I hear blue

August 24, 2010 by pmelcher.

As we all try to figure what sells, or could sell and for how much, one exercise that we should all rather play with is how our images are viewed and interpreted.  Maybe, just maybe, that would be the key to value.

 We are still very far from understanding perfectly how our brain interprets visual input, mostly maybe because we always thought that all our visual input was via our eyes.

We are not so sure anymore. what if colors emitted some special sounds that we hear instead of see. What about perspective ? Can we feel perspective ?

Is it possible to see without seeing? and what this does tell us about photography ? And how blue could become more blue if only we could hear it.

 

Seems there is much more to what we see than what plain photography can capture and we are just beginning to understand how we understand the world around us. It is becoming clearer to us that what we need to provide, as visual providers, is much more than what a lens can capture.

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Message in a Bottle

July 29, 2010 by pmelcher.

This is what happens when you tweet :

Your little message in bottle that you thought was so important disappears in a sea of messages. We are not saying you shouldn’t tweet, just saying you should take pictures instead.

Posted in Social Media, Waste of time, Corpocrates, Tweet, commercial stock, No sense, multimedia, technology, web 2.0 | Print | No Comments »

Crowdtaste this !

July 26, 2010 by pmelcher.

So.. No idea what to shoot next ? well, why don’t you get your camera to choose?

This company has launched a prototype that can tell you if the image if the image you are about to shoot is aesthetically nice or not . The camera , in itself, is not much. It is actually a camera phone ( Nokia). However, it is linked to a website, Acquine, that permits users to rank images based on their taste. The result is a database of images ranked by “crowd taste”.

Nadia from Andrew Kupresanin on Vimeo.If you look at the result on Acquine, the “Aesthetic Quality Inference Engine” , you will not be surprised. The highest ranking images are  very predictable and …mmm.. boring.. Boats floating in front a Mediterranean looking scene, Landscapes, dull portraits, it’s like a catalog of dull images. But that is what you get when a crowd votes, isn’t it ? You will not see a World press in there.

This camera, and even just the site, is a great tool for microstocker or commercial stocker that would like to fill in the blanks of common taste . It is perfect for those who perpertuate the idea that an image has to be composed properly and well lit in order to fullfilits requirement.

However, it is a better tool for those who are to create. What to avoid. How to stay away from banality. What not to shoot. What to avoid.

Technology can sometimes bring us horrible, horrible tools : This is one of them.

Article on Wired here

Posted in Search, technology, commercial stock, No sense, web 2.0, filter, prosumer, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

A genius talks

July 19, 2010 by pmelcher.

Man I love what this guy has to say :

Posted in license, multimedia, Search, TIME, celebrity, magazine, E Reader, commercial stock, technology, web 2.0, prosumer, news, corbis, getty, editorial, transaction, flickr, photojournalism, finance, Microstock | Print | 3 Comments »

I and them

July 15, 2010 by pmelcher.

Stop thinking about yourself and start thinking about your clients. Here and there, and almost everywhere you hear, or read, photographers and photo agencies complaining about this or about that. Their complains can be resumed to : ” But what about me”

Always starts with “I “. I used to make more money, I used to shoot this, I , I , I. aie.  Maybe the reason you are not making any money is because you do not think about your clients. They have shifted, evolved, not because they wanted to, but because they had to. Budgets or content, they needed to find other sources of photography. You, as you were continuing to think about “I”, you lost them.

The funny thing about sales, in any business, is that you always know how and why you gain new clients, but you never know why you loose them. They are tons of matrix to analyze  where new clients come from, what they do, how they purchase from you. But if they stop visiting you, you never know why. The reason is obvious : they are gone and you cannot communicate with them.

However, it is one of the most important piece of information that you might ever need; Why do you loose clients. Sure you can speculate. It’s my competitor pricing, it’s because I am too good, etc, etc. Because you do not have any hard data, the assumption is that it’s always someone else fault, not yours.

Well, recession or not, your clients retention should be the most important activity you have. You want them to come back, over and over again, even if you are not the cheapest. Because, unlike your new clients, you know them, their needs, their payments, their tastes. So much emphasis is made these days in new client marketing while nothing is done for current customer retention.

The same you probably managed to grab someones customer, someone else will take yours. Because you obviously do not care. You want new, now. Shouldn’t your growth of your business be measures as much by how many customers you retain than how many new you sign up ? Do you pay attention to their needs instead of looking for new markets ? Sure you can find yourself a niche, but what happens to your faithful customers, will they follow you ? Do they even care if you tweet ?

So turn the chair around. Stop looking at what you could do and focus on what can be done. Stop wasting energy ( and cash) on prospect and start fixing the leaks. Why are you loosing clients, why do they go for cheaper ? Do they feel that your content is not worth that much anymore? Did you even notice they left ?

