Whenever we find ourselves in a troubling situation, as a witness, we intervene. We either get physically involved or call for rescue, but either way, we do not remain passive. Photographers – photojournalists in particular- do the same, but not the same way. Lately, the actions of photojournalists witnessing troublesome situations have been, yet again, … Read More →
Jon Oringer of Shutterstock said it well: barrier of entry in stock photography licensing today is very low (actually getting lower), barrier to scalability is very high and getting higher. In other words, it is easy to find and regroup content to license (UGC or not). It is much harder to find clients. Now with … Read More →
To understand the role of photography today, we have to understand why we take pictures. We automatically tend to associate picture-taking as an addition to our memory function since a lot of our natural visual activity is geared towards storing information for later use. However, with the advent of digital and especially mobile photography, we have … Read More →
Regardless of what any teacher might say, there are two ways to become a photographer : take a lot of pictures and look at a lot of pictures. Everything else is secondary. And that is exactly what our teenagers are doing. In a recent study done by Facebook on teens and Instagram, “growing up in a … Read More →
Earlier this week, Mediapost published an article on the rising demand for original content by brands. Citing recent research, the article states that “estimated budgets for producing content have grown steadily from 12.6% two years ago to 23.3%, today — and are on track to surpass 33% by 2017 — according to new research from … Read More →
In an industry that practically defines itself by its conservative progress, it is nice to see bursts of innovation. As we have written many times, it is almost exclusively outsiders who introduce new concepts as they are unshackled from legacy culture. Our first refreshing innovator is a company called Placeit. Taking the concept of commercial … Read More →
Suddenly, out of nowhere, Bloomberg started spewing articles after articles on the sorry state of Getty Images. Three in a row, which is more than they did in the last 3 years combined. Fresh from insider knowledge, it reported Getty Images having poor ratings on a debt secured when purchased by the Carlyle Group as … Read More →
The recent news of Adobe’s acquisition of microstock company Fotolia has sent ripples throughout the photo licensing world. The software company purchased the 11 year company operating in 23 countries in 14 different language for $800 million in cash, in return for 34 million images. While the public announcement clearly aimed at integrating it into its … Read More →
One of the biggest issue facing the professional photos licensing world today is search engines. In their effort to stay appealing to their users, they have all added an image search that allows for the quick and easy return of photos ( or graphics) corresponding to a query. Google, of course, but Yahoo and Bing … Read More →
Boring. Blaaaaah. That is the first word that comes to mind when looking at the winner of the World Press Award, circa 2015. Don’t get me wrong, this year’s committee, led by Michele McNally, probably the best photo editor of our generation, was full of talent. But it was just that, a committee. And time and … Read More →