June 18, 2009 by pmelcher.

It is interesting to see that as the technology has made easier and faster to transmit images, we are seeing less of photojournalism on main events.

30 years ago, it would have been unimaginable that such events like the Gaza/Israeli war, the Sri Lanka war or the Iranian protest would not be photographed. Now it seems to be the rule more than the exception. More and more, governments seem succesful in blocking any professional coverage of events they deem to cast a negative light on their policy.

The US, with the first and second Iraqi war were the first to initiate a partial blockade of imagery. They subtly enforced a control of photographers by forcing them to be either pooled ( first Iraqi war) or embedded ( second Iraqi war). It has been quite succesful in avoid the American public and the world to see the real impact of these wars.

Israel was even more succesful in completely shielding its theater of operations from any media. Sri-Lanka followed suit and now Iran.

It doesn’t seem so hard, after all. As long as you threaten the media with  physical harm or arrest, you are practically done.

Thus, the only scarce images we get to see are those official images, or those taken by participants, both with very clear agendas.

The reasons for this major shift in coverage are numerous :

- Lack of financing from the media. Either they cannot afford to send photographers to these part of the world, or they will not pay enough to justify a free lancer to risk their life. The disappearance of media outlets does not help as a photographer can’t even count on volume sales to cover his costs.

- The new journalists : they much prefer to set up Google alerts, check Twitter, Facebook and other sites than lift their asses from their chairs and report themselves. Twitter success, for example, is not due to its users, but to how broadly the media is using it. You have more chance to be published these days if you have a Twitter account than if you send a video to CNN Ireport. And why would those journalist leave the comfort of their cubicle if everything is delivered in their desktop.

- The death of the photo reporter : few and rare are those who really care about covering the news at all cost. Gone are the days of the Capa, Mccullin,  Adams, and many, many others that could not live if an event was not covered properly. Today’s photographers are too busy courting the NGO’s and Foundations to pay for them to cover anything.

- The death of photo agencies : the Sygma’s, SIPA, Gamma of the not so old days would do whatever it took to support a photographer willing to go and cover an event. Since you can now make a hundred time more money with a picture of Lindsay Lohan leaving her hotel a few blocks away, why bother ?

- The disappearance of the great news magazine: Besides Europe, great news magazines have vanished. They have not been replaced by online equivalent. There is a huge void. Not because there is no audience, but because there is no great editor in chief, great news gatherers.

It’s appalling to see, at least in the USA, that just because  foreign journalists are being kicked out from Iran, the pro coverage stops. It will only get worst.

Update : an exception should be made for Polaris Images. see here

Posted in magazine, technology, Newsweek, newspaper, SIPA, editorial, photojournalism, TIME, news | Print | No Comments »

April 3, 2009 by pmelcher.

While the world of photography was busy trying to figure out how to squeeze one more dollar out of every image, pointing the fingers at potential scammers, or listing, day after, the name and addresses of every single newspaper closing its door, the hallways of the supreme court justice in Manhattan echoed of the fainted footsteps of a mostly forgotten, yet highly important case.

A very well to do photo agency, back in the days when it was still trying to make a dent in the news editorial market had reached out to a very talented photographer based in the nation’s capital, Washington DC. Having lost its main contributor in the White House, it  called for the service of an already well implemented and well establish photographer to cover the ins and outs of the political establishment. The photographer, already the recipient of many many assignments from top news publication like Time, Newsweek, Us World and many more, thought, at the time, “hey , why not”.For him, it was an opportunity to grow his reach worldwide, or so he thought.

In these days, film was still mainly used , and so he submitted many of his archives, and his recent work, in slide and film format. The well to do agency had a battery of photo editors looking at the material and selecting the ones to be scanned to be added to its online delivery system.

Time went by, and after 16 months, not seeing any tangible results , the photographer decided to terminate the relationship. Up to now, nothing special.

But upon termination, he was incapable of getting all his images back. Not a few, but more than 12,000 of them. Gone, vanished, disappeared. At first, the well to do agency denied any wrongdoing or hugely minimized the count. That didn’t work too well. They were found guilty for the whole amount.

Lets take a pause here. 12,000 slides, or negatives, that is a lot. out of 50,000 submitted. Its not one slide that fell  behind the back of the lightbox. Its 12,000 of them. well 12,640 exactly.

Out of all the images submitted, only 763 were scanned to be put on the website and thus attempted to be sold. Less than 1%. Either the photographer was really, really  bad, or the editors were really, really lazy. Or, very simply, the big wealthy company was so overwhelmed with images to scan from everywhere that they just couldn’t do more.

