The 2011
PACA International Conference, the premier annual event in the U.S. for those interested in stock photography, will convene in a little less than a month at the New York Marriott East Side in midtown Manhattan. It runs from Friday, October 21st through Sunday October 23rd.
Stipple Marketplace, the San Francisco based company with the goal of turning editorial images into e-commerce storefronts for consumers, has developed a system that allows publishers to earn money from the images they publish, not just sell ads around those images.
If you haven’t visited the Corbis web site for a while it may be time to
take another look. In 2010 Corbis decided that it was time to update
the search technology they had been using since 1995. The
project involved a series of architectural changes with two primary aims
– improving performance (speed of delivery) and relevancy of the
search results delivered. This story discusses some of the changes and modifications.
Spaces Images is a niche agency founded by people and lifestyle Jonathan Ross about a year ago. However, there are no people in the pictures this agency represents. In tracking 13 years of sales he and his wife and business partner Amy noticed that
many of their best selling images did not include people. They then set out to build
SpacesImages.com a collection that contains property released images of
locations where man lives, works and plays, but without any people in
the images. Most of the have strong graphic and design elements.
The Image Works (
theimageworks.com) editorial stock photography agency has announced the addition to its archive of imagery from the Spanish based Iberfoto picture library. The library consists of over 1.2 million photographs, artistic works and prints, focusing on Hispanic Culture from Spain and Latin America.
Paul Melcher takes a look at where photojournalism is headed and outlines four key changes that will dramatically alter the future of photojournalism. He also acknowledges, though not with any sense of satisfaction, that the new photojournalism is taking some cues from the successful microstock model.
While fees charged customers for stock photo use have been steadily
declining, there is another issue that should be of equal concern to
image creators. That is the percentage they receive of the gross fee the
end user pays. This can be complicated and not the number many
photographers think it is.
In an effort to engage with the next generation of picture professionals,
Alamy and
Dreamstime have launched separate initiatives to benefit students.
Few stock photo tasks are as idiosyncratic as keywording. Some
photographers just use their mental vocabularies while others consult a
thesaurus. I know a photographer who has blocks of often-used synonyms
he cuts and pastes into the right place. Everyone does it differently.
In a little over a year the number of
images represented by the top four microstock sites has increased by 41%. Fotolia has had a 59% increase. The number of people contributing images to Shutterstock has grown by 37% and now totals 313,393. This wouldn't be bad if demand were growing at the same rate, but it's not. Demand seems to be relatively flat and at iStockphoto seems to be declining. How will these numbers affect everyone who produces stock images? Read more.
According to
eMarketer world advertising spend is expected to be about $500 billion this year. The online portion of this spend will make up about $80.2 billion, or 16.1% of the total. By 2015 online advertising spend is expected to reach $132.1 billion and be 22% of total advertising spend.
Alamy has extended its server infrastructure to
NYI’s data center in Los Angeles, to serve the company's growing West Coast customer base. Searching for images on the West Coast will now be as fast as on the East Coast. NYI successfully oversaw Alamy’s upgrade for North America, and now the company will manage the West Coast activity.
Graphic Design USA (GDUSA) has released some of the results from its
25th annual survey of graphic designers to determine their use of stock imagery. A total of
1,008 readers responded to the survey with 96 percent saying they use
stock imagery in their work and 60 percent using it at least 20 times a
year. Both represent new highs for the survey.
Fotolia has released a major update to their website which offers improved navigation and usability. This story explains some of the changes.
Corbis Images has made an undisclosed investment in
Demotix following the media distribution partnership between the two companies
announced in March.
The Associated Press and
Corbis Images have announced a comprehensive cross-distribution partnership that provides customers access to more than 10 million images covering an unparalleled range of breaking news, sports and entertainment, archival and creative images.
Masterfile has upgraded its website with a suite of timesaving tools for creative professionals. "The new
Masterfile.com is a game changer. It makes the task of sifting through millions of images an enjoyable, rewarding and ultimately creative experience," says Steve Pigeon, President.
Arius3D Corp plans to buy
Masterfile Corp. for $21.4 million, in a bid to expand into the traditional 2D market. Under the deal's terms, full consideration will be paid in cash, unless Masterfile opts to receive $12 million of the purchase price in stock. The Masterfile portion of the business will continue to operate under its current brand name and under the direction of Steve Pigeon, founder and president.
Recently a photographer asked how to price extended educational use of
an image that was first licensed by the publisher for textbook use two
years earlier. Initially the image was printed full page, inside. Now
the publisher wants virtually all rights for 20 years. This story explains how I would approach the problem.
Every professional photographer in the world should
add his or her name to the PLUS Registry. It’s FREE. It will take a couple minutes at most. And it may help someone
who wants to pay you money to find you.
Within the framework of
Visa pour l'Image,
CEPIC is organizing a roundtable with photographers, picture agencies and photographers cooperatives exploring the "Relationship between Agencies and Photographers: Art + Commerce or Photographers and Agencies - Making this Symbiotic Relationship Work"
AudioMicro, Inc., which operates a network of digital content licensing marketplaces, has announced that
ImageCollect.com, its celebrity picture marketplace launched just five months ago has more than 1,500,000 mostly “red carpet” images available for download. The company expects to have more than 4 million images on its site before the end of the year. The collection includes archival imagery from companies like Globe Photos and current content being supplied by top entertainment photographers.
Equidyne Holdings LLC, innovating in the field of digital and visual media, has announced the launch of a new subsidiary,
Visual Steam. Visual Steam is a new kind of sales services organization supporting the content licensing and creative services industries. The company’s goal is to generate revenue for clients. Visual Steam offers contract sales services to handle all or part of a client's sales efforts, customized training programs, workshops and complimentary marketing services.
The picturemaxx image search engine is unique in its approach to
providing an image search experience that benefits customers –
particularly editorial - as well as agencies trying to license images.
The company is headquartered in Munich with offices in New York, London,
Berlin and Vienna. Virtually all German speaking media customers (97%)
use picturemaxx as their primary source for finding content. This story explores the advantages and disadvantages of this system for both the customer and the image creator.
Lee Torrens and Amos Struck, leading microstock industry analysts, have organized the first ever,
Microstock Expo and Conference that will be held in Berlin, Germany. The event is scheduled for 5-6 November 2011 at the
andel’s Hotel Berlin and is likely to be the forerunner of regular annual events.