September 12, 2011 by pmelcher.

Taking a cue from the succesful microstock model here is where photojournalism is heading.  It is happening under our eyes, right now and in four steps.

The decline of traditional photojournalism.
Nothing really new here. Rising cost of living (travel, lodging, food) has made it almost impossible for current print and web publishers to send top talents on stories anymore. The profit margins are not there anymore. Although there is a bucket full of very talented photojournalist available, there is just no funds to make them do what they do best. Furthermore, with the deaths of traditional photo agencies who used to pay for half of the costs, there is just not enough financial support to keep it going. It’s not photojournalism that is dying, it’s the funding that is going dry.  Furthermore, photo editors that championed the great stories have long gone, either retired or pushed out due to corporate restructuring or cost saving measures.

The rise in volume of the me-too photojournalism.

Here again, nothing we haven’t heard or seen before. Automated cameras that can nail an image in the even poorest conditions has helped introduced a new wave of photographers that can, and will snap at anything and everything and force distribute it via every channel possible. Force distribute because we really do not want to see it but thanks to Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and other social media, we get to see them anyway. The poor state of our economy has not help, obviously, making this forced free lance job even more appealing to many. It also has become easier to get published, at least once, giving everyone the false impression that this is easy. Anybody can become a photojournalist these days : you just need to be where the media attention is focused upon.

The death of the photo agency.
Photo agencies used to be the gateway to the media. With trained professionals, they filtered out the bad from the good and edited the work of the talented to make it even more compelling. They would also seek out news stories and send the best photographers to cover them, not only creating the news, but partly covering  for the costs. It was a gamble, where talented journalists would scout newspapers worlwide for that snippet of information that could be turned into the major news of the week thanks to the talent of a brilliant photographer. Those editors are gone now. Gambling on stories is just not an acceptable business model in our corporate world. Photo agencies are not agencies anymore, they are image distributors.

Speed vs quality.
Thanks to digital, the key decision element for an image to be published is how fast they get to a desktop. Thus a bad photographer can very well become successful if he is the fastest.  More and more, this is what we, viewers, are being served with : the first images rather than the best. Thus the key to becoming a published photojournalist is where you are and not who you are.

Where does it lead us to:

Where everyone can be a shooter, with no money to be spend on travel, no editors acting as gatekeepers and speed as the key factor, the decision us easy;

Forget the photo agency as an agent of talented photojournalists. The key now is to have a lot of contributors worldwide and hope that one will be at the right place at the right time. With photographers everywhere chances you will get the right image at the right time will increase, like buying a lot of lottery tickets.
In the film age, the cost of film, processing, shipment was too prohibitive. Now, you can receive and store million of images for a buck or two.
This well know photo agency recently proudly claimed representing 40 photographers in Gaza only. For a territory 140 square mile ( 360 Km2), that is one photographer per 3.5 square mile.

Thus, taking a queue from the microstock model, photojournalism is now switching to the volume based model. While profitable for a photo agency, it is devastating for photojournalism and photographers themselves.

Posted in technology, magazine, Tweet, Social Media, Corpocrates, Good Enough, newspaper, TIME, editorial, getty, transaction, finance, photojournalism, wire service, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

September 7, 2011 by pmelcher.

“Thoughts of ” is relocating or expanding :

On Facebook :  Thoughts of a Bohemian page  for the daily snippets

On La Lettre de la Photographie for 2 columns a week. One column is dedicated on the best there is to discover about photography on the web while the other, brand new, is about the world of photojournalism and photo agencies. You can read it and subscribe, for free, here : La Lettre de la Photographie.

what about about the typos ? they will follow me everywhere I go…

Obviously this blog will remain open, while quite not as often,  for longer thoughts and  hair raising revelations

Posted in magazine, celebrity, license, multimedia, Plus, technology, Corpocrates, Good Enough, Waste of time, Social Media, Search, No sense, finance, transaction, editorial, news, wire service, photojournalism, keyword, web 2.0, prosumer, getty | Print | No Comments »

August 2, 2011 by pmelcher.