My take is on the last option.

Anyway, guilty of lost of images, the Photo Agency and the photographer went on to quantify the lost. How much ?

That is always an ongoing issue, isn’t it ? How to quantify the value of an image if it has never been sold and cannot even be seen by anyone anymore? Some of these images could have been  masterpieces or just  plain film in a mount.

Of course, the Big Photo Agency took the low approach. In a nutshell, backed by “experts”, they figured out how much money they made with the photographers work over 16 months and added some . After 2 years of testimony, a Judge declared that $100,000 was a fair compensation. A mere  $7.26 per roll of 36 frames  !!! including processing.  If you can make a deal like that, its worth dropping digital and going back to shooting film.

Obviously, the photographer was in shock. Never in the history of lost film was an award been so low.  Here is one of the issue : Because the amount of images lost is so high, a more regular award of lets say, $400 per image ( still low) would quickly bring the total to Millions of dollars. Usually people loose a few images. or a few hundred. but not 12, 000 !!!

So, the judge was trying to make an overall acceptable amount instead of looking at the details. For the photographer, the lost of income is almost incalculable. It’s blood ( hopefully, not to much), sweat ( a lot) and tears ( especially after hearing the judgment). An appeal has been made, obviously.

The big bad unprofitable photo agency has a battery of full time lawyers that have nothing else to do then to drag this forever. The photographer, well, not really. This has been going on for 7 years now with more than 10,000 documents and a battery of witnesses. And it ’s not over.

Why is this important ? Because, like any judgment, this will become a judicial reference. If the Agency gets away by paying  $7.36 for 36 frames, then subsequently, all lost images in the future will be awarded accordingly. And that affects every single photographer out there. Like any other trade profession, ones work should be respected to its real value. Not just for the cost of the support it lays upon.

What is even more upsetting here is that this appeal went on completely silently in the industry. Instead, everyone is busy looking at their navels, making sure their backyards is clean. This should be everywhere, talked about in all trade association and debated publicly. There is no predefined amount, obviously, and determining it is very difficult. But since it will affect everyone, it should be everyone responsibility to join the debate.

Posted in newspaper, license, copyright, Newsweek, TIME, photojournalism, news, law, transaction, finance, corbis | Print | 3 Comments »

January 28, 2009 by pmelcher.

According to the New York Post, Time, Inc. is refusing to pay the additional 7 cents per publication asked by one of their distributor as of Feb 1.  With its circulation already diminishing on most of its title, this might result in a titanic battle of wills between the two companies. Obviously the distribution company does not want to lose the business of the biggest publishing company in America as well as magazine outlets, like Wal Mart surely do not want to loose the revenue. It is yet to be seen how other smaller publishing company will react, as they do not have the financial backbone Time, Inc has.

Obviously, this has huge impact on editorial photography.

More details here

On a completely unrelated note ( OK, not so much), New York Magazine  has just come out in this weeks edition with a multi-page photo essay spread with just images and small captions on the last representation of a Broadway play. Its reminiscent of the Country Doctor by Eugene Smith in Life magazine. No wonder it is the only magazine I subscribe to. Their usage of photography is not only genius, it is heartwarming.  Although there is a Web version, you should walk run to your newsstand and buy it.

Posted in celebrity, magazine, Newsweek, newspaper, TIME, finance, photojournalism, editorial | Print | No Comments »

January 5, 2009 by pmelcher.

Can Photography exist outside of its current boundaries ? Is it possible for photographers to create and to sustain on a market that they create and manage directly.

Lets step back for a bit. Photography has always been accessed through gatekeepers, or otherwise called magazines. It has evolved through other forms of publications but the model has always been the same, whether it is a website or a magazine. Clients, viewers, have always been served photography through the passage of photo editors who censored and edited who, what and how images are seen. A little bit like radio and DJ for music and musicians. But the rules, they are changin’ aren’t they ?

Flickr, like Napster before, has opened up the distribution channels of photography. Like the original Napster, no one is making money with this, but mentalities are being changed drastically. Publications no longer absolutely in control of what images get to be seen by the public like record companies no longer control what music is being listened to. Of course, no photographer, today, has completely bypassed the traditional gatekeepers. There is no one that has the notoriety of an Annie Leibovitz and it does seem quite impossible to do these days without first being published in the pages of Vogue, Harper’s, Vanity Fair or other magazines.

But for how long ? Why would it not be possible for a photographer to achieve the notoriety of a Robert Frank, for example, without ever been published outside of its own website or/and Flickr. And thus generate not only a huge following but impressive revenue. After all, we all have been witness of the impressive impact of online viral marketing and social sites like Digg. It has made some images extremely popular already, so why not a photographer?  Where there is a high demand, there is a market.

