You know what would be news ? Something different. No, not another microstock “save the world” launch. Nor another “look, we slashed our prices so low, it’s not funny anymore”. I am sure even image buyers must be fed up of receiving another flier, email, phone call, or goddamn tweet about another discount or super … Read More →
Commercial stock photography is all about problem solving. The first is how to make a living shooting commercial stock. One way to do it, is to solve other people’s problems. When image buyers go to a Web site, it is because they have been asked to provide a solution to a very specific problem: They … Read More →
Amusing story from the BBC today about when Microstock goes terribly wrong. Two competing political parties in Northern Ireland used the same model for two opposing ideas. As if the world was too small to find two people with diverse opinions. To top it all, both parties breached Istockphoto, and most microstock and royalty free … Read More →
Photography is an investment. No, not the “I buy a lot of expensive equipment and resell it later ” type of investment. It is an investment for the image buyer. A photograph, or a series of photograph, can increase the value of anything around it. Like a multiplier. In it’s raw format, few images have … Read More →
The acquisition of Plink by Google marks the debut of a potent revolution for the photo world. Not because Plink is a special company, nor that Google really cares about the photo world, but for the technical implication that it implies. As it is frequent with Google, it is not the company they purchase, but … Read More →
The surf wizard. the Photo bot. Give a keyword to a bot, it comes back with the image. Better, enter a concept, or a description. it will then surf the whole wide web and return with an image. Whether from an amateur or pro, it won’t matter. Because the image matters. Like information, the image … Read More →
One morning you wake up, and it’s facing you. Everything that you took for granted and made your life so comfortable is suddenly gone. Probably forever. Welcome to the economy of fear. What use to be a cozy job, where every day brought you a new batch of interesting challenges, has now become days of … Read More →
Photography has a long way to go..Compared to other digitized creative forms, like music, it is light years behind. And, for once, that could be a good thing. Like the youngest brother of a family, it can learned from it’s elders. For once, it has not yet been touch at full impact by the whole … Read More →
Anyone can take a picture…that is the lesson Flickr and Microstock have recently taught us with a “pie in the face” method. It doesn’t take that much skills to create images that could use for licensing by someone else. Much less than painting, writing music, writing ( properly) or any other creative activity. Furthermore, technology … Read More →
You know there is a problem when a company selling you a service treats you with superiority and disdain. Somewhere in the sale cycle, someone hates the fact that they should be at the client service and not the opposite. Take software solution companies, for example. They usually work in a vacuum creating some software … Read More →