Can the memory of a photograph be better then the image itself ? Do we tend to embellish what we have seen and liked ? Most probably so. The memory of a photograph contains , on top of the graphic visualization of the image, the sum of all the emotions and memories linked to it : The personal experience. It contains all the subjective association that we have made while looking at it, thus creating a highly personal layer that the original vision did not have. Thus, what we remember of a photograph we love is much better than the original. Are we disappointed when we see it again ? Most often not. Since it had triggered all these satisfying internal connection the first time around, it will do so again and again. Unless, if for some reason, when we had first looked at it, we misinterpreted it. Of rare occurrence, but it can happen when we are in a non typical heighten emotional state when we were first exposed to the photograph. Or our lives has taken us down a different path. A photograph you thought was great during your teenage years my not seem the same when you are a 50 years old . It can still, however, connect you back to comfortable memories. The memory of a photograph is always better than the original because of our personal input.

Thus, in pure logic, the more generic an image the better. It should serve a canvas for personal experience, right ? Well, absolutely not. because a generic image doesn’t trigger any emotions. It just stays blandly generic. in order to communicate to its viewers, a photographers needs to be as personal as possible . He should forget about trying to please everyone, everywhere. And this is where commercial stock photography has failed in the latter years. Obsessed with RPi numbers, they have flooded the market with one size fits all images empty of emotional triggers. When the miccrostockers came into the market, they brought back in the emotions that had left the industry for a while. And besides pricing obviously, they beat their pro elders on content. They just got more response to their images.

Of course, they are now doing the same mistake as the pros and relying on charts, equations and past revenues to dictate their next images. And like their predecessors, they are seeing revenue declining. No one can claim and secure photographic success. It is probably harder to maintain than to attain. However, by succeeding in ignoring the false sirens of success, one can easily navigate closer to the surface. If one continues to deliver a personal experience to its viewer, than 99% of the battle is won. The rest is marketing

Posted in license, commercial stock, Social Media, Corpocrates, Search, prosumer, Royalty free, editorial, transaction, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

July 10, 2011 by pmelcher.

Let’s face it, you are waging a losing battle. In fact, it’s not even a battle because one side has won already. Every time you sign up for a social network, be it Facebook, Twitter or Google +, you are faced with TOS ( Terms of Service) that are pure rights grabbing, making it a very dangerous proposition for you to share your images. Yet, everyone tells you that the only path to success is to have your images on these sites.

So, here are three core facts that you need to know about Social Networks:

- There is still no such thing as a free lunch. If someone offers you something for free, it is only because they get some kind of benefit out of it. You can be sure they will find a way to monetize your images.

- If you use a service for free, you become the product : what do you think Facebook, Twitter or Google + sell ? You. Your interaction on their sites is what they in turn sell to advertisers. That includes your pictures.

- They need the legal right to share your images. In order to show the images you post on their site to your friends and family, they need the legal right to do so. Since there is no way for them to know who are your friends, family or others ( nor do they care) , they make you agree to a blanket agreement stating that they can share them with everyone.

So, if you think you can sign up for a social network site that will protect your intellectual property, you are sticking your big left toe in your eye. It is just not and never going to happen. The answer ? Deal with it.

Accept the fact that if you post your images on a social network site, there is a 110 % chance that you could loose complete control of that image. Play along . If you post pictures of your 3 years old nephew at your cousin’s barbeque party, you have not much to worry about. Besides a few polite likes from your relatives, not much will happen to that image and it will soon be forgotten along with the other 10 million images uploaded to Facebook in a month. However, if you post the only image of a plane crash landing on the Hudson river, well, get ready for it to be grabbed and spread around.

Here is the irony. Photographers or photo agencies will post their images on social network sites in order for them to be seen, appreciated and dare we say it, shared ( ouch). Isn’t it the intended purpose of posting these images that they will end up in front of the eyes of a wealthy photo editor who will either purchase it or hire you ? And since you do not know him yet, the only path is via friends of friends re-posting it ? Should they all ask you for permission and pay you a license fee every time they do ? In other words, you give them something to share but you don’t want them to share.

Well then, quite a paradox . Ownership of an image doesn’t lie solely in managing its usage. It is also embedded in it. If you have a style, a talent, a point of view and an identity, your image will always speak your name, credit or no credit. Better yet, people who see your images will want to track you down in order to find out who is the talent behind those photograph. If they don’t, well, that’s because you failed as a photographer.

