Archive for August 2008

28 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn




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August 27th 2008


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27 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn



And

the winner is . . .

Which of these proposed
ebook covers

captured the approval of our survey

respondents?


Can you guess?



Drum roll please . . .






Cover A


Cover B








Did you guess right?








The winner is:










Choice "B" is the winner !

The new ebook, “Rohn Engh’s How
To Market

Your Photos” will be available
on September 20th.






The final tally - -



Choice A: 27%

Choice B:
62%

Liked both:
7.5%

Liked neither:
2%

Undecided:
1.5%



Here’s a selection of responses from the more
than 150 persons who chose to add a comment
to their vote:

“Choice A becomes a needle in a haystack
(the large pile of "Marketing" Books)
while Choice B speaks to photographers
who are the only ones that may have
photos to market.”

=====================================

“Choice A represents marketing
more then Choice B. Choice B hits the
emotions, "heart strings", but the ebook
is about marketing photos, not hanging
photos on walls to admire. Choice A
does focus on the title of the book.”


=====================================


“Though Choice A gets your message
across I think Choice B is far better
because it is a more beautiful moody shot.
It's more memorable and not so sterile/
clinical as the first shot.”

< br /> =======================================


Choice b is aesthetically pleasing
but there are too many "nice" covers like
this out there.

========================================


“Choice A: Like the concept but with a
few "tweaks" like BRIGHTEN the colour.
The image in the hand is too stagnant and
needs to be rotated off of the horizontal.
Perhaps both hands with some images fanned
as a magician would fan a deck of cards??”


==========================================


“Do you like Choice A as a possible cover
for our up-and-coming ebook?
Nee
Do you like Choice B as a possible cover
for our up-and-coming ebook?

Ja”

====================================

“Choice A suggests the words 'market
your photos' whereas Choice B shows
pretty pictures.”

====================================

"A" looks professional, "B" looks like
a place I'd like to be!!!”

====================================

“Choice A is more "to the point"
as far as communicating what the content
of the ebook will be, but it is rather
ugly (my apologies to the artist who
worked so hard on it!).

Choice B, however, is much more aesthetically
pleasing, and would appeal to the visually
oriented people you are trying to reach.
It entices to one to "look inside... there
may be more visually interesting stuff a
few pages in!"

=======================================

“Both images in "B" are touching and
inviting. It would stand out to me on a
bookshelf as something interesting. "A"
is too "stock' (pun intended!)”


=========================================

Watch for announcements about this new ebook as we
move toward the September 20th publication date.

This ebook provides step-by-step know-how to harness
the new ways stock photographers are adapting to an
economy that is tightening its belt.

Stock photographers are a highly responsive and innovative
group aren’t they? We knew they would come up with
methods to counter a faltering economy.

You’ll learn all about it in this new ebook by Rohn Engh.

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27 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn




Wedding Photo Contract – Shared Responsibilities?


When A Shoot
Goes Wrong


Advance Notes: It’s no fun defending a lawsuit, even if you win.
Here’s a story to tack onto your bulletin board as a reminder.

By Joel Hecker, Esq.

Contracts should obviously be as inclusive as possible to memorialize the understanding between the parties, to anticipate and resolve potential problem areas, and generally to eliminate ambiguous issues. Unfortunately, the parties often neglect to do the obvious, and face the consequences when things go wrong.

A recent case in New York, brought by an unhappy prospective bride against a wedding photographer, is illustrative of what can go wrong when key terms are not addressed and there is a lack of communication on the job.
The parties entered into a written contract for the photographer to photograph the wedding at a specific place on a specified date from 10:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. for an agreed price. The photographer was also to provide proofs and a CD of the proofs, three 8 x10 photos with special effects, and prepare a wedding album consisting of twenty-four 8 x 10 photo pages. In short, a standard package.
On the day of the wedding, the photographer showed up, but left after a half hour, leaving another photographer from his studio to take the remaining pictures. In all, 355 pictures were taken during the wedding and reception. The bride claimed that many of the images were unprofessional, of poor quality, amateurish in positioning and not the classic style expected. In addition, there were no individual or group photos where feet were included in the picture; no full body shots of the bride and groom, and no shots of the groom with the bridal party. The bride also claimed that the photographer’s sample wedding albums used in his sales pitch showed the type of pictures the wedding couple wanted but did not get.
The photographer claimed the contract provided that “photographers will use their own creative judgment unless otherwise told in writing by client.” Apparently no such preferences wanted by the bride were expressed, nor did the contract specify a particular individual photographer or number of photos to be taken. As a result of these gaps in the contract language, litigation ensued.
The Court, in ruling against the bride and for the photographer, emphasized that no matter how much skill and care is exercised by properly equipped photographers, certain things cannot be guaranteed. This is because no photographer will always be in the right place at the right time and the subjects will not always be where a photographer or bride wants them to be. At any wedding, he recognized, there are a multitude of choices for a photographer to make in terms of selecting the pictures to take.
MAKE IT CLEAR

Critically important to the Court’s determination was the belief that it is incumbent upon the bride to communicate clearly to the photographer what shots or types of shots to take. In this respect, said the Court, a bride or groom has responsibilities at the wedding beyond saying “I do” and enjoying themselves. These responsibilities include awareness of what the photographer is doing, pointing out important subjects and generally communicating specific needs if not already included in the written contract.

Since the contract did not contain express terms as to the photographer’s required performance (i.e. what shots to be taken) the photographer was bound to the more generic legal standard of performing in a skillful and workmanlike manner.

The Court, after reviewing the 355 photos taken, found that although some were poorly focused or framed or generally worthless, the majority were clear and professional, adequately capturing the “good time had by the guests” and “the significance of the moment.” As to the complaint concerning the selection of shots, the Court ruled for the photographer, saying that, although stylistic choices were made, such choices did not constitute a deviation from the reasonable standards expected of a professional photographer.

Accordingly, the photographer prevailed although he had legal fees to pay and unfavorable publicity. The moral of the story is to have clear, unambiguous contracts and to continuously communicate with your clients. Making clients happy is certainly a better business model than defending lawsuits!


Attorney Joel L. Hecker lectures and writes extensively on issues of concern to the photography industry. His office is located at Russo & Burke, 600 Third Ave, New York NY 10016. Phone: 1 212 557-9600. E-mail: HeckerEsq[at]aol[dot]com.



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27 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn




A BACKPACK,

NOT A BACKACHE


Every now and then a new product comes along and it is simply amazing that nobody has thought of it before.

Lowepro Primus AW is such a product. With its functionality and its simplicity this is probably as close to being genius as you can come for a camera bag. If you love the carrying comfort of a backpack but sometimes need to access your camera gear fast, you will quickly fall in love with Primus AW.
It features a side access to the main camera compartment. You can open one zipper and have access to your gear in seconds. No need to remove the backpack from your back!

With traditional Lowepro quality in materials, design and workmanship, there isn’t anything not to like about this product. Priced at a very affordable $249.95 and with a portion of that going to the non-profit Polar Bears International—an organization that works to save the Polar Bears—even if you have a camera backpack you already like, the Primus AW should be seriously considered.

