Archives: October, 2005
News
PACA Conference (Oct 14-16th)
October
is a busy month for those in the stock photo business with many annual events
all occurring within a very short timeframe. The first major event is the Tenth Annual PACA International
Conference taking place on October 14-16 in Redondo Beach California. This annual event is usually well attended by stock photo companies and has become one of the better networking opportunities in this industry. For more details check out www.pacaoffice.org.
News
Picturehouse New York (Oct 19th)
The
Picturehouse conference is scheduled for October 19th in New York City. This
event previously held at the Tribeca Rooftop has outgrown the space and will be
held in the
Picturehouse has anounced that buyers from the following segments have registered to attend...
38% - advertising & design
23% - book publishers
19% - magazines
20% - other market sectors
Can't make it to NY? Each year Picturehouse adds new conference in more cities – click here to see if there is one scheduled in your area.
Features
Inside The Studio with Tim McGuire
Not
long ago I noticed some insightful comments to a story I posted from Tim
McGuire a Photographer from Seattle.
After doing a little research I discovered that Tim has a wealth of experience
as a stock photographer who has contributed images to Getty, Corbis, and other
stock agencies. Tim also has experience as a former Vice President for
the Stock Artist Alliance (SAA) for two years and currently makes his living as
a stock Photographer. I asked Tim if he would be willing to complete an e-mail interview
in order to share more about his experience and views on the stock licensing industry
and Tim generously agreed.
News
PhotoPlus Expo (Oct 20th-22nd)
PhotoPlus
Expo is scheduled for October 20th - 22nd at the Jacob Javits center in
NYC. This conference for photographers and graphic design professionals is well known as one of the premiere events showcasing the latest and
greatest in the world of photography. This event is typically attended
by anyone and everyone who creates or uses images professionally and this year should not be any
different. Click here to register.
News
A21 finds 3.2 million Pot O Gold
A21 (The parent company of SuperStock) has raised $3.2 million through the sale of the company's common stock. "This financing, in addition to the $1.2 million raised in September, not only provides us with the capital to execute our business plan, but allowed us to minimize dilution by using existing warrants," said Albert H. Pleus, Chairman and CEO of a21. It is not known yet what A21 is intending to do with the money. Click here to review the Press Release.
Features
Canon Eos 1DS Mark II review
Dpreview.com has posted a review of the Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II. This 16.7 megapixel camera has proven to be very popular among professional
stock photographers as this is the first 35mm sized SLR digital camera to
output 50mb files. Currently selling for about $7500 this camera is targeted at professionals who want to take advantage of the workflow advantages of a
handheld portable digital camera while still retaining the hi-res files needed to get the job done. Click
here for the review.
News
a21 has jumped into the subscription pool
a21 just announced that it has acquired UK based Ingram publishing allowing a21 to join competitors Getty, Jupiter, and others in offering a Royalty Free subscription product. Ingram currently has approx 100,000 images available from www.ingramstock.com as single images, on CD’s, or through its new subscription product. "In particular, we are very excited about the launch of IngramStock.com and the opportunity it provides to expand SuperStock's offerings to include an innovative subscription product with multi-language and multi-currency capabilities." said Thomas V. Butta, a21 Vice-Chairman and President. a21 recently closed 3.2 million in financing and has wasted little time putting the new capital to good use. The specific terms of this deal are not yet known.
News
IPN signs deal with Adobe to allow independent photographers to submit RF images
IPN has announced a deal with Adobe to allow independent artists and small agencies to use IPN Relay to submit Royalty Free images into Adobe Stock Photos. This may be the solution for photographers and small agencies who would like to submit images into Adobe Stock Photo which can be accessed directly through the Adobe Bridge integrating stock photos with all of the Adobe products (including Photoshop). Until now photographers and small agencies had no way of working with Adobe, now anybody who qualifies with IPN Relay can submit Royalty Free images to Adobe. To qualify IPN has stated that images will be edited for content, quality, proper releases, and saleability, before accepting an artist into the IPN Relay program.
IPN Relay has been described as an ala-carte version of the popular IPNStock solution which was the first service to offer an e-commerce stock licensing website to photographers and small agencies. The costs to work with IPN Relay have not been disclosed at this time and will depend on the individual circumstances of each contributor. IPN is likely to charge for storage and management of the images and a percentage of royalties. IPNStock has been used by many photographers and agencies including the following (to name a few) Aperture Images, Aurora Photos, CGI Backgrounds, Glasshouse, Graphisstock, Robert Stock, Stock Boston, Woodfin Camp, Zeta Photo.
News
Jupiter has gone bananas
It’s no longer a rumor, Jupiter has announced the acquisition of BananaStock for $19 million cash. BananaStock is based in the UK and will give Jupiter yet another high quality Royalty Free image collection to offer. The big question is whether the BananaStock images will be made available through any of the subscription products. Cathy Yeulet, founder and principal creative director of BananaStock, will continue to contribute images to Jupiter. Click here to see comments by Alan Meckler (CEO of Jupiter Media). Click here for the press release.
