Archives: June, 2008
News
CorbisMotion to represent Maysles Brothers Archives
Corbis announced a new partnership with Albert Maysles, the surviving member of the Maysles brothers documentary team responsible for a list of ground-breaking films including Gimme Shelter, Meet Marlon Brando, With Love from Truman, Salesman, and Grey Gardens. In addition Corbis will re-master many of these works and make available out-takes never seen before from many of the films.
News
Visualphotos partners with Mediaright to open office in Russia
Visualphotos, a stock photo agency with offices in Israel, Greece and Turkey, has announced that it has opened an office in Moscow as a joint venture with Mediaright Ltd. (a global venture company with diversified holdings in New Media and content syndication). The new office was opened on May 30th, in the heart of Moscow close to the Red Square area and will be managed by Mr. Viktor Maslov. “The fact that the Russian Federation ad spending is growing constantly coupled with the fact that copyrights are now observed by the business sector, means that we have a bright future. “ states Erez Miller, President of the Visual Group.
News
Fotolia launches micro-payment subscription service
Fotolia, a micro-stock company based in New York, has announced that it has launched a subscription product giving users access to its image library of more than 3.5 million stock images. This news follows a similar announcement from Getty’s iStockphoto last month who claimed to be responding to customer demand for subsciption licensing. “The Fotolia subscription service will allow high-volume customers to continue to receive the best deal in microstock photography on the Web, being able to license images for as little as $.20 per image, while not impacting the revenues of our stock photographers.” explains Oleg Tcheltzoff, co-founder and president of Fotolia, LLC. “
Features
Q&A with a Royalty Free producer gone micro
Maurice Van De Mosselaar of Eyecandy explains the thinking behind Rinky Dink
The recent announcement by the founders of Eyecandy Images, a relatively new arrival on the RF production scene, that they have created a new collection of images, called Rinky Dink Images ™ for distribution at micro- or mid-stock prices, makes it official: more and more pros are jumping onto the “economy” pricing band wagon. RF veteran Ron Chapple, who founded Thinkstock, a brand he later sold to Jupiter Images, has launched his own micro brand called iofoto. Mike Watson, a founder of DigitalVision, has taken similar steps with part of his moodboard collection. Other prominent names in the RF business, both producers and distributors, while remaining quiet about it for the time being, have made it clear they are headed in the same direction.
News
Kids Images launches new stock photography website
Kids Images, a speciality stock photo library in München Germany featuring rights-managed (RM) images of kids and children, has announced that it has launched a new website. The new site was created on the Picturemaxx media marketing platform allowing the niche agency to offer many new eye-catching features including improved search and download options.
News
Digital Railroad incorporates PLUS licensing standards
Digital Railroad, a provider of online archiving and marketing services for photographers, has announced that it has been recognized by the PLUS (Picture Licensing Universal System) Coalition for integrating the PLUS licensing standards into the Digital Railroad platform. Digital Railroad currently serves 10 million professional photographers’ images, with nearly 3 million images available for licensing at its Marketplace. “Digital Railroad is a leading supporter of PLUS, and we’re extremely pleased with the company’s timely adoption of the PLUS image-licensing standards,” said Jeff Sedlik, CEO of the PLUS Coalition.
News
Fotosearch celebrates three million images
Fotosearch, a stock photography agency, based in Waukesha, WI, is now celebrating the milestone of three-million images. The company claims to be growing at a rate of 25,000 new images per week. The site is offered in more than a dozen languages and features an extensive library of rights-managed and royalty-free photography, illustrations, video footage, and audio from more than 140 publishers located all around the world.
News
PACA Orphan Search matches lost image to its creator in less than 60 minutes
In response to concerns about Orphan Works legislation and what qualifies as a “reasonable search” effort to identify the copyright owner for a particular work, the Picture Archive Council of America (PACA) has launched surprisingly low-tech solution to assist buyers in finding the creator of an orphaned image. All the buyer has to do is email the image to and a PACA staff member forwards the image to its entire list of members and affiliated associations. In a recent test this solution was able to locate the rightful owner of an image in less than 60 minutes.
News
Newscom adds BBC Motion Gallery and RF images from Corbis
Newscom, a leading content provider based in Washington DC has announced that it has added stock footage from BBC Motion Gallery and royalty-free (RF) stock photos from Corbis to its collection. The company currently syndicates more than 20 million rights-managed and royalty-free photos, graphics, illustrations, videos and stories from more than 110 of the world’s foremost publishers and content creators.
News
Photo News Round-Up
• 123rf.com has launched a new service for corporate customers allowing them to create a customized stock photo intranet site under their own banner while 123RF supplies the images. Corporate clients can then administrate the intranet, giving access to downloads and other privileges to appropriate staff members. Click here for more information.
News
Newscom.com beefs up sales team
Having dedicated several years to building their content offerings by taking on partnerships with a variety of suppliers of various forms of content, Newscom has now addressed the matter of selling that content by building a sales team made up of personnel from within and outside the stock photo industry. The company has appointed David Young, formerly a manager of business development at Platts, a McGraw Hill Company providing information and pricing services to the global energy markets, to the post of Vice President of Sales. Three other executives with experience at either Corbis or Getty, round out the new sales management team at Newscom.