I have found that the Primus AW is perfect when I don’t need to carry all my gear and when I might need fast access to my camera. I use a Canon 5D with a grip and a 24-70 2.8L as my main workhorse and this easily fits in the bag. Along with a few more lenses, rain gear, dry socks, CF cards and everything else I constantly carry with me.
With Primus AW, Lowepro has – yet again – hit a homerun so far out of the stadium that the ball might not even have landed yet. –MK




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27 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn





TRAIL CAMERA TO THE RESCUE Are the Bigfoot trackers after a $1,000,000 online reward? - "We're not saying we believe in Sasquatch, but if anyone's ever going to capture an
image of one, we're guessing it'll be a hunter with a trail camera. That's why Bushnell is offering a chance at $1,000,000 for a verifiable photo of the beast," declares the site. http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10018798-71.html?tag=mncol4.
AT THE CRACK OF DAWN One Sunday morning last month, a culture war was declared on an unsuspecting Melbourne family. Artist and lawyer Polixeni Papapetrou and her husband Robert Nelson were awoken up at 5.30am by a television producer seeking an interview to discuss the July issue of Art Monthly Australia magazine. The Sunday Telegraph had published a story that morning under the headline "Art mag's 'sick' nude child stunt" that referred to the cover image of a naked five-year-old girl. Papapetrou, creator of the 2002 image Lewis Carroll's Beatrice Hatch before White Cliffs, declined to be interviewed at the time. She'd given the magazine permission to reproduce the photograph, which had toured nationally as part of an exhibition in 2003. And she had done this after discussing it with the model, her daughter Olympia, now 11, and her husband, a respected art academic and critic. Now, artist and photograph were under attack.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,24219634-16947,00.html?from=public_rss



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27 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn



HOW MUCH? -- Guidelines For Selling Your Images - Finding proper stock pricing has alwaysbeen an arduous chore, but new software allows the user to price stock within a range of variables. This gives photographers flexibility to calculate pricing. http://shutterbug.com/columns/business_trends/0508business/



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27 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn





http://www.photosource.com/video/hornets

This is how we win the battle against the hornets at
Pine Lake Farm.


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27 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn



IS TRADITIONAL STOCK IN FLIGHT, OR FIGHT? The Photo Indigestion - Even if Getty and Jupiterimages saw Microstock coming, they both underestimated its impact tremendously. Jupiterimages is struggling to integrate their own microstock. Who will be the first to shut down some of its more traditional divisions in order to save the leaking ship ? http://blog.melchersystem.com/2008/08/19/the-photo-indigestion/
TAKEAWAY: Scarcity is a force in commerce. Abundance reduces prices.

TEN WAYS MICROSTOCK COACHING CAN INCREASE YOUR EARNINGS-- NOT -This photographer is a Diamond level exclusive contributor at iStockphoto where he's also an inspector. He's the author of a book on microstock, Microstock Photographer's Guide.
http://www.microstockdiaries.com/10-ways-microstock-coaching-can-increase-your-earnings.html
TAKEAWAY: If you can find something to takeaway in this article, please let me know. -RE





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27 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn




SHOOTER ETIQUETTE -- Even viewed in the most favorable light, impersonal images from a powwow such as Crow Fair miss the most important aspects of the event itself, and the people and cultures on display.
This year during one of the daily parades at Crow Fair, the annual powwow and rodeo held along the Little Big Horn River on the Crow Reservation in southern Montana, one of my mothers-in-law yelled combatively at a professional photographer who planted himself between her and one of her grandchildren on parade. "Hey, get out of the way," she hollered. "We're taking pictures, too." The photographer knelt down and kept shooting film. http://www.newwest.net/city/article/beyond_the_photos_the_real_magic_crow_fair/C8/L8/

====================================
Omnimedia's Blueprint, Condé Nast's Golf for Women and Hearst Magazines' Quick & Simple. Also on that list are Premiere, For Me, Elle Girl and Shock.
http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/content_display/photo-news/editorial/e3ib059277af12a465553961fe41f382491
TAKEAWAY. No love lost. Most major successful magazines are conceived by a marketing group that analyzes the reading climate out there. They are staff written and edited by journalism school graduates who upscale to higher-paying posts persistently. Advertisers control content, page size, and circulation. When the magazines don’t produce the calculated numbers, the cleaning ladies come in and prepare the floor for another concept. Benjamin Franklin is smiling.


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27 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn




GOING, GOING…Hachette Will Suspend Home Magazine - This year has seen a number of titles succumb to the tough economy, including Martha Stewart Living, Omnimedia's Blueprint, Condé Nast's Golf for Women and Hearst Magazines' Quick & Simple. Also on that list are Premiere, For Me, Elle Girl and Shock.
http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/content_display/photo-news/editorial/e3ib059277af12a465553961fe41f382491
TAKEAWAY. No love lost. Most major successful magazines are conceived by a marketing group that analyzes the reading climate out there. They are staff written and edited by journalism school graduates who upscale to higher-paying posts persistently. Advertisers control content, page size, and circulation. When the magazines don’t produce the calculated numbers, the cleaning ladies come in and prepare the floor for another concept. Benjamin Franklin is smiling.


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27 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn



STOP IT! -- How do you send a DMCA Takedown Notice ? When photographers send
cease-and-desist letters and/or demands for payment to infringers, these are
often ignored. But there is another solution, thanks to the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA): you can send a takedown notice to the
infringer's ISP. Here's how to do it.
http://rising.blackstar.com/how-to-send-a-dmca-takedown-notice-2.htm


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27 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn





BROOKS DEFENDS ITS ROLE. Brooks Institute refocuses on better image. The school of photography continues court battle to clean tarnished reputation. The Brooks Institute emerged victorious early this year over charges that prospective students were attracted to enrolling there with guarantees of gainful employment post-graduation. Now, officials at the longtime local photography college are hoping to replicate that same success as they contend with a pair of legal cases alleging similar complaints. "They claim they were misled," he said of the plaintiffs, adding, "We certainly deny making any misrepresentation to students." Both cases are nearly identical, Richter said, accusing the school of supposedly convincing students to attend the three-year institute while overselling the promised high-salaried jobs. An unspecified amount of monetary damages, legal fees and back tuition is being sought, based on the charges.
http://www.vcreporter.com/cms/story/detail/?id=6231



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27 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn




BOOK REVIEW. From Pdonline.com. China: The Unforgotten Past . Liu Heung Sheng (or HS as he is widely known) is a Pulitzer-prize winner who came to photography by a circuitous route, but one which has helped him produce the new book China: Portrait of a Country (Taschen), a remarkable study of the rich but virtually unknown history of Chinese photography since 1949. We have become all too used to seeing China as it appeared to the visitor from Europe or America. Now this remarkable book shows us what it looked like from inside.
http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/content_display/photo-news/photojournalism/e3ifcd8e3f7380913c388431cf9d9897308




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27 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn




GET NO RESPECT? News photographers in Wisconsin have been attacked, threatened, arrested, and had their cameras and film confiscated. They have been barred from meetings that were open to other members of the public. The hand held up to the camera is unfortunately a familiar image.
TAKEAWAY. This happening not only in Wisconsin. But hold it! Are they earning this disrespect?
http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=23532


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27 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn




CANON 50D RUMORS. -- Heat Up In A Big Way. Whoops. It looks like Canon's China site accidentally posted specs for the company's upcoming Canon 50D dSLR, which seems all but confirmed.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10023265-1.html?tag=mncol

PEEK A BOO. The manufactured quirk, the out-of-the-box individuality--Urban Outfitters is becoming like Target for hipsters. You can get your ironic clothing, mod bedspread, dirty reading material, slightly dinged-up but brightly colored coffee table, wall mirror (in which you pretend not to narcissistically check your intentionally mussed hair)--and now, your retro-hip plastic camera, too. At this point, Urban just needs to start selling organic avocados and MGMT CDs and it'll truly be a one-stop shop for hipsterdom.
But we digress. Remember the pinhole photography? Of course you have, you went to a liberal arts school and took a whole class on it! Well, now you don't have to go through the trouble of making a pinhole camera the old-fashioned way; you can just buy the Lomography Holga Pinhole 35mm Camera for $60 at Urban.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10021523-1.html?tag=mncol

3D WONDER. -- Microsoft launches “Photosynth” for consumers. Photosynth, a technology demo from Microsoft Live Labs, has graduated from its "ooh, that's pretty" status to being a viable Web service for consumers. The technology, which takes a grouping of photographs and stitches them into a faux 3D environment, can now be implemented with photos you've taken on your digital camera or mobile phone, and converted right on your computer. Previously, the process of stitching these photos together took weeks of processing on specially configured server arrays. With its latest version, Microsoft has managed to shrink that into around the time it takes to upload your photos.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10020637-2.html?tag=mncol

