Ninja Appeal

March 2, 2010 by pmelcher.

How to iTablet the Ipad ? Microsoft is about to reveal something that could bypass the need to carry yet another big thing just to read magazine, newspapers or surf websites. Called the “Mobile Surface” and only to be shown to employees for now (must be extra beta), it is a small portable box that will project an interactive image on any surface.

Look :

 

 Of course, there is a lot of questions left. Mainly, will it not crash. However, this technology could be integrated in your cellphone ( the smart kind) and, while keeping the size small, allow for higher viewing real estate.  One will have to see how editing an image on a blue table will work out, or keeping your email private in an airplane.

This is however a very interesting development for E-publishing  ( just think of a 3D video or immersive photography) as well as computing in general. More stuff here

Posted in technology, lens, Newsweek, E Reader, magazine, multimedia, slideshow, photojournalism, web 2.0, newspaper, editorial | Print | 1 Comment »

Share It

February 17, 2010 by pmelcher.

Wired magazine, in the trail of others, has partnered with Adobe Air, to display what their publication will look on a E reader. There are a few interesting points here.

First, for the geeks out there, it is interesting to see that Adobe, whose Flash is not supported by Apple’s Ipad, is now pushing Air  as a delivery platform. There will be a battle out there on what application will be running all these E magazines and Adobe is shooting the first salvo.

The second part is that Wired present this as an addition to their print publication, not as a replacement. As much as they are investing in the new technology, they are not ready to drop their print, web, IPhone apps just for that.

The Third, is that besides a format, there is no mention of hardware. It is supposed that this is for an Ipad, but really, it is for any existing or to be invented color tablet  ( sorry Kindle).

What about photography usage? Well, they are some very compelling statements here.

Images are a key element of this evolution. From 360 to immersible, from stop action to galleries, there are many forms of photography shown. Nothing new indeed, but a new usage certainly. Where do you find stock for 360 photography ? nowhere currently. So where will they go ?  Assignment, surely. Are you ready ? There is stock for panoramas images, but will that be enough ? And is the micro stock community going to plunge into this also ?  Probably.

However, the more important element of photography usage here is the option to share it. Either via email or social networks, almost every image can be shared with a click of one button. Now, we all know that editorial pricing has always been about placement, time and geography. What has never been appropriately addressed with web usage is now going to become standard practice for all editorial. Al thought you have  licensed your  image for a week, a month and for a small side usage, next thing you know it’s all over the web, in different format, given away for free to people you have never heard of. And never will.

Sure, you can go the Getty way. Here, pay me $49 and do whatever you want with the image. I would like to see Getty’s executives faces when one of their $49 image goes viral. Ouch. Na..not a good idea. Images should be license based on usage and usage should be tracked per number of clicks. After all, if an article or an image published on Tablet gets shared a lot, it is all in the benefit of the publication, right ? It’s free marketing. Yet, your image has been instrumental to that sharing action, so shouldn’t you be compensated ?

What do you mean you do not know how much click it has seen ? Do you know how much circulation a magazine has ? Yes, ok, well, with a link, it is even easier to track. They want a sharing option on your images, charge them either an additional flat fee, or a fee per clicks. But please, charge something. You are not Getty. You will not get back in volume what you just gave away for free. Never.

So. first thing first: Add to all your invoices  and delivery statement “NO DIGITAL RIGHTS” . If they want web usage or E Readers, then lets negotiate a different fee. Ask if there will be a sharing option . If yes, then add an additional fee. How much? well, that is up to you to decide.

Be proactive. You will be proud you did.

Posted in celebrity, copyright, license, magazine, technology, E Reader, commercial stock, multimedia, newspaper, editorial, getty, Royalty free, transaction, finance, web 2.0, photojournalism, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

Seamlessly

February 16, 2010 by pmelcher.

Fed up of the pseudo intellectualism of most photojournalism awards ? Then go see the winners of the WHNPA “Eyes of History 2010″. Those Guys/Gals are stuck, most of the time, with a very restrictive subject ( aka, POTUS) and yet perform some of the highest form of photography. Furthermore, when you unleash them into a different subject, they eat them up with a passion rarely seen, putting at work what they have taught themselves so well in the confinement of the White House.

A lot of great photography, mostly unseen, from some of the lesser known, and yet probably more talented photojournalists in the world.