So what should you do with all these rights grabbing, soulless TOS that you keep on facing every day? Adapt.

They are not going to change because they are at the core of how these social networks make money. Not so much by licensing your images, obviously ( everyone knows there is no money there), but by using them to grow their network and thus selling more people to advertisers. And for that, they need the right to do what they damn well like with your images. Forever.

Keep that in mind next time you post images on any of these sites ( and others).  Your choices :

- Do not upload images

- Watermark your images

- Upload only images you are ready to give away

Either way, stop bitching and moaning about a new TOS like there was anything you could do about it. Although it might feel like it sometimes, it is not your platform, it’s theirs. They will do whatever they think is appropriate to generate revenue from it . They don’t owe you anything, you do.

So stop wasting your energy and time . Get back on your saddle and figure out  how you too can benefit from their services intelligently without loosing your pants and shoes ( and your sanity). Eventually the ecosystem will find a balance.

Posted in technology, Tweet, Social Media, Waste of time, digg, license, flickr, prosumer, web 2.0, transaction | Print | 1 Comment »

July 8, 2011 by pmelcher.

It is because we compare that we are able to judge. A photograph is nothing more than a tool for comparison. When someone looks at a photograph, he compares the content with his real world information. If there is a match, many things happen : for example, the person will automatically add the colors if the image is in black and white. He will also add sounds and smells if the scene and objects are familiar. Finally, the viewer will add a context to make sense of the content. However, there is so much that we can add to make a photograph more familiar. That discrepancy between what is seen and what is already known is exactly what the talented photographer is looking for. The subtle balance between what you know and what is new. He creates a bridges between your personal living experience and that of an unknown person by forcing you to fill in some elements and discovering the others. If an image is too familiar, it quickly becomes boring; If it is too foreign, it has no interest : great photography exists right in between.

Posted in Social Media, focus, Search, editorial | Print | No Comments »

May 3, 2011 by pmelcher.

Up to now, images would only give you remote information in a passive way. More than often, they illustrate an accompanying article, with no more duty than to confirm what you are reading. As much as the photographer or publisher tried, it was a view and forget operation. No so anymore.

Thanks to new technology, the image has grown to becoming more intelligent, by permitting its viewers to dig deeper into it’s content. It is also now able to call home and inform on how it is being interpreted.

Thanks to a company called Stipple, photographs acquire a new dimension, an interactive layer, that finally allows viewers to communicate with them. Thanks to a mouse over generated interactive layer, small dots appear on specific parts of the images. Those dots, once selected, present the user with numerous options. They can save, share or shop for some of the items. They can also be presented with live feeds of tweets or links to additional information .

Viewers can then interact with this new set of information in ways never seen before. They can purchase the items that they like, search for local deals or even better, be presented with discounts. Last but not least, both publishers and the photography rights owners can see, in real time, how people interact with their images.

Stipple works with all images : sports, travel, celebrity, news, commercial stock. There are no limitations.

Not only Stipple adds intelligent interaction to photographs in a smart non intrusive manner, but it also engages viewers to explore photographs in innovative ways. Beyond the frustrating limitations of the IPTC caption field that can only give an overview of the content of an image, Stipple dots can easily display extremely precise information on specific areas within a photograph.

One might think that this would be hard to implement : not at all. Photo agencies need nothing else to do then send a parallel feed of their images the same way they already do to their clients, while publishers only need to add a simple javascript code. That’s it. No added workload. And it’s free.

To top it all, both publishers and photo agencies receive a commission on all transaction generated by their images. In a depressed market, this is very welcomed news.

Finally, Stipple offers a great tool against orphan work. If the metadata of an image is stripped, Stipple will automatically reunite it with rightful owner and display the original information. Even if the image has been altered.

Using some powerful technology built in house, Stipple is the first company to fully offer an intelligent image solution to both publishers and photo agencies along with a new inventive way to generate more revenue.

You can get more information on Stipple on their website at www.stippleit.com

Posted in celebrity, license, magazine, technology, Social Media, Search, SIPA, editorial, transaction, finance, web 2.0, news | Print | No Comments »

April 27, 2011 by pmelcher.