PHOTO MECHANIC 4 If you have had to keyword and caption a large number of digital images at a time, you know that it can be both time-consuming and tedious. Enter Photoshop. You can record actions in Photoshop that automatically enter information that is the same for all your images, such as your name, copyright information, website URL, etc. You can run actions automatically on a folder of images. This makes it easy to add this type of information to a large number of digital images. Set the action to start and let your computer do the rest of the work.
Adding keywords and captions is a different matter, though. Typically, this is done image by image. However, many times there are some keywords that stay the same for a group of images from a particular shoot. For instance ( I photograph in the area of law enforcement), when I photograph at a particular prison during a day, information such as the name and location of the prison, security classification, etc. is the same for all images shot during that day.
EASY DUPLICATION
 You can easily add this type of information in batches by selecting the images in question and applying the same information to all the images.
The best tool I have found for working with keywording and captioning is Photo Mechanic 4, from Camera Bits. Dedicated software for keywording makes sense if you do a lot of it. If you work with digital images only occasionally, I recommend that you save your money and use your image editing software. But if you, like me, work with hundreds of digital images per week, any time saving tricks add up to a real win.
Photo Mechanic 4 is intuitive and easy to use. Available for both Mac and Windows at an affordable $150, I warmly recommend this software to all digital editorial stock photographers.
Camera Bits is a small business located in Portland, Orego n. Customer service is excellent – better than what you get at many larger businesses.
The best part is that you can download a fully functional demo version from the Camera Bits website (www.camerabits.com) to try before you buy. This is an investment you will not regret that you made. More and more services are expected from photographers these days, and anything that will help you do more work in less time is very helpful indeed. –MK



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27 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn



Wanted: Avid Photographers And Nature Lovers - The annual 2008 Share the
Experience photo contest challenges photo enthusiasts to explore, experience
and capture America's federal lands Contest will run from today through December 31, 2008.
http://www.creativepro.com/article/wanted-avid-photographers-and-nature-lovers


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27 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn




IT’S A WONDERFUL WORLD. That's the answer that a new exhibit at Maryland Hall, called "Crossing Borders: Two Cultures, One Me," tells. It features photographs taken by about 15 Bates Middle School students this spring during photography class at Maryland Hall. All the students are immigrants -- from Mexico, El Salvador, Bangladesh, India, Honduras and other countries. Some don't speak English, but their thoughts shine through their camera lenses. "This is completely introspective," said Lindsay McCullough, who taught the class. "They turned the cameras on themselves and their families, on what this new life means to them."
http://wjz.com/local/immigrant.annapolis.2.799938.html


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27 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn



KEEP THE PEACE. British Photographic Council hits out at rogue photographers - Around 12 newspaper, agency and freelance photographers met with senior officers from
the Metropolitan Police's Specialist Firearms Command last week to improve
relations. http://www.bjp-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=811318

THE FINAL ASSESSMENT: Beijing Olympics Make the Grade. The 2008 Olympic games opened with fears that censorship, air pollution and the heavy hand of the Chinese government would overpower the Olympic spirit. What a difference two weeks make. Interest in the games is high and scandal is at a minimum. The Olympics have put sports photographers in a good mood. Photographers and editors interviewed over the last few days universally praised the Beijing Olympics as the best-run games in years.
http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/content_display/photo-news/photojournalism/e3ie2e24571645310cbad87b94909c1f7b3


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20 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn





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August 20th 2008


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20 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn



http://sellphotos.com/survey/public/survey.php?name=Course1CoverHornet





Are the buffet table trays empty?


QUALITY vs. QUANTITY


Advance Notes: Assess the pictures in your files – are they predominantly scenics, general nature pictures, specific-content photos? What you’ve been shooting can relate directly to your success at seeing your pictures published.


How many pictures are in your file? Wait. Let me re-phrase that. How many marketable pictures? Your buffet trays may be empty. In other words, your buffet table may be filled, but with foods of no interest to the customers.

Vegetable vendors know that all the bells, whistles, and solos of "Figaro" won't sell a tomato if their customers already have tomatoes in their backyard gardens. The vendor has in effect, an empty wagon. Here's a test to see if your wagon is empty.

First, a reality: if art directors at an ad agency, pr firm, or publishing house need a "generic" scenic, they go to their favorite on-line stock agency to find it. Why? For the same reasons you visit a vast supermarket, not to go to four or five Ma & Pa grocery stores. At a supermarket they’ll find a large selection to choose from, plus time-saving one-stop shopping.

Attempting to sell your "standard excellent" shots directly to photobuyers can be discouraging. Photobuyers want to deal with the comfortable (to him/her) source of a familiar agency or a handful of photographers they’ve worked with before. They don’t want the time-consuming and unpredictable task of dealing with an individual photographer they don’t know, along with the added frustrations of “training” a new supplier, or holding their hand during the process. Buyers want hassle-free photo buying.

A QUESTION

Why do some stock photographers’ pictures get published, and not other people? You might say, "I see so-and-so's pictures published all of the time."
That's true. Those photographers are superstars. If you were to try to break into the field of music, painting, writing, etc. -- you'd face the same uphill battle. Photobuyers figure the cost is the same, so why not go with the 'name' photographer.

There are several routes up that hill for a stock photographer. And not all roads lead to the top. Just knowing how to choose a road can save months, even years, of lost motion.

Here's the test, which points you toward the right road. Is your buffet table filled with sunsets, covered bridges, waterfalls, hot air balloons -- all top quality? Even prize-winners? It may be no surprise to you that the next guy's wagon is also filled with the same subject matter and high quality. If a photobuyer broadcasts a call for a picture of a hot air balloon, he gets an Oklahoma land rush charge of wagons coming at him. The buyer has learned to go to a generic stock agency for those standard, scenic pictures. He’ll have hundreds to choose from. So, get those prize-winners in a portal (on-line stock photo agency).

In a sense, your buffet table is empty. It is filled, yes, but with pictures that are difficult to market on your own because they're up against stiff competition in terms of the sheer numbers of similar photos available. In the industry, they're called 'clones.'

THE SECRET FOR MARKETING SUCCESS: Specialization

Put your own standard scenics in a microstock agency and let them compete from there with the hundreds of similar prize-winning photos.
Begin today to expand your files of pictures in special categories of your own. Examine your interest areas, whether outdoor recreation, education, the environment, medicine, gardening, dogs, etc. Photobuyers will come to consider you as a valuable resource for these "working" photos. A real test of this process is to examine the photos that are actually used in the magazines you read or the books on your personal library shelf. They will be “working” photos and rarely will they be the “blue ribbon” scenics you thought would be snapped up by photobuyers. Develop your markets in the areas of your strongest interests -- and begin filling your buffet table with these highly saleable images.

Other professions do the same: attorneys, doctors, and musicians. They don't try to be all things to all people. They select an area in their field and become an expert in that specific subject area.
We all choose an expert when the situation is important. That's how photobuyers feel about selecting you as a potential lifelong supplier to them. If you specialize in their area of interest, you'll become a valued resource when your areas of coverage match their specific needs.

If you specialize, you'll find you'll be moving along the right road in that journey to the top of the hill.




Rohn Engh, veteran stock photographer and best-selling author of "Sell & ReSell Your Photos" and "sellphotos.com," has helped scores of photographers launch their careers. His company, PhotoSource International, is presently producing a new E-Book called, “Rohn Engh’s How to Market Your Photos.” It will be ready for publication on September 20th 2008.