Start building a sound and safe foundation instead of thinking about the tower . Sure new client marketing is cool and graphically challenging. But your stuff was cool too for those that still purchase from you. Why ignore them? So stop with the”I” complain and start listening to them.

Posted in technology, lens, commercial stock, focus, license, transaction, photojournalism, Midstock, editorial | Print | No Comments »

The Future of Photojournalism (Fixed)

July 13, 2010 by pmelcher.

 ( the issue with the player has been fixed)

A great and insightful interview of VII Manager Stephen Mayes. You want to understand where the photo industry is going, you have to listen to him :

Thank you Gerald Holubowicz

Posted in magazine, technology, lens, multimedia, Search, editorial, photojournalism, news | Print | 3 Comments »

Of unintended consequences

July 6, 2010 by pmelcher.

So, the French minister of Culture ( at least they have one) descends to the Arles photo festival like a conqueror and announces, probably very proud of himself, that he and his photo committee he created a while back,  will create a photo portal. A French one, in three languages ( French , English and ???).

70,000 images are supposed to be made available to the public and amateur thanks to this portal. Nothing is said about what photography, from where, edited by whom, for what purpose ? Just 70,000 images; Et Voila. Packs his stuff into his limo and goes back to take a early afternoon nap in his hot office in Paris.

And we are left to wonder: From the country that has laws banning street photography, from the country that has created  social laws responsible for the death and suffering of many photo agencies and their photographers, from the country that has banned citizen photojournalism, that is all they could come out with ?

If they really wanted to help photography, the French government would do a few things : Repel the law that forces everyone to blur faces of people in public spaces, repel the law that makes illegal to photograph a news item if you are not a professional, repel the law that makes photo agencies responsible for more than 75% of free lancer contribution to social security. This is what is killing photography in France, not the lack of a “tri langual pro/amateur photo” portal.

If they really wanted to save photography, wouldn’t they help photography live and breath instead of creating a useless on line museum that will cost millions and sit unused. France already has one huge portal of photography for professional called PixPalace. Why create a state sponsored competition ?

Why don’t they rather make an institution that gives out grants and supports young ( and not so young photographers) in their projects? Why don’t they reward websites or print magazine for their usage of photography? Why don’t they create incentives instead of museums ?

There might be a long time before this online photo portal ever sees the day of light since everything take a long time in France ( years, decades). It is just so very frustrating  to see a minister who made a movie about the Rapho agency, who contains such great  photographers as Robert Doisneau, Édouard Boubat, Denis Brihat, Jean Dieuzaide, Bill Brandt, Izis, André Kertész, Yousuf Karsh, Jacques Henri Lartigue, Janine Niépce, Willy Ronis, Emile Savitry, and Sabine Weiss, continue to support a law that would have made these photographer unable to practice their trade.

Furthermore, in a society that is about to ban the wearing of Burqa’s because it hides women’s face, it is quite ironic that they force publications to hide the face of people in photographs.

I have an idea : Let’s go on strike.

more , in French

Posted in Search, celebrity, magazine, technology, No sense, photojournalism, france, editorial, filter, law | Print | 1 Comment »

A little bird told me

June 29, 2010 by pmelcher.

You gotta to work with facts. Opinions are good for cocktail parties and useless , endless conversation; facts are good for business. In the last year or so there has been an emergence of Social Media “specialist” popping up here and there arguing breathlessly on the magic wonders of using social media to make your business grow.

There is no success story right now proving that either Twitter or Facebook will indeed help you grow your business. Inversely, there is no failure stories either of anyone going bankrupt because of them.Yet, these self proclaims gurus that have way to much time on their hands think they have discovered the path to the new El Dorado of the photo industry. If you Tweet right, they proclaim, you will be extremely successful. Ok then, let’s take a look.

There is a cool site called Wefollow.com that shows how many followers a Tweeter based on the keywords they have. So we looked at #photography :

If we cancel the photo sites like The Creative Review or ID Magazine who are clearly not in the business of getting assignments or selling stock images, the first individual who tops the list is this guy : David Malby with 103,591 followers. He seems to have tweeted recently about the speed of a sneeze and seems to have a local radio show..mmm, ok, let’s go to number 2 .

With 93, 380 followers, TheBigKlosowski is Denver based photographer that does wedding. Seems his tweets are all over the place ( “All salad is better with steak on it.”) and not really photo related. Besides trying to sell his old gear, there is no evidence of him making any income from his tweets. Doubtful that any soon to be married couple care about his love of steak.

Nunber 3 Tony Mandarich ( 87, 163 followers ) seems to sell a SEO service business more than his photography skills. His Tweets are also a mix bags of Penny stocks obsession and links back to his SEO blog..

We are not having a lot of success here, are we ? we could go on and on down the list, jumping from Iphone lovers to gadgets junkies but no real photography junkies. The only ones close are those that offer tips and tricks and how to ’s.

