PhotoStockNOTES
Can I Sell My Photos Online? The Answer is Here!
Categories
- Index page
- Ads We've Read
- Agency
- APPS/Ebooks
- Book Publishing
- Branding
- Business Notepad
- Changes
- Comments
- Contests
- Copyright
- Digital Notes
- Dollars
- Equipment
- Exhibits
- Eyes of the World
- Fauxtography
- FlashBack
- FrontPage
- General
- Good Stuff
- History
- How-To
- In Memoriam
- Interview
- Items of Interest
- Keywords
- Kracker Barrel
- Legal Stuff
- Lesson
- Love Notes
- Magazines
- Marketing Tips
- MicroStock
- News For You
- Online
- Organization
- Photography In The News
- Photolosophy
- Podcasting
- Quote
- S O L D !
- Shooters
- Sidebar
- Snapshot
- Social Network
- Software, Hardware, etc.
- Spotlight
- Stories
- Survey
- The Commercial
- The Computer Guy
- The Police Force
- The Tax Man
- Travel Photography
- Travelers Abroad
- TrendNotes
- Video
- Work Shops
- You and the Law
Archives
- September, 2010
- August, 2010
- July, 2010
- June, 2010
- May, 2010
- April, 2010
- March, 2010
- February, 2010
- January, 2010
- December, 2009
- November, 2009
- October, 2009
- September, 2009
- August, 2009
- July, 2009
- June, 2009
- May, 2009
- April, 2009
- March, 2009
- February, 2009
- January, 2009
- December, 2008
- November, 2008
- October, 2008
- September, 2008
login
-
Login
Register
Register as a site member!Admin
Add / EditOur Products
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Archive for September 2008
1997 – October 6th – Soviet war photographer Yevgeny Khaldei, best remembered for his pictures of Soviet soldiers hoisting the red flag over the Reichstag in Berlin at the end of World War II, died at age 80.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
September 24th 2008
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The Sale Potential:
A SELF-APPRAISAL
When you are next out on a photographing excursion, begin the habit of asking yourself, "Is it marketable?" before you snap the picture. Gauge whether the image you’re making or taking has a good chance of resulting in a sale for you.
That is, -is it a picture a photobuyer will need ...not one he already has access to. Does that image belong on a photobuyer's desk? Does it have potential for many future sales?
One photographer friend said she could not break the habit of snapping pictures of anything and everything on a photo excursion. To change her habit, she placed a label over the viewfinder on the back of her camera that read: "Is it marketable?" It took her only two weeks to finally break the habit. The label is now removed. She no longer aims her camera at silhouettes of sea gulls against the setting sun (and other such "classic" shots, that do sell, but that are very difficult for individuals to market because thousands upon thousands of similar photos are available to photobuyers).
Instead, she now photographs specific subject matter geared to specific market areas that match her own interest areas. She found (and continues to find) dependable markets for her material by doing some sound marketing homework.
The SSA Critique
In my seminars, I offer a free critique of pictures based on their marketing potential. Since persons who attend my seminars are already photographers, I don't comment on the artistic value of the photograph, only the marketing potential. I use what I call the Selling Self-Appraisal (SSA), a number factor ranging from 1 to 10. (Ten equals high.) Since there's no mystery about the SSA, you can make a self-critique of your own pictures. Here's how to start.
A key factor in selling anything is the law of Supply and Demand. If there's a great supply of something, it's not going to sell briskly for you (e.g. the silhouette of the sea gull). If on the other hand, the supply is limited, the demand will be great. (A volcano erupting in Washington.)
Seventy-five percent of your picture's marketing worth will have to do with supply and demand. For example, if there's a reasonable demand for a picture, and the supply is only reasonable, your SSA can start at 7. From this point, your SSA will go up or down.
Here are some of the factors that will cause your SSA for that picture to increase: 1.) You have an established track record with the photobuyer. 2.) Your picture is available in time to meet a deadline. 3.) Your picture is: a) lends itself to a publishing house's needs; b)time, up-to-date; c) matches the photobuyer's interest area; d) available for one-time use; e) has not been used recently by the competition; f) available for commercial use also and therefore has a model release; g) technically acceptable; h) good.
Photobuyers make the assumption that your pictures will be "good." They need not be prize-winners, but they must be good.
Your SSA will decrease to the extent your answers are negative to any of the above.
Since you know your own marketable areas better than anyone else, you are in the best position to make your own SSA assessment for your target markets. Take a weekend to go through your pictures and eliminate any in your target market file that come up with a low SSA. The remaining photos are no doubt excellent and can be placed in a portal or stock agency. – RE
Editor's Note: Our ebook, "How to Make the Marketable Photo," is an excellent guide. Go to www.photosource.com/ resources for information on this and other ebooks and guides that can help your marketing success.
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. For access to great information on making money from pictures you like to take, and to receive this free report: “8 Steps to Publishing Photos,” visit his website at PhotoSource International or call 800 624-0266.
www.photosource.com
It’s All In The Cards
Safety In Numbers
With digital cameras, the recording medium is most often a Compact Flash (CF) card. It’s the memory place where all your images are stored. Some cameras allow simultaneous recording on two cards for increased reliability and redundancy, just in case something goes wrong.
CF cards are not as important to the final image as film was/is. Far from it. But, the CF card is a major part of your digital workflow. They are important parts of your professional equipment.
I remember the days when CF cards were very expensive. Small amounts of memory sold for thousands of dollars. These days, prices have come down, and cards are getting bigger and faster and prices are coming down. If you’re just now coming into the digital arena, you’ve entered at a good time.
There are a number of questions I get asked often about CF cards. The most common by far: is there a difference between the bargain basement cards and the more expensive ones? The answer is a resounding yes. Like with anything else, you gits what you pays for. (When buying from a reputable dealer, by the way, the difference in price between name brand and off brand is small enough that it shouldn’t matter.)
My personal favorite is the Hoodman PPO card, The SanDisk line is a close second. (The Hoodman cards are blazing fast in my Canon 5D.) For those of you who want to buy ‘made in America,’ the Hoodman cards have the added bonus of being made in the U.S.
Avoid buying cheap CF cards at auction sites. More often than not, the cards sold are fakes. See the very useful link at http://martybugs.net/articles/fakesandisk.cgi for more information. I buy my CF cards from B&H Photo Video or directly from the manufacturer. Find Hoodman CF cards at: http://www.hoodmanusa.com/compactflash2.asp
The second most commonly asked question is, should you buy one large card or many smaller ones? I advocate many smaller cards rather than one or two large ones. It comes down to basic risk management. The more individual cards you can spread the risk out on, the smaller the chance that an individual card will go bad at a critical time. I work with a large number of 2 to 4 GB cards.
The third most commonly asked question has to do with transferring the images from the card to the computer. Many digital photographers are frustrated by the slow connection-speeds when they try to download directly from their camera with USB or FireWire. Hint: Spend $25 on a good-quality card reader and you will be amazed at how fast you can download images from your CF cards.
Before you buy a new, fast, CF card, make sure to check with your camera’s manufacturer that the speed and capacity are compatible with your camera.
As always, when you have questions about anything concerning your editorial stock photography business, the PhotoSource Kracker Barrel at http://board.photosource.com/list.php?1 is a great place to ask questions and get information.
Photojournalist Mikael Karlsson has 20 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, http://www.sellphotos.com
PROMOTE YOURSELF. The Power Of Publicity; Promotion Builds Potential Client Awareness. Publicity is one of the most overlooked areas of marketing for photographers. The protocol for obtaining this less conspicuous but very important promotional tool has three basic steps: submission of information about your work to the media; confirmation of acceptance; and final publishing. http://shutterbug.com/columns/business_trends/0808business/
MORE THAN JUST THE PHOTO. -- It is not really photography that is being
licensed, but information. Getty pushes the concept to non wire service
media: Magazines, monthlies and so on. We will create such a volume of
images that you will undoubtedly find your match many times over. And the more you use us, the less it actually cost per image.
http://blog.melchersystem.com/2008/09/19/the-price-of-subscription/
TAKEAWAY. Smart photobuyers know not to go to a ‘pool’ for photos, but to individual specialized photographers where they not only get the pictures they need, but get consultancy on the subject. Why? Because smart photographers who specialize on the subject matter, are also important authorities on the subject matter. They can serve an important service to photobuyers.
Autumn has come to PhotoSource – but also
a special birthday pie.
This brief video shows who made it.
http://www.photosource.com/video/pie
TRAVELERS
Photographers: We broadcast your foreign destinations along with contact information, departure date, length of stay, etc. Contact PhotoStockNotes (1 715 248-3800) at least two months in advance.
Photobuyers: Watch this column. For the e-mail address, phone or fax number of the traveling photographer, call the PhotoSource International office and ask for Rohn Engh (1 800 624-0266). For an expansion of this list: www.photosource.com and press the Travelers Abroad button, to learn of past international destinations of our photographers.
Gloria Nedell
June 4 – June 30, 2008
San Miguel D'Allende, Mexico
John Fowler
June 22 – July 3, 2008
Eastern Newfoundland
Joe Becker
June 24 – July 8, 2008
Scotland, London, Paris
Paul Sivley
Aug 30 – Sept 16, 2008
Namibia Africa
Fred and Carrie Schilling
Sept 8 – Sept 20, 2008
Croatia
Sally Weigand
August 31 – Sept 23, 2008
Eastern Europe
Terri Petri
Oct 17- Nov 2 2008
Johannesburg, Kruger Park, South Africa
Reggie Millette
Sep 16 - Oct 14, 2008
Britanny, France
Austin Cortez
Oct 22 – Oct 27, 2008
Brazil (Amazon)
Frederick Randall
Nov 2008 – May 2009
Caribbean, BWI
Lisa Kirchner
Oct 1st - Oct 15th
Paris
WHY DID THEY CLOSE? -- A Q&A with PhotoShelter at PhotoDistrictNEWS.
by Executives on Closing Part of Their Stock Agency -
http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/content_display/photo-news/photojournalism/e3iebfd8fe8494c12b28989d9867721ecbf
JUST GUESSING -- -BUT IT’S FOOD FOR THOUGHT. Is Getty Images Buying Flickr? Gawker.com heard a wild rumor that Getty Images agreed to buy photo-sharing website Flickr from Yahoo. At first blush the gossip sounds crazy. Flickr is a crown Web 2.0 jewel for Yahoo, which dissolved its own photo site after acquiring the company, and Getty can already license Flickr photos through a partnership announced in July. But upon further reflection there's a logic to the alleged deal. So says Gawker.
http://gawker.com/5052086/is-getty-images-buying-flickr
WHEN IT'S RAINING -- Examples Of Rain Photography. Most photographers do not feel comfortable in taking photographs in bad weather. Yet bad weather sometimes presents the perfect opportunity
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/09/07/35-brilliant-examples-of-rain-photography/
SHOOTING BACK -- Misguided 'Shooting Back' puts Palestinian kids in danger. Ask Marian Wright Edelman, legendary founder of the Children's Defense Fund in Washington, D.C., if she would support cameras being placed in the hands of youths to photograph criminal activity in the most dangerous neighborhoods in the nation's capital, and she would probably conclude that this would be far too dangerous for the young people and their families.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1221489062257
PHOTOS HELP INVESTIGATIONS. There weren't any black Hummers or men in $5,000 suits with $500 sunglasses. But the scene in Trumann last week of police officers dusting for prints and taking pictures of a mock crime scene looked like something out of the TV police drama "CSI." Officers received hands on training lifting fingerprints and taking pictures of a mock crime scene using digital photography.
"When we go to a crime scene the biggest thing we are after are photographs and fingerprints," Blagg said.
http://www.trumanndemocrat.com/story/1462083.html
What do photobuyers expect from you?
Do they welcome phone calls?
Is it true photobuyers have a "filter list" where they list their non-favorite photographers? Why do they do this?
Rohn interviewed Lela LaBree, our in-house editor of the PhotoDaily, and the weekly PhotoLetter.
You’ll find the answers here.
She will serve as a perfect go-between to let you know "the other side of the story"
Listen to her interview here.
http://www.photosource.com/interview/Lela_LaBree
BTW - - The little dog in Lela's picture is Ingah. She is the Official Photosource Pug. Her official Kennel Club name is Ingah DuPont
WATCHING YOU, Is New York City and the NYPD Changing their Attitude Towards Photographers? Perhaps. We are still very cautious though. Seven years of systematic harassment is going to be very hard to forget or forgive but there may be a silver lining in the cloud as the City of New York and the NYPD are finally realizing that photography may have some benefits in crime fighting: http://nycphotorights.com/wordpress/
FAIR GAME. No one who knows is willing to say what is off limits, but officials say taking photographs of some items on FrontRunner may get shutterbugs' names referred to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Riders who believe that anything visible from public areas of the train are OK to photograph are in error. Security officials say photographers taking pictures of items or mechanisms involved with train operation could raise terrorism concerns.
A Standard-Examiner photographer recently was questioned by police for merely standing on a platform with a camera in hand.
Utah Transit Authority police say the names of two people taking suspicious pictures also have been referred to the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force since FrontRunner service began in April. http://www.standard.net/live/news/143451
FINDING IT FAST -- AtomicView processes media quickly - While AtomicView doesn't offer the editing tools of other programs, it's the perfect fit for professional photographers and digital camera enthusiasts who need to sort through and analyze big folders of media.
http://www.download.com/8301-2007_4-10044977-12.html?tag=mncol
PUT IT IN THE LENS? -- The old SLR design, with a mirror that flips up and must sit between the last lens element and the sensor, creates a lot of problems in designing the lens and camera systems. Yes, being able to view directly through the lens with your eye is a very useful thing. But at what cost?
Serious cameras aren't seeking to save space. We want image quality most of all, and the tools to shoot good images. Looking through the viewfinder is one of those tools, but again, at what cost?
So a proposal is put forward that now that sensors are dropping in price - even full frame sensors - that each lens have its own sensor that is part of it. There would be a body which has a digital (and mounting) connection with the lens. The body would have display, processor, controls, battery and so on.
http://ideas.4brad.com/professional-lenses-built-sensors
WORTH THE WAIT? Three years is a long time for any product to hang around, especially when the technology changes as rapidly as it does for digital cameras. So before moving on to Canon's latest marvel, the EOS 5D Mark II, let's take a moment to appreciate how well the EOS 5D filled the needs of burst-indifferent professionals and deep-pocketed prosumers.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10044432-1.html
FARE THEE WELL Beloved Kodachrome film may be on its way out. It is an elaborately crafted photographic film, extolled for its sharpness, vivid colors and archival durability. Yet die-hard fan Alex Webb is convinced the digital age soon will take his Kodachrome away. ''Part of me feels like, boy, if only I'd been born 20 years earlier,'' says the 56-year-old photographer, whose work has appeared in National Geographic magazine. ''I wish they would keep making it forever. I still have a lot of pictures to take in my life.'' Only one commercial lab in the world, Dwayne's Photo in Parsons, Kan., still develops Kodachrome, a once ubiquitous brand that has freeze-framed the world in rich but authentic hues since it was introduced in the Great Depression.