 A lot of NPR photographers here ( NPR is the US’s public radio, funded by tax and people’s money). A good example that “public” journalism can be of extremely high quality. If you see only one winning gallery, I urge you to see David Gilkey’s Portfolio ( winner of third place in Portfolio). It’s very Don McCullin with a refreshing twist.

Finally, the World Press Awards should take many lessons: The winners slide shows are big and very visible,  yes, they have a multimedia category and the result, although about politics, are not so politically charged.

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

Save the environment

January 21, 2010 by pmelcher.

We have done a bad job. A terrible job. If picking a photograph is all about its price and not its quality than we, the photo industry, have made a terrible job at selling our work.

Every time an editor, whether  from an ad agency or a magazine decides to use an image because it is cheaper than the others, that means we have all failed to advocate for the real value of photography. We have failed, all of us, Photographers, agents, photo agencies to make the new generation of image buyers see the real value in our images. Thus the current situation.

It’s not the fault of microstockers that prices have gone so low in the RF world, it is the fault of the original traditional RF sellers. They are the ones who have devaluated the work so much that consumers have no issue  at purchasing from amateurs. It is the fault of a complacent industry that has not been capable of maintaining some degree of high end quality, an industry that has put on the market a lot of crap for obscene prices.

People or companies have no problem paying high prices for products they see as being of high quality and that brings added value.  Ever since the adoption of digital,  an overflow of redundant images  has saturated people’s mind into believing that photography is a commodity. It’s not just the commercial stock photography world. Editorial has seen an explosion of quantity, to the point that some photographers will submit the same images to multiple agencies, who, in turn submit to the same outlets. What are the editors to think ? Why pay a premium for such a deluge of redundant images ?

If prices are dropping, it’s your fault, not Getty’s or microstock. It is the natural consequence of fighting competition with over production. Too much of a product on a market has always brought prices down.

If this industry wants to survive,  it is going to have to recognize that it is guilty of its own demise and do something about it.  It will have to recognize that like the Easter Islands, it is cutting its own trees to the point of self- extinction. It will have to do something about it.

Do What, you say ? Cut the edits to a minimum, stop distributing the same images via different distributors. Quality is scarce, and people pay for quality, eliminate the bad and the medium, stop thinking in terms of volume, throw out the bean counters and hire the artisans, the creatives, the bohemians. learn to say no : no to poor or medium quality, no to bad prices, no to redundancy, no to habits, not to quantity, no to the easy way.

Of course, that would only work if all the industry would agree to a voluntary simultaneous move  to  clean up the market. That is not going to happen. It’s like trying to get all the nations to clean up the environment. Not happening either. Like with any panic situation, everyone digs in, trying to grab whatever they can before it is too late.  Like a city being looted by its own inhabitants. Everyone for themselves !! Throw as many images on the market of whatever quality. It’s asphyxiating.

So, instead of writing me an email about how depressing my entry is, or how its not very nice, or how I should write more optimistic thoughts, or how I am so wrong but do not even deserved to be explained why, step away from this blog and go review your images. If you are an agency and you have a photographer submitting the same images to you and to others, dump him/her. If you have  more than 50 images of the same subject, dump the rest. If you are a photographer submitting to an agency that already has 150 photographers shooting the same things as you, leave. If your images don’t sell anymore or for little money, shoot something completely different. In very small precious amount.

Don’t blame the others for the mess we are in and instead of digging your nose in your smart phone and tweetering some crap no one cares about, take control and preserve the space in which you live. Limit yourself. Redo your edits, over and over. And when you are done, do it over. Eliminate, reduce, clean. Pick the 5 best images. not 500. or 5,000.

If you stop treating the marketplace like garbage, it will stop treating you like trash.

Posted in magazine, commercial stock, celebrity, newspaper, editorial, photojournalism, Royalty free | Print | 3 Comments »

How much for that little photo in the window ?

January 19, 2010 by pmelcher.

So you would think that with all the problems that online publications are causing to the print magazine industry, they would fight back in some manner. The print paper world would be all gang ho in trying to secure its predominance as the primary source of news and information so that the crowds would rush to purchase copies. But no.

It’s a complete lethargy. Well, at least in the USA. Take editorial photography. As much as they care if an image has been used in a competing publication, they completely ignore anything online.  They seem to be completely oblivious to the fact that they come out sometimes with the same image that has been seen previously for more than a week on numerous websites. As if no one paid attention. However, with some URL’s drawing millions of visitors , and most, the same people they also try to attract, it should be hard to ignore.