Sure, if you like to caress your ego by counting how many no lifers have decided to follow your every brain burps, go Tweet. If you need to run a business, I would really avoid it. It is not photo friendly at all as the best you can offer is a link to images. Do people looking for photographers and photography go on tweeter.? No. It would be the last place they would go. There are more people using Craiglist to find photo service than on Tweeter. Except Craig’s List is not that cool anymore, so the Gurus won’t talk about it.

They say you need a plan so you can track your success. But will not tell you what plan would that be, because they don’t know themselves.

The problem with social media/web 2.0 these days is that everyone thinks he/she is a specialist because no one is.  They try to sell you their services without having a clue. As long as you are ready to listen, they are ready to talk. They have time on their hands, you don’t.

So here’s an idea ( for free). Don’t do tweeter for business, do it for fun. If it brings you business, good; if it doesn’t, well, at least your having fun. Whatever you do however, don’t listen to social media gurus or specialists : if they were that good, they would be making money with their tweets.

Posted in license, technology, commercial stock, Search, web 2.0, editorial, finance, Uncategorized | Print | 1 Comment »

Blowing a Candle

June 21, 2010 by pmelcher.

I don’t get it. It’s Monday, I don’t get it. People in this industry used to be really upset with Flickr and Creative Commons. Mostly because creatives and editors worldwide could get free images in exchange of a credit, or an electronic pat in the back. Scores of ad campaigns or magazines started to use unbelievably cheap images instead of “professional” images from Stock houses.

At the end of last week, Flickr and Getty announced a joint tool that allows Flickr members to call upon Getty to license images for them. Isn’t that what we all wanted ? Well, maybe not via Getty ? But to give uneducated photographers a way to get a proper license fee for their images and for ignorance to stop devaluating our industry?

Weren’t some of us looking for a way to counter the useless and dangerous spread of Creative Commons in our trade ? Well, the “license via Getty” tool is allowing just that.But, from all the thread in the Blogsphere, no one seems happy. Sure, Getty Images is taking an unbelievable 70% commission on every sale. However, they made the initial investment to create the technology, they are the ones supplying the billing and knowledge network. Furthermore, according to the press release, they have no intention of selling those images at microstock levels, but rather at accepted Right Managed price.

This can only be good for the dying commercial stock industry : Less free or ultra cheap images on the market. Yet, everyone complains. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t see any other company offering such a service to Flickr users.  Corbis, who had struck a deal with  Webshot in afailed attempt to provide content for their defunct microstock start up Snapvillage, has certainly not offer the same deal to its users. Maybe they should. Maybe all Commercial stock agencies should offer the same to any and all photo sharing site, instead of complaining.

Sure, this is a great deal for Getty who now, more than ever, doesn’t have to rely so  much on professional photographers to offer valuable commercial stock . Those who are solely shooting for stock are, once again, being blown a huge hit. But then again, they had their golden years and should have by now realized that their business model is obsolete. No one will miss them.

It is also a huge blow to the Creative Commons lovers and other “images should be free” prophets. It will only help the widening market to know and understand that usages of images should be compensated for, and for a reasonable price.

So, although we might not be huge fans of Getty on this blog, we reasonably give them a big Kudos for advancing the cause of our industry with this move.

Posted in license, magazine, technology, commercial stock, Search, web 2.0, getty, corbis, flickr, prosumer, Microstock | Print | No Comments »

A Cigar

June 17, 2010 by pmelcher.

Today, in honor of Getty images being the first one to launch a totally useless Ipad App ( I thought these things were reserved to Corbis ), we will share with you a few of the expressions heard or read, invented by corpocrates ( or wannabees) wanting to sound intelligent,  that are supposed to replace the words “Photography” or “Photographer” :

“Compiled  using lens-based imaging technologies” ( That is a photograph)
“Digitally captured  visual wavelength ” ( Ditto)
“Data Sensor light recorder. ” (DSLR)

or a variation..
“Digital light sensitive recorder”.(DSLR)

“Content provider” ( that’s a photographer. Expression coined by the suits at Corbis)

“Legacy data” ( That is mostly used by Digital Asset Management companies)

“Digital asset” ( Another one coined by the Seattle suits)
‘Photography’ for me,” he wrote, “denotes a wide range of imaging practices … dialectically enmeshed with the construction of practical reality
“sight machine” for the coalescence of imaging devices and their data that digital technology has permitted. ( this one is special to me)

“manufacturer of digital files ” ( that is also for photographers or photo agencies)

Why is Getty Images Ipad useless you may still ask. Well, because the Ipad was designed to have the best browsing experience, thus allowing anyone to use the website perfectly well. Of course, you can’t shake it to get a random search like their app does, but I am not sure that is a very demanded tool. I am glad you asked.

Now, an I- “Pad,Phone, Pod ” that could randomly find expertly pseudo complicated expression to replace “photograph” or “photographer’, that would be really cool, no ?

Posted in E Reader, technology, web 2.0, corbis, getty | Print | No Comments »