So the big buzz these days is all about social media. It started roughly with MySpace , followed by Flickr and now it’s all about Twitter and Facebook. A bit like the “Long Tail” theory has been improperly swallowed by a lot of photography professionals, social media is all but properly understood. It used to … Read More →
It is amusing to see that the photography world, especially those who persist in shooting for commercial stock, have yet to use the tools around them. Up the now, the only intelligence gathering tool that has been used ad-nauseum, has been the mighty Excel sheet with pages of past sales. Does a past criminal has … Read More →
The PACA is about to release their stockphotofinder. Or at least a Beta version of it. For those who do not know, PACA stands for Picture Archive Council of America and regroups hundreds of RM and RF commercial stock agencies. They have recently decided, in committee, to create a photo portal for all its members … Read More →
The future of photography is exclusive content. Not exclusive as in no one else wants to shoot this, otherwise called “niche” photography. No, no. Niche photography is just exactly that : a specialized market. And with specialized comes limited. When photography was still film, print and slide, no one could really copy as they could … Read More →
In times of crisis, people will go anywhere to search for answers. Some will even start believing anything as long as the promise is for a succesful and happy ending. Some will even commit mass suicide if the promise is strong enough. Surely, we have not come there yet. But as the situation for photographers … Read More →
One of the hardest and most lucrative task in photography, is editing. It is hard because it is not a science with clear established rules. Trends, fashion, moods, seasons, local culture, a lot can interfere in the process of finding the best image. It is lucrative, not because it’s a profession that pays well (some, … Read More →
When photographers go out of business, there is no announcement on PDN. After flickering a while, they just vanish off the photo firmament, like an unknown star in the huge emptiness of the photo universe. Most will pick up another job, to be never heard about ever again. Only the biggest of the biggest stars … Read More →
There is a lot of talk these days that photography has become a commodity. According to Wikipedia, “A commodity is something for which there is demand, but which is supplied without qualitative differentiation across a market. It is a product that is the same no matter who produces it, such as petroleum, notebook paper, or … Read More →
Who needs microstock anymore ? Thanks to a new plug in for Microsoft office, it has become child play to easily rip an image found with Google Image and include it into a presentation or word document. There are absolutely no copyright warning and nothing to advise the user that they might be breaking the … Read More →
Google just released a white paper on image pattern recognition, yesterday, in Miami. Not really a new concept and already developped by a few companies, like Imense, in the UK, this however is a sign that Google is going beyond text tagging to retrieve images. In brief, this technology uses the “knowledge” of Picasa, Google … Read More →