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Blink launches in Dubai as a portal for Middle East image buyers
Last year Celia Peterson began serving image buyers in the Middle East with the launch of arabianEye, a Dubai based stock photography collection sold direct at home and world-wide through distributors including Getty Images. Now Celia has launched Blink as a portal to distribute hundreds of thousands of rights-managed and royalty-free stock images to the Middle Eastern market along-side its home-grown brand arabianEye.
A former fashion photographer in London, Celia Peterson worked as a commercial and reportage photographer after moving to Dubai in 2003 until launching ArabianEye in 2004 and Blink in 2007. Celia explains that it is important for Buyers in the region to have a local presence “Buyers in the Middle East like to have more face to face contact than in other parts of the world, even Getty with all their technical prowess still works with a local master delegate.”
When asked about her motivation for launching the agency Celia stated “ArabianEye was launched initially as an editorial agency, in response to the visual potential of the Middle East, a love of the region, and a reaction to the standard visuals we saw in the area.”
As a non-native to the Arab world Celia has learned that running a picture agency in Dubai brings along many unique challenges. “Educating clients takes up more of our time than it would in other countries and piracy is a sizable problem – the concept of copyright is in its infancy too. On a creative note, the main challenge to the commercial collections is how to step up the variety of imagery available whilst staying true to the realities of the local population. To give you an idea of the climate, a local humanitarian charity we were producing a shoot for did not want us to shoot any ‘unhappy or poor’ Emiratis as he wanted to avoid hurting local sentiments. The irony is incredible, a charity for poor locals without wanting to show that poor and needy locals exist.”
Posted in: News, Stock Art Buyers