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20 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn



COSTLY READING. The Rising Textbook Prices -- All around the country, college bookstore professionals recently began doing double-takes as they unpacked book shipments for fall term. While incremental price increases are always expected over time, on some titles, prices had leapt 10% in just a year, twice the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 5% Consumer Price Index for June (up from 2.7% in June 2007). Other titles had soared 30% and even 40% since this time last year.
Staffers are wondering how to explain these increases to faculty, students, parents, and campus and local media. College stores and the textbook industry in general have already been taking a beating in news media across the country over textbook prices.
“We have one class that has been using the same edition for a few years and the book is all over the Internet for less than five bucks. The book costs students about $25 through the bookstore, which is way lower than the $180 price tag of the latest edition,” a faculty member said. http://www.nacs.org/news/080808-prices.asp?id=cm


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20 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn




WHAT A SHOW! A+ …Olympic panorama before 100m final shows photographers, Beijing National Stadium - http://robgalbraith.com/bins/content_page.asp?cid=7-9314-9563.at
TAKEAWAY. Can London top this one in 2012? .


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20 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn




HOW OFTEN DO PEOPLE USE A SEARCH ENGINE? “Underscoring the dramatic increase over time, the percentage of Internet users who search on a typical day grew 69% from January 2002 to May 2008. During the same six-year time period, the use of email on a typical day rose from 52% to 60%, for a growth rate of just 15%, according to the latest study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The percentage of Internet users who use search engines on a typical day has soared from about one-third of all users in 2002, to a new high of just under one half (49%). How often people search is one of the key questions in understanding the success of Google and other search engines. Search has become embedded in our daily lives. . . “ http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/080807-053537




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20 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn




http://www.photosource.com/video/hornets

This is how we win the battle against the hornets at
Pine Lake Farm.

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20 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn



IT’s PAYING OFF. ASMP Considers How to Spend $1.3 Million Windfall - The money came from royalty payments collected by governments outside the U.S. and designated for visual artists.
http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/content_display/photo-news/legal-news/e3i0f5821355a7d96c8e4e63ea85c524c74


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20 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn




DO-IT-YOURSELF -- Digital Railroad Launches Photo-Book Printing Service in Partnership with Embassy Pro Books - "Our members frequently ask us for recommendations on
companies that produce high-quality photo books, and Embassy has always been
at the top of our list," said DRR CEO Charles Mauzy. DRR member
photographers save 50% on their first photo-book order.
http://www.stockphotographer.info/content/view/698/92/
TAKEAWAY: Self-published books often become the perfect catalog for stock photographers.

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20 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn



WOULD YOU AGREE? Ten Misconceptions about photography -
http://blog.melchersystem.com/2008/08/12/10-misconceptions-about-photography/

IT WAS BOUND TO HAPPEN Spanish player defends controversial photo. Players on Spain's Olympic basketball team defended a photo in an ad showing the players using their fingers to apparently make their eyes look more Chinese. The photo, which has been running as a newspaper spread in Spain since Friday, shows all 15 players making the gesture on a basketball court adorned with a Chinese dragon. The photo was part of a publicity campaign for team sponsor Seur and is being used only in Spain.
http://www.nbcolympics.com/basketball/news/newsid=208577.html#spanish+player+defends+controversial+photo
TAKEAWAY: The world is shrinking. Photographs have a way of helping.

PHOTOGRAPHY AS A WEAPON, As almost everyone knows by now, various major daily newspaper published, on July 10, a photograph of four Iranian missiles streaking heavenward; then Little Green Footballs (significantly, a blog and not a daily newspaper) provided evidence that the photograph had been faked. Later, many of those same papers published a Whitman's sampler of retractions and apologies. For me it raised a series of questions about images. Do they provide illustration of a text or an idea of evidence of some underlying reality or both? And if they are evidence, don't we have to know that the evidence is reliable, that it can be trusted?
http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/photography-as-a-weapon/?ref=opinion
TAKEAWAY: Maybe it’s time to call photos something else, (like docuphotos) or call digital images a different name?


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20 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn




CATCH ‘EM IF YOU CAN. -- Using the DMCA Takedown Notice to Battle Copyright Infringement - Finding an unauthorized use of your photograph on the web is upsetting. But what can
you do about it? You can contact an attorney for assistance or the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) gives you another option.
http://www.naturescapes.net/docs/index.php/articles/314


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20 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn


OVER-CAUTIOUS SOCIETY. -- Has our increasingly paranoid society declared war on the humble 'weekend snapper'? (UK) An amateur photographer is chased by the police after taking pictures on the seafront; another man is frog marched away when using his camera in a town centre. Since when did carrying a camera in public provoke so much suspicion and hostility? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/08/17/sv_photographers.xml


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20 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn




Photo Tourism lets you explore photos in '3D environment' - For example, if
you have 20 photographs of the Eiffel Tower taken from various angles, the
algorithms will map them together, and as you drag across the image, the
picture "turns" and shows you different angles of the structure.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10018260-1.html?tag=mncol


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20 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn




MICROSOFT AND NIKON - "Iconic Britain" photo contest was designed as part of the marketing campaign around Windows Live Image Search, with Nikon as the prize partner. Unlike most photographic competitions this one invited entrants to search for other people's online pictures, then submit the ones they felt were iconic British stuff, in the hope of winning a Nikon camera. As for the photographers themselves, they get nada--not even a link-back to their site or a credit of their name.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10015266-93.html?tag=mncol

FROM THE COMMERCIAL VIEW Interview with Advertising Art Director, Kaleena Tucker - After just a few years in the advertising industry, Nashville, Tennessee-based art director Kaleena Tucker has already received accolades from the ADDY's, One Show Student Competition and the Young Guns International Ad Competition. Find out what she has to say about photography.
http://fieldreport.wordpress.com/2008/07/28/interview-with-advertising-art-director-kaleena-tucker/



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20 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn




1889 – First Photograph of a Meteor was made in the United States, on August 10th, taken by Harvard College observatory, Harvard University, Cambridge Massachusetts.


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13 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn







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August 13th 2008


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13 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn





Will Your Next

Photobuyer

Be Worth

$250,000 To You?

If you were selling apples, which of the following
scenarios would you enjoy most?
A. You start your morning with a leisurely breakfast at 9:00 a.m., load three dozen apples into your cart and deliver them to one customer at 11:00 a.m., and then spend the afternoon at the beach.
B. You are awakened by the alarm at 5:00 a.m.; you rush through breakfast so that you can start knocking on doors in order to sell your 36 apples by the end of the day.
No contest, right? Yet most stock photographers resort to the second scenario, or even a third: they wait by the phone and hope someone will call them.
In the early days of the California Gold Rush, the '49ers who proved most successful were those that panned the creeks first to locate the gold, but then took one more important step. They followed the gold back to the source and then spent their time in the mine.
Too often, stock photographers will sell a photo to a buyer and consider the sale and relationship done. The photographer goes on to look for "gold" elsewhere.

FUTURE WORTH
Successful stock photographers, on the other hand, learn how to "mine their lode." That is, they calculate the future net worth of each photobuyer (and the market he/she represents) and put the buyer into their marketing program, which includes systematic promotion. A buyer soon forgets a photo and a photographer unless you remind the buyer regularly of your work.
You can cultivate long-term working relationships with photobuyers at markets whose photo needs match your strong coverage areas.
Determining the future net worth of an editor or photobuyer is not difficult to do. Based on photobuyers at other, similar, markets, be it a book or magazine publisher, a corporation, etc., the photographer estimates the jobs, sales, and other revenue that can be obtained from the photobuyer over two to three years, and then projects what potential revenues will come in. Past experience shows that each buyer represents certain predictable variables: per-picture rate of pay, average number of pictures bought per transaction, frequency of purchase per year, spin-off to other photobuyers in the same publishing house/ad agency/ corporation. From this, it's possible for the stock photographer to determine a fairly accurate future net worth of their new photobuyer.
The future net worth over a ten year period of a typical low-budget buyer would be approximately $5,000. A mid-range buyer would be approximately $25,000, and a high range would be about $75,000. By the way, we have found ten years is an average length of time you can expect to remain with a buyer in the publishing industry.