You say photojournalism is dead. You say , where are all the good stories gone. You say, it used to be that we could see great photo essays in the pages of our magazine. You say a lot of things. But what do you do ?

Well, here is a suggestion : go to kickstater.com or emphas.is and indulge yourself in becoming a donor in photography.  Jump in with your two feet into the now and present and put your money where you mouth is. Support, sponsor, donate and get involved. Got your tax refund check ? take a small portion of it and spend it in high high luxury by helping out a photographer that has all the right tools but is just missing a few dollars.

There is no scam here, not wasted energy, to false promises. Be your own photo editor and pick the stories you like and make them come to life. You have no idea how good it feels. Do it for yourself, for the next generation that will see and enjoy them, do it in memory of those who died to keep this trade alive. Do it because you can and you should. Do it to make the naysayers shut up and the temple merchants disappear.

Do it because you want to see more . Don’t wait for stories to come to you. Make them happen. Be an instrument of change. You have absolutely nothing to loose. Do it often, even if its a few bucks here and there.

If you are not sure, here is a suggestion:

You already know you will not regret it.

Posted in multimedia, technology, Social Media, web 2.0, photojournalism, transaction, finance, slideshow, editorial | Print | No Comments »

March 9, 2011 by pmelcher.

A dream come true : your image being used everywhere. A nightmare come true : you don’t get a penny while others are. A frightening true life example of what happens to your photographs in the XXI.

The Stolen Scream: A Story About Noam Galai from FStoppers on Vimeo.

The question is : was the image labeled CC on Flickr ? If so, it could have led to this worldwide free loading feeding frenzy. How can this be prevented ? how do we instruct people to, at least, ask permission before using an image?

What is interesting is the photographers’ reaction. While he is clearly unhappy about the situation, instead of suing everyone, he has resolve to using the situation to publicize himself ( see his website here : http://www.thestolenscream.com/)  and reverse claiming  ownership of his image.

Smart, very smart. He might just end up on top.

Posted in license, Social Media, Search, web 2.0, editorial, flickr, getty | Print | 2 Comments »

February 19, 2011 by pmelcher.

As the business world seems to be moving more and more towards subscription/ sharing model, why doesn’t the photogrpahy world ? Already very much applied by photo agencies that offer monthly/ yearly packages that provide, for a flat fee a limited amount of images, independent photographers could jump on the bandwagon too.

Here is how it would work. A photographer would decide how much he would need to live for a year. He would then sale shares of his time to numerous clients that would need him throughout the year. Once hired by enough clients, the “share” would be closed. Then clients would book him when need, using an online calendar, a bit like Zipcar.

In order to make this work, he would have to not think in terms of jobs but in terms of yearly revenue. So he might loose money on some jobs but make some on other. Everything would level out to make a nice profit. The client would be happy, since they would be able to manage their photo budget on a yearly basis instead of per jobs.

Let’s take a wedding photographer, for example. Right now, they run a hit and run operation: They try to get the most money out of a client they will see once and move on.

Under our model, our wedding photographer would not only offer wedding pictures, but baby pictures, family pictures and so on. He would get hired for a certain fee for 5 years. During that time, he would be on call to shoot whatever the couple would need. In exchange, he would get a steady revenue . It would coat the couple much less money up front to cover the wedding while guaranteeing the photographer steady work and income for the next five years.

Multiply this by 50 clients and a photographer could live comfortably and stress free. Because of the revolving pool of clients, high and lows in revenue would be minimize.

The same could be done for a corporate shooter. Replace the couple client by companies and there you go.

Obviously, you would need some incentive for the clients to sign up for the share/subscription model. Free unlimited online storage of images or 100 free prints a year ? The options are wide open.

More and more individuals seem to be comfortable with the subscription/ share model . From Netflix to Pandora, from Zipcar to Cell phone plans, it is all about simplifying billing and avoiding one time high costs. It just fits better with how they are being paid.

It will be interesting to see if this model takes root in the photography community and develops into an industry standard.

Posted in web 2.0, license, Social Media, prosumer, photojournalism, transaction, finance, editorial | Print | 2 Comments »

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 »