We hadn’t heard from the PLUS coalition for a while. This loose organization of visual professional who has been tediously trying to create a standard for licensing has suddenly burst out of its silence with two important announcements: 1) The ASMP has dug into its $1,3 Million  fund it had received last year ( we Read More →

While everyone is searching for what commercial stock might become in the future, the Chinese might have one solution and it is quite revolutionary. Researchers from TNList, Department of Computer Science and Technology, Tsinghua University along with a Singapore based researcher, have put together Photosketcher, previously called Sketch2Photo. The principle is quite simple : you Read More →

So, as it reaches $200 million dollars a year in revenue, Istockphoto is pushing the production of stock photography to its rim. The traditionally strong categories for stock imagery, like Lifestyle, Health, Parenthood, Teens, Green, Business are all being more than very well covered by the astute production of 100,000’s very smart microstock producers. For Read More →

“The eventual goal is to have publishers create hybridized content that draws from audio, video and interactive graphics in books, magazines and newspapers, where paper layouts would be static.”. Gizmodo. Apparently Apple is working very hard with publishers to digitize their content for their upcoming tablet ( release date : January 2010). But what is Read More →

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 →

42 years is a lifetime. When these 42 years are made of excellence, passion, relentlessness commitment, inspiration, painful devotion, genius and unconditional dedication, it becomes a legend. Grazia Neri was not a business, it was an act of love, a huge warm embrace around the thousands of beloved and cherished photographers worldwide they represented. It Read More →

3 days of sounds and fury, signifying nothing. To paraphrase Shakespeare, this represent Perpignan Visa pour L’image this year. Only a quarter of the crowd of the previous year, less then half the booth of agencies, a paparazzi agency replacing Grazia Neri’s legendary location and a couple of citizen journalist agency present. As nightly projection 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 →