PROMOTION


The critical factor is promotion.
If the stock photographer does not set up a regular and consistent plan of promotion, the new photobuyer could very easily be lost.
What does it cost to promote? If your costs to promote were just 10% of the expected gross revenue, it's easy to see that promotion costs are irrelevant. The critical factor is to know who you should spend your promotional dollars on.
Which brings us to how to get good leads worth your promotion dollars (panning for gold along the creek). Obviously, the leads in your marketletter (PhotoDaily, PhotoLetter, or PhotoStockNotes/Plus) are the most cost-effective for you. If you spend $375 per year on a marketletter service, and obtain 10 excellent mid-range leads during that one year, you have a gold mine: 10 x $25,000 = $250,000 future net worth--at a cost of only $375, pl us 10% to promote to them over a ten-year period. There are not many businesses that can realize that kind of cost-effective marketing strategy.
Begin today. Follow up with the photobuyers you've cultivated in the past. Start mining this hidden asset of yours.


Rohn Engh is director of PhotoSource International and publisher of PhotoStockNotes

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13 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn





THE FLOOD IS COMING!

ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) approved new guidelines allowing for the introduction of hundreds, maybe thousands, of new domain names. You’ll not likely see any till at least next year, since there are still items to be worked out, like the fees ICANN will charge registrars for the new names. They also voted to open up to public comment a proposal to allow addresses, including the domain name, to be entirely in non-English languages. Now, isn’t that going to be interesting!

VOICE OVER INTERNET PROTOCOL

VoIP—using the Internet to make phone calls—is gaining in popularity. VoIP boxes let you use your high-speed Internet connection and your regular telephone to make calls. You’ll pay a monthly fee to a service provider like Vonage (vonage.com). Skype (skype.com) is another service that allows you to use your computer’s audio card and microphone to make calls without a regular phone. Calls to other Skype subscribers are free (as is the software), and calls to regular phones (landline and cell) incur a fee. Vonage and similar carriers have a 9-1-1 service for emergencies, whereas Skype does not, so you’d be advised when relying on Skype (or a similar product), to also have an alternate phone (landline or cell).

KODAK STILL FIGHTING

Kodak reported a profit decline, adding that soaring costs for silver, aluminum and petrochemicals will continue to inflict pain this year. They’ve invested another $125 million into their line of consumer inkjet printers, and are working on a commercial version. In case you’re wondering, their sales on traditional film products (excludes motion picture film) fell 14%. Although the digital side showed a 17% increase, it continues to be a loss.


Bill Hopkins is the Webmaster of PhotoSourceFolio* (www.photosourcefolio.com) and a regular contributor to PhotoStockNotes. Send comments via e-mail to wh[at]photosourcefolio[dot]com. Fax: 1 818 831-0916. For on-line questions, contact Bill on the Kracker Barrel at www.photosource.com/board.
*Display 6 of your own images for photobuyers to view, on your page on the PhotoSource website.


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13 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn





Buying Digital

When it comes to buying a digital camera, how do you determine what kind to choose? Ask yourself a simple question: "Why and how will I be using this camera?" If it's for family snapshots, you'll get an easy answer. If it's to supply professional digital images to a buyer, you'll get a different answer.
If your purpose is professional, you need to ask another question. "Will I be using this camera to supply images for commercial use such as for an advertising agency or commercial entity, or will the camera be used to supply quarter-page images for textbook publishers?" Your answer could make the difference between thousands of dollars in purchase price.
How do you find your answers?
Ask.
Find out from the clients on your personal Market List what kind of digital images they utilize (size, format, dpi, and so on). Select a camera that will deliver those needs. By tailoring your digital equipment to your clients' needs, you can assure their continued friendship, cooperation, and interest in your photos (i.e. sales).

SCANNERS BEGONE ?


Many photographers seem to think that once they purchase a professional-grade digital camera, they'll have no use for their scanner for film images.
A survey conducted by Trend Watch Graphic Arts showed a different story. The survey asked the question: "How Has Your Use of Color Scanners Changed as a Result of Owning a Digital Camera?" 54% of the respondents said scanner use stayed the same. 10% increased use, and 35% said they decreased the use of scanners.
More than half of the respondents stated that they're using their scanners at least as much now as before they purchased a digital camera.
What conclusions can be drawn from this? For one, don't put your scanner in storage just yet. As a matter of fact if you don't own a scanner, NOW's the time to start looking for good bargains. A good film scanner will allow you to digitize all your old slides and negs and start marketing those as digital images.
A word of caution. A scanned digital image must be as clean and dust free as a crisp, newly processed strip of film. Specks of dust or a microscopic strand of hair in a scanned image can be enough to have a photobuyer put you on their list - and it's not a good list.
Learning digital - be it scanned images or files from a digital camera - can sure seem like a huge task. There is help to be found though, and plenty of it. < http://board.photosource.com >.

Photojournalist Mikael Karlsson has 14 years' experience of working for magazines and newspapers in more than 30 countries. He moved to the United States in 1998 from his native Sweden. He lives in Nebraska and is currently US correspondent for 11 Swedish magazines and a regular contributor to a wide variety of U.S. publications. Reach him at mike[at]photosource[dot]com.

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13 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn






IRS INCREASES STANDARD

MILEAGE RATES

The tax code authorizes deductions for stock photographers who use their cars for business, moving, medical or charitable purposes. They can choose to write off their actual expenses or use what are known as the optional standard mileage rates.

For business driving, actual expenses include gas, oil, tires, repairs, license tags, registration fees, insurance, garage rent, lease payments and depreciation. As an alternative to claiming actual expenses, you may be able to use a standard mileage rate that is adjusted annually to reflect inflation and gas prices. The rate’s advantage is that it eliminates the extra burden of tracking actual costs; records need to be kept only of business miles driven for the year in question. Just to be clear, the IRS definition of “cars” includes vans, pickups and panel trucks.

In response to skyrocketing fuel prices, 2008’s rate is 50.5 cents per mile for January through June and 58.5 cents for July through December, up from 2007’s 48.5 cents.

CALCULATE YOUR DEDUCTION


Do you qualify to claim both actual expenses and the mileage rate? Then there is just one way to know which option provides a larger write-off: figure your deduction both ways. Usually, actual expense is more advantageous than the per-mile rate, especially when there is a surge in price at the pump or your vehicle is a gas-guzzler. But the reverse can be true for those who have extremely low outlays or scant business mileage.

Stock photographers who move for business-related reasons and use their cars to transport themselves, members of their households or their belongings are able to deduct actual costs of gas and oil or a standard rate for 2008 of 19 cents per mile for the first six months and 27 cents for the final six months.

Besides claiming mileage allowances, remember to take separate deductions for parking fees, as well as bridge, tunnel and turnpike tolls. And drive within speed limits. The feds forbid deductions for traffic tickets. It matters not that you were on the way to a business meeting.

A business-driving example: For 2008, Dan drives 5,000 miles during the first six months and 5,000 miles during the final six months. He pays $100 for parking and tolls. His allowable deduction is $5,550 — $2,525 (5,000 times 50.5), plus $2,925 (5,000 times 58.5), plus $100.

If the IRS examines your returns and scrutinizes car write-offs, it will not dispute standard-rate deductions, as long as you are able to verify the miles driven; the agency disregards actual expenses. So it is prudent to keep glove-compartment diaries or other records in which you list the details of when, how far and why you went, along with charges for parking and tolls.