So what of the gatekeepers. Can photo editors and photo agencies alike, continue to control most of the commercial photo market ?  Is there only salvation and hope only if one is part of a succesful sales platform like Getty or Alamy ? Does a photographers have to be a part of many to be seen and sold ? Does one still need the gatekeepers?

For now, yes. The photo industry, unlike music, is a self sustaining industry. Publishers buy from Agencies/established photographers. They have little or no will to go and purchase images in the wild. Although that is changing already. The question is will they ever buy or hire a photographer just because he consistently has a million hits a day although was never published anywhere? Doubtful, as that is not the training of the gatekeeper, oops sorry, the photo editor. Will a photo festival ever expose the work of someone that has never been published but yet has millions of fans online. Very doubtful.

There is no reason to believe that because the photo world has embrace digital technology before the music industry that it will not suffer from the same drastic changes. There is no reason to believe either, that because traditional publishing is dying that photography will disappear with it. Can photographers create and manage their own market ? It will not happen overnight but the answer is : Certainly.

Posted in license, multimedia, magazine, technology, commercial stock, Newsweek, yahoo, web 2.0, editorial, news, slideshow, filter, prosumer, photojournalism, getty | Print | No Comments »

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 »

August 4, 2008 by pmelcher.

let them eat cake, she had said. As the eyes of the world are turning toward China and the upcoming Olympics, this is a good time to reflect on how photography is evolving. Not as a medium, but as a media.

Getty images licenses a series of exclusive images to People and Hello! for a reported $14 million. No one questions this. furthermore, no one seems to believe that the number is just plainly insane. On one side of the spectrum, images sell at a buck a piece and on the other, at double digit millions of dollars.  Doesn’t make much sense. And I will tell you why : Image pricing was a combination factor of quality/difficulty/usability. The more an image was going to be used, or seen, the more it would cost. The better, or rather, the more relevant the images were, the more its price would go up. Finally, the more an image was hard to get, the more the price would go up. If you look at the RF microstock model, none of the above is true anymore. Does the Jolie twins bring so much value that they will reep sales above $7 million ( assuming People paid half the bill ?) . lets see : Angelina first baby picture sold for $4million. People sold 2.2 million copies at a cover price of 3.95. That is roughly  $ 8.8 million if you complitely ignore the subscribers. If they raised their advertising space rate, they should have broken even. At $7 million, it becomes more of a problem. After all , it is not because she had twins that there will be double the readership, is it ?

Actually, these images have become a story by themselves. They were priced way before Angelina even had the babies. And by whom ? The media. Rumors, speculation, interviews, opinions were running  like a mountain stream in Spring, finally settling around anywhere from $11 million to $14 million.

Interesting thus, that Getty sold these images for the same price as people assume someone would sell these images. Did the  megastar couple take the hint from the crowdsourcing pricing or is it just hype ? After all, the crowd will be more eager to see images that are worth $14 million dollars than a few bucks. Thus both Getty, People and Hello ! profit from screaming that those images were sold for $14 million. It benefits everyone, even the couple who gets to give even more money to charity.

Furthermore, does anyone who has been in this industry for a while really think that competing magazine USweekly or IN TOUCH  stop bidding at 13,999,999 .00 and said we give up ? Or that if the National enquirer had bid $15 million, it would have been in their latest issue ? Publicists and stars want to be in People magazine, not in tabloids.

Who cares if it is not true, really. What matters here is that these images  got a celebrity status, even before they were even taken.

The second incident is the revelation by Newsweek DP that the Olympics will be mostly a .com event. Ex-photography director, Mary Ann Golon had told me that TIME will be doing the same a few months back . Seems that this Olympic season will be online with additional reporting in print. The slow decay of the paper support is becoming more apparent as it cannot compete with the feeding frenzy. Photography becomes free at last of the written word and regains a position of strength. It can live, breath and exist by itself  on an online slideshow that doesn’t need much explanation. This will only continue to erode the news weeklies here and worldwide. It will also put much more pressure on the photographers to fully report with images and not just be an accompaniment to the text. Its good news.

Posted in license, TIME, celebrity, magazine, Newsweek, photojournalism, slideshow, Royalty free, getty, editorial, transaction, Microstock | Print | 4 Comments »

April 3, 2008 by pmelcher.

You would think that you could immediately say which news photographer won 11 prizes this year. You would probably think..”mmm, someone from VII or Getty, no ?”.

You could say that but you would be wrong.

