thinker. She will tell you things the way they are, regardless of the consequences. She knows no camp but excellence and truth. Her incisive mind can be brutally honest  because she is not scared of anything or anyone.  She is an encyclopedia of knowledge that you will never read anywhere ( unless she publishes more books). She is one of the reason why I love this industry so much : It attracts some of the smartest, intelligent, witty, knowledgeable people on the planet. People with a vast culture and yet  constantly curious about everything.

Why do I write this ? Because Ellen has started her on blog. And if you only read one thing, that should be it. Amateur, pro, super pro, whatever side of this industry you are, this should be the first thing you read. You will never be offered such a rewarding experience, for free. So, stop reading this and go bookmark her blog and hold on to you socks.

http://www.ellenboughn.com/blog

We are not worthy..

Posted in license, multimedia, magazine, technology, commercial stock, Magnum, web 2.0, photojournalism, getty, Royalty free, corbis, editorial, transaction, Microstock | Print | 5 Comments »

January 14, 2010 by pmelcher.

There is nothing worst for a photographer, like for an actor, to be typecast. For Dennis Stock, who passed away this week, that is what happened. Ultra famous for the iconic images he took of James Dean just before he became famous, he had to drag this notoriety like a canon ball tied to his foot throughout his whole career. To a point that few people know the rest of his work. Which is a shame.

Dennis was a relationship photographer. Unlike Henri Cartier Bresson or Capa , Dennis wanted and needed to know his subjects very well before he would photograph them. He had to see their insides before taking pictures of their outside.  Maybe that is what he took out of his two weeks assisting Eugene Smith.

Incredibly fortunate to have worked as an assistant for some of the greatest name of photography early on in his career ( Eugene Smith, Gjon Mili), he also had extremely good contact with the photo beast of the time , Life Magazine. Unlike other original Magnum photographers, he was not known for his nice, cuddly ways. Direct, sometimes harsh, he did not hesitate to say what he thought, regardless of the consequences. His images somewhat reflect this. They are direct, have no artifice, and can be cruel sometimes. However, that was the cruelty that comes with reality and he never apologized for it because he didn’t feel responsible. The world as it is.

Dennis Stock photography could be separated in two  phases: His people years ( Hollywood, Jazz, Communities) in the first half of his career  and his nature years.  Somewhere in his photography search, he must either have become very disappointed with people, as he completely stop photographing them until his death. Maybe it was because he wanted to escape the incredibly suffocating success of his James Dean images and show that he could do great images without a human figure in them.

What is certain, is that like one his mentor Eugene Smith, he worked on his stories for a long, long them. He was nt a snaphot shooter, not an opportunity snapper. Weeks, months, if not years was not an uncommon period of time for him to complete a story. That his why he does not leave a huge body of work, but rather a very selective passionate vision of the world.

Every time a great photographer dies, it is another eye on the world that closes.

Magnum in Motion did a great piece on Dennis Stock and his work :

Posted in magazine, Magnum, celebrity, multimedia, slideshow, photojournalism, editorial | Print | 1 Comment »

October 2, 2009 by pmelcher.

I was unaware of  Trent Parke until a friend pointed it out today. Maybe, and most probably, I had seen some of his images somewhere and had failed to register his credit. It happens.

Magnum in Motion, one of the best achievement of the Magnum photo agency, has just published “Minutes to Midnight”, a long but extremely well done multimedia, showing Trent, his work and his ideas. Amazing images along with an as well amazing character. A great show to discover this Week End while you catch up with the important things in life. Like looking at great talent:

Posted in technology, lens, Magnum, multimedia, web 2.0, editorial, slideshow, photojournalism, news | Print | No Comments »

April 30, 2009 by pmelcher.

No..it doesn’t have the swine flu virus. But it does contain some photojournalism archeological evidence. Surely, photojournalism archeology is a brand new science that does not date back as far as human archeology, but it is just as fascinating.

The famous suitcase believed to contain Robert Capa negative of the Spanish Civil war, found in Mexico, finally reveals some of it content. The first surprise: its not just Capa in there, but also “Chim” (David Seymour, co founder of Magnum) and Gerda Taro. The New York Times calls it “groundbreaking work”. I call interesting but certainly not groundbreaking. And a little frustrating. Mostly because the images shown do not seem at the level of already known work of these photographers. Poor edit ( its the ICP who is in charge, after all) or is this suitcase made of non choice? Hard to tell.

The suitcase does not reveal anymore information on the famous Mexican soldier image by Capa. Whether the curators destroyed it or are hiding the evidence or nothing was there, that is up to you to decide based on your level of Paranoia.