News
Adobe Stock Photos continues to blossom
Adobe has announced the addition of four new contributors to its stock photo service Adobe Stock Photos. These images from Brand X (Jupiter), Image Source, IPN Relay, and Masterfile will be available along with the other brands through the Adobe Bridge. Adobe Stock Photos has sprouted (pun intended) from the launch of Creative Suite 2 in the beginning of 2005 and now boasts 13 Royalty Free brands with approximately 450,000 images. To further build awareness of its stock library Adobe Stock Photos is sponsoring the Picturehouse tradeshow next week in NYC. Click here for the press release from Adobe.
News
Jupiter gets “old-school” with (re)view
Jupiter Media has announced a new collection to be launched in
early December called “(re)view”. This collection will feature approximately 4000
retro Rights Managed (RM) images. The images have been gathered from a number
of sources including Bannister Babies, Henry Wolf, Echos, Vintage Images and
Sickles Photo-Reporting Service. According to Mitzi Good, collection director
for (re)view, "Each of the images in the collection has been carefully
selected with a discerning eye for its ability to capture and evoke human
connections." Jupiter plans to offer the images on it websites and through
select distributors. Click here for the press release
News
Jupiter Images partners with PYMCA
Jupiter Images has announced a new partnership with the Photographic Youth Music Culture Archive (PYMCA). PYMCA is a Rights-Managed (RM) based in London and offers unique images of youth and music cultures as seen through the eyes of photographers who are often part of the movement they are documenting. This approach has given PYMCA an authentic view into youth culture and sub-cultures not available in other libraries. The images in this archive will mostly be targeted at editorial customers because these images are typically not model-released for commercial uses. This appears to be new step for Jupiter Images who previously did not offer images specifically for editorial customers. Click here for the press release.
News
Getty adds Medio and Rubberball to cart
Getty has continued shopping for wholly owned content and recently announced the purchase of Royalty Free (RF) producers Medio Images and a large portion of the wholly owned images offered by Rubberball.
Rubberball – Alan Bailey (Co-founder) sent an e-mail to distributors on October 12th stating that Rubberball has sold approx 8350 images of the 9000 images offered in Rubberball’s active collection. Rubberball has stated that as a result they are aggressively producing new images and plan to have approx 4000 new images to offer by mid-November 2005. Alan goes on to explain “Getty has informed us that they will be pulling the images from general distribution by December 1, 2005. For distributors who now carry Getty-owned images, such as PhotoDisc or the DV collection, Michael Teaster has informed us that most of the images purchased from Rubberball will likely come back to those distributors in one form or another under a Getty brand.”
Medio – In an e-mail sent by Andrew Booth (Vice President, International Sales) to distributors on Tuesday October 18th Getty has announced the September 15th purchase of Medio Images. Medio is known for its strength in Latin images and boasts approximately 35,000 Royalty Free (RF) images in its archive as well as a healthy distribution network. According to the e-mail “Getty Images will be honouring all existing distributor agreements in place.”
News
Beateworks and Abode now available under one roof
Architecture specialist library Beateworks has announced an agreement with Abode, an architecture library from the UK, to represent and distribute Abode’s image library. These two specialty libraries complement each other well by bringing together architecture images from around the world. Abode Picture Library was founded in 1993 by leading British homes and interiors journalist Judi Goodwin. The images include interiors and exteriors of town houses, farms, manor houses, and castles, as well as city loft apartments, country cottages, and gardens. According to Beate Chelete (President of Beateworks) “When Judi and I first spoke, we immediately felt that we were a good match. Our expertise lies in the distribution of images, and Judi is an amazing producer. This simply makes sense.” Click here to view the press release.
News
Getty reports revenue growth of more than 20% for Q3 2005
Getty Images has just released its financial results from the third quarter of 2005 and is once again claiming revenue growth of more than 20%. “We achieved strong results in the quarter, with record operating income, operating margin and earnings per share,” said Jonathan Klein, Getty Images’ co-founder and CEO. “Our competitive position has never been stronger, and we continue to optimize our business for sustained performance and growth acceleration. We are excited about the accelerated growth rate of our creative imagery business, driven both by volume and price growth, and our resulting market share gains. We also are pleased that our editorial imagery business continues to go from strength to strength. We are carrying our strong momentum into the fourth quarter and are well-positioned for a strong finish to 2005 and a solid 2006.” Getty is predicting $187 million for the fourth quarter and hopes to finish out 2005 with approximately $735 million to $739 million. Click here for the press release.
EditorialsFeatures
Threadless made my day
It’s Friday and life is good because I see that Threadless has
finally reprinted my favorite t-shirt design (click here to view). For anyone out
there interested in unique t-shirts you should definitely check
out www.threadless.com. Designers upload original artwork which is then reviewed and voted on by the community. Threadless prints the most popular shirts allowing buyers to purchase a t-shirt with an interesting graphic. But learn from
my mistake – if you see a design you like (or love) buy it before they sell out. I have
been waiting months for them to reprint this design.