Eastman Kodak Co. now makes the slide and motion-picture film in just one 35mm format, and production runs - in which a master sheet nearly a mile long is cut up into more than 20,000 rolls - fall at least a year apart. Kodak won't say when the last one occurred nor hint at Kodachrome's prospects. Kodachrome stocks currently on sale have a 2009 expiration date. If the machines aren't fired up again, the company might just sell out the remaining supplies, and that would be the end. http://www.sltrib.com/ci_10520559
GETTING BETTER -- Fujifilm's SuperCCD EXR Unveiled: Sensor Promises High Res, High Quality Imaging new Super CCD EXR it looks like the main focus is on improved image quality. It's not going to signal an end to the stupid megapixel race, but the EXR sensor has a new mosaic color filter arrangement, new pixel-binning method and totally new electronic charge control: these result in improved light sensitivity with lower noise as well as a wider dynamic range.
http://gizmodo.com/tag/fujifilm-superccd-exr/
EASY WORKING Microsoft has launched the first full working version of its 'Photosynth' application – one that has been described as having the potential to change how we view our digital photographs forever. The application allows users to combine numerous exposures of one object or place into a single 'space', which can then be navigated three dimensionally, with the viewer able to zoom in to any minutia of detail captured in the photos, thus allowing image browsing independent of the amount of data on the screen, ie. no hanging around for thumbnails to load! http://www.whatdigitalcamera.com/news/Photosynth_goes_live_news_268052.html
WOMEN IN PHOTOGRAPHY International continues its tradition by establishing a list of the Top 100 Distinguished Women Photographers for 2008. Included on the list are photography's classics, Lillian Bassman, Jodi Cobb, Anne Geddes, Graciela Iturbide, Helen Levitt, Sally Mann and Cindy Sherman. Starting in 2006, to celebrate WIPI's 25th Anniversary, Women In Photography International (http://www.womeninphotography.org/) began the process of researching and culling the names of working women photographers worldwide for their online resource center http://www.cameratown.com/news/news.cfm?id=6321
GETTING INVOLVED. Now it’s time to dig deeper, this 'Day in the Life' editor, David Elliot Cohen, says. Cameras and picture taking is everywhere.
Saturation is a situation Cohen helped create. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/17/DDGB12K49R.DTL&feed=rss.art
HISTORY -- Best known for her work covering the political upheavals in Central America in the 1970s and '80s, Susan Meiselas' process has evolved in radical and challenging ways as she has grappled with pivotal questions about her relationship to her subjects, the use and circulation of her images in the media, and the relationship of images to history and memory. Her insistent engagement with these concerns has positioned her as a leading voice in the debate over the function and practice of contemporary documentary photography. From September 19, 2008 through January 4, 2009, the International Center of Photography (1133 Avenue of the Americas at 43rd Street) will present Susan Meiselas: In History, the first U.S. overview of the work of this major American photographer.
http://www.artdaily.com/index.asp?int_new=25943&int_sec=2
BE SURE TO USE THIS STAMP -- USPS issues 50th Anniversary stamp with Iditarod image by Alaska Stock's Jeff Schultz. The U.S. Postal Service has announced that it will be issuing a stamp on January 2, 2009 commemorating Alaska's 50th anniversary as a US State (Alaska became an official U.S. territory in 1912 and the 49th state on January 3, 1959). The image selected was created by Alaska Stock owner Jeff Schultz and depicts veteran sled dog racer on the DeeDee Jonrowe on the Iditarod trail.
http://www.abouttheimage.com/3894/usps_50th_anniversary_stamp_iditarod_image_alaska_stock_jeff_schultz/author2
“There is more to life than increasing its speed.” – Mohandas Gandhi
1960 - September 13 - Photojournalist Kevin Carter was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. In 1993 he paid his own way to the southern Sudan to photograph the civil war and famine there - resulting in a 1994 Pulitzer Prize for his haunting shot of a starving young girl collapsing on her way to a feeding center, a vulture lurking in the background. (After taking the picture, he said later, he chased away the vulture, and saw the toddler successfully make her way to the feeding station. He then sat under a tree "smoking cigarettes and crying.") Several days after his Pulitzer was announced, a close friend of his was fatally shot dead near him, while both were photographing a gun battle in South Africa. Three months later, Carter committed suicide.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
September 19th 2008
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
by Bill Hopkins
Amazon Ends
Post-Purchase
Discount Policy
Photo book buyers:
In February, we told you about a great price guarantee program at Amazon.com. If they lowered their price within 30 days of your purchase, you could request a refund of the difference, even if they lowered the price multiple times. Well, it must have been very popular, because effective 9/1/08, the policy was discontinued. That's really a shame, because having you watch for price drops keeps you coming back again and again to their marketplace.
Bad Bats Again
We're talking about rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. Remember the Aflaming laptops? It's not so bad this time.
Some iPod Nanos have suffered from a meltdown due to defective batteries. So far, the problem seems isolated to batteries from a single supplier, affecting first-generation Nanos that were sold between 9/05 and 12/06.
Given the high turnover of these kinds of electronic devices, you've probably already upgraded to another model. But it may be worth checking to see if you might have one of these around and/or still in use. (This may not affect U.S. products and may be an isolated case, as the report came from Tokyo.) Visit http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2099 for further info
ISP Imposed Download Limit
Comcast, in an effort to manage bandwidth on its network, announced that beginning Oct. 1, it would start limiting the amount of data users can download.
The limit is set at 250Gb of traffic per month. If you go over, you get a phone call. If you go over again in the next 6 months, you get cut off for a year. For comparison, their typical customer uses between 2 and 3Gb per month (likely does not include businesses who pay higher fees for higher speeds and bandwidth).
Comcast is not alone in trying to figure out how to deal with the profusion of Internet activity, particularly that small subset of extremely heavy users making extensive use of file-sharing applications (we're not going to get into the discussion of moral or legal issues on that hot potato).
As video-on-demand, Internet gaming, and other uses increase, the problem will only grow. A few other ISPs such as Time Warner Cable (Road Runner) began testing a billing system that would charge customers for usage beyond a specified point. AT&T has said that metered billing (like your electricity) is inevitable.
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.
Lightroom
Does The Job
by Mikael Karlsson, PSI Technical Editor
For years, Adobe Photoshop was the only choice for professional photographers editing their own digital photos. Not so anymore.
Adobe Lightroom might just become the new standard for digital photographers. I have been using it since the first Beta version. I use Lightroom for developing the RAW files from my camera, light editing for sensor dust, and basic image content editing. Actually, these days I rarely use Photoshop.
I have Lightroom set up so it automatically imports new files every time I plug a CF card into my card reader. A conservative estimate is that I now spend at least 50 % less time developing RAW files and doing initial image editing compared to when I used to use Photoshop and Bridge.
SAFETY MEASURE
Lightroom saves the RAW files into a folder called the Lightroom Library. When working with the files, you work on copies rather than the digital original. This is a great safety measure to keep your digital originals safe. The only drawback is that the library quickly becomes very large. I edit out and delete unneeded RAW files once a week, which helps keep the library folder manageable.
You can download a free demo version of Lightroom from Adobe’s web site (www.adobe.com) to learn if the software is for you.
In the developing mode of Lightroom, there are controls to adjust features such as white balance, exposure, color temperature, and fill light and much more. These options are more than enough for the majority of basic image editing. You’ll also find a tool similar to the Clone Stamp in Photoshop that will allow you to clone out dust spots and other minor flaws. However, for more serious editing of problems that need to be removed or cloned out, Photoshop is still your best bet.
Lightroom is easy to work with and the learning curve is short and fast. If you have even a little bit of experience working with digital files, you’ll be able to start working with Lightroom in minutes after you install the software.
Lightroom is available for both PC and Mac. The price for the full version is only $299. For what you get for your money, in my opinion, it is a steal.
Mike Karlsson is Technical Editor at PhotoSource International. (1 402 821 3098; mike[at]photosource[dot]com)
Robert Smith, from North Carolina is a biologist and avid photographer. Listen to an interview with him and how he provides participating magazine editors with 3-ring notebooks and a DVD that displays his growing natural history photos.
Click here for
the interview
SIX TIPS for Growing Your Photography Business -
http://rising.blackstar.com/six-tips-for-growing-your-photography-business.html
PINK SLIPS. Corbis Cutting Another 175 Jobs, Combines Exec Jobs - The announcement this week continues a pattern of layoffs and restructurings at the unprofitable company. Corbis eliminated about 285 jobs in two separate rounds of layoffs in 2007. http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/content_display/
photo-news/stock-and-syndication/
e3ic20afe7664ada9ef998a49b98b55f392
TAKEAWAY: Computers were supposed to render us a green paperless society. DIGITS were supposed to take the place of bodies. What happened?
PHOTOSHELTER COLLECTION STEPS DOWN On October 10, 2008, PhotoShelter will close the PhotoShelter Collection, its stock outlet. The bottom line is that the collection failed to make enough money in enough time to justify continuing. PhotoShelter will continue with personal archiving — the company describes its financial position as “strong” – but it will no longer be offering stock images to photo buyers. http://blogs.photopreneur.com/you-and-the-failure-of-photoshelter
SHELTER COLLECTION GONE BUST. How to Change the Stock Photo Market - PhotoShelter announced that they'll be closing the PhotoShelter Collection portion of their business, effective October 10. The closure, almost exactly one year after their official launch of the Collection, is attributed to "the size of our image selection" and "entrenched subscription relationships". Reactions are mixed. The loyal are thanking PhotoShelter for not compromising. Others are upset about their lost investment.
http://www.microstockdiaries.com/how-to-change-the-stock-photo-market.html
TAKEAWAY: We’ll soon be back to the survival theory or the biogenic law from biology 101, "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny".
WELL, WELL, IT HAS COME TO THIS. The financial aspect of Photrade is an embedded advertising system in which advertisers can link to contextually relevant photos. And in that case, a small text ad is embedded in the frame of the photo in a place that viewers can easily see but which doesn't interfere directly with the photo itself. Photrade lets photographers control their pictures, get paid for them – it’s much like other stock photography sites, except that anyone can add any photos they want to the site, and the revenue comes from advertising, not just from publishers using their pictures.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10035393-52.html?tag=mncol
TAKEAWAY: Don’t open a bank account just yet.
NOT LONG FOR THIS WORLD? -- Bill Groethe's Last Stand for film photography. Rapid City man worries about future of film, preserving history. A photograph captures a split second in time, but a film negative can let that moment endure for decades. That's why Bill Groethe prefers film to digital. “Photographers who rely on digital are losing history every time a memory card is erased, Groethe said. "We're still printing from 80-year film," he said during an interview at his business, 1st Photo and Trails End Gallery at 1839 W. Main St.
http://www.bhpioneer.com/articles/2008/09/03/breaking_news/doc48bed7d388167304199969.txt
OBSESSIONAL COMPULSION - Photography and selling it cannot be an act of revenge or vengeance, but an act of passion done by selfless individuals with no aspirations for financial rewards. It is not a battleground for egos. http://blog.melchersystem.com/2008/09/12/obsessional-compulsion/
TAKEAWAY: Depends on how you want to “see it” or “show it”.
TALENT ONLY TAKES YOU SO FAR; You Have to Go the Rest of the Way Yourself - , All those things that we worry about -- "prime lens or zoom"; "iso100 or 400 to get a smidgen more depth of field"; "3200k or 2900k" -- will only take us so far in our careers. How we relate to clients, more often than not, is the difference betwen success and failure.
http://rising.blackstar.com/talent-only-takes-you-so-far-you-have-to-go-the-rest-of-the-way-you.html
TAKEAWAY: Amen!
BEYOND EDUCATION -- Teacher may face charges in porn incident. Students in Martin's photography class complained to school administrators after the class projector began displaying pornography.
http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/2008/09/13/20080913teacherporn-ON.html
PUT HIM IN A CAGE -- David Fullarton, a senior in FAA, never thought taking pictures could land him behind bars. But for a few scary minutes on Aug. 31, he said that's exactly what happened. Fullarton said he was photographing the Chicago Transit Authority's O'Hare Airport station at around 2:15 p.m. when he was approached by two Chicago police officers and asked to explain himself. When he told the officers that the photographs were for a class project at the University, he was asked to provide some form of identification and subsequently placed in a chain-link holding cell for several minutes while they ran a background check, he said.
http://media.www.dailyillini.com/media/storage/paper736/
news/2008/09/12/News/Students.Photos.Seized-3428178.shtml
TAKEAWAY. As a society, we’re having trouble adjusting to what many countries have had to adjust to when it comes to the curtailment of assumed freedoms
PICTURES BROUGHT FUN BACK THEN Fun From the Depression-Era Playland.
It’s hard to squelch the human desire for fun. It seems almost a bodily need, like food and sleep. Even war and catastrophe won't dampen it entirely.
That is part of the charm of more than 3,000 photographs of Playland that within a year will become available on the Internet. Most were taken in the depths of the Depression, and they show that even then, grown-ups and children shrieked with delight as they spun, soared, plunged and careered on Playland's carnival of rides.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/nyregion/
nyregionspecial2/07colwe.html?_r=1&ei=5070&emc=eta1&oref=slogin
THE GLORY AND THE POWER. Since its invention in 1839, the unique power of photography has been utilized to record, report, and inform Picturing the Process: Landscape Through Time and Space…
http://www.jewishjournal.com/community_calendar/item/
picturing_the_process_landscape_through_time_and_space_61180/
THEY COME IN SMALL PACKAGES Matsushita to launch world's smallest SLR camera. Japan's Matsushita said it would launch the world's smallest digital single-lens reflex (SLR) camera, targeting female users who want a high-performance machine that does not weigh too much.
http://photography.consumerelectronicsnet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=51525
SONY UNVEILS FIRST FULL-FRAME ALPHA DSLR MODEL -- The A900 is designed to deliver ultra-fine picture quality with the world's highest resolution, 24.6-megapixel, 35 mm full-frame CMOS sensor and fast image processing with a new dual BIONZ® processing engines. The camera is also the first to have a body-integrated image stabilization system for a full-frame sensor with Sony's SteadyShot® Inside anti-shake system. http://www.dcviews.com/press/Sony_Alpha900.htm
HERE’S HOW THE REALTORS DO IT. -- Home View Announces Launch of Website, Pricing and Realtor Marketing Program, a nationwide video tour, photography and website company, unveiled a new website, and marketing program for real estate industry professionals
http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/080915/0433611.html
GRAIN BEGONE! Kodak intros new film! - Kodak's new Ektar 100 print film boasts high color, minimal grain.
http://www.popphoto.com/photonews/5518/kodak-intros-new-film.html
TAKEAWAY. Film might just be around for another century.
Henk-Jan Wesselink ('Daskar') Awarded 21 Honorable Mention Awards in the 2008 IPA. The International Photography Awards (IPA) announced the winners of this year's IPA Photographer of the Year awards
http://news.yahoo.com/s/prweb/20080915/bs_prweb/prweb1328684_1
KEYWORD HELPER How to scribble notes onto digital photos - Last week, Nokia of Finland filed a US patent (2008/0215962) on a technique to let users of digital or cellphone cameras make back-of-photo notes for posterity.
http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/mg19926735.800-how-to-scribble-notes-onto-
digital-photos.html?feedId=online-news_rss20
TAKEAWAY: If it works, it would be the perfect device for busy photographers who want to remember where what and when with the photo they just took.
BEST SEAT IN THE HOUSE -- Storm Photography from Space - NASA Inspired by Hurricane Ike? (GALLERY)
inspired by beautiful images of Hurricane Ike and Hurricane Gustav, the photographs in this gallery are all from recent years. Perched way up in orbit, NASA literally has the best seat in the house from which to photograph hurricanes and tropical storms.
http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/hurricane-photos
SPACE FOR PHOTOS Annenberg Image Space The Annenberg Foundation plans to announce on Saturday a new venture dedicated to digital images and print photography in Los Angeles. The Annenberg Space for Photography, on the former site of the Shubert Theater, will be a 10,000-square-foot facility featuring a digital projection gallery as well as traditional exhibition areas. The galleries will allow the organization to show a large number of images and to exhibit rarely seen photographic collections
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/13/arts/13arts-ANNENBERGIMA_BRF.html
MORE ON CHINA. China's national day photography exhibition begins in Bangladesh. A Chinese photography exhibition, showing nature, culture and history of China's region along the northern latitude. began here on Sunday to celebrate the 59th anniversary of the founding of China.
http://en.ce.cn/National/culture/200809/15/t20080915_16807754.shtml
ANDY WARHOL More photos on display in Dayton. "I Am a Camera: Photography of Andy Warhol" is on view through Oct. 19 in the Robert & Elaine Stein Galleries at Wright State University in Dayton. The 155 Polaroids and silver gelatin prints were donated to Wright State's permanent collection in 2007 by the Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts.