Julian Block, a former IRS agent and a tax attorney, is the author of “The Stock Photographer’s Tax Guide 2008.” For details on how to purchase this important 72-page publication: http://www.photosource.com/taxtips.php . For Julian’s tax saving and tax planning reports, go to http://www.photosource.com/products and click on “2008 Tax Tip Guides.” Julian can be reached at julianblock[at]yahoo[dot]com . http://www.julianblocktaxexpert.com


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NG GETTING SERIOUS ABOUT ITS ARCHIVES. – National Geographic Launches Photography Imprint. National Geographic is attempting to break into the high-end photography market with a new imprint, Focal Point, dedicated to showcasing images from its photographic archive. The first four b ooks will pub this fall and range from a photojournalist's collection of images depicting the Muslim culture to a retrospective on the work of Iranian photographer Reza.
http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6583732.html


UP FRONT AND CLOSE AT BEIJING. -- Kodak Is Sharing Olympic Experience with Fans at kodak.com. Eastman Kodak Company is offering fans an inside look at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games through a variety of interactive online features at kodak.com/go/olympics including Olympic Picture of the Day, a photo tour of Beijing and daily posts on Kodak's blogs. "While many websites cover medal tallies and country standings, we turn our cameras 180 degrees to show national pride, fan support and local color along with great sports photography," said Thomas Hoehn, Director, Brand Communications and New Media. "We want to provide a sense of what it's like to be at the Games through pictures and personal stories direct from Beijing." http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=71932


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13 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn




Tips to ensure a rewarding
relationship with photobuyers

Do your homework. Know the special interest areas of your photobuyers. Know what content they need and what their publications look like, so that you are prepared to carry out the following nine steps:

1. Present a “give” list. Don’t be a “gimmie." Don't contact photobuyers to ask questions to help yourself -- help them. Let them know you can provide them with photos in such and such areas (the areas you've researched that are the focus of that particular buyer) and that you are in a position to be a regular supplier of them. In the course of your conversations, you draw out what specific current needs the buyers have, all the while emphasizing what experience or qualifications put you in a position to be an important resource for the photobuyers and their publications.
2. If you get the chance to be in conversation with a photo researcher or photobuyer, introduce yourself cheerfully. The way you open the conversations will set the tone for the entire exchange and impression.
3. Be open. Be candid. Evasiveness or ambiguity won’t work. Beforehand, clarify to yourself your purpose for the call, the points you want to provide to the photobuyer, and then straightforwardly go for it. For example, don’t use the excuse, “I am updating my database.”
4. Be enthusiastic. Exude a sense of confidence. A positive attitude will encourage your buyers to want to see various ways they can use your services. Yet don’t be overbearing or officious.
5. Be complimentary. A well-paced, well-meaning compliment about the photobuyer’s publication, latest layout, insightful coverage, etc., will serve you well.
6. Be social but brief. Briefly bring up one or two current topics related to the photobuyer’s area of concern. The more social you are, the more likely you'll elicit a favorable response. Of course, don’t overdo it! The photobuyer will appreciate your awareness that he/she is busy and has deadlines.
7. You might share with the photobuyer some bits of information you have learned from other sources in the field. However, be certain not to betray anyone’s trust.
8. Be charitable. Allow that 75 percent of photobuyers don’t have time to return phone calls from unknown (to them) prospects, especially after a deadline has passed. Thanks to e-mail, many buyers are replying with some sort of acknowledgement. But, some don’t have the time, or think they don’t have the time. Solution: It’s nothing personal. Maintain equanimity and sail on. Persevere with new submissions for new needs, and you’ll score at some point.
9. Understand model releases. Even though model releases are not required 99 percent of the time for editorial usage (illustration purposes in books and magazines), this subject strikes fear in the heart of many photobuyers. Some (especially the recruits interns, and newcomers) seem to think they need model releases to protect themselves and their jobs. They are not concerned with their or your First Amendment rights. However, when photos are used to inform and educate and entertain, model releases are not required. If the magazine or book photobuyer you’re speaking with requires releases, it’s a signal to you to politely end the conversation and move on to the many markets who know their first amendment rights; that is, who are aware that for 99% of their needs they don't need model releases. -RE

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13 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn



MARKETLETTER SUBSCRIBERS: You may have noticed. We never say "Fee Negotiable" on our photo listings to you. We believe it's our job here at PhotoSource International, to find out what fee you can expect. (You already have enough work to do when you deal with photo editors.)

If the photobuyers says, "Ask the photographer to call us, - we'll negotiate," we say, "We don't ask our photographers to invest their marketing time in unknowns. Tell us your fee for one-time, inside editorial use. If your fee meets the price range for our member photographers, they will contact you."

Most photobuyers understand and cooperate with this principle.

TIP: In some cases, you may want to negotiate, since some buyers will list the marketletter minimum of $100. Depending on the nature of your photo, the usage or circulation the buyer plans for your photo, or whether you've made past sales to that market, you may do well to pick up the negotiation process where we left off.

Keep in mind, though, that most buyers understand that if they stretch and list the highest fee possible for their budget, they will attract specialized photographers (with top quality images) who otherwise might not submit photos at the minimum price range. -RE


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13 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn



Click to see a video I made for you.

(It's cold here at the farm in August!)

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13 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn





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You feel fine when your photo database is in order…not cluttered. How ‘bout your work area, or your home? FEEL GOOD!. How To Declutter Your Home Immediately

Click Here!

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Those gosh darn #$#$#;@!!#;$# gas prices !
But wait… here’s an initiative that I hope out on the high cost of gas these days.
No doubt the escalating gas prices are impacting just how often you feel you can get out and about to get the photos you want.

“Every little bit helps,” goes the adage, and here at PhotoSource International we’re hoping to contribute a bit by offering lower prices on subscriptions to our marketletters during the month of August.

Photographers can translate these savings into dollars at the gas pump, and at the same time open the door for more contacts and sales leads resulting in extra income, all adding up to less curtailment of travels to photo shoots.

For the month of August, annual subscriptions or extensions to the PhotoDaily and the weekly PhotoLetter marketletters can be had for a 25% discount.

Note: Get in on this quick (we may be getting too many orders at this price!) before our accountant changes his mind!

More info at www.photosource.com/gasoline


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13 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn






ALL IN THE FAMILY.
Photographer prosecuted for fairy 'child porn'. (UK) A "NAIVE" photographer employed by parents to take pictures of their young daughters to turn into images of fairies has been prosecuted because the photos fell under the definition of child porn. Under the legislation, the images of the two girls - aged 10 and 12 - were classed as level one child pornography, despite the fact their parents had asked for the pictures to be taken and were even present at photo shoots.
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/highlights/Photographer-prosecuted-for-fairy-child.4359539.jp


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13 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn




SOUTH OF THE BORDER Weston's photography of Mexico framed by time. "Edward Weston: Mexico" isn't simply a collection of photographs hanging in a museum. The exhibit details a specific time in the influential 20th-century photographer's life. The story is of the roughly three years the California-based Weston spent in Mexico, starting in 1923, with his model-turned-lover, Italian actress Tina Modotti. Photographs from this era are presented with facsimile documents - a series of journals chronicling the experience and letters to colleagues and his sons (whom Weston left behind, along with his wife).
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/122590



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13 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn





EYES ON TECHNOLOGY. – New Technology Could Lead To Camera Based On Human Eye. Digital cameras have transformed the world of photography. Now new technology inspired by the human eye could push the photographic image forward even more by producing improved images with a wider field of view.
Yonggang Huang, Joseph Cummings Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Mechanical Engineering at Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, has collaborated with John Rogers, the Flory-Founder Chair Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, to create an array of silicon detectors and electronics that can be conformed to a curved surface. Like the human eye, the curved surface can then act as the focal plane array of the camera, which captures an image.
http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2008/08/humaneyecamera.html
http://www.ccnmag.com/article/stretchable_silicon_camera_next_step_to_artificial_retina



NIKON’S NEW NEWS – Nikon Introduces The Ultra-Stylish Coolpix S60 with a 3.5-inch Touch-Screen LCD - Nikon Inc. has announced the COOLPIX S60. Representing the cutting edge of design and intuitive operation, this compact camera introduces an entirely new, amazingly innovative, 3.5-inch TOUCH-SCREEN LCD and a new graphic user interface that places shooting and playback controls with you. http://www.cameratown.com/news/news.cfm?id=6058