This year alone, he won:

3  National Geographic prizes.

4 White House News Photographers associations prizes

Grand prize PDN & National Geographic Traveler

2 Honorable Mentions PX3 Prix de la photographie de Paris

First Place portrait Best Of Photojournalism NPPA

Yet his images have never been shown at Visa Pour l’image, ICP and other venerable photo institution. You will not see his images at the first NY photo festival. Probably because he does not shoot wars, does not have any images of dead people and does not carry a HOLGA. However you have seen his images in Newsweek, TIME, Stern, Paris Match. And you will see more, trust me. You even have seen him published here.

Yes, it’s Olivier Douliery, from Abaca Press . Extremely talented news photographer from Washington DC who does magic with an extremely  difficult subject : US politics. A great example of what photojournalism can do when it does not desperately try to be art, but a communication language. Olivier does not capture faces and places, he gets their soul. From a defeated Mike Tyson before his final match, to a playful Dalai Lama, from a Bill Clinton looking through the shoes of his candidate wife, to a George Bush laughing like a little kid at his inauguration as if he just pulled a nasty trick at another kid in the schoolyard, Olivier photograph with a smart sense of humor that makes you smile and reflect at the same time. There is no politicians in Olivier’s image, but rather players on an empty stage that have their moments of sadness, doubt, happiness, exhaustion, triumph. People with emotions, like you and me. Olivier captures the emotions of the so called powerful. The whole gamut. And makes them human again, with an incredible respect for his subject. A little bit as he was photographing  his cousins at summer family gathering.

There is a sense of time in all of his images, of  immediacy. It would be almost impossible to take any of his image and put them out of context. They would look odd and wrong. That is why he is a great photojournalist. Because he no only captures the person, but also everything that is going in at that time, in that persons life.

And finally, Olivier is great human being. Nice, polite, helpful, he is respected and adored by his peers. I am privileged to know him. He as a great career ahead of him.

More of his images here

Posted in TIME, newspaper, magazine, Newsweek, photojournalism, slideshow, news, france, editorial, getty | Print | No Comments »

March 31, 2008 by pmelcher.

While photographers trade organization are wasting their time fighting issues like the Oprhan Work bill in order the save whatever they have left, and while photo agencies association seem violently silent, the world of editorial continue its downfall.

According to Radaronline, Newsweek magazine got rid of 111 staffers last week ( didn’t even know they had that many)  and the newspapers of America had the worst ad revenue in its 50 years history, according to E&P.Worst than the 2001 slump. While analysts seem to confuse Getty going private with Getty shutting down, it is quite obvious that the tide is retreating before the big hit.

As previously written here, the editorial world will loose its dailies and weeklies in favor of the internet. It is not a question of if, but when. Monthlies will continue to thrive as long as they keep away from time sensitive news. The old ways will not continue.

While this continues, photographers and agencies will continue to bear the heaviest load as they will be asked to support the biggest part of theit cost saving initiative. A lot of companies will sink with the ships they will be trying to save. Those who will survive are those who are, today, turning to the new market. Companies, like Getty, that have understood that the future is on the Internet and create for themselves opportunities to be competitive.

Istockphoto, and other micro/midstock agencies are a good example of internet savvy photo agencies. Lean, mean, fast, cost effective companies that have learned to both cut their costs and leverage technology to its fullest. They can reach wide and far accross the world and up and down the client ladder. Others have jumped into new licensing models like Gumgum which  allows them to operate like a microstock on but a RM model.

The issue will be the relenvency of content. Currently, the internet is replicating the print editorial world. Some are adding video or multimedia, but it is still very linear. But that will change too as “born in the internet” art directors will re -invent  the web page and how we consume our news. Photographers will and agencies will have to reinvent their offering to match it.

Getty, by going private, will certainly take advantage of this new situation. They have already by acuiring Istockphoto. The celebrity photo agencies have also initiated the switch by producing videos and embrassing new licensing models. Others will probablly decide that book publishing, exhibits, grants are a better way to go and try to carve a controlled market. But, with schools already using Wikipedia and other National Geographic sites as references, how long will this market survive?

More technology based solutions are peeking out of the horizon that can help this industry  make a succesful transition. It is, a little, heartbreaking to see how slowly they are being ignored by the guardians of the old temple who beleive that saving what they have is better than growing in new markets.

Posted in copyright, license, Midstock, celebrity, magazine, Newsweek, gumgum, Zymmetrical, multimedia, TIME, editorial, news, getty, transaction, CEPIC, photojournalism, msnbc.com, Microstock | Print | No Comments »