NOT LONG FOR THIS WORLD? -- Bill Groethe's Last Stand for film photography. Rapid City man worries about future of film, preserving history. A photograph captures a split second in time, but a film negative can let that moment endure for decades. That's why Bill Groethe prefers film to digital. “Photographers who rely on digital are losing history every time a memory card is erased, Groethe said. "We're still printing from 80-year film," he said during an interview at his business, 1st Photo and Trails End Gallery at 1839 W. Main St.
http://www.bhpioneer.com/articles/2008/09/03/breaking_news/doc48bed7d388167304199969.txt
Cornell Capa's Contribution to Photography Celebrated at Memorial Service -
Roughly 700 members of the photo community gathered in New York on Sept. 10 to celebrate the life of photojournalist Cornell Capa and the institution he founded, the International Center of Photography.
http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/content_display/photo-news/photojournalism/
e3i0df7faafa28db3e95b7af99024149cb6?imw=Y
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
September 10th 2008
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
http://www.photosource.com/earlybird/
Advance Notes: Search engines have been popular for fifteen years – but only recently have they become “everyday” to the general public – including photobuyers.
HOW OFTEN DO PEOPLE USE A SEARCH ENGINE?
Is “Search”
Gaining Ground?
“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. . . “
Source:
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/080807-053537
What does this tell you about how photobuyers will be using Google in the near future to find the source of those really hard-to-find photos?
In the past, buyers were satisfied with “almost on-target” pictures. In the future they’ll expect you to use long-tail descriptive keywords on your website to help them locate the exact picture you have waiting for them.
Merely dumping a bunch of pictures into a portal with keyword captions such as “river, trees, blue sky, summer, motor boat, laughing people.” Won’t do. Not if the buyer is looking for examples of Dutch elm disease in Missouri.
If you “know” the subject matter, and know how to accurately label your images, certain photobuyers who need your kind of pictures will recognize you as an important resource. Stick with your own domain and you’ll have few competitors. Those certain buyers will be a lifetime insurance policy for your stock photography career.
Search engines are making all of us become library scientists. And this is a fact of life for the successful stock photographer if he or she wants to surpass the competition of top selling photographers from the last century.
GETTING LOST IN THE SHUFFLE
You might say, “I have 500 pictures with a portal in Britain and they sell two or three pictures a month for me.”
Remember this. Most major on-line galleries (portals) accept 20,000 new pictures a month. Multiply that times the two dozen existing major portals and you get 480,000 a month or 5,760,000 a year available to visitors – and that’s just the major portals – and just one year.
Figure it out for yourself. Are these increasing numbers making it easier to find your photos? Or will your 500 pictures soon get lost?
Portals are good for ‘generic’ pictures for layouts the way elevator music is good for filling empty sound on an elevator. But for photobuyers, in the very near future “portal visual search” will have become a “clunky” way to locate specific-content pictures. Already there’s a quicker, easier way for photobuyers to find the pictures they need, and increasing numbers of buyers are switching to this method. It’s built on using a “text search.”
Get to work and start identify ing your images with specific keywords. Carry a point and shoot camera with you to identify the names and locations of your scenics, buildings, historic sites, tourist attractions, events, to help you provide specific keyword captions for your photos. Build keyword production into your workflow process. A photo collection in the 21st century is not only pictures, but also identifying text.
Rohn Engh is the best-selling author of “Sell&ReSell Your Photos,” and “sellphotos.com.” He is currently working on a new ebook entitled, “Rohn Engh’s How to Market Your Photos.”
Blogging
By Mikael Karlsson
In these digital days, you know that getting quality visitors to your editorial stock photography website is a challenge. SEO, (Search Engine Optimization) is one way of linking visitors to your site. There are many good books on this topic available from your favorite bookseller.
Links in to your website play a major role in how your site ranks in search engines. In Google, you can find out who links to your site. In the Google search field, type: “links: yoursite.com.” (You put the name of your website where it says “yoursite.”)
The second most important thing for your website ranking, is relevant text that is kept up to date.
One way to add both text and relevance to your website is to add a Blog to your digital arsenal. A Blog is an on-line public journal where you can comment on any topic you wish, post photos and link to other similar blogs.
THE PRICE IS RIGHT
Getting your own blog is both fast and easy. Select one of the free services* and you can’t beat the price. Blogger.com and LiveJournal.com are two of the most popular services offering blogs.
You don’t need to know any html or website design to build a blog. Most blogging services offer a wide variety of templates that are easy to use and personalize.
The most difficult thing about blogging is to limit yourself in what you “blog” about. Remember that your blog might be read by your clients. Don’t blog about anything too personal, avoid politics and religion if you think that your views can adversely affect your relationships with your clients. Limit your blogging to “safe” topics. Avoid coming across as whiny or antagonistic.
It is perfectly OK to blog about your camera equipment. Write about topics that interest you. The more people that read your blog, the more people will link to it. The more valid links you have coming in to your blog, the higher rating you’ll receive from the search engines. And, the higher rating you have, the better chance your blog will come up on the first page of a web search by Google, Yahoo, MSN, or other search engines.
Search the blogging services for topics that interest you, to see samples of what other people are blogging about.
Don’t forget to link to your own website from your blog.
How often you update your blog is entirely up to you, but a minimum of once every few weeks is a good measurement to work by. If a blog is left unattended, it will sink lower in the search engine ratings.
Here’s to your blogging success!
Photojournalist Mikael Karlsson has 20 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.
*Ed. Note: For information: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog_hosting_service, wordpress.org
One of the benefits of the Digital Age we live in is how it allows me to interview fellow stock photographers, editors, and photo researchers by telephone and then publish the interviews on the Internet. You, as a stock photographer, can then benefit by what they have to say and instruct.
Thanks to the new technology, the conversations are recorded digitally, and (yes, like coming digital TV) the clarity is stunning.
I’ve included here part of an interview that I’ll be including in my upcoming ebook, “How To Market Your Photos”. This sample gives you an idea of the helpful content, plus the quality of transmission.
It’s a portion of my interview with a Chicago photographer, who explains how he is in the process of designing a “mini-stock agency” by recruiting fellow photographers who represent fields of photographic interest other than his own. Using leads and contacts from the PhotoDaily and PhotoLetter, he and his growing group of photographers mutually benefit.
Another interview features a photographer from North Carolina, a biologist by trade, who reveals how he’s achieved success at sending “text/photo” packages on various natural history subjects to local, regional and state magazines. I’ll send you an email soon with portions of that interview, which will also be in my marketing ebook, to give you an advance peek. The ebook will be available September 20th.
I’m excited how well these interviews are turning out, reflecting the willingness of some top pros to share their methods and expertise, for the information you’ll gain, and with the improved technology of transmitting them to you. ---Hope you’ll agree.
-Rohn
click here for interview portion
PS: Other interviews in the new ebook include Jim Pickerell, Rick Smolan, Liz Banfield, Mitch Kezar, Gary Crabbe and a half-dozen more.
THINK AHEAD Most magazine photo editors work six months ahead. Take seasonal pictures today, workflow them and then be prepared to market them in a couple of months for publication next year at this time.
PROJECT TITLES -- Because editors often work on several publishing projects at one time, it is advisable that you include the project title along with your submission of images. When appropriate or available, the project title will usually be listed in the PHOTOLETTER or PHOTODAILY.
CLEVER RESEARCH TOOL -- A researcher on a short trip to a foreign country, with little money, but a digital camera in hand has devised a novel approach to digitizing foreign archives that could speed up research.
His plan to efficiently glide through letters searching out significant keywords or authors lay in tatters. The idea of photocopying all the relevant documents was impossibility, because of cost, time and travel constraints. Gennari had traveled to Stockholm with few possessions, but his trusty digital camera was among them. An off-hand remark to one of the staff at the Riksarkivet revealed that they not only allowed non-flash photography of their collections, but they even had a camera stand setup for the occasional photographing of maps and images that could not be photocopied.
Gennari set about photographing 2,500 documents, producing some 25,000 images in total, which would have been the equivalent of $15,000 worth of photocopying. If he had used a film camera, almost 700 rolls of film (about $4,000) would have been required with the attendant costs of converting those to photo CDs adding $30,000 to the total costs).
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-09/ip-ds090408.php
TAKEAWAY: This technique is especially adaptable when you are photographing anything ranging from trees to historic buildings. There’ll always be a brass plate available to get (and snap) the details.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Travelwriter Marketletter
Travelwriter Marketletter… for writers and photojournalists.
Travelwriter Marketletter is a monthly publication available online
( http://www.travelwriterml.com ) and in hard copy format. Travelwriter Marketletter is in its 28th year.
If you’re a travel writer or photographer, TWM tells you about new markets, pay scales, editors, specs and trips. Contact Mimi Backhausen Phone: 703-879-6814 Fax: 208-988-7672
If you’re in travel PR, TWM tells you which publications are likely targets.
If you’re a travel editor, TWM tells you about trips, and about your competitors.
If you’re a photo researcher TWM will direct you to travel photographers.
Request a sample copy of TWML: 703 879-6814.
UPBEAT NEWS - Record earnings reported for MICROSTOCK for August. Three
new agency records and total earnings were 20% above the previous record and
up 25% on July.
http://www.microstockdiaries.com/microstock-results-for-august-2008.html
BUT CHILDREN? As writer Amy Silverman explained, Schneider's work engendered major controversy in a place no less cosmopolitan than London -- when Schneider mounted a show at that city's Spitz Gallery, the tabloids shriekingly accused her of peddling child porn and the cops were called. Nakedness is the subject of ASU photography professor, Betsy Schneider's work. It was also the subject of New Times' profile of Schneider, which ran August 14. Betsy Schneider's Controversial Photographs at the Kitchenette: Last Night, Tonight
http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2008/09/betsy_schneiders_controversial.php
IT’S YOUR RIGHT. -- Do I Need a Model Release? - “ Photographers shouldn't be intimidated from exercising their rights. http://rising.blackstar.com/do-i-need-a-model-release.html
TAKEAWAY: A good reminder that photography helps us all benefit when we share the message (pictures) with others.
MARILYN WHERE ARE YOU WHEN WE NEED YOU ? – The Monroe Estate Was Dealt Another Loss in NY Federal Court - The decision affirmed an identical decision handed down by a federal court in California last March in separate but related case.
http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/content_display/photo-news/legal-news/e3i0c5cda0b44613d02cbe93c71e44f345d
TAKEAWAY: If you are a celeb, get all the legal stuff done before you leave us.
PHOTO SAFE II (PST-251). Photo Safe II from Digital Foci, lets you travel light and still quickly and securely save your digital photos where ever you go. No need to carry a laptop to download your photos for safe-keeping. Frees you from worry about losing important pictures or running out of memory card space while on the road. Provides portable on-the-road digital photo storage with 80GB and 160GB hard drives and built-in memory card readers. Photo Safe II copies the entire content of your memory card with a one-touch Auto Copy button. It works with all popular card formats, and is compatible with PC and Mac computers. For more information, see www.digitalfoci.com or
www.digitalfoci.com/photo_safe.html.
LIGHTING TECHNIQUES: for Middle Key Portrait Photography, by Norman Phillips. The author covers a little-explored area of photography, showing you how taking a conscious approach to each element in your middle key images can result in more cohesive and appealing portraits. The book includes images from more than a dozen top portrait photographers, with Phillips revealing the elements in each portrait that make it a success. Clear-cut diagrams show you how subtle changes can produce dramatic lighting changes, enhancing your ability to make every subject look their best. (ISBN-13: 978-1-58428-231-0; $34.95; 128 pgs) Contact: Kate Neaverth, Amherst Media, 175 Rano St, Ste 200, Buffalo, NY 14207. Phone: 800 622-3278; Fax: 800
622-3298. Email: kneaverth[at]amherstmedia[dot]com. Web: www.amherstmedia.com
JUST MAKING SURE -- Another Iraqi Photographer Detained as "Security Threat" - Ibrahim Jassam was arrested early on Tuesday at his home south of Baghdad by US and Iraqi forces, according to a statement released by Reuters.
http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/content_display/photo-news/photojournalism/e3ic85eae03c2abe6962f5a7f6564a7dcf1
GOTTCHA! -- After photojournalist Nathan Weber finally made bail and left jail last Wednesday night after being arrested Monday while photographing anti-war demonstrators clashing with police outside the Republican National Convention more journalists were detained or arrested last Thursday night when police rounded up more than 390 anti-war protesters shortly before Senator John McCain spoke to accept the Republican presidential nomination.
Photojournalists arrested earlier last week are now all out of jail, but St. Paul, Minnesota police have not yet given back some photography equipment and personal gear that was confiscated when they were detained.
http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2008/09/rnc_arrests.html
http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2008/09/maturen.html
OUCH! THAT HURTS! -- Associated Press photojournalist and NPPA member Matt Rourke, along with Democracy Now! television and radio host Amy Goodman and two of her producers, were released from a county jail a few hours after they were arrested Monday while covering an anti-war march during the first day of the Republican National Convention. AP says Rourke was covering protesters Monday when he was "swept up" by police who were moving in on a group of demonstrators in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota. The photojournalist identified himself over and over to police as an Associated Press photographer.
"There's a guy from The New York Times who has a picture of me on my back, holding up my credential to an officer who is standing over me with a nightstick," Rourke said. "I made it clear to police that I was an AP photographer.
"I had been moving toward the police in a passive posture, and they appeared not to have an issue with me. The police in front of me, they probably knew I was a journalist. "When I went down, the camera with the wide angle lens went one way, and the one on my right with the long lens - that's the side that I hit - I started shooting with it."
The last photograph on Rourke's memory card shows a picture of a police officer dressed in riot gear subduing and arresting an unidentified protester. The protester is face down on the pavement, and the policeman is using his left knee and the weight of his own body to press down on the back of the neck of the protester he is handcuffing.
http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2008/09/arrests.html
A VIDEO Adobe Will Broadcast Creative Suite 4 Preview on September 23 - Register online to watch Web broadcast
http://www.creativepro.com/article/adobe-will-broadcast-creative-suite-4-preview-september-23
LIGHT SECRETS Portrait Lighting: Lessons from a Master - Many books and training DVDs on portrait lighting make lighting seem like a hopelessly complicated subject. But Tony Corbell's DVD, Portrait Lighting on Location teaches great methods for simplifying lighting.
http://rising.blackstar.com/portrait-lighting-lessons-from-a-master.html
COMING AROUND THE BEND Sony and Panasonic will both unveil new digital SLR (single lens reflex) cameras. Sony's camera, a new member of its "alpha" family of cameras, will be shown at a company event that is scheduled to take place in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Two days later Panasonic will show the successor to the DMC-L10 at a Tokyo news conference. Panasonic said the new camera "offers unique features to set a new trend in digital SLR photography" but didn't reveal any information about the camera.
http://www.macworld.com/article/135345/2008/09/slrs.html
NICE GOING ! -- Three Photojournalists Win Getty Images Grants For Editorial Photography - Their portfolios were selected from a field of 153 applicants from 26 countries by a prestigious panel of judges
http://www.biosmagazine.co.uk/article.php?id=6526
TAKEAWAY: In any contest or similar event, be sure the “rights” to your images remain with you.
THE PITCH: Book Proposals That Hit Their Mark - PDN talks to photographers
and publishers about three book ideas that recently found their way into print.
http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/content_display/features/pdn-online/e3i4f1bfc7cd3706a684b250fcb1d3831d9
TAKEAWAY: The first rule of self-publishing a book: aim for a niche,(like sports cars) rather than a general subject like pretty landscapes.
EXCITING LOOK INTO HISTORY. -- Thanks to digital photography, the Dead Sea Scrolls will be displayed on Internet.
Scientists using American space technology have started a huge project to digitally photograph the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest known version of the Hebrew Bible, and post it on the Internet for all to see, Israeli authorities said Wednesday.
High-tech cameras using infrared photography are being used to uncover sections of the 2,000-year-old scrolls that have faded over the centuries and become indecipherable, the Israeli Antiquities Authority said.
The project is expected to take about five years and the goal is to make the scrolls accessible to scientists and the general public, Antiquities Authority official Pnina Shor said.
http://www.dailytidings.com/2008/0902/stories/0830_faithdeadsea.php
TAKEAWAY: Hope they include a thesaurus for you in case your command of the Aramaic language is rusty.