Yet, they continue to ignore the reasons for their decline. Partly to save money ( as if it is going to help) , partly because a completely blindness to the forces that are shaping their market. If I have seen an image numerous times, for free, online, I am going to be a bit upset if I see it, again, days, weeks later, in a print publication I had to pay for. If it happens once, I could ignore it. If it happens issue after issues, I would want my money back.

No other industry has this approach to its consumer. Movies only show trailers, music have just snippets ( of  course, I am not mentioning stolen material) and you pay to hear/see the full version. If all was available online  a week before they could be purchased, it is doubtful that a lot of people would pay for them.

Magazines, in some sort of oblivious superiority,  continue to publish , week after weeks, month after months the same images already seen online more than once. Maybe they think that if they ignore it, the problem might disappear. Maybe they think that by the time they come out, readers will have forgotten what they had seen just hours ago on a website. Maybe they just think that their support is so superior than the digital, no one will notice.

The second issue with this, a bit more hidden, is that photogrpahers and photo agencies provide website with a free first right  at a lesser fee than  what a print publication would pay. In other words, website get to use the same image, much sooner than print for 10% of the price that a magazine pays to use it a week later. Does it make any sense ?

In France, for example, no magazine would ever publish an image that has been used on a website previously. None. Photo agencies or photographers do not have a problem with that since website pay so little, it is not even funny. Thus, readers can be sure that will discover new image in every issue. And with just cause, they paid for that, and other privilege. They paid to purchase a  product that do not consider them like fools. They pay for originality. They pay for what they value.

In the upcoming or ongoing debate about online pay walls, how many of the newspapers, magazines and others will take the step to guarantee original photography ? Because if it is to see another slideshow made of pictures from the trilogy (Getty, AP, Reuters ) that you can see anywhere else, I doubt people will be happy. And if they are not happy, well, they won’t pay. A pay wall will only work if people want to get in. And people will want to get in if the content inside is not something seen elsewhere for free.

The war between original content ( expensive) and  cost cutting  (cheap) is raging with  cost-cutting seemingly winning most battles these days. However, creating something for cheap that no one wants to pay for is not at all a guarantee of success. Once the CFO’s and their bosses finish destroying the very nature of what made their companies successful in a rarely seen slaughterhouse of talent, there will be only a few standing. And those will not be the ones that are the cheapest to operate but those who have found the zen like balance between originality, quality, cost and timeliness.

Photography will always be here to offer  all of this and much, much more. We know it, we are just waiting for them to understand it.

Posted in license, newspaper, celebrity, magazine, Newsweek, TIME, photojournalism, editorial, transaction, finance, wire service, france | Print | No Comments »

The Punctuation.

December 18, 2009 by pmelcher.

All the E-readers and tablets are fine and exciting as long as they offer something new. If magazine publishers are going to do the same mistakes as they have been doing online, that is copy and paste the print content on a digital format, then let’s forget them.

Who will want to carry an extra item if its only a digital copy of what they can get on print. The other day, Time Inc released a video of what Sports Illustrated might look on a color E-reader. Besides giving updated sports results and bigger slideshows, the rest was exactly the same. Page of text, with same layout as print, with a few lonely photographs to illustrate them. Sorry, but there was nothing exciting about that.( Bonnier released  another example of a boring Print to E Reader layout in this this video. When you are done yawing, please continue). If the format is reinvented then the layout should be too. What we need is a Alexey Brodovitch of the E reader, a revolutionary mind that will break the old tired rules of publishing and make reading magazine exciting again. Someone that will invent the continuous magazine for example, breaking away from the daily, weekly, monthly, bi monthly cycle that printing and circulation demanded. Someone that will take advantage of the new possibilities, the new format for all that it has. Simply applying cheap make-up on a dead format will not work. People are not going to purchase and use these electronic tablets just to save the environment. The salvation of the magazine is  all in the content, not the support.

Take for example photography ( mmm, wonder why ?). Up to now, publishing empires of America have used photogrpahy only as a tool to prove or confirm a point , not as a narrative. Take news magazine like Time or Newsweek. They will use photography to illustrate an article on a topic, just to confirm with a visual what is being written about in the text. Why ? because as humans, we tend to trust more what we see than what we read. The written text has authority while the visual has credibility. In the current print media, the text is always, always privileged over the visual, even if sometimes the images would be a much better tool of communication. The image is used as a punctuation point after a series of written facts and explanations.