News
Mary Evans launches new website
![Picture No: 10022023 - A COMPUTER, as envisaged in 1927 [illustration to 'The Thought Machine' by Ammianus Marcellinus]](http://www.abouttheimage.com/images/uploads/10022023a.jpg "Picture No: 10022023 - A COMPUTER, as envisaged in 1927 [illustration to 'The Thought Machine' by Ammianus Marcellinus]")
Mary Evans Picture Library, a specialty library featuring historical images, has launched a new version of its website at http://www.maryevans.com. A far cry from a simple update. the company claims to have completely rebuilt its website on a new platform. The development work was lead by Mary Evans IT Director, Mark Braund. “Having looked at the various website options commercially available, nothing quite gave us the flexibility we wanted, so we decided to produce the website ourselves. This enabled us to accommodate suggestions for improvements made by our clients” said Braund.
Alamy launches Limited Use scheme
PRESS RELEASE Alamy launches Limited Use scheme Oxfordshire, UK, 9 June 2008 Alamy, the largest stock photo site on the web, is launching a new scheme offering customers the chance to buy images for limited uses for a nominal fee. Aimed at new users like teachers or bloggers who do not normally buy pictures, the Limited Use scheme, due to go live imminently, is initially being trialled in the UK only. It will be launched worldwide in the near future. Customers looking for photos for certain web uses such as blogs and social networking sites or for educational uses like classroom presentations can buy from Alamy for as little as 60p per picture. So far around 3.5 million images - approximately a quarter of the 12 million pictures on the Alamy site - are available for Limited Use. The choice will increase as the Alamy’s ever growing collection continues to expand. Contributors to Alamy have the option of making their images available for Limited Use as well as being sold conventionally, giving them the opportunity to earn additional income without cannibalising their existing sales. Alamy CEO James West said: "This opens up our encyclopaedic collection to customers who can’t afford conventional licences. It also allows our contributors to compete in the low cost markets without undermining their existing revenue streams." The scheme differs from micro payment because it covers RF and RM images, the images are for sale at ‘normal’ prices elsewhere and the pricing may differ according to the project. To find out more please read the blog: http://www.alamy.com/Blog/contributor/archive/2008/06/05/2786.aspx -ends- For more information contact:www.alamy.com
Pond Press: New Ownership & Re-launch
Date: May 2007
For Immediate Release
CONTACT:
Pond Press: New Ownership & Re-launch
New York, NY— New York-based Pond Press is announcing a change in ownership and re-launching of the press with a new schedule of titles. Founded in 1999, Pond Press is an independent illustrated book publisher. Analternative to contemporary illustrated book publishing, Pond Press focuses on acollaborative process and creative control for the photographers with whom we work. Pond Press is dedicated to the publication of fine photography and illustrated books.
Since 1999 Pond Press has released 14 titles by acclaimed photographers such as Henry Horenstein, David Graham, Jane Tuckerman and Jack Lueders-Booth. Pond Press is proud to announce the release of their first title under the new publishers, ANIMALIA, by photographer Henry Horenstein. www.animaliabook.com.
The fall 2008 schedule will include two new monographs, Almost Paradise by David Graham and Female Body Builders by Martin Schoeller. Almost Paradise by David Graham, Fall 2008 Female Body Builders by Martin Schoeller, Fall 2008
Bill Hannigan
Bill is the co-founder of VAUGHAN HANNIGAN (www.vh-artists.com) and AUGUST (www.augustimage.com). Prior to launching his own agencies he was most recently the SVP of Content Development for MediaVast with direct oversight of Contour Photos. Bill is also the former head of Corbis Outline. Bill has more than a decade experience in the photo industry and in 2005 was named at number nineteen to American Photo’s list of the “100 Most Important People in Photography.” Bill has a BFA in photography, exhibits his own photographs (www.williamhannigan.com) and has written several books on photography. He is also a contributing writer to 125 magazine.
Carrie Hannigan
For the past 11 years Carrie Hannigan has been a literary agent and business manager at Russell & Volkening, one of the finest literary agencies in America. Prior to becoming the co-publisher of Pond Press she managed one30one Agency, a literary agency dedicated to representing photography monographs.
News
Photo News Round-Up
• In an op-ed piece published in the New York Times on May 20th Lawrence Lessig, a law professor at Stanford University explains the deficiencies of the new Orphan Works bill currently on the table.
News
PhotoShelter, Nikon, Apple and Adorama to host Shoot! the Day photography event
Photoshelter together with Nikon, Apple and Adorama, is hosting a photographer event on July 20th 2008 called Shoot! the Day, in response to a recent PhotoShelter industry survey of nearly 700 photo buyers who stated that “they tend to see the same images over and over again particularly in categories such as healthcare, interior décor and eco-friendly shots”. During the Shoot! The Day event, jury-selected photographers will work in groups with expert photographers on planned shoots at locations such as a suburban home, a bar and a corporate park; all with the goal of capturing a variety of perspectives on those subjects identified as lacking in creative stock imagery.
News
Dreamstime translated to six new languages
Dreamstime, considered one of the largest micro-stock companies after Getty Images’ iStockphoto, has announced the beta launch of its web-site in six languages. Speakers of Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, German or Portuguese can now search Dreamstime’s database of over 3MM images in their own languages. The move provides further evidence of the continued explosive growth in demand for stock imagery at micro-stock prices world-wide.
News
Fotolia signs deal to license images for online invitations on Pingg.com
Fotolia, an online marketplace for micro-priced stock images, has announced a partnership with pingg.com, a new online invitation and event management website. With this agreement Pingg users have the option to license images from Fotolia’s collection of nearly 4 million images in order to create an online event invitation as part of a premium service called pingg Plus+. “Fotolia has built an incredible collection of high-quality images. Partnering with them enables us to offer the pingg consumer the widest selection of images anywhere for designing and personalizing their online and print invitations.” states Lorien Gabel, Co-Founder/CEO of pingg
News
ImageSpan closes $11 million 2nd