A colleague, Jim Pickerell, is conducting a survey of self-employed stock photographers. I urge you to read the following and decide to answer Jim’s 8 questions. It will help all independent freelance stock photographers understand the current business climate for independent stock photographers.
Jim tells me “Individual responses will be held in strictest confidence. No attempt will be made to identify specific individuals….”
Here’s the full text of Jim’s request:
We are conducting an important survey of self-employed photographers in an
effort to learn more about the current business climate and the percentage
of their total income that comes from licensing rights to stock images. If
you earned any money from photography in 2007 we urge you to go to
http://www.jimpickerell.com/surveyshared.aspx and respond to the eight
simple questions. The deadline for responding is September 30, 2008.
Please tell your friends about the survey. The more responses we receive the
more valid the data. If you are an agent and do not actually produce images
please encourage your photographers to respond to the survey.
In these rapidly changing and challenging times many photographers are
finding it necessary to modify their business strategies. Some stock
photographers are turning to assignments. Others earn their primary income
from non-photographic sources with photography being only a secondary source
of income. At the other end of the spectrum amateurs with no expectations of
earning a living from photography are finding that it can be a source of
additional income as well as a satisfying hobby.
We expect to follow up with additional surveys on at least an annual basis.
In-depth analysis of the results will be made available at
www.selling-stock.com and through many online and print publications. The
data will be tabulated by Jim Pickerell who has been active in the industry
for more than 45 years as a photographer and who is also an editor of the
newsletter Selling Stock.
If anyone has questions or would
like to comment on this survey, Jim Pickerell can be contacted at
jim[at]scphotos[dot]com. For more background on Jim Pickerell go to:
http://www.jimpickerell.com/about.asp.
Kristina Söderbaum (October 5, 1912 - February 12, 2001) was a Swedish-born German film actress, producer and photographer. From 1935, she starred in a number of pre-World war II and war films with her husband director Veit Harlan. After the war Söderbaum became a noted fashion photographer. In 1983 she wrote an autobiography Nicht bleibt immer so. Her last film was with Hugh Grant in the thriller Night Train to Venice in 1994.
AL SMITH SR., PHOTOGRAPHER, HISTORIAN -- Al Smith Jr. recalls that as a youngster, he'd spend long hours with his dad, Al Smith Sr., in the basement darkroom of their Central District home, developing black-and-white prints from shots his father had captured around town.
The senior Smith didn't consider himself a professional photographer. Neither did he figure himself a consummate local historian. He just loved taking pictures. And he loved his subjects, many of them the patrons of Seattle's early nightclub scene.
Over decades as a shutterbug, the elder Mr. Smith amassed tens of thousands of prints and negatives, which he stashed in drawers and cabinets and grocery bags in his basement. Along the way, his prints also found a home in Seattle's Museum of History & Industry, in the recently opened Northwest African American Museum and in a traveling exhibit that chronicles Seattle's Jackson Street night scene from the 1920s to the 1960s.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/obituaries/2008157585_smithobit04m.html?syndication=rss
- - - - - - - - - - - -
September 3rd 2008
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Ebook News
Rohn and crew continue their work on the new “How To Market Your Photos” ebook.
A major section on the ebook that’s causing a positive stir among reviewers is Rohn’s ‘Show-And-Tell’ series with photographers explaining exactly how they’re getting their pictures out there on the Internet and selling.
Be sure to listen to the Interview section of this week’s PhotoStockNOTES.
Click here for the interview
Wanted: Image
Detective
ADVANCE NOTES: A curious phenomenon is happening on the Internet when it comes to the supply of digital photos. An estimated 25,000 digital images are added weekly to the various portals, microstock sites, major stock agencies and individual websites.
Here’s the dilemma.
Each week, needed images that are on the Internet are becoming less able to be found.
In other words, the supply is increasing, but the ability to locate specific photos for research or commerce is becoming less.
The problem lies in the inability of humans to look at (view) multiple numbers of pictures without experiencing fatigue.
The answer is to develop a digital picture-finding method that will solve the problem.
At present, the only way this can be solved is by the photographers themselves who should accurately “tag” their pictures with highly descriptive captions.
Current day search engines have the ability to find and locate these images, -IF the photographer will label them according to industry standard guidelines with multiple keywords.
The dilemma is this: most photographers are uninterested in captioning (extensive keywords) once the picture has been taken and entered into their database.
The answer to this dilemma is for photographers to begin to supply a long-tail keyword phrase for each photo they own, the images they put on their own website and/or those they submit to agencies.
It might take a complete new generation of photographers to lead the way out of this quandary.
This is especially true for editorial stock, because machine-based or disinterested keyword agents cannot do it.
The Internet is in the process of asking photographers to also be library scientists. No wonder old-school photographers resist the invitation to keyword (properly) their images.
Why, then, is it optimum for photographers submit their own keyphrases?
Because they’re the ones who know the details for each image, the dimensional aspects that pinpoint the content of the photo. And because that’s what buyers are using to search for the source of photos they need. Photobuyers submit their search engine requests like this: boyhood home Jimmy Carter Plains GA
This is typical of the searches we receive at Photosource International, when researchers are up against a stonewall trying to locate a particular image that they need. You won’t find the location of the above-described simple, unassuming request on any of the major search engines.
Try it – you won’t find this selection, boyhood home Jimmy Carter Plains GA, on Alamy, Getty, Corbis, or Jupiter. Try it before one or all of those companies read this post and dispatch a photographer to Plains, GA !
Yet we all know this image(s) exists, especially in Google Images. But researchers are gun-shy of the administrative hassles they’d encounter if they dealt with the non-pros at Google Images.
So the task is back to photographers. “Ugh! Keywording! I’m a photographer, not a librarian!”
But the payoff is worth it. A photo collection that is not keyworded by the person who made the photos, results in a collection that will be almost worthless.
Once the photographer who keywords with a long tail search each important image, – when that person retires, he or she will be able to pass on their collection as a valuable monetary annuity to their spouse, grandchildren or a museum – with all the images keyworded and “l ocatable” in 21st century style. Now that’s a nice gift to pass on to your heirs !
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. For access to great information on making money from pictures you like to take, and to receive this free report: “8 Steps to Publishing Photos,” visit his website at PhotoSource International or call 800 624-0266.
Backup Safety
In this digital world, secure and high quality back-ups of your digital photos is a must. At the very least you should back up regularly to a second hard-drive so you have two copies of each file. Better is to also back up to a portable hard-drive that you keep off-location, I keep mine in a safety deposit box at my local Bank.
Lately, another option for backups has become a very interesting concept for photographers. Back-ups on-line, on highest quality servers that are monitored, continually backed-up, and secure preventing someone else getting to your files.
PhotoShelter is one company among a few others offering such a service. Their storage solution is called the PhotoShelter Personal Archive system.
I like PhotoShelter Personal Archive for two main reasons:
1. The interface is very user-friendly making it a breeze to use.
2. You can opt for storage alone, or you can add e-commerce to couple it with selling your digital photos on-line through PhotoShelter.
Signing up for the Starter Package is free. It only gives you 50MB of space but this is an excellent way to test it out and see if it seems right for you and your particular workflow.
The pricing for larger collections are affordable. The Basic Package offers 10GB of storage space and will run you $9.99/month.The Pro version offers 100GB of storage space at an affordable $49.99/month. (Find more about pricing of various packages at https://pa.photoshelter.com/signup/signup/subscriber )That’s not a lot of money to be able to sleep soundly at night knowing your digital files are safe and secure regardless of if your office gets flooded and all your computer equipment is toast, there’s a power surge that zaps your equipment, or you get a virus that corrupts your digital files.
On-line storage is all about peace of mind. There are a lot of very experienced pro photographers, both stock shooters and others, that use PhotoShelter. Customer service is among the best I’ve ever seen from any company. Answers to questions are sent promptly and follow up questions are dealt with equally promptly and with great patience from the PhotoShelter customer service staff.
In addition to Personal Archive, PhotoShelter also offers a web portal where you can upload your files and sell them through The PhotoShelter Collection. Launched to buyers in late 2007, this marketplace is still new so it is way to early to say if people are seeing steady sales yet. This Collection is edited and the editors will decide which of the files you upload will be accepted.
Bottom line: Peace of mind with on-line backups of your digital files is no longer cost-prohibitive for individual photographers. For more info see PhotoShelter’s web site at http://www.photoshelter.com -MK
A FUND FOR STUDENTS Kim Weston was born and raised in photography, the heir apparent to a fantastic lineage of photographers who taught him the culture and the craft of fine art photography.
Five years ago, the established photographer and his wife Gina decided to build a nonprofit foundation dedicated to fostering photographic education by nurturing the medium they love. Called the "Gina and Kim Weston Scholarship Fund," its mission is to both educate and enlighten the community about the richness of photography on the West Coast. Their commitment has been to support local high school, university and college students interested in studying art photography.
The result is the Weston Photography Scholarship, a competition that enables students to prepare for portfolio reviews before college applications and helps advanced students feel validated as fine art photographers.
http://www.montereyherald.com/leisure/ci_10350017
CANDID GRIPES -- Adobe's Open Ears - "Dear Adobe" is an independent Web site where you can air your gripes and know they'll be heard -
http://www.creativepro.com/article/adobes-open-ears
MARKETING TIP Some photographers use a month/year numbering system to identify their digital images. Don't. You reveal the age of your pictures. Photo buyers are less eager to buy a picture taken in 2005, than one with no date on it. Use an alphabetical photo identification system.
WHERE ARE YOU? The American Society of Picture Professionals has released guidelines entitled “ASPP’s Best Practices for Locating Copyright Owners of Photographic and Visual Art”. The guide is intended to be a “living document” and will be continually updated as new registries and technologies become available. This version 2.0 contains many useful links to organizations and other places where one can access information.
ASPP Executive Director, Cathy Sachs, said: “Especially in light of the Orphan Works pending legislation, it was our hope that these guidelines would be helpful in locating copyright holders, and that they might eventually aid in the construction of the defined "diligent search". This in turn, we hoped, would minimize the flood of "orphans" that might be created by inadequate search procedures. We feel that none of our members would benefit from that.” The guide can be found here: ASPP Best Practices Guide
Website: www.aspp.com www.aspp.com/users/ASPPSite4390/ASPP_Best_Practises_v2_7-8-08.pdf -
TAKEAWAY: Look into ASPP as a basic organization you should belong to.
EVER WANTED TO KNOW WHAT not TO SUBMIT TO MICROSTOCK?
http://www.microstockdiaries.com/what-not-to-submit.html
A LOOK AT THE WORLD Verve: a new website devoted to documentary photography . Geoffrey Hiller edits and publishes Verve, a concise, informative blog all about contemporary documentary photography around the world. When you're ready to explore some serious issues that rarely make it to mainstream media, hunker down and check out Verve.
http://www.lensculture.com/webloglc/mt_files/archives/2008/08/verve-a-new-website-devoted-to.html - or -
http://vervephoto.wordpress.com/
TAKEAWAY: Cartier-Bresson would have been proud of these photographers.
HELP! Save photography - After seeing a "Save the Mountains" bumper sticker
Melcher wondered why we haven't seen a "save photography" or "save
photographers" bumper sticker yet. http://blog.melchersystem.com/2008/08/28/save-photography/
TAKEAWAY: Food for thought.
Are YOU are an enthusiastic photographer looking for freelance photography opportunities and freelance photography tips? Do you want to sell photos and make an income from your camera? Then you need my advice on how to become a freelance photographer!
Have you have ever wondered how you can sell photos and turn YOUR photography hobby into freelance photography opportunities working from home? How DO you get freelance photography jobs?
If you have a "Have Camera - Will Travel" attitude and the guts to give it a go, a computer, a dash of creative spirit and a leaning towards discovery and challenge then I will teach you how make an income from your camera to become a freelance photographer.
Freelance photography opportunities and freelance photography jobs will open up when you discover how to start in freelance photography using my simple steps that ANYONE with a camera can follow.
Click Here!
MARKETING TIP: You can copyright every one of your photographs, free. It's a gift from your government. It costs you nothing. Only when you "register" your copyright does it cost you $45. So place a Copyright Notice on each of your photographs TODAY. (From Sell & ReSell Your Photos, Page 255).
NO CLUE. -- Consumers Know Little About Stock Photos - Americans downloading
images or videos off the Internet for personal use are often clueless about
copyright and most don't know what stock photography is. The results show
that consumers are interested in using images but unsure where to get them
or how to do it legally.
http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/content_display/photo-news/stock-and-syndication/e3i2c3db17a74e1297687c759eb8764657a
FAIR USE: HEALTHY THEFT? Understanding Fair Use - The challenge is determining whether the unauthorized use is an infringement or fair use. While only a court of law
can make that decision, understanding what makes a use "fair" will help you
protect your work. http://rising.blackstar.com/understanding-fair-use.html
CAPTURED SPLIT-SECONDS . New Scientist Eureka prize for scientific photography won with toy rocket image. RMIT University's Phred Petersen won the 2008 New Scientist Eureka Prize for Scientific Photography for photographing a toy rocket with a Schlieren lens, with stunning results. Mr Peterson teaches his students in Scientific Photography the capability the Schlieren lens has by capturing everyday objects in action. Here is some footage he took of a match being struck.
http://www.rmit.edu.au/browse;ID=v9xrnww46q6b1 http://gallery.rmitsciphoto.com/
EIGHT-MEGA PIXEL MOBILE. Samsung brings 8MP digital camera to mobile phone.
The megapixel battle on stand-alone digital cameras may be slowing down but not for mobile phones. Samsung recently launched its eight-mega pixel mobile phone-a first on a Symbian OS-based mobile phone that company officials said would offer a powerful mobile photography and multimedia experience.
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2008/sep/01/yehey/techtimes/20080901tech1.html
WHERE’D MY IMAGES GO? Lost Your Digital Photos? - Diskeeper Corporation
Has released Undelete 2009 software for instant recovery of digital photos
or any file accidentally deleted by home and small office users.
http://www.quantasecurity.com/article.php?s=2&a=2624&sid=56277f1485b9961577cef7483fd5e3ea
NEW RULES IN BRITAIN Unit forces Crown Estate climbdown - Pro-Imaging has established a "Bill of Rights" for photographic competitions as a set of principles by which the fairness of the terms a competition can be judged. These can be seen on the
Pro-Imaging website.
http://www.epuk.org/News-snippets/889/pi-forces-crown-estate-climbdown
PROUD OWNERS. Photographer finds stories behind Cadillacs.
On a June Saturday nine years ago, Bill Gaskins stood on a street in Baltimore watching a fleet of Cadillacs cruise by - dreamboat cars with tailfins, chrome bumpers and whitewall tires, 20 to 30 of them, each owned by a black man. He had heard about the revival of a tradition in that city's African American community: the Cadillac Parade, with marching bands and carnival rides. He traveled from his New Jersey home to see it.
Looking at those machines, the photographer knew he'd found his next project.
The Charlotte Observer reported that Gaskins launched "The Cadillac Chronicles," a collective photographic portrait examining the relationship between black men and their vintage Cadillacs, those typically made between the 1940s and 1970s.
http://www.dailyadvance.com/news/state/photographer-finds-stories-behind-cadillacs-108681.html
BUSY, BUSY. -- Negotiating with agencies for paparazzi shots of celebrities, retouching photos, managing staff and shooting "Hometown Hotties" are some of the tasks that
Maxim.com photo editor Kelly Stuart fits into a busy day.
http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/content_display/photo-news/editorial/e3i3338808b4eeae51f484861c053fb29f7
“Within every man and woman a secret is hidden, and as a photographer it is my task to reveal it if I can.” - Yousuf Karsh
1930 - Photograph in Natural Colors taken in the air was made by Melville Bell Grosvenor, Assistant Chief of Illustrations Division of "National Geographic Magazine," in July, and published in September 1930 issue.
BUY IT WHOLESALE Before you place your order to a company (a favorite magazine or vitamin company, etc.) use a search engine such as Google and do a search for it.
For example Vanity Fair magazine discount coupons. You’ll find several sites with “codes” that can be used on the check-out page of the vendor when asked for a discount code. It’s an easy way to reduce your costs on all kinds of merchandise.