KODAK TO THE RESCUE -- Kodak technology is in action at Olympics. Eastman Kodak Co. is playing a role at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing,. Kodak technologies has helped create accreditation badges, provide onsite printing and publishing services, and support thousands of photojournalists capturing the action of the Olympic Games.
Also, through an arrangement with Carestream Health Inc., Kodak will provide health imaging services to diagnose injuries to athletes. Carestream was formerly Eastman Kodak Co.'s health group. It has been owned by the Toronto-based Onex Corp. since last year. http://www.rbjdaily.com/fullarticle.cfm?sdid=74548



WEIGHT-WATCHERS Olympus and Panasonic launch Micro Four Thirds, compact "DSLRs". Olympus and Panasonic just announced a new mirrorless format and lens mount based on the venerable Four Thirds standard. Dubbed Micro Four Thirds System, the enhanced standard uses the same 18 x 13.5-mm sensor but promises 50% slimmer cameras due to the removal of the mirror box. We're also looking at smaller lenses (while remaining compatible with existing Four Third lenses with an adapter) thanks in part to a new reduced lens mount which is now 6-mm smaller. With the mirror box gone, Micro Four Third cameras will lose the optical viewfinder so you'll have to frame up your subjects using a Live View LCD or an external viewfinder.
http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/05/olympus-and-panasonic-launch-micro-four-thirds-dslrs-enter-a-ne/
TAKEAWAY: How big of a development is this? Huge.


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13 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn




YOU LOOK LOVELY ! -- Trash-the-dress photography gaining momentum An increasingly popular trend in wedding photography, called trash the dress, exposes a new concept in formal picture taking. Daring to wear the hallowed white dress in a non-traditional setting such as a back alley, on a railroad track or in a grassy meadow, brings shrieks of horror to some and squeals of delight in others. http://www.examiner-enterprise.com/articles/2008/08/10/business/bus560.txt


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13 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn



LEST WE FORGET: -- Stills of pre-earthquake China on display in Portsmouth Library. It started out strictly business but became a pleasure over the five years Barrington resident John Cafasso regularly traveled to China as a manufacturing engineer for Pratt & Whitney, a technologies company based in North Berwick, Maine.

Cafasso worked in Chengdu, China, a large city where one of the company's factories is located. He started to venture out into the countryside over time, making friends, buying souvenirs, eating traditional cuisine and taking photographs.

On May 12, just two days after his visit to the mountains, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake hit the region. While the city where Cafasso was staying suffered little damage, the mountainous area only 40 miles to the northwest was devastated. Most of the temples and pagodas were heavily damaged, and some were completely destroyed. For views.

http://www.wirenh.com/Art/Art_Show/only_a_memory_200808073067.html


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06 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn




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August 6th 2008

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06 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn





If They Need It

In ancient times, customers came to the local marketplace for their buying needs. Eventually civilization invented wheels, that enabled sellers to travel out to potential customers, knocking on door to door hoping for a sale.

Enter technology. Today, thanks to search engines and digital delivery, each of us now have the opportunity to aim for a segment of the market out there, and directly access our piece of the pie, so to speak.

Here's an illustration. When we first moved to the farm, a young high school girl came to the door selling tomatoes. She said she loved growing tomatoes and had so many, she thought she'd sell them. Since we already had a garden, and plenty of tomatoes, I didn't buy any. I saw her later in the week and asked her how sales were going. "I had to throw them all out. Seems everyone grows tomatoes."

Several years later, I saw her at the Horse Creek Store. She had since married and had her toddler with her. "How are the tomato sales going? " I asked.

"I gave that up, she laughed. "But I started a new business. I love animals, especially Shetland Sheepdogs. And I figured there must be others out there that do, too. So now I raise Shelty pups and I just love it! We're thinking of building a kennel next summer."

By focussing on another interest area, one that was not over-crowded, and not highly competitive, she discovered “segment marketing.” Instead of trying to sell people a plentiful commodity (tomatoes), she put her energy toward finding people who wanted her product (Shelty pups). Instead of considering the whole world as her market, she narrowed in to a small segment: those who love Shetland Sheepdogs. She still grows tomatoes, but she doesn't try sell them.

SEGMENT MARKETING


Computers and software will allow you to enter the field of “segment marketing.” Once you discover what your personal photo marketing strength area is, you will begin shooting primarily in that area, because you will have identified photobuyers who are seeking your kind of images at this moment. Because you speak the photobuyer's language, you will build a working relationship with those buyers that will last a lifetime.

Segment Marketing will guide you towards building a stock file that will have marketing potential, in areas you like to photograph. If you still want to shoot generic images (tomatoes), too (that are beautiful but tough to sell), you’ll understand that will be strictly for your own enjoyment. -RE


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06 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn



Those Old Images

Advance Notes: Here’s a way you can give mileage to the many images you’ve laboriously amassed over the years, and at the same time benefit your family and give pleasure and/or insight to the public at large.


A reader recently wrote: "What is the possible editorial worth of my
collection of aerials of the Philadelphia, PA, skyline; offshore fishing;
and shipping and industrial subjects, from the 1950's - 1980's"?

In any marketing endeavor, the successful route to follow is to determine who
needs your product, whether it’s umbrellas or excavation equipment.

In your case, photobuyers worldwide--whether they be a corporate art director
in Omaha or a photo researcher in London, will someday, sometime, need youraerial and industrial photos.

The problem: how to connect their needs with your photo collection. Back in the day, (in the 70's when we first started the PhotoLetter marketletter here at
PhotoSource International), photographers, or the grown children of deceased photographers, would ask me the same question as above. My only answer at that time was to tell them to 'donate' their images to the local city or state historical library, museum, or university archives.
Now my advice has changed. Why?

I've learned that such donated collections are usually relegated to basement vaults, rarely to be seen by the public because the institution doesn't have the funds to exhibit them, catalog them, or preserve them.
Here's what I tell photographers now.
“Things have changed and the savior is the Web:"

“If you build a website, scan your photos and put good key phrases (sometimes called long-tail keywords) on them, you position yourself to begin to market those images--customers will come to you.”
Here at PhotoSource International, we’ve recognized that many photographers don't have the resources (money) or the time, or the desire, to educate themselves on how to build an effective website. Also, we’ve observed that in the editorial field, photo researchers look first for the SOURCE of a highly specialized photo (like a vintage aerial view of Philadelphia), and once they find the source (the photographer), then they start looking at a selection of available pictures (not the reverse).

You can create your own personal website, but the trick is to generate enough traffic to your site to make the process work and get sales.

We designed a way photographers could capitalize on this Web search process used by increasing numbers of photobuyers, by establishing the PhotoSourceBANK. This is a site available to photographers to have their own pages where they can list descriptions (keywords) of their photos, and in this way let web-searching photobuyers know the kind of photos he or she has available.

The photographer puts up a list of text descriptions of their photos (using up to 3,000 picture-describing words) on a webpage of their own at the PhotoSourceBANK site, > www.hard-to-locate-photos.com. This site is well-known to photobuyers searching for photos, and gets lots of traffic (presently more than 14,000 hits per day).

You can see how this works by simply typing into your browser's address bar:
search.photosource.com (No need to pu t in http:// or www)
If the photographer follows the directions closely and lists highly specialized subject matter, such as the actual names of buildings, landscapes, streets, events, boulevards, parade names – this is what researchers look for, not general subjects such as the words "bridge," "building," "automobile" – the photographer will eventually get hits, and they will come not only from the USA but from across the world.

DO YOUR FAMILY A FAVOR


When you retire, rather than leave your un-categorized database of images to a museum or university, or to your family (who would know little about each non-tabbed image), if you roll up your sleeves and catalog your collection beginning tomorrow, you’re in a good position to leave a legacy (even an annuity) to your descendents. Yes, it’s a chore. But it’s a good feeling, too. The mission will be accomplished.