There is no pre history of photography. Thus, these images fit right in with contemporary stories, whether it is Georgia, Sri Lanka, Israel and too many other places of neighbors killing  neighbors. The faces of the victims or perpetrator are  similar to those we have seen photographed by the likes of Capa’s legacy.

click image to see the NYT slide show:

PS: How come Magnum doesn’t have these images. After all, 2 of the photographers are Magnum founders. Is it because Cornell, Robert’s brother, founded the ICP ? But still, how does that take precedent? Well at least its not one of the G’s ( Getty or Google_)

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

March 25, 2009 by pmelcher.

A bunch of photography associations recently banded together and issued a joint statement.  Called “Save photography !”, it is looking to garner enough signatures from photo professionals to make an impact. The country is France and the associations are Freelens (a photojournalist association), the UPC ( Union des Photographes Createurs) and the Saif ( An association for creators of visuals).

In a nutshell, the statement says that photography is under the multiple attacks of “royalty Free”, microstock pricing and images credited under the all encompassing “DR” , which stands for Droits Reserves, meaning Rights Reserved, which is a corny way to say “we do not who owns this image but it is certainly not yours and we will not pay anyone”.  Falling prices, the “commoditisation” of photography and the legal definition of an original are also issues being raised. You can read the full statment here ( in French).

There is a certain legitimacy to their complains, albeit it seems what they want to save is the business side of photography, not really photography itself. As all things French, the petition doesn’t offer any other solution than asking the government to do something about it.

What I suggest they do, is ask Getty Images to stop giving  $20,000 grants to TV photographer Alex Majoli.To see what I mean, please see his latest production on Magnum in Motion:

Maybe he needs the money to purchase a better  tv set for his next project ( in color, maybe ?).

Regardless people, who are you kidding? I see great work from pro photographers who could actually use the money to achieve great work. What is wrong with you ? is this the kind of photography you really want to promote ? Henri Cartier Bresson must be having a tsunami in his grave as I can assure you, that was NOT the reason he created Magnum. Not for that kind of nombrilistic, uber self-absorded, hyper refflective intello photography.

The only way photography can be saved, besides asking the French government, of course, is to stop promoting this “salon photography “whose serves no other purpose than…heck, I don’t even know what purpose it has.

Posted in No sense, multimedia, focus, Magnum, photojournalism, slideshow, getty, law, france, editorial, Royalty free | Print | No Comments »

February 16, 2009 by pmelcher.

“But one of the — Google — I mean, the harsh way of just defining it, Google devalues everything it touches. Google is great for Google, but it’s terrible for content providers, because it divides that content quantitatively rather than qualitatively. And if you are going to get people to pay for content, you have to encourage them to make qualitative decisions about that content.” _Robert Thomson (managing editor of The Wall Street Journal)_

I find this quote right on the spot, for two  reasons. Google, by becoming the number one search engine on the web has  become a standard that everyone follows and copies.  Most photo agencies these days  boast the size of their archives and the speed of their search result rather than the quality of their content. It used to be that photo agencies would only represent top talent regardless of the quantity. What you would find would never be available elsewhere and clients where guarantied a certain level of quality.

These days, everyone is representing just about everyone else and most of the content can be found elsewhere. Furthermore, a search on any of these mega sites  just return a hefty volume of images, hoping that the right one will be in the pack. No effort is made to separate the quality images from the pack. Creativity is trumped by productivity. A photographer producing more has more change of being sold than one that has great talent. Nothing new here.

But the second part of this quote is much more revealing. “And if you are going to get people to pay for content, you have to encourage them to make qualitative decisions about that content.”

The more you have content, the more you say that each and every unit of that content is worthless. If you have thousands of pair of shoes, what do you care if the one you are wearing got scratched. You will probably throw them out, regardless of who the designer is. It is in human nature to associate rarity with quality. Same goes with photography : These mega sites, offering millions, if not 10 millions of images, are really just saying that their content is really not that good, but they have a lot of it. Since their search result do not even offer a quality option filter, every image is treated like the next one: The quality  is based on the lowest common denominator.

Works great for Microstock who brand themselves as cheap  discounters. No one expects to find a Cartier-Bresson in there.  Not so good for the rest of the industry, yet it is where everyone is headed, if not already there.

If you want your customers to pay, they have to feel that their are purchasing something special, if not unique. It also has to be package so that it looks unique. Photography does not escape this rule.

Posted in Search, technology, Magnum, google, web 2.0, getty, corbis, flickr, Royalty free | Print | No Comments »

January 1, 2009 by pmelcher.