Part of the reason for this lies in the print limitation. Photographs have a lot of color and that used to be more expensive. Also, they can take more space and print is limited in the number of pages it can offer. Finally, they are much more difficult to lay out than plain black and whit columns of text.

But E readers and Tablets have none of these limitations. They are free of all the rules and regulation that had dictated the behavior of their print brothers. They are free of space , time and cost limitations. They no longer have to be the punctuation points of their text sibling. They can now freely and openly become masters of the information, leaving a simple caption the role of punctuating their reality.

The current batch of e magazines are a boring crop of conference room challenged idea spit out by a committee of politically frighten mid managers. They come out of the mind of those who want to save their jobs rather than create new idea. Where are the great Art Directors of tomorrow? Those that will reinvent the layout and the magazine at the same time. We have the tools, what we need now are the creatives.

Same goes for photographers. It will be those that stop thinking about photography as a punctuation mark, as a one image narrative, as a quarter space or double page , those who reinvent the narrative that will pierce through the frozen grounds of the current creative tundra .

Let’s kill the punctuation mark.

Posted in magazine, Newsweek, E Reader, multimedia, newspaper, finance, photojournalism, web 2.0, news | Print | No Comments »

It’s not a time to be Thankful

November 25, 2009 by pmelcher.

It’s right around the corner. Actually, you can already hear it’s footsteps. E-magazines are coming and coming fast. From Hearst Magazines preparing its own player to the formation of biggest coalition of magazine publishers, from the upcoming Apple tablet ( maybe) to the current Kindle, publication are pro actively preparing their full digital migrations. It’s not a fad but a survival issue.

Already the New York Times and the WSJ are available on the Kindle for a subscription. They will all use images. If the web traffic is any reference, photogrpahy is one main reason for traffic. So how are you going to price them ?

Will you be happy to license your image by file size ? Good luck. The digital version of these magazine will need much smaller size than print magazine, thus allowing them to feed themselves on your lower priced content.

Will you apply the pathetic rates currently applied for online usage. From $5 to $40, that will certainly not help your bottom line, unless if you want to reach it very fast.

Will you do a subscription deal a la Getty? Unlimited use for a flat fee. Good luck here too. As digital takes much less space and has a more rapid turnaround, they will have used most of your library for a miserable flat fee in less than a year.

Finally, will you continue to let them tear away all the IPTC information that you so painstakingly added to every single one of your files

So, what is the solution ? Well, for once, unlike with the web publication, you should have a strategy, and a very clear one. You should not react to people coming to you saying” It’s new, we don’t know if its going to work, we have no budget ” and let them have your pictures for a -low fee. Why ? because as it might not currently look like it now but for editorial, those E- magazine will become your main source of income in the next coming five years. And if you let them, they will put you out of business.

So, before you accept crappy prices because you think that “any sale is better than no sales” mentality or that you get lured into this “oh, but it is great publicity” trap, think about how what you agree to now  will affect you in five years

One solution is to  continue to price your images related to circulation. It is much easier to track circulation online or on a E device than on print. If they start with a low subscription, the license fee can be low. And as their circulations rises, your licensing prices should too. That is simple enough, no ? You share their effort and grow with them. Since your images are partly responsible for their growth success, its only fair.

Don’t wait for your useless trade association to help you with this as they apparently couldn’t care less. None of them have come out with any recommendation nor analysis. They just want you to pay your fees and collect sponsorship money.

Talk to each other : use Facebook, Twitter,  or the phone. Do not agree on pricing, because that is completely illegal. But agree on licensing models that make sense. Organise meetings, discuss, challenge each other. Ask your agency what they plan to do and how they plan to face this new pricing challenge. Make them think.

It would be nice, for once, to see this industry to be creative and pro active. Don’t you think ?

Posted in license, multimedia, Search, celebrity, magazine, commercial stock, technology, focus, newspaper, web 2.0, transaction, editorial, law, finance, PACA, photojournalism, CEPIC, getty | Print | No Comments »

Dying in Africa. PART II

October 7, 2009 by pmelcher.

20 minutes to better understand what my earlier post was about. Chimamanda Adichietalks about literature but photography is as much a guilty member of this . We should no longer be the instruments of intellectual colonization.

Next time you embark on a photo shoot, think of where your story will fit in the perception of the country, continent and culture you are about to photograph.