Rohn Engh is the best-selling author of “Sell & ReSell Your Photos” and “sellphotos.com.” He has produced a eBook, “How to Make the Marketable Photo.” For more information and to receive a free eReport: “8 Steps to Becoming a Published Photographer,” visit http://www.sellphotos.com


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06 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn





Getting Access

Do you need permission to photograph in public situations?
For an editorial stock photographer, the answer is yes and no.
No, applies for the majority of circumstances, if your photos are not to be used for advertising or promotion, and will be used for educating, informing or entertaining the public.

However, for most stock photographers, there are occasions when the need to ask someone for permission to photograph arises. I'm talking about situations where you want to photograph the interior of a store, a pharmacist dispensing pills, a shopping mall, kids in a classroom, and so on.

It can be to your benefit to seek permission. As an editorial photographer, you probably specialize. By following the proper channels and working under the guidelines of the property owner, or person in charge of an area, you assure yourself the authorization to return for more photographing of this specialized subject matter at future times.

There will be circumstances, of course, when you’re unable to find or contact the person who would give permission. If you do proceed with your photographing, without the permission, a courtesy file photo or tear sheet sent to the property owner or person in authority later, will often assure an invitation to photograph again.


THE RIGHT WAY

So, when the moment arises and you need to ask someone for permission to photograph, how should you do it?

Stock photographers have two ways to go about obtaining permission to photograph. One way is right and one way is wrong. Citing your First Amendment Rights, you can try to demand permission to photograph. This seldom ends with success, and certainly no cooperation or invitations for return visits.

The other way is to ask nicely. Be polite, explain why you would like to photograph inside the store, school, shopping mall, etc.

Remember that you most likely are talking to someone who is unaware of the field of stock photography. In some cases, they may be wary of you and suspect that you are working for their competition.
In other cases, photographs of their building or enterprise are a profit center for them (such as in their gift shop), and they wouldn't welcome the competition from you. An explanation of how you would be using the photographs is then in order.

Most permission givers will be delighted that you are interested in photographing their property or business operation. They will recognize the public relations benefit of letting you publicize them -- free of charge (and you can help them be aware of this with the right presentation on your part).

A great tool to help you get permission is to show tear sheets or photocopies of your previously published photographs. If you don't have tear sheets yet, you could show them examples of other photographers and explain how you plan to produce similar results.

AN EXAMPLE


Let me give you a real life example. I shoot law enforcement situations (prisons, police, crime, social justice, and similar topics). I once got an urgent request from a book publisher who needed images of parole situations -- a hearing, a parole officer talking to a parolee, and other similar images. The problem was that the publisher needed the images within a week. Now, one week is very little time to try to set up something like this. Luckily, there was a parole hearing scheduled at one of the prisons nearby.

Because I had previously done some shoots inside area prisons through the local Department of Corrections, the administrator knew my name, knew my work, and was willing to cooperate. (I promised him some file copies.) We got through the red tape in less than a day. The shoot got done on schedule, and the photobuyer was grateful for my ability to solve a huge problem for him. Another plus for me: I was able to increase my connections with the chief administrator at the local Department of Corrections.

Asking for permission is something you will have to do sooner or later. I hope these tips will help you prepare for the eventuality.


Photojournalist Mikael Karlsson has 17 years experience of working for magazines and newspapers in more than 30 countries. He moved to the United States in 1998 from his native Sweden. He lives in Nebraska and is currently US correspondent for 11 Swedish magazines and a regular contributor to a wide variety of American publications. Reach him at mike[at]photosource[dot]com.


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06 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn



IDENTIFY YOUR PICTURES not only with your name, but a code #. If your individual digital images have no code # (that’s meaningful to you), a photo editor is unable to refer to them, except by description. Plus – for example, if you submit three meadow at dawn pictures, almost identical, how can the photo editor enter into correspondence with you about them? Each one should have a distinct code #. Insure sales of your pictures by identifying them with a code #.


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06 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn



You’ve often asked, “Just what do photobuyers want in the way of photos? Is there a special type, or special size, - just what do they want?”

You’ll be surprised to know the answer. You can probably reach out an touch it. It’s that close. Click here for the answer.


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06 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn




SO BIG! Well, our computer system here at PhotoSource International is starting to bulge at the seams. What with all the Internet activity and the growing size of our PhotoSourceBANK (www.hard-to-locate-photos.com) almost 2 million words and key phrases up there, we had to go to a bigger computer system.
Our new system will have 2 gigs of RAM (speed) and 500 gigs of Hard Drive (space).
This is a big jump from the early days of our first computer, the Radio Shack Model II (1979) where we had a whopping 32 KB of RAM and a 4 meg hard drive on an 8” floppy disk. We’re growing!


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06 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn




Those gosh darn #$#$#;@!!#;$# gas prices !

But wait… here’s an initiative that
I hope will help out on the high cost
of gas these days.

No doubt the escalating gas prices are impacting just how often you feel you can get out and about to get the photos you want.

“Every little bit helps,” goes the adage, and here at PhotoSource International we’re hoping to contribute a bit by offering lower prices on subscriptions to our marketletters during the month of August.

Photographers can translate these savings into dollars at the gas pump, and at the same time open the door for more contacts and sales leads resulting in extra income, all adding up to less curtailment of travels to photo shoots.

For the month of August, annual subscriptions or extensions to the PhotoDaily and the weekly PhotoLetter marketletters can be had for a 25% discount.

Note: Get in on this quick (we may be getting too many orders at this price!) before our accountant changes his mind!

More info at www.photosource.com/gasoline


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06 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn



"My nearly 30 years association with you, has been very useful for me. I have grown from a one man, one slide to over 300 photographers and over 500,000 slides. All thanks to your advice and guidance..."
- Jagdish Agarwal, Dinodia Photo Library, Bombay, India


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06 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn




THE "NEW IRISH XPOSED" PHOTOGRAPHY CONTEST DEBUTS The site launches with the “New Irish Xposed” Photography Contest. Participants are invited to send in their photographic vision of what the “New Irish” means to them. Whether it is a fresh take on Irish Eyes or on the Celtic Tiger, the innovative contest is sure to spark creative submissions as clever as Clontarf’s own campaign. All accepted entries will be posted to the Clontarf website. The grand prize is $5,000 and the winning photograph will be included in Clontarf’s marketing campaign. Entries must be submitted by October 31, 2008. Phone: 800-882-8140 Info for the contest: Ro4spirits[at]aol[dot]com. www.clontarfwhiskey.com/rule #4 Rule 4 double dammy (Right hand side of page)
www.clontarfwhiskey.com/rule4/photocontest.php




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06 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn




CHECK YOUR BULK/JUNK/SPAM FOLDER! Unfortunately, free email providers such as Yahoo! and Hotmail (and sometimes Gmail) will often send mail to the Bulk/Junk/Spam folder. Please be sure and check there for email from info[at]photosource[dot]com.


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06 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn




SPECTACULAR NEW MEXICO: Taos, New Mexico, with Harvey Stein. August 16 – 24, 2008. Frequent lectures combined with daily photographic activity offer a rich input of technical and aesthetic concerns. Discussions include using light in meaningful ways, methods of approaching strangers, engaging the landscape personally and passionately, and the use of flash to augment "magic hour" shooting. We will also explore the special summer light characteristic of New Mexico during early morning and evening excursions. Cost: $2300.00, Members $2275. Includes eight nights’ lodging, breakfasts and dinners. Registration Fee: $30. Contact: International Center of Photography, 1114 Avenue of the Americas at 43rd Street, New York, NY 10036. Phone: 212-857-0001. Web: http://shopping.icp.org/school/continuing/course.html?category_id=&product_id=27388
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06 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn




“Fashion fades, but style is eternal.”
-Andy Warhol

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04 Aug, 2008 | Posted by: psn

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August 1st 2008



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