I like the new year. For one good reason. Everyone does a round up of all the best images of the year in a beautiful slideshow. So, like every year, I wandered through the internet, looking at different version of the year in pictures. This is where I went:

AOL

MSNBC

The Big Picture
The New York Times

Sports Illustrated

Der Spiegel

Time Magazine

And this is what I saw. Only pictures from either AP, Reuters, Getty and a little bit of EPA. All wire services, nothing else. At first I thought it was just a USA thing, but no. Even Der Spiegel, the famous German magazine did the same. Time magazine, The New York Times and Sports Illustrated decided that the best images were the ones that they had assigned, thus presenting only pictures of either staff photographers or assigned photographers.

Now, do not get me wrong. There are a lot of very talented photographers at the wire agencies, and some did an incredible job this year, but still. Ignoring photographers from Aurora, Redux, Noor, VII, Abaca, Sipa, Gamma, Reporters, Magnum, National Geographic, Minden, and so many other source, just because they are not accessible via a monthly payment is plainly ridiculous. Its pure journalistic laziness. And another pin in the machine.

All these so called photo editors who called themselves journalist either did not take the time to look around or simply refused to do so because it would cost them more money. Sad and pathetic. It is an insult to the photographic world to blindly close your eyes and the production of all these extremely talented photographers. It’s plain censorship. Economical censorship, maybe but still censorship. They will not publish and show these images because they are too expensive. Thus their readers will never see them. Not because they are bad, but because they will not pay for them.

Who is to blame ? The subscription model and the bean counters that have taken over. Who is suffering ? Everyone, since we are all deprived from seeing the real “best of” and only get to see a washed out version, pre packaged by the wires. What does it say about the state of our industry. Well, for one, that if you are not part of a wire service in 2009, you will have a hard time being published or seen. That real photo editors are disappearing and being replaced by researchers. That there is a real treasure to be mined for those who think outside the wires, and finally, that the public, the readers, are being scammed.

So all these year end “best pictures of 2008″ should be renamed “best cheap and affordable pictures of the year”, leaving room for someone with a budget, and a conscience, to do one with the real best picture of the years.

Posted in SIPA, magazine, Magnum, Aurora, TIME, photojournalism, editorial, finance, slideshow, msnbc.com, getty | Print | 1 Comment »

September 19, 2008 by pmelcher.

It not really a novel idea. Ap, Reuters and AFP have done it for years. The idea is quite simple. On one side, a big company with a lot of staff photographer producing lots of images, on the other, newspapers, gobbling images by the pound on a daily business. It is not really photography that is being licensed, but information.

Comes in Getty who pushes the concept to non wire service media: Magazines, monthlies and so on. The idea is then to sell images as a service. We will create such a volume of images that you will undoubtedly find your match many times over. And the more you use us, the less it actually cost per image. On paper. For Getty, it is a great deal. Since they do not pay commissions to staffer,  they just need to match the number of subscribers to meet their photographer payroll expenses. Salvation is in the number of subscriptions sold. For the photographers, who cares. They get a salary so who cares who and where their images are being sold. For photo editors, its good and bad. Good to have cheap and alsmost endless ressource of images for cheap, not so good if they like to have a freedom of choice. Thus, the ones that are really consonscious about doing their job perfectly are not the ones who push for such scheme. But they have to deal with bean counters above them that do not care.

In most countries, magazines are run not by Editor and chief or CEO but by CFO’s. These CFO have no journalistic training, hardly open the magazine and only care about the bottom line : saving money. Unfortunately they have the power.

What happens ? Well, for one thing, the quality of the images publish drop. Because they have to edit within a pre-edited pool of images, photo editor have to rely on the best of the worst. Not that Getty have bad images, quite the opposite, but they do not always get the best. Its the nature of the beast. Regardless, readers will get to see not the best image, but something close. Not good. Take Boston.com Big Picture blog, for example. It is only wire service images they publish, thus giving the false impression that these are the best images. They are not. Its not journalism, it is deception, it’s a lie. Just to save a few bucks. This is not helping photography at all.

The competition, other photo agency, thinking it is a good idea, start jumping in the subscription scheme. Except that they forget that it is only profitable if you have a huge amount of clients. making subscription deals with 10 clients is a waste of time and money. Worse, they will do it with commissioned photographers,  forcing them to spend hours calculating who gets what at the end of the month. Ridiculous.

Getty is clearly trying to asphyxiate its competition, that is the lesser sized photo agencies, with this strategy. It doesn’t care about readership and its clients so much. Once on contract, they are stuck with their production and that is it. How many times have I heard photo editors claiming and admitting that your image is better but not being able to use it because of a Getty subscription deal made without their approval.