Posted in newspaper, magazine, technology, Newsweek, TIME, photojournalism, editorial, slideshow, filter, news | Print | 2 Comments »

The future is promising

September 30, 2009 by pmelcher.

“The eventual goal is to have publishers create hybridized content that draws from audio, video and interactive graphics in books, magazines and newspapers, where paper layouts would be static.”. Gizmodo.

Apparently Apple is working very hard with publishers to digitize their content for their upcoming tablet ( release date : January 2010). But what is extremely interesting here is that, apparently Apple is hard at work redefining what print magazine might soon look like and , by being the first, set a standard.

Already some publishers are playing with Flash or Adobe Air to render a more interactive platform that would mix sounds, music, video and photography, along with text into a full experience media. This portable color tablet, unlike the moribund b & W Amazon Kindle, will offer a reading experience like it has never been seen before. The possibilities are almost limitless and exciting. One will be able to choose for example, based on the time available, how deeply he/she will be involve reading/listening/experiencing a story. Got a few seconds? text only. have a minute? Text , photos, maybe a little sound bite. Have an hour? text, video, interview, video.

Photography will then be redefined by this new medium. Not just as it is taken, but how it is re assembled for the viewers (more multimedia)  as well as how is it licensed.

Microsoft, with its upcoming Courier, is also in the race and quite advanced too.  see video here:

Courier User Interface from Gizmodo on Vimeo.Both solutions will might make it into posterity but will certainly mark the way we will consume photography in the near future. For those who were waiting to know where photogrpahy was going, well, now you have the answer.

Posted in mediastorm, multimedia, license, magazine, technology, Search, newspaper, editorial, slideshow, photojournalism, web 2.0, news | Print | 1 Comment »

Dying in Africa

September 24, 2009 by pmelcher.

I do not want to see another photo essay, multimedia or any visual on dying Africans. Never, ever again.  Enough. I understand that it makes for compelling images, that it seems that the photographers cares, but it present such a distorted vision of this beautiful continent. Not every country is at war, not every African is an orphan dying of aids or malnutrition. Not everyone lives in a broken down shaft wearing nothing more than rip jeans.

But from here, from the United States of America, a country which is still very much struggling with its very, very  racist past, it is just not sending the right message. It is actually saying “look, Africa is this continent full of malnourished savages with hatchets dying of aids because they are uneducated”. It is the biggest, longest, most powerful brainwashing operation that photojournalists have gladly contributed to with open arms.

This ongoing belief, supported by photo festivals like Visa and others, that photojournalism is all and only about blood, decay, despair and endless wars has found in Africa an endless feeding ground.

Although most of these images do not lie, it is not the Truth. This is not Africa. It would be like putting a loupe on a beautiful dress and  only continuously showing its one flaw.

The reason is clear. It is mainly because of NGO photojournalism. Rich people give money to NGO’s who then hire photographers to document their work. And since they operate in poor, war and disease stricken area of Africa, that is all we get to see these days. And because of the continued lack of funding of the editorial press, we will probably see even more, not less.

Just imagine your perception of America if all you would see were images of  9/11, Katrina, Detroit, urban ghettos and nothing else. Don’t laugh Europe, we could do the same with you. Would you ever consider going there on vacation ?

Africa, or at least it’s despair, has become the playing ground of the new photojournalists. Like a badge of honor, you’re not a real photojournalist if you have not covered at least one desolate part of the continent. The results is thousand upon thousand of reportages , essays, multimedias, especially online, repeating the same stories to a saturation point. No wonder magazines will not publish them even if some are extremely brilliant. They are, as the readers, fed up.

In  a way, photojournalism is killing itself by over repetition. Ironically, it is also deforming our view of the world by being so stubbornly surgical and mono sighted. It is replacing reality with cliches, destroying what it tries to explain.

So please no more images of half naked dying soldiers full of flies under an imponderable sun, no more death looking eyes on top of an extremely malnourished 3 year old, no more images of Kalashnikov-wearing tweens walking barefoot on dirt pathways amid the empty Savannah. It will end up making everyone look the other way, if it hasn’t already. Make us hope, make us want to get involved. Don’t disgust. You are not better, or more useful, because you took pictures of it and we didn’t. If you keep this up, it’s not Africa that will disappear first, but those who try, so poorly, to make us aware of its plights.

Posted in multimedia, magazine, focus, lens, newspaper, TIME, editorial, slideshow, photojournalism, news | Print | 6 Comments »