News
Digital Railroad taking PicScout along for the ride
Digital Railroad has signed a deal with PicScout to provide PicScout’s
proprietary Image Tracker Technology for its members. PicScout will
identify possible cases of infringements and members will now be able to pursue infringements found
through the relationship Digital Railroad has established with PicScout. Digital Railroad offers storage and
management solutions for small agencies and photographers and PicScout's Image Tracker is a great new feature added to the service. “We are
constantly expanding our application services, as well as our technology
partnerships, to minimize production and help our members solve their business
challenges,” said Evan Nisselson, Founder and CEO of Digital Railroad. “The
PicScout Image Tracker™ Service is a unique premium service that we believe
will become a valuable asset to give more control to our photographer and
agency members.”
News
Masterfile opening an office in Paris
Starting next month, Masterfile will open a new sales office in Paris, France. This follows an announcement last month of plans to expand in Europe under the direction of Tomas Speight, Masterfile’s Senior Vice-President International in Europe. Masterfile previously operated an office in France which opened in 2000 and was operated by Romain Grandadam through his company "080 SARL". The new office will be lead by Antoine Boucherit, Directeur Commercial. Mr. Boucherit joined Masterfile France in 2000, shortly after it began operations and will now report directly to Tomas Speight. Masterfile Europe is a wholly owned subsidiary headquartered in Düsseldorf with offices in London, Milan, and now Paris. Masterfile France can be found at www.masterfile.fr.
Click here to view the original press release.
Features
Bear Stearns issues “Glowing” report on Getty Images
Bear Stearns has recently issued a report on Getty Images, Inc (GYI). In this report Bear Stearns analysts Jim Ballan and Ryan Casey rated Getty at Outperform based on their belief that the company’ stock is currently undervalued in the market.
After reading through the entire report (Yes all 34 pages) I was able to extract the following noteworthy statements.
“Getty is now the go-to portal for commercial imagery-using professionals. Its website, Gettyimages.com, is to stock photography what Ebay is to online auctions or Amazon to online book selling, with 80% of its clients saying that it is their first choice when looking for imagery.”
“Getty could experience gross margin expansion as it invests in and generates sales of wholly owned imagery for which Getty would not have to pay commissions.”
“We believe that the expansion of communications, including wireless communications, and accelerating penetration of broadband internet access make the use of imagery for commercial purposes increasingly compelling”
“Getty’s business today is split almost evenly between the Americas (50% of revenues in third-quarter 2005) and Europe (42% of revenues, which includes minor contributions for the Middle East and Africa). We believe that beyond the organic growth opportunity in those markets, the growth opportunity in key Asian markets, namely Japan, China, and India, has enormous potential.”
To access the entire report contact Jim Ballan or Ryan Casey at Bear Stearns.
News
Getty launches Exclusive by Getty Images
Looking for images from behind the velvet rope? Getty has launched a new premium Rights-Managed (RM) service called Exclusive by Getty Images. This service is targeted at buyers looking for exclusive celebrity portraiture and photojournalism images that cannot be found anywhere else. Some of the images offered will be work originally commissioned through Getty’s Assignment services that are now available for resale along with many new images to be created to suit the customer’s needs. Exclusive by Getty Images will be managed by Steve Blogg, director of photography, editorial contributors, for Europe, the Mideast and Africa; Nick Bull, director of photography, celebrity portraiture; and David Laidler, director of photography, editorial contributors, for the Americas. This new product is expected to compete with Corbis Outline and other celebrity portrait specialty agencies.
News
New Digital Imaging Guidelines
Can you UPDIG it? UPDIG (Universal Photographic Digital Imaging Guidelines) is a new site for photographers who are looking for standards related to converting their images and workflow from analog to digital. The guidelines listed on this site have been put together in collaboration with many of the top trade organizations serving professional photographers including the ASMP, ASPP, SAA, APA, ASPP and many others. According to David Riecks (Chairman, ASMP Digital Photography Standards & Practices committee / Chairman, SAA Imaging Technology Standards Committee) “These guidelines are the collaborative result of a coalition of 11 of the world’s premier photo trade organizations, and can be viewed online or downloaded as a printable PDF. Feedback and suggestions on ways to improve the site and/or document are encouraged, and can be sent to the email link on the website.”
Special thanks to David Riecks for posting this in The STOCKPHOTO Network.
News
Science Photo Library is now anatomically correct
Science Photo Library has announced an exclusive distribution deal with Alexander Tsiaras collection of 'never-before-seen' images of the human body. These images are computer-built visualizations of data from the bodies of a man and woman who died in the early 1990s and donated their corpses to medical science. The bodies were frozen solid in a block of gelatin and then sliced from head to toe into more than 1800 ultra-thin layers and every 4mm of the body was polished and photographed. Maria Storey, Sales and Marketing Director of Science Photo Library, says: "The composites that Tsiaras creates are all scientifically correct, with the data derived from the most up-to-date medical imaging techniques. He then enhances the images by computer, adding light and colour, and transforms then into powerful artistic statements." Click here to view the press release.