It is a sad situation that this industry is going through currently because the right image does not always win.And its all to the photographers lost. Because even if he/she belongs to Getty, it is sold at the same price as the next image. It never gets the value recognition it deserves, unless if it wins a prize. By averaging the pricing of all images, Getty is even hurting itself by sending a clear message that a photograph is the same as the one before and the next one to come. Well it makes sense for a big corporation trying to streamline cost and revenue, its very cheap thinking, that will, in the end, hurt the very core of our business, the photographers themselves.

The ones that really respect their work do not sign up with Getty. They go with VII, Aurora, Magnum, Cosmos, Contact and do very well. They are also treated as individuals and not “pool feeders “. Subscription deals are extremely counter productive for photographers and photo editors. They do not even benefit the readers. So why do they continue to flourish in a economy where image distribution is not even an issue anymore ? Because some MBA guy thinks that making money=saving money ? Can we all be better than that ?

PS : Gawker.com has posted a rumor that makes no sense : Getty to purchase Flickr. You can read it here.

Posted in license, magazine, technology, Magnum, newspaper, web 2.0, editorial, photojournalism, flickr, getty | Print | 1 Comment »

August 12, 2008 by pmelcher.

- Misconception No1: Photojournalism is not being killed by celebrity photographers. In fact, photographers that cover the celebrity scene, weather red carpet or street photographer have the same ratio of good to bad photographers than in news. It takes some of the same skills to cover news and celebrity. Regardless. Time or Newsweek have not increased their celebrity photography coverage. They just have just lessened their news coverage.

- Misconception No2 : Editorial photography is dying. What is dying are the daily and weekly print publications. Newspapers, magazines, and old brands. They cannot compete with the speed of  news anymore. What is dying is the image that is formatted for a print support with a rectangular format. What is dying is the photography taught in school and colleges today. There is a new medium for editorial photography that has never existed before, that knows no boundaries will it be in size, amount, artifact and pricing ( the Internet). What really is dying here is an old mentality.

- Misconception No3:  Video will replace stills. Take a look at the amount of video images coming out of the Olympics. Hours and hours of footage. Now, tell me who will sit down and edit film pumped out at 25 frames per seconds to find the right image ?While you think, look at this great gallery done by Stern magazine and see what can photographers can do.

- Misconception No4: Anybody can shoot great images these days. Why would anyone say that when pro photographers have always used the same equipment as amateurs. This is not like dentistry or chemistry where the tools are hard to find, let alone the knowledge. Photography has always been easy to learn and the equipment always available to anyone. The only part that has changed is how easier it is these days to share. But really good images created by amateurs have always been around. Not as accessible, that is all. Its not the equipment that matters in great photography, it is the person holding it

- Misconception No5 : If you produce a lot of images, you can make a living with your photography. A rule of thumb more in the stock photography world than in the editorial one. It was true for a while when it was expensive to distribute images to clients. Today, it is a dangerous thought. Quantity will slowly be replaced by quality as the market will no longer be able to support myriads of photographers hoping to make a living. Image buyers will no longer be capable of keeping up with offer and start closing doors.

- Misconception No6: A photo editor knows a lot about photography. A photo editor only knows a lot about the photography used in their publication. He or she works, breath and sleeps in a very confined universe. Their ability to make one publication look great almost never  translate in making any and all publications look great.  That is why very successful photo editors never leave the publication they work for. They grow into them.

- Misconception No7 : Blogs about photography are useful. Besides posting press release they never read or repeating something they read elsewhere, they actually do not help much. Only a very few escape the ego narcissistic trip of the popularity contest and give out extremely valuable insight. They are extremely rare. The rest are operated by hit counters.

- Misconception No8: Every Magnum / VII photographer is a great photo editor. Why do thousand of photographers flock to have their portfolio edited by another photographer? It would vaguely make sense if one would want to be that photographer or replace him/her. And even so, photographers are the worst editors of their own work. But what makes a successful photographer a better editor than a non photographer ? If anything, if they see a great portfolio, wouldn’t they  try to dissuade that person from stealing their job?

- Misconception No9 : There is still room for a news agency. With AP, AFP, Reuters, Getty, EPA, DPA and other wire services employing some of the best photographers in the world while controlling most of the sales channel, it does seem obvious. There is no more oxygen. The best one can hope to do is represent a small pool of extremely talented photographers and help them get assignments, but even that is not a given. If they are extremely talented, they really do need much help. So what makes all these agencies try to cover events like the Olympics with 1/10 of the resources the others have with medium to mediocre photographers( crumb photographers)? Hope ?

- Misconception No10: Free photography will save the world. or a new pricing.or a association of good willing people. There is only one thing that will save photography, if it actually needs saving. It’s photography. great photography

Posted in magazine, celebrity, Magnum, Newsweek, commercial stock, newspaper, TIME, news, editorial, wire service, photojournalism, getty | Print | 4 Comments »