Try it for gasoline. One of our subscribers who lives in Minneapolis tried this system for gas and found a place featuring coupons for 5 cents less a gallon. Unfortunately, she had to drive to the other side of the city to buy the gas. -RE
30 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
1997 – October 6th – Soviet war photographer Yevgeny Khaldei, best remembered for his pictures of Soviet soldiers hoisting the red flag over the Reichstag in Berlin at the end of World War II, died at age 80.
24 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
September 24th 2008
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
24 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
The Sale Potential:
A SELF-APPRAISAL
When you are next out on a photographing excursion, begin the habit of asking yourself, "Is it marketable?" before you snap the picture. Gauge whether the image you’re making or taking has a good chance of resulting in a sale for you.
That is, -is it a picture a photobuyer will need ...not one he already has access to. Does that image belong on a photobuyer's desk? Does it have potential for many future sales?
One photographer friend said she could not break the habit of snapping pictures of anything and everything on a photo excursion. To change her habit, she placed a label over the viewfinder on the back of her camera that read: "Is it marketable?" It took her only two weeks to finally break the habit. The label is now removed. She no longer aims her camera at silhouettes of sea gulls against the setting sun (and other such "classic" shots, that do sell, but that are very difficult for individuals to market because thousands upon thousands of similar photos are available to photobuyers).
Instead, she now photographs specific subject matter geared to specific market areas that match her own interest areas. She found (and continues to find) dependable markets for her material by doing some sound marketing homework.
The SSA Critique
In my seminars, I offer a free critique of pictures based on their marketing potential. Since persons who attend my seminars are already photographers, I don't comment on the artistic value of the photograph, only the marketing potential. I use what I call the Selling Self-Appraisal (SSA), a number factor ranging from 1 to 10. (Ten equals high.) Since there's no mystery about the SSA, you can make a self-critique of your own pictures. Here's how to start.
A key factor in selling anything is the law of Supply and Demand. If there's a great supply of something, it's not going to sell briskly for you (e.g. the silhouette of the sea gull). If on the other hand, the supply is limited, the demand will be great. (A volcano erupting in Washington.)
Seventy-five percent of your picture's marketing worth will have to do with supply and demand. For example, if there's a reasonable demand for a picture, and the supply is only reasonable, your SSA can start at 7. From this point, your SSA will go up or down.
Here are some of the factors that will cause your SSA for that picture to increase: 1.) You have an established track record with the photobuyer. 2.) Your picture is available in time to meet a deadline. 3.) Your picture is: a) lends itself to a publishing house's needs; b)time, up-to-date; c) matches the photobuyer's interest area; d) available for one-time use; e) has not been used recently by the competition; f) available for commercial use also and therefore has a model release; g) technically acceptable; h) good.
Photobuyers make the assumption that your pictures will be "good." They need not be prize-winners, but they must be good.
Your SSA will decrease to the extent your answers are negative to any of the above.
Since you know your own marketable areas better than anyone else, you are in the best position to make your own SSA assessment for your target markets. Take a weekend to go through your pictures and eliminate any in your target market file that come up with a low SSA. The remaining photos are no doubt excellent and can be placed in a portal or stock agency. – RE
Editor's Note: Our ebook, "How to Make the Marketable Photo," is an excellent guide. Go to www.photosource.com/ resources for information on this and other ebooks and guides that can help your marketing success.
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. For access to great information on making money from pictures you like to take, and to receive this free report: “8 Steps to Publishing Photos,” visit his website at PhotoSource International or call 800 624-0266.
www.photosource.com
23 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
It’s All In The Cards
Safety In Numbers
With digital cameras, the recording medium is most often a Compact Flash (CF) card. It’s the memory place where all your images are stored. Some cameras allow simultaneous recording on two cards for increased reliability and redundancy, just in case something goes wrong.
CF cards are not as important to the final image as film was/is. Far from it. But, the CF card is a major part of your digital workflow. They are important parts of your professional equipment.
I remember the days when CF cards were very expensive. Small amounts of memory sold for thousands of dollars. These days, prices have come down, and cards are getting bigger and faster and prices are coming down. If you’re just now coming into the digital arena, you’ve entered at a good time.
There are a number of questions I get asked often about CF cards. The most common by far: is there a difference between the bargain basement cards and the more expensive ones? The answer is a resounding yes. Like with anything else, you gits what you pays for. (When buying from a reputable dealer, by the way, the difference in price between name brand and off brand is small enough that it shouldn’t matter.)
My personal favorite is the Hoodman PPO card, The SanDisk line is a close second. (The Hoodman cards are blazing fast in my Canon 5D.) For those of you who want to buy ‘made in America,’ the Hoodman cards have the added bonus of being made in the U.S.
WHAT NOT TO BUY
Avoid buying cheap CF cards at auction sites. More often than not, the cards sold are fakes. See the very useful link at http://martybugs.net/articles/fakesandisk.cgi for more information. I buy my CF cards from B&H Photo Video or directly from the manufacturer. Find Hoodman CF cards at: http://www.hoodmanusa.com/compactflash2.asp
The second most commonly asked question is, should you buy one large card or many smaller ones? I advocate many smaller cards rather than one or two large ones. It comes down to basic risk management. The more individual cards you can spread the risk out on, the smaller the chance that an individual card will go bad at a critical time. I work with a large number of 2 to 4 GB cards.
The third most commonly asked question has to do with transferring the images from the card to the computer. Many digital photographers are frustrated by the slow connection-speeds when they try to download directly from their camera with USB or FireWire. Hint: Spend $25 on a good-quality card reader and you will be amazed at how fast you can download images from your CF cards.
Before you buy a new, fast, CF card, make sure to check with your camera’s manufacturer that the speed and capacity are compatible with your camera.
As always, when you have questions about anything concerning your editorial stock photography business, the PhotoSource Kracker Barrel at http://board.photosource.com/list.php?1 is a great place to ask questions and get information.
Photojournalist Mikael Karlsson has 20 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, http://www.sellphotos.com
23 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
PROMOTE YOURSELF. The Power Of Publicity; Promotion Builds Potential Client Awareness. Publicity is one of the most overlooked areas of marketing for photographers. The protocol for obtaining this less conspicuous but very important promotional tool has three basic steps: submission of information about your work to the media; confirmation of acceptance; and final publishing. http://shutterbug.com/columns/business_trends/0808business/
MORE THAN JUST THE PHOTO. -- It is not really photography that is being
licensed, but information. Getty pushes the concept to non wire service
media: Magazines, monthlies and so on. We will create such a volume of
images that you will undoubtedly find your match many times over. And the more you use us, the less it actually cost per image.
http://blog.melchersystem.com/2008/09/19/the-price-of-subscription/
TAKEAWAY. Smart photobuyers know not to go to a ‘pool’ for photos, but to individual specialized photographers where they not only get the pictures they need, but get consultancy on the subject. Why? Because smart photographers who specialize on the subject matter, are also important authorities on the subject matter. They can serve an important service to photobuyers.
23 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
Autumn has come to PhotoSource – but also
a special birthday pie.
This brief video shows who made it.
http://www.photosource.com/video/pie
23 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
TRAVELERS
Photographers: We broadcast your foreign destinations along with contact information, departure date, length of stay, etc. Contact PhotoStockNotes (1 715 248-3800) at least two months in advance.
Photobuyers: Watch this column. For the e-mail address, phone or fax number of the traveling photographer, call the PhotoSource International office and ask for Rohn Engh (1 800 624-0266). For an expansion of this list: www.photosource.com and press the Travelers Abroad button, to learn of past international destinations of our photographers.
Gloria Nedell
June 4 – June 30, 2008
San Miguel D'Allende, Mexico
John Fowler
June 22 – July 3, 2008
Eastern Newfoundland
Joe Becker
June 24 – July 8, 2008
Scotland, London, Paris
Paul Sivley
Aug 30 – Sept 16, 2008
Namibia Africa
Fred and Carrie Schilling
Sept 8 – Sept 20, 2008
Croatia
Sally Weigand
August 31 – Sept 23, 2008
Eastern Europe
Terri Petri
Oct 17- Nov 2 2008
Johannesburg, Kruger Park, South Africa
Reggie Millette
Sep 16 - Oct 14, 2008
Britanny, France
Austin Cortez
Oct 22 – Oct 27, 2008
Brazil (Amazon)
Frederick Randall
Nov 2008 – May 2009
Caribbean, BWI
Lisa Kirchner
Oct 1st - Oct 15th
Paris
23 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
WHY DID THEY CLOSE? -- A Q&A with PhotoShelter at PhotoDistrictNEWS.
by Executives on Closing Part of Their Stock Agency -
http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/content_display/photo-news/photojournalism/e3iebfd8fe8494c12b28989d9867721ecbf
23 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
JUST GUESSING -- -BUT IT’S FOOD FOR THOUGHT. Is Getty Images Buying Flickr? Gawker.com heard a wild rumor that Getty Images agreed to buy photo-sharing website Flickr from Yahoo. At first blush the gossip sounds crazy. Flickr is a crown Web 2.0 jewel for Yahoo, which dissolved its own photo site after acquiring the company, and Getty can already license Flickr photos through a partnership announced in July. But upon further reflection there's a logic to the alleged deal. So says Gawker.
http://gawker.com/5052086/is-getty-images-buying-flickr
23 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
WHEN IT'S RAINING -- Examples Of Rain Photography. Most photographers do not feel comfortable in taking photographs in bad weather. Yet bad weather sometimes presents the perfect opportunity
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/09/07/35-brilliant-examples-of-rain-photography/
SHOOTING BACK -- Misguided 'Shooting Back' puts Palestinian kids in danger. Ask Marian Wright Edelman, legendary founder of the Children's Defense Fund in Washington, D.C., if she would support cameras being placed in the hands of youths to photograph criminal activity in the most dangerous neighborhoods in the nation's capital, and she would probably conclude that this would be far too dangerous for the young people and their families.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1221489062257
23 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
PHOTOS HELP INVESTIGATIONS. There weren't any black Hummers or men in $5,000 suits with $500 sunglasses. But the scene in Trumann last week of police officers dusting for prints and taking pictures of a mock crime scene looked like something out of the TV police drama "CSI." Officers received hands on training lifting fingerprints and taking pictures of a mock crime scene using digital photography.
"When we go to a crime scene the biggest thing we are after are photographs and fingerprints," Blagg said.
http://www.trumanndemocrat.com/story/1462083.html
23 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
What do photobuyers expect from you?
Do they welcome phone calls?
Is it true photobuyers have a "filter list" where they list their non-favorite photographers? Why do they do this?
Rohn interviewed Lela LaBree, our in-house editor of the PhotoDaily, and the weekly PhotoLetter.
You’ll find the answers here.
She will serve as a perfect go-between to let you know "the other side of the story"
Listen to her interview here.
http://www.photosource.com/interview/Lela_LaBree
BTW - - The little dog in Lela's picture is Ingah. She is the Official Photosource Pug. Her official Kennel Club name is Ingah DuPont
23 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
WATCHING YOU, Is New York City and the NYPD Changing their Attitude Towards Photographers? Perhaps. We are still very cautious though. Seven years of systematic harassment is going to be very hard to forget or forgive but there may be a silver lining in the cloud as the City of New York and the NYPD are finally realizing that photography may have some benefits in crime fighting: http://nycphotorights.com/wordpress/
FAIR GAME. No one who knows is willing to say what is off limits, but officials say taking photographs of some items on FrontRunner may get shutterbugs' names referred to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Riders who believe that anything visible from public areas of the train are OK to photograph are in error. Security officials say photographers taking pictures of items or mechanisms involved with train operation could raise terrorism concerns.
A Standard-Examiner photographer recently was questioned by police for merely standing on a platform with a camera in hand.
Utah Transit Authority police say the names of two people taking suspicious pictures also have been referred to the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force since FrontRunner service began in April. http://www.standard.net/live/news/143451
23 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
FINDING IT FAST -- AtomicView processes media quickly - While AtomicView doesn't offer the editing tools of other programs, it's the perfect fit for professional photographers and digital camera enthusiasts who need to sort through and analyze big folders of media.
http://www.download.com/8301-2007_4-10044977-12.html?tag=mncol
PUT IT IN THE LENS? -- The old SLR design, with a mirror that flips up and must sit between the last lens element and the sensor, creates a lot of problems in designing the lens and camera systems. Yes, being able to view directly through the lens with your eye is a very useful thing. But at what cost?
Serious cameras aren't seeking to save space. We want image quality most of all, and the tools to shoot good images. Looking through the viewfinder is one of those tools, but again, at what cost?
So a proposal is put forward that now that sensors are dropping in price - even full frame sensors - that each lens have its own sensor that is part of it. There would be a body which has a digital (and mounting) connection with the lens. The body would have display, processor, controls, battery and so on.
http://ideas.4brad.com/professional-lenses-built-sensors
WORTH THE WAIT? Three years is a long time for any product to hang around, especially when the technology changes as rapidly as it does for digital cameras. So before moving on to Canon's latest marvel, the EOS 5D Mark II, let's take a moment to appreciate how well the EOS 5D filled the needs of burst-indifferent professionals and deep-pocketed prosumers.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10044432-1.html
FARE THEE WELL Beloved Kodachrome film may be on its way out. It is an elaborately crafted photographic film, extolled for its sharpness, vivid colors and archival durability. Yet die-hard fan Alex Webb is convinced the digital age soon will take his Kodachrome away. ''Part of me feels like, boy, if only I'd been born 20 years earlier,'' says the 56-year-old photographer, whose work has appeared in National Geographic magazine. ''I wish they would keep making it forever. I still have a lot of pictures to take in my life.'' Only one commercial lab in the world, Dwayne's Photo in Parsons, Kan., still develops Kodachrome, a once ubiquitous brand that has freeze-framed the world in rich but authentic hues since it was introduced in the Great Depression.
Eastman Kodak Co. now makes the slide and motion-picture film in just one 35mm format, and production runs - in which a master sheet nearly a mile long is cut up into more than 20,000 rolls - fall at least a year apart. Kodak won't say when the last one occurred nor hint at Kodachrome's prospects. Kodachrome stocks currently on sale have a 2009 expiration date. If the machines aren't fired up again, the company might just sell out the remaining supplies, and that would be the end. http://www.sltrib.com/ci_10520559
GETTING BETTER -- Fujifilm's SuperCCD EXR Unveiled: Sensor Promises High Res, High Quality Imaging new Super CCD EXR it looks like the main focus is on improved image quality. It's not going to signal an end to the stupid megapixel race, but the EXR sensor has a new mosaic color filter arrangement, new pixel-binning method and totally new electronic charge control: these result in improved light sensitivity with lower noise as well as a wider dynamic range.
http://gizmodo.com/tag/fujifilm-superccd-exr/
EASY WORKING Microsoft has launched the first full working version of its 'Photosynth' application – one that has been described as having the potential to change how we view our digital photographs forever. The application allows users to combine numerous exposures of one object or place into a single 'space', which can then be navigated three dimensionally, with the viewer able to zoom in to any minutia of detail captured in the photos, thus allowing image browsing independent of the amount of data on the screen, ie. no hanging around for thumbnails to load! http://www.whatdigitalcamera.com/news/Photosynth_goes_live_news_268052.html
23 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
WOMEN IN PHOTOGRAPHY International continues its tradition by establishing a list of the Top 100 Distinguished Women Photographers for 2008. Included on the list are photography's classics, Lillian Bassman, Jodi Cobb, Anne Geddes, Graciela Iturbide, Helen Levitt, Sally Mann and Cindy Sherman. Starting in 2006, to celebrate WIPI's 25th Anniversary, Women In Photography International (http://www.womeninphotography.org/) began the process of researching and culling the names of working women photographers worldwide for their online resource center http://www.cameratown.com/news/news.cfm?id=6321
GETTING INVOLVED. Now it’s time to dig deeper, this 'Day in the Life' editor, David Elliot Cohen, says. Cameras and picture taking is everywhere.
Saturation is a situation Cohen helped create. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/17/DDGB12K49R.DTL&feed=rss.art
23 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
HISTORY -- Best known for her work covering the political upheavals in Central America in the 1970s and '80s, Susan Meiselas' process has evolved in radical and challenging ways as she has grappled with pivotal questions about her relationship to her subjects, the use and circulation of her images in the media, and the relationship of images to history and memory. Her insistent engagement with these concerns has positioned her as a leading voice in the debate over the function and practice of contemporary documentary photography. From September 19, 2008 through January 4, 2009, the International Center of Photography (1133 Avenue of the Americas at 43rd Street) will present Susan Meiselas: In History, the first U.S. overview of the work of this major American photographer.
http://www.artdaily.com/index.asp?int_new=25943&int_sec=2
23 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
BE SURE TO USE THIS STAMP -- USPS issues 50th Anniversary stamp with Iditarod image by Alaska Stock's Jeff Schultz. The U.S. Postal Service has announced that it will be issuing a stamp on January 2, 2009 commemorating Alaska's 50th anniversary as a US State (Alaska became an official U.S. territory in 1912 and the 49th state on January 3, 1959). The image selected was created by Alaska Stock owner Jeff Schultz and depicts veteran sled dog racer on the DeeDee Jonrowe on the Iditarod trail.
http://www.abouttheimage.com/3894/usps_50th_anniversary_stamp_iditarod_image_alaska_stock_jeff_schultz/author2
23 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
“There is more to life than increasing its speed.” – Mohandas Gandhi
23 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
1960 - September 13 - Photojournalist Kevin Carter was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. In 1993 he paid his own way to the southern Sudan to photograph the civil war and famine there - resulting in a 1994 Pulitzer Prize for his haunting shot of a starving young girl collapsing on her way to a feeding center, a vulture lurking in the background. (After taking the picture, he said later, he chased away the vulture, and saw the toddler successfully make her way to the feeding station. He then sat under a tree "smoking cigarettes and crying.") Several days after his Pulitzer was announced, a close friend of his was fatally shot dead near him, while both were photographing a gun battle in South Africa. Three months later, Carter committed suicide.
19 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
September 19th 2008
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
17 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
by Bill Hopkins
Amazon Ends
Post-Purchase
Discount Policy
Photo book buyers:
In February, we told you about a great price guarantee program at Amazon.com. If they lowered their price within 30 days of your purchase, you could request a refund of the difference, even if they lowered the price multiple times. Well, it must have been very popular, because effective 9/1/08, the policy was discontinued. That's really a shame, because having you watch for price drops keeps you coming back again and again to their marketplace.
Bad Bats Again
We're talking about rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. Remember the Aflaming laptops? It's not so bad this time.
Some iPod Nanos have suffered from a meltdown due to defective batteries. So far, the problem seems isolated to batteries from a single supplier, affecting first-generation Nanos that were sold between 9/05 and 12/06.
Given the high turnover of these kinds of electronic devices, you've probably already upgraded to another model. But it may be worth checking to see if you might have one of these around and/or still in use. (This may not affect U.S. products and may be an isolated case, as the report came from Tokyo.) Visit http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2099 for further info
ISP Imposed Download Limit
Comcast, in an effort to manage bandwidth on its network, announced that beginning Oct. 1, it would start limiting the amount of data users can download.
The limit is set at 250Gb of traffic per month. If you go over, you get a phone call. If you go over again in the next 6 months, you get cut off for a year. For comparison, their typical customer uses between 2 and 3Gb per month (likely does not include businesses who pay higher fees for higher speeds and bandwidth).
Comcast is not alone in trying to figure out how to deal with the profusion of Internet activity, particularly that small subset of extremely heavy users making extensive use of file-sharing applications (we're not going to get into the discussion of moral or legal issues on that hot potato).
As video-on-demand, Internet gaming, and other uses increase, the problem will only grow. A few other ISPs such as Time Warner Cable (Road Runner) began testing a billing system that would charge customers for usage beyond a specified point. AT&T has said that metered billing (like your electricity) is inevitable.
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.
16 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
Lightroom
Does The Job
by Mikael Karlsson, PSI Technical Editor
For years, Adobe Photoshop was the only choice for professional photographers editing their own digital photos. Not so anymore.
Adobe Lightroom might just become the new standard for digital photographers. I have been using it since the first Beta version. I use Lightroom for developing the RAW files from my camera, light editing for sensor dust, and basic image content editing. Actually, these days I rarely use Photoshop.
I have Lightroom set up so it automatically imports new files every time I plug a CF card into my card reader. A conservative estimate is that I now spend at least 50 % less time developing RAW files and doing initial image editing compared to when I used to use Photoshop and Bridge.
SAFETY MEASURE
Lightroom saves the RAW files into a folder called the Lightroom Library. When working with the files, you work on copies rather than the digital original. This is a great safety measure to keep your digital originals safe. The only drawback is that the library quickly becomes very large. I edit out and delete unneeded RAW files once a week, which helps keep the library folder manageable.
You can download a free demo version of Lightroom from Adobe’s web site (www.adobe.com) to learn if the software is for you.
In the developing mode of Lightroom, there are controls to adjust features such as white balance, exposure, color temperature, and fill light and much more. These options are more than enough for the majority of basic image editing. You’ll also find a tool similar to the Clone Stamp in Photoshop that will allow you to clone out dust spots and other minor flaws. However, for more serious editing of problems that need to be removed or cloned out, Photoshop is still your best bet.
Lightroom is easy to work with and the learning curve is short and fast. If you have even a little bit of experience working with digital files, you’ll be able to start working with Lightroom in minutes after you install the software.
Lightroom is available for both PC and Mac. The price for the full version is only $299. For what you get for your money, in my opinion, it is a steal.
Mike Karlsson is Technical Editor at PhotoSource International. (1 402 821 3098; mike[at]photosource[dot]com)
16 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
Robert Smith, from North Carolina is a biologist and avid photographer. Listen to an interview with him and how he provides participating magazine editors with 3-ring notebooks and a DVD that displays his growing natural history photos.
Click here for
the interview
16 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
SIX TIPS for Growing Your Photography Business -
http://rising.blackstar.com/six-tips-for-growing-your-photography-business.html
16 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
PINK SLIPS. Corbis Cutting Another 175 Jobs, Combines Exec Jobs - The announcement this week continues a pattern of layoffs and restructurings at the unprofitable company. Corbis eliminated about 285 jobs in two separate rounds of layoffs in 2007. http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/content_display/
photo-news/stock-and-syndication/
e3ic20afe7664ada9ef998a49b98b55f392
TAKEAWAY: Computers were supposed to render us a green paperless society. DIGITS were supposed to take the place of bodies. What happened?
PHOTOSHELTER COLLECTION STEPS DOWN On October 10, 2008, PhotoShelter will close the PhotoShelter Collection, its stock outlet. The bottom line is that the collection failed to make enough money in enough time to justify continuing. PhotoShelter will continue with personal archiving — the company describes its financial position as “strong” – but it will no longer be offering stock images to photo buyers. http://blogs.photopreneur.com/you-and-the-failure-of-photoshelter
SHELTER COLLECTION GONE BUST. How to Change the Stock Photo Market - PhotoShelter announced that they'll be closing the PhotoShelter Collection portion of their business, effective October 10. The closure, almost exactly one year after their official launch of the Collection, is attributed to "the size of our image selection" and "entrenched subscription relationships". Reactions are mixed. The loyal are thanking PhotoShelter for not compromising. Others are upset about their lost investment.
http://www.microstockdiaries.com/how-to-change-the-stock-photo-market.html
TAKEAWAY: We’ll soon be back to the survival theory or the biogenic law from biology 101, "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny".
16 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
WELL, WELL, IT HAS COME TO THIS. The financial aspect of Photrade is an embedded advertising system in which advertisers can link to contextually relevant photos. And in that case, a small text ad is embedded in the frame of the photo in a place that viewers can easily see but which doesn't interfere directly with the photo itself. Photrade lets photographers control their pictures, get paid for them – it’s much like other stock photography sites, except that anyone can add any photos they want to the site, and the revenue comes from advertising, not just from publishers using their pictures.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10035393-52.html?tag=mncol
TAKEAWAY: Don’t open a bank account just yet.
16 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
NOT LONG FOR THIS WORLD? -- Bill Groethe's Last Stand for film photography. Rapid City man worries about future of film, preserving history. A photograph captures a split second in time, but a film negative can let that moment endure for decades. That's why Bill Groethe prefers film to digital. “Photographers who rely on digital are losing history every time a memory card is erased, Groethe said. "We're still printing from 80-year film," he said during an interview at his business, 1st Photo and Trails End Gallery at 1839 W. Main St.
http://www.bhpioneer.com/articles/2008/09/03/breaking_news/doc48bed7d388167304199969.txt
OBSESSIONAL COMPULSION - Photography and selling it cannot be an act of revenge or vengeance, but an act of passion done by selfless individuals with no aspirations for financial rewards. It is not a battleground for egos. http://blog.melchersystem.com/2008/09/12/obsessional-compulsion/
TAKEAWAY: Depends on how you want to “see it” or “show it”.
TALENT ONLY TAKES YOU SO FAR; You Have to Go the Rest of the Way Yourself - , All those things that we worry about -- "prime lens or zoom"; "iso100 or 400 to get a smidgen more depth of field"; "3200k or 2900k" -- will only take us so far in our careers. How we relate to clients, more often than not, is the difference betwen success and failure.
http://rising.blackstar.com/talent-only-takes-you-so-far-you-have-to-go-the-rest-of-the-way-you.html
TAKEAWAY: Amen!
16 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
BEYOND EDUCATION -- Teacher may face charges in porn incident. Students in Martin's photography class complained to school administrators after the class projector began displaying pornography.
http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoenix/articles/2008/09/13/20080913teacherporn-ON.html
16 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
PUT HIM IN A CAGE -- David Fullarton, a senior in FAA, never thought taking pictures could land him behind bars. But for a few scary minutes on Aug. 31, he said that's exactly what happened. Fullarton said he was photographing the Chicago Transit Authority's O'Hare Airport station at around 2:15 p.m. when he was approached by two Chicago police officers and asked to explain himself. When he told the officers that the photographs were for a class project at the University, he was asked to provide some form of identification and subsequently placed in a chain-link holding cell for several minutes while they ran a background check, he said.
http://media.www.dailyillini.com/media/storage/paper736/
news/2008/09/12/News/Students.Photos.Seized-3428178.shtml
TAKEAWAY. As a society, we’re having trouble adjusting to what many countries have had to adjust to when it comes to the curtailment of assumed freedoms
16 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
PICTURES BROUGHT FUN BACK THEN Fun From the Depression-Era Playland.
It’s hard to squelch the human desire for fun. It seems almost a bodily need, like food and sleep. Even war and catastrophe won't dampen it entirely.
That is part of the charm of more than 3,000 photographs of Playland that within a year will become available on the Internet. Most were taken in the depths of the Depression, and they show that even then, grown-ups and children shrieked with delight as they spun, soared, plunged and careered on Playland's carnival of rides.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/nyregion/
nyregionspecial2/07colwe.html?_r=1&ei=5070&emc=eta1&oref=slogin
THE GLORY AND THE POWER. Since its invention in 1839, the unique power of photography has been utilized to record, report, and inform Picturing the Process: Landscape Through Time and Space…
http://www.jewishjournal.com/community_calendar/item/
picturing_the_process_landscape_through_time_and_space_61180/
16 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
THEY COME IN SMALL PACKAGES Matsushita to launch world's smallest SLR camera. Japan's Matsushita said it would launch the world's smallest digital single-lens reflex (SLR) camera, targeting female users who want a high-performance machine that does not weigh too much.
http://photography.consumerelectronicsnet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=51525
SONY UNVEILS FIRST FULL-FRAME ALPHA DSLR MODEL -- The A900 is designed to deliver ultra-fine picture quality with the world's highest resolution, 24.6-megapixel, 35 mm full-frame CMOS sensor and fast image processing with a new dual BIONZ® processing engines. The camera is also the first to have a body-integrated image stabilization system for a full-frame sensor with Sony's SteadyShot® Inside anti-shake system. http://www.dcviews.com/press/Sony_Alpha900.htm
16 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
HERE’S HOW THE REALTORS DO IT. -- Home View Announces Launch of Website, Pricing and Realtor Marketing Program, a nationwide video tour, photography and website company, unveiled a new website, and marketing program for real estate industry professionals
http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/080915/0433611.html
GRAIN BEGONE! Kodak intros new film! - Kodak's new Ektar 100 print film boasts high color, minimal grain.
http://www.popphoto.com/photonews/5518/kodak-intros-new-film.html
TAKEAWAY. Film might just be around for another century.
16 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
Henk-Jan Wesselink ('Daskar') Awarded 21 Honorable Mention Awards in the 2008 IPA. The International Photography Awards (IPA) announced the winners of this year's IPA Photographer of the Year awards
http://news.yahoo.com/s/prweb/20080915/bs_prweb/prweb1328684_1
16 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
KEYWORD HELPER How to scribble notes onto digital photos - Last week, Nokia of Finland filed a US patent (2008/0215962) on a technique to let users of digital or cellphone cameras make back-of-photo notes for posterity.
http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/mg19926735.800-how-to-scribble-notes-onto-
digital-photos.html?feedId=online-news_rss20
TAKEAWAY: If it works, it would be the perfect device for busy photographers who want to remember where what and when with the photo they just took.
16 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
BEST SEAT IN THE HOUSE -- Storm Photography from Space - NASA Inspired by Hurricane Ike? (GALLERY)
inspired by beautiful images of Hurricane Ike and Hurricane Gustav, the photographs in this gallery are all from recent years. Perched way up in orbit, NASA literally has the best seat in the house from which to photograph hurricanes and tropical storms.
http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/hurricane-photos
16 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
SPACE FOR PHOTOS Annenberg Image Space The Annenberg Foundation plans to announce on Saturday a new venture dedicated to digital images and print photography in Los Angeles. The Annenberg Space for Photography, on the former site of the Shubert Theater, will be a 10,000-square-foot facility featuring a digital projection gallery as well as traditional exhibition areas. The galleries will allow the organization to show a large number of images and to exhibit rarely seen photographic collections
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/13/arts/13arts-ANNENBERGIMA_BRF.html
MORE ON CHINA. China's national day photography exhibition begins in Bangladesh. A Chinese photography exhibition, showing nature, culture and history of China's region along the northern latitude. began here on Sunday to celebrate the 59th anniversary of the founding of China.
http://en.ce.cn/National/culture/200809/15/t20080915_16807754.shtml
ANDY WARHOL More photos on display in Dayton. "I Am a Camera: Photography of Andy Warhol" is on view through Oct. 19 in the Robert & Elaine Stein Galleries at Wright State University in Dayton. The 155 Polaroids and silver gelatin prints were donated to Wright State's permanent collection in 2007 by the Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts.
16 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
NOT LONG FOR THIS WORLD? -- Bill Groethe's Last Stand for film photography. Rapid City man worries about future of film, preserving history. A photograph captures a split second in time, but a film negative can let that moment endure for decades. That's why Bill Groethe prefers film to digital. “Photographers who rely on digital are losing history every time a memory card is erased, Groethe said. "We're still printing from 80-year film," he said during an interview at his business, 1st Photo and Trails End Gallery at 1839 W. Main St.
http://www.bhpioneer.com/articles/2008/09/03/breaking_news/doc48bed7d388167304199969.txt
16 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
Cornell Capa's Contribution to Photography Celebrated at Memorial Service -
Roughly 700 members of the photo community gathered in New York on Sept. 10 to celebrate the life of photojournalist Cornell Capa and the institution he founded, the International Center of Photography.
http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/content_display/photo-news/photojournalism/
e3i0df7faafa28db3e95b7af99024149cb6?imw=Y
10 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
September 10th 2008
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
10 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
http://www.photosource.com/earlybird/
10 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
Advance Notes: Search engines have been popular for fifteen years – but only recently have they become “everyday” to the general public – including photobuyers.
HOW OFTEN DO PEOPLE USE A SEARCH ENGINE?
Is “Search”
Gaining Ground?
“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. . . “
Source:
http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/080807-053537
SIGN OF THE TIMES
What does this tell you about how photobuyers will be using Google in the near future to find the source of those really hard-to-find photos?
In the past, buyers were satisfied with “almost on-target” pictures. In the future they’ll expect you to use long-tail descriptive keywords on your website to help them locate the exact picture you have waiting for them.
Merely dumping a bunch of pictures into a portal with keyword captions such as “river, trees, blue sky, summer, motor boat, laughing people.” Won’t do. Not if the buyer is looking for examples of Dutch elm disease in Missouri.
If you “know” the subject matter, and know how to accurately label your images, certain photobuyers who need your kind of pictures will recognize you as an important resource. Stick with your own domain and you’ll have few competitors. Those certain buyers will be a lifetime insurance policy for your stock photography career.
Search engines are making all of us become library scientists. And this is a fact of life for the successful stock photographer if he or she wants to surpass the competition of top selling photographers from the last century.
GETTING LOST IN THE SHUFFLE
You might say, “I have 500 pictures with a portal in Britain and they sell two or three pictures a month for me.”
Remember this. Most major on-line galleries (portals) accept 20,000 new pictures a month. Multiply that times the two dozen existing major portals and you get 480,000 a month or 5,760,000 a year available to visitors – and that’s just the major portals – and just one year.
Figure it out for yourself. Are these increasing numbers making it easier to find your photos? Or will your 500 pictures soon get lost?
Portals are good for ‘generic’ pictures for layouts the way elevator music is good for filling empty sound on an elevator. But for photobuyers, in the very near future “portal visual search” will have become a “clunky” way to locate specific-content pictures. Already there’s a quicker, easier way for photobuyers to find the pictures they need, and increasing numbers of buyers are switching to this method. It’s built on using a “text search.”
HOW TO POSITION YOURSELF
Get to work and start identify ing your images with specific keywords. Carry a point and shoot camera with you to identify the names and locations of your scenics, buildings, historic sites, tourist attractions, events, to help you provide specific keyword captions for your photos. Build keyword production into your workflow process. A photo collection in the 21st century is not only pictures, but also identifying text.
Rohn Engh is the best-selling author of “Sell&ReSell Your Photos,” and “sellphotos.com.” He is currently working on a new ebook entitled, “Rohn Engh’s How to Market Your Photos.”
10 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
Blogging
By Mikael Karlsson
In these digital days, you know that getting quality visitors to your editorial stock photography website is a challenge. SEO, (Search Engine Optimization) is one way of linking visitors to your site. There are many good books on this topic available from your favorite bookseller.
Links in to your website play a major role in how your site ranks in search engines. In Google, you can find out who links to your site. In the Google search field, type: “links: yoursite.com.” (You put the name of your website where it says “yoursite.”)
The second most important thing for your website ranking, is relevant text that is kept up to date.
One way to add both text and relevance to your website is to add a Blog to your digital arsenal. A Blog is an on-line public journal where you can comment on any topic you wish, post photos and link to other similar blogs.
THE PRICE IS RIGHT
Getting your own blog is both fast and easy. Select one of the free services* and you can’t beat the price. Blogger.com and LiveJournal.com are two of the most popular services offering blogs.
You don’t need to know any html or website design to build a blog. Most blogging services offer a wide variety of templates that are easy to use and personalize.
The most difficult thing about blogging is to limit yourself in what you “blog” about. Remember that your blog might be read by your clients. Don’t blog about anything too personal, avoid politics and religion if you think that your views can adversely affect your relationships with your clients. Limit your blogging to “safe” topics. Avoid coming across as whiny or antagonistic.
It is perfectly OK to blog about your camera equipment. Write about topics that interest you. The more people that read your blog, the more people will link to it. The more valid links you have coming in to your blog, the higher rating you’ll receive from the search engines. And, the higher rating you have, the better chance your blog will come up on the first page of a web search by Google, Yahoo, MSN, or other search engines.
Search the blogging services for topics that interest you, to see samples of what other people are blogging about.
Don’t forget to link to your own website from your blog.
How often you update your blog is entirely up to you, but a minimum of once every few weeks is a good measurement to work by. If a blog is left unattended, it will sink lower in the search engine ratings.
Here’s to your blogging success!
Photojournalist Mikael Karlsson has 20 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.
*Ed. Note: For information: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog_hosting_service, wordpress.org
10 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
One of the benefits of the Digital Age we live in is how it allows me to interview fellow stock photographers, editors, and photo researchers by telephone and then publish the interviews on the Internet. You, as a stock photographer, can then benefit by what they have to say and instruct.
Thanks to the new technology, the conversations are recorded digitally, and (yes, like coming digital TV) the clarity is stunning.
I’ve included here part of an interview that I’ll be including in my upcoming ebook, “How To Market Your Photos”. This sample gives you an idea of the helpful content, plus the quality of transmission.
It’s a portion of my interview with a Chicago photographer, who explains how he is in the process of designing a “mini-stock agency” by recruiting fellow photographers who represent fields of photographic interest other than his own. Using leads and contacts from the PhotoDaily and PhotoLetter, he and his growing group of photographers mutually benefit.
Another interview features a photographer from North Carolina, a biologist by trade, who reveals how he’s achieved success at sending “text/photo” packages on various natural history subjects to local, regional and state magazines. I’ll send you an email soon with portions of that interview, which will also be in my marketing ebook, to give you an advance peek. The ebook will be available September 20th.
I’m excited how well these interviews are turning out, reflecting the willingness of some top pros to share their methods and expertise, for the information you’ll gain, and with the improved technology of transmitting them to you. ---Hope you’ll agree.
-Rohn
click here for interview portion
PS: Other interviews in the new ebook include Jim Pickerell, Rick Smolan, Liz Banfield, Mitch Kezar, Gary Crabbe and a half-dozen more.
10 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
- - - - - - -
THINK AHEAD Most magazine photo editors work six months ahead. Take seasonal pictures today, workflow them and then be prepared to market them in a couple of months for publication next year at this time.
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
PROJECT TITLES -- Because editors often work on several publishing projects at one time, it is advisable that you include the project title along with your submission of images. When appropriate or available, the project title will usually be listed in the PHOTOLETTER or PHOTODAILY.
10 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
CLEVER RESEARCH TOOL -- A researcher on a short trip to a foreign country, with little money, but a digital camera in hand has devised a novel approach to digitizing foreign archives that could speed up research.
His plan to efficiently glide through letters searching out significant keywords or authors lay in tatters. The idea of photocopying all the relevant documents was impossibility, because of cost, time and travel constraints. Gennari had traveled to Stockholm with few possessions, but his trusty digital camera was among them. An off-hand remark to one of the staff at the Riksarkivet revealed that they not only allowed non-flash photography of their collections, but they even had a camera stand setup for the occasional photographing of maps and images that could not be photocopied.
Gennari set about photographing 2,500 documents, producing some 25,000 images in total, which would have been the equivalent of $15,000 worth of photocopying. If he had used a film camera, almost 700 rolls of film (about $4,000) would have been required with the attendant costs of converting those to photo CDs adding $30,000 to the total costs).
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-09/ip-ds090408.php
TAKEAWAY: This technique is especially adaptable when you are photographing anything ranging from trees to historic buildings. There’ll always be a brass plate available to get (and snap) the details.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Travelwriter Marketletter
Travelwriter Marketletter… for writers and photojournalists.
Travelwriter Marketletter is a monthly publication available online
( http://www.travelwriterml.com ) and in hard copy format. Travelwriter Marketletter is in its 28th year.
If you’re a travel writer or photographer, TWM tells you about new markets, pay scales, editors, specs and trips. Contact Mimi Backhausen Phone: 703-879-6814 Fax: 208-988-7672
If you’re in travel PR, TWM tells you which publications are likely targets.
If you’re a travel editor, TWM tells you about trips, and about your competitors.
If you’re a photo researcher TWM will direct you to travel photographers.
Request a sample copy of TWML: 703 879-6814.
10 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
UPBEAT NEWS - Record earnings reported for MICROSTOCK for August. Three
new agency records and total earnings were 20% above the previous record and
up 25% on July.
http://www.microstockdiaries.com/microstock-results-for-august-2008.html
10 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
BUT CHILDREN? As writer Amy Silverman explained, Schneider's work engendered major controversy in a place no less cosmopolitan than London -- when Schneider mounted a show at that city's Spitz Gallery, the tabloids shriekingly accused her of peddling child porn and the cops were called. Nakedness is the subject of ASU photography professor, Betsy Schneider's work. It was also the subject of New Times' profile of Schneider, which ran August 14. Betsy Schneider's Controversial Photographs at the Kitchenette: Last Night, Tonight
http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2008/09/betsy_schneiders_controversial.php
10 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
IT’S YOUR RIGHT. -- Do I Need a Model Release? - “ Photographers shouldn't be intimidated from exercising their rights. http://rising.blackstar.com/do-i-need-a-model-release.html
TAKEAWAY: A good reminder that photography helps us all benefit when we share the message (pictures) with others.
MARILYN WHERE ARE YOU WHEN WE NEED YOU ? – The Monroe Estate Was Dealt Another Loss in NY Federal Court - The decision affirmed an identical decision handed down by a federal court in California last March in separate but related case.
http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/content_display/photo-news/legal-news/e3i0c5cda0b44613d02cbe93c71e44f345d
TAKEAWAY: If you are a celeb, get all the legal stuff done before you leave us.
10 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
PHOTO SAFE II (PST-251). Photo Safe II from Digital Foci, lets you travel light and still quickly and securely save your digital photos where ever you go. No need to carry a laptop to download your photos for safe-keeping. Frees you from worry about losing important pictures or running out of memory card space while on the road. Provides portable on-the-road digital photo storage with 80GB and 160GB hard drives and built-in memory card readers. Photo Safe II copies the entire content of your memory card with a one-touch Auto Copy button. It works with all popular card formats, and is compatible with PC and Mac computers. For more information, see www.digitalfoci.com or
www.digitalfoci.com/photo_safe.html.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
LIGHTING TECHNIQUES: for Middle Key Portrait Photography, by Norman Phillips. The author covers a little-explored area of photography, showing you how taking a conscious approach to each element in your middle key images can result in more cohesive and appealing portraits. The book includes images from more than a dozen top portrait photographers, with Phillips revealing the elements in each portrait that make it a success. Clear-cut diagrams show you how subtle changes can produce dramatic lighting changes, enhancing your ability to make every subject look their best. (ISBN-13: 978-1-58428-231-0; $34.95; 128 pgs) Contact: Kate Neaverth, Amherst Media, 175 Rano St, Ste 200, Buffalo, NY 14207. Phone: 800 622-3278; Fax: 800
622-3298. Email: kneaverth[at]amherstmedia[dot]com. Web: www.amherstmedia.com
10 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
JUST MAKING SURE -- Another Iraqi Photographer Detained as "Security Threat" - Ibrahim Jassam was arrested early on Tuesday at his home south of Baghdad by US and Iraqi forces, according to a statement released by Reuters.
http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/content_display/photo-news/photojournalism/e3ic85eae03c2abe6962f5a7f6564a7dcf1
GOTTCHA! -- After photojournalist Nathan Weber finally made bail and left jail last Wednesday night after being arrested Monday while photographing anti-war demonstrators clashing with police outside the Republican National Convention more journalists were detained or arrested last Thursday night when police rounded up more than 390 anti-war protesters shortly before Senator John McCain spoke to accept the Republican presidential nomination.
Photojournalists arrested earlier last week are now all out of jail, but St. Paul, Minnesota police have not yet given back some photography equipment and personal gear that was confiscated when they were detained.
http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2008/09/rnc_arrests.html
http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2008/09/maturen.html
OUCH! THAT HURTS! -- Associated Press photojournalist and NPPA member Matt Rourke, along with Democracy Now! television and radio host Amy Goodman and two of her producers, were released from a county jail a few hours after they were arrested Monday while covering an anti-war march during the first day of the Republican National Convention. AP says Rourke was covering protesters Monday when he was "swept up" by police who were moving in on a group of demonstrators in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota. The photojournalist identified himself over and over to police as an Associated Press photographer.
"There's a guy from The New York Times who has a picture of me on my back, holding up my credential to an officer who is standing over me with a nightstick," Rourke said. "I made it clear to police that I was an AP photographer.
"I had been moving toward the police in a passive posture, and they appeared not to have an issue with me. The police in front of me, they probably knew I was a journalist. "When I went down, the camera with the wide angle lens went one way, and the one on my right with the long lens - that's the side that I hit - I started shooting with it."
The last photograph on Rourke's memory card shows a picture of a police officer dressed in riot gear subduing and arresting an unidentified protester. The protester is face down on the pavement, and the policeman is using his left knee and the weight of his own body to press down on the back of the neck of the protester he is handcuffing.
http://www.nppa.org/news_and_events/news/2008/09/arrests.html
10 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
A VIDEO Adobe Will Broadcast Creative Suite 4 Preview on September 23 - Register online to watch Web broadcast
http://www.creativepro.com/article/adobe-will-broadcast-creative-suite-4-preview-september-23
LIGHT SECRETS Portrait Lighting: Lessons from a Master - Many books and training DVDs on portrait lighting make lighting seem like a hopelessly complicated subject. But Tony Corbell's DVD, Portrait Lighting on Location teaches great methods for simplifying lighting.
http://rising.blackstar.com/portrait-lighting-lessons-from-a-master.html
COMING AROUND THE BEND Sony and Panasonic will both unveil new digital SLR (single lens reflex) cameras. Sony's camera, a new member of its "alpha" family of cameras, will be shown at a company event that is scheduled to take place in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Two days later Panasonic will show the successor to the DMC-L10 at a Tokyo news conference. Panasonic said the new camera "offers unique features to set a new trend in digital SLR photography" but didn't reveal any information about the camera.
http://www.macworld.com/article/135345/2008/09/slrs.html
10 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
NICE GOING ! -- Three Photojournalists Win Getty Images Grants For Editorial Photography - Their portfolios were selected from a field of 153 applicants from 26 countries by a prestigious panel of judges
http://www.biosmagazine.co.uk/article.php?id=6526
TAKEAWAY: In any contest or similar event, be sure the “rights” to your images remain with you.
10 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
THE PITCH: Book Proposals That Hit Their Mark - PDN talks to photographers
and publishers about three book ideas that recently found their way into print.
http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/content_display/features/pdn-online/e3i4f1bfc7cd3706a684b250fcb1d3831d9
TAKEAWAY: The first rule of self-publishing a book: aim for a niche,(like sports cars) rather than a general subject like pretty landscapes.
10 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
EXCITING LOOK INTO HISTORY. -- Thanks to digital photography, the Dead Sea Scrolls will be displayed on Internet.
Scientists using American space technology have started a huge project to digitally photograph the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest known version of the Hebrew Bible, and post it on the Internet for all to see, Israeli authorities said Wednesday.
High-tech cameras using infrared photography are being used to uncover sections of the 2,000-year-old scrolls that have faded over the centuries and become indecipherable, the Israeli Antiquities Authority said.
The project is expected to take about five years and the goal is to make the scrolls accessible to scientists and the general public, Antiquities Authority official Pnina Shor said.
http://www.dailytidings.com/2008/0902/stories/0830_faithdeadsea.php
TAKEAWAY: Hope they include a thesaurus for you in case your command of the Aramaic language is rusty.
10 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
A colleague, Jim Pickerell, is conducting a survey of self-employed stock photographers. I urge you to read the following and decide to answer Jim’s 8 questions. It will help all independent freelance stock photographers understand the current business climate for independent stock photographers.
Jim tells me “Individual responses will be held in strictest confidence. No attempt will be made to identify specific individuals….”
Here’s the full text of Jim’s request:
We are conducting an important survey of self-employed photographers in an
effort to learn more about the current business climate and the percentage
of their total income that comes from licensing rights to stock images. If
you earned any money from photography in 2007 we urge you to go to
http://www.jimpickerell.com/surveyshared.aspx and respond to the eight
simple questions. The deadline for responding is September 30, 2008.
Please tell your friends about the survey. The more responses we receive the
more valid the data. If you are an agent and do not actually produce images
please encourage your photographers to respond to the survey.
In these rapidly changing and challenging times many photographers are
finding it necessary to modify their business strategies. Some stock
photographers are turning to assignments. Others earn their primary income
from non-photographic sources with photography being only a secondary source
of income. At the other end of the spectrum amateurs with no expectations of
earning a living from photography are finding that it can be a source of
additional income as well as a satisfying hobby.
We expect to follow up with additional surveys on at least an annual basis.
In-depth analysis of the results will be made available at
www.selling-stock.com and through many online and print publications. The
data will be tabulated by Jim Pickerell who has been active in the industry
for more than 45 years as a photographer and who is also an editor of the
newsletter Selling Stock.
If anyone has questions or would
like to comment on this survey, Jim Pickerell can be contacted at
jim[at]scphotos[dot]com. For more background on Jim Pickerell go to:
http://www.jimpickerell.com/about.asp.
10 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
Kristina Söderbaum (October 5, 1912 - February 12, 2001) was a Swedish-born German film actress, producer and photographer. From 1935, she starred in a number of pre-World war II and war films with her husband director Veit Harlan. After the war Söderbaum became a noted fashion photographer. In 1983 she wrote an autobiography Nicht bleibt immer so. Her last film was with Hugh Grant in the thriller Night Train to Venice in 1994.
10 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
AL SMITH SR., PHOTOGRAPHER, HISTORIAN -- Al Smith Jr. recalls that as a youngster, he'd spend long hours with his dad, Al Smith Sr., in the basement darkroom of their Central District home, developing black-and-white prints from shots his father had captured around town.
The senior Smith didn't consider himself a professional photographer. Neither did he figure himself a consummate local historian. He just loved taking pictures. And he loved his subjects, many of them the patrons of Seattle's early nightclub scene.
Over decades as a shutterbug, the elder Mr. Smith amassed tens of thousands of prints and negatives, which he stashed in drawers and cabinets and grocery bags in his basement. Along the way, his prints also found a home in Seattle's Museum of History & Industry, in the recently opened Northwest African American Museum and in a traveling exhibit that chronicles Seattle's Jackson Street night scene from the 1920s to the 1960s.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/obituaries/2008157585_smithobit04m.html?syndication=rss
03 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
- - - - - - - - - - - -
September 3rd 2008
- - - - - - - - - - - -
03 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
Ebook News
Rohn and crew continue their work on the new “How To Market Your Photos” ebook.
A major section on the ebook that’s causing a positive stir among reviewers is Rohn’s ‘Show-And-Tell’ series with photographers explaining exactly how they’re getting their pictures out there on the Internet and selling.
Be sure to listen to the Interview section of this week’s PhotoStockNOTES.
Click here for the interview
03 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
Wanted: Image
Detective
ADVANCE NOTES: A curious phenomenon is happening on the Internet when it comes to the supply of digital photos. An estimated 25,000 digital images are added weekly to the various portals, microstock sites, major stock agencies and individual websites.
Here’s the dilemma.
Each week, needed images that are on the Internet are becoming less able to be found.
In other words, the supply is increasing, but the ability to locate specific photos for research or commerce is becoming less.
The problem lies in the inability of humans to look at (view) multiple numbers of pictures without experiencing fatigue.
The answer is to develop a digital picture-finding method that will solve the problem.
At present, the only way this can be solved is by the photographers themselves who should accurately “tag” their pictures with highly descriptive captions.
Current day search engines have the ability to find and locate these images, -IF the photographer will label them according to industry standard guidelines with multiple keywords.
The dilemma is this: most photographers are uninterested in captioning (extensive keywords) once the picture has been taken and entered into their database.
The answer to this dilemma is for photographers to begin to supply a long-tail keyword phrase for each photo they own, the images they put on their own website and/or those they submit to agencies.
It might take a complete new generation of photographers to lead the way out of this quandary.
This is especially true for editorial stock, because machine-based or disinterested keyword agents cannot do it.
The Internet is in the process of asking photographers to also be library scientists. No wonder old-school photographers resist the invitation to keyword (properly) their images.
Why, then, is it optimum for photographers submit their own keyphrases?
Because they’re the ones who know the details for each image, the dimensional aspects that pinpoint the content of the photo. And because that’s what buyers are using to search for the source of photos they need. Photobuyers submit their search engine requests like this: boyhood home Jimmy Carter Plains GA
This is typical of the searches we receive at Photosource International, when researchers are up against a stonewall trying to locate a particular image that they need. You won’t find the location of the above-described simple, unassuming request on any of the major search engines.
Try it – you won’t find this selection, boyhood home Jimmy Carter Plains GA, on Alamy, Getty, Corbis, or Jupiter. Try it before one or all of those companies read this post and dispatch a photographer to Plains, GA !
Yet we all know this image(s) exists, especially in Google Images. But researchers are gun-shy of the administrative hassles they’d encounter if they dealt with the non-pros at Google Images.
So the task is back to photographers. “Ugh! Keywording! I’m a photographer, not a librarian!”
But the payoff is worth it. A photo collection that is not keyworded by the person who made the photos, results in a collection that will be almost worthless.
Once the photographer who keywords with a long tail search each important image, – when that person retires, he or she will be able to pass on their collection as a valuable monetary annuity to their spouse, grandchildren or a museum – with all the images keyworded and “l ocatable” in 21st century style. Now that’s a nice gift to pass on to your heirs !
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. For access to great information on making money from pictures you like to take, and to receive this free report: “8 Steps to Publishing Photos,” visit his website at PhotoSource International or call 800 624-0266.
03 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
Backup Safety
In this digital world, secure and high quality back-ups of your digital photos is a must. At the very least you should back up regularly to a second hard-drive so you have two copies of each file. Better is to also back up to a portable hard-drive that you keep off-location, I keep mine in a safety deposit box at my local Bank.
Lately, another option for backups has become a very interesting concept for photographers. Back-ups on-line, on highest quality servers that are monitored, continually backed-up, and secure preventing someone else getting to your files.
PhotoShelter is one company among a few others offering such a service. Their storage solution is called the PhotoShelter Personal Archive system.
I like PhotoShelter Personal Archive for two main reasons:
1. The interface is very user-friendly making it a breeze to use.
2. You can opt for storage alone, or you can add e-commerce to couple it with selling your digital photos on-line through PhotoShelter.
Signing up for the Starter Package is free. It only gives you 50MB of space but this is an excellent way to test it out and see if it seems right for you and your particular workflow.
The pricing for larger collections are affordable. The Basic Package offers 10GB of storage space and will run you $9.99/month.The Pro version offers 100GB of storage space at an affordable $49.99/month. (Find more about pricing of various packages at https://pa.photoshelter.com/signup/signup/subscriber )That’s not a lot of money to be able to sleep soundly at night knowing your digital files are safe and secure regardless of if your office gets flooded and all your computer equipment is toast, there’s a power surge that zaps your equipment, or you get a virus that corrupts your digital files.
On-line storage is all about peace of mind. There are a lot of very experienced pro photographers, both stock shooters and others, that use PhotoShelter. Customer service is among the best I’ve ever seen from any company. Answers to questions are sent promptly and follow up questions are dealt with equally promptly and with great patience from the PhotoShelter customer service staff.
In addition to Personal Archive, PhotoShelter also offers a web portal where you can upload your files and sell them through The PhotoShelter Collection. Launched to buyers in late 2007, this marketplace is still new so it is way to early to say if people are seeing steady sales yet. This Collection is edited and the editors will decide which of the files you upload will be accepted.
Bottom line: Peace of mind with on-line backups of your digital files is no longer cost-prohibitive for individual photographers. For more info see PhotoShelter’s web site at http://www.photoshelter.com -MK
03 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
A FUND FOR STUDENTS Kim Weston was born and raised in photography, the heir apparent to a fantastic lineage of photographers who taught him the culture and the craft of fine art photography.
Five years ago, the established photographer and his wife Gina decided to build a nonprofit foundation dedicated to fostering photographic education by nurturing the medium they love. Called the "Gina and Kim Weston Scholarship Fund," its mission is to both educate and enlighten the community about the richness of photography on the West Coast. Their commitment has been to support local high school, university and college students interested in studying art photography.
The result is the Weston Photography Scholarship, a competition that enables students to prepare for portfolio reviews before college applications and helps advanced students feel validated as fine art photographers.
http://www.montereyherald.com/leisure/ci_10350017
CANDID GRIPES -- Adobe's Open Ears - "Dear Adobe" is an independent Web site where you can air your gripes and know they'll be heard -
http://www.creativepro.com/article/adobes-open-ears
03 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
MARKETING TIP Some photographers use a month/year numbering system to identify their digital images. Don't. You reveal the age of your pictures. Photo buyers are less eager to buy a picture taken in 2005, than one with no date on it. Use an alphabetical photo identification system.
03 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
WHERE ARE YOU? The American Society of Picture Professionals has released guidelines entitled “ASPP’s Best Practices for Locating Copyright Owners of Photographic and Visual Art”. The guide is intended to be a “living document” and will be continually updated as new registries and technologies become available. This version 2.0 contains many useful links to organizations and other places where one can access information.
ASPP Executive Director, Cathy Sachs, said: “Especially in light of the Orphan Works pending legislation, it was our hope that these guidelines would be helpful in locating copyright holders, and that they might eventually aid in the construction of the defined "diligent search". This in turn, we hoped, would minimize the flood of "orphans" that might be created by inadequate search procedures. We feel that none of our members would benefit from that.” The guide can be found here: ASPP Best Practices Guide
Website: www.aspp.com www.aspp.com/users/ASPPSite4390/ASPP_Best_Practises_v2_7-8-08.pdf -
TAKEAWAY: Look into ASPP as a basic organization you should belong to.
03 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
EVER WANTED TO KNOW WHAT not TO SUBMIT TO MICROSTOCK?
http://www.microstockdiaries.com/what-not-to-submit.html
03 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
A LOOK AT THE WORLD Verve: a new website devoted to documentary photography . Geoffrey Hiller edits and publishes Verve, a concise, informative blog all about contemporary documentary photography around the world. When you're ready to explore some serious issues that rarely make it to mainstream media, hunker down and check out Verve.
http://www.lensculture.com/webloglc/mt_files/archives/2008/08/verve-a-new-website-devoted-to.html - or -
http://vervephoto.wordpress.com/
TAKEAWAY: Cartier-Bresson would have been proud of these photographers.
HELP! Save photography - After seeing a "Save the Mountains" bumper sticker
Melcher wondered why we haven't seen a "save photography" or "save
photographers" bumper sticker yet. http://blog.melchersystem.com/2008/08/28/save-photography/
TAKEAWAY: Food for thought.
03 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
Are YOU are an enthusiastic photographer looking for freelance photography opportunities and freelance photography tips? Do you want to sell photos and make an income from your camera? Then you need my advice on how to become a freelance photographer!
Have you have ever wondered how you can sell photos and turn YOUR photography hobby into freelance photography opportunities working from home? How DO you get freelance photography jobs?
If you have a "Have Camera - Will Travel" attitude and the guts to give it a go, a computer, a dash of creative spirit and a leaning towards discovery and challenge then I will teach you how make an income from your camera to become a freelance photographer.
Freelance photography opportunities and freelance photography jobs will open up when you discover how to start in freelance photography using my simple steps that ANYONE with a camera can follow.
Click Here!
03 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
MARKETING TIP: You can copyright every one of your photographs, free. It's a gift from your government. It costs you nothing. Only when you "register" your copyright does it cost you $45. So place a Copyright Notice on each of your photographs TODAY. (From Sell & ReSell Your Photos, Page 255).
NO CLUE. -- Consumers Know Little About Stock Photos - Americans downloading
images or videos off the Internet for personal use are often clueless about
copyright and most don't know what stock photography is. The results show
that consumers are interested in using images but unsure where to get them
or how to do it legally.
http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/content_display/photo-news/stock-and-syndication/e3i2c3db17a74e1297687c759eb8764657a
FAIR USE: HEALTHY THEFT? Understanding Fair Use - The challenge is determining whether the unauthorized use is an infringement or fair use. While only a court of law
can make that decision, understanding what makes a use "fair" will help you
protect your work. http://rising.blackstar.com/understanding-fair-use.html
03 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
CAPTURED SPLIT-SECONDS . New Scientist Eureka prize for scientific photography won with toy rocket image. RMIT University's Phred Petersen won the 2008 New Scientist Eureka Prize for Scientific Photography for photographing a toy rocket with a Schlieren lens, with stunning results. Mr Peterson teaches his students in Scientific Photography the capability the Schlieren lens has by capturing everyday objects in action. Here is some footage he took of a match being struck.
http://www.rmit.edu.au/browse;ID=v9xrnww46q6b1 http://gallery.rmitsciphoto.com/
EIGHT-MEGA PIXEL MOBILE. Samsung brings 8MP digital camera to mobile phone.
The megapixel battle on stand-alone digital cameras may be slowing down but not for mobile phones. Samsung recently launched its eight-mega pixel mobile phone-a first on a Symbian OS-based mobile phone that company officials said would offer a powerful mobile photography and multimedia experience.
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2008/sep/01/yehey/techtimes/20080901tech1.html
WHERE’D MY IMAGES GO? Lost Your Digital Photos? - Diskeeper Corporation
Has released Undelete 2009 software for instant recovery of digital photos
or any file accidentally deleted by home and small office users.
http://www.quantasecurity.com/article.php?s=2&a=2624&sid=56277f1485b9961577cef7483fd5e3ea
03 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
NEW RULES IN BRITAIN Unit forces Crown Estate climbdown - Pro-Imaging has established a "Bill of Rights" for photographic competitions as a set of principles by which the fairness of the terms a competition can be judged. These can be seen on the
Pro-Imaging website.
http://www.epuk.org/News-snippets/889/pi-forces-crown-estate-climbdown
03 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
PROUD OWNERS. Photographer finds stories behind Cadillacs.
On a June Saturday nine years ago, Bill Gaskins stood on a street in Baltimore watching a fleet of Cadillacs cruise by - dreamboat cars with tailfins, chrome bumpers and whitewall tires, 20 to 30 of them, each owned by a black man. He had heard about the revival of a tradition in that city's African American community: the Cadillac Parade, with marching bands and carnival rides. He traveled from his New Jersey home to see it.
Looking at those machines, the photographer knew he'd found his next project.
The Charlotte Observer reported that Gaskins launched "The Cadillac Chronicles," a collective photographic portrait examining the relationship between black men and their vintage Cadillacs, those typically made between the 1940s and 1970s.
http://www.dailyadvance.com/news/state/photographer-finds-stories-behind-cadillacs-108681.html
03 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
BUSY, BUSY. -- Negotiating with agencies for paparazzi shots of celebrities, retouching photos, managing staff and shooting "Hometown Hotties" are some of the tasks that
Maxim.com photo editor Kelly Stuart fits into a busy day.
http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/content_display/photo-news/editorial/e3i3338808b4eeae51f484861c053fb29f7
03 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
“Within every man and woman a secret is hidden, and as a photographer it is my task to reveal it if I can.” - Yousuf Karsh
03 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
1930 - Photograph in Natural Colors taken in the air was made by Melville Bell Grosvenor, Assistant Chief of Illustrations Division of "National Geographic Magazine," in July, and published in September 1930 issue.
03 Sep, 2008 | Posted by: psn
BUY IT WHOLESALE Before you place your order to a company (a favorite magazine or vitamin company, etc.) use a search engine such as Google and do a search for it.
For example Vanity Fair magazine discount coupons. You’ll find several sites with “codes” that can be used on the check-out page of the vendor when asked for a discount code. It’s an easy way to reduce your costs on all kinds of merchandise.
Try it for gasoline. One of our subscribers who lives in Minneapolis tried this system for gas and found a place featuring coupons for 5 cents less a gallon. Unfortunately, she had to drive to the other side of the city to buy the gas. -RE
 |
|
| Photo Marketing eCourse - A Proven System for Online Photo Success | |
© 2009 photostocknotes.com
Design by Rambling Soul | Ported to Nucleus CMS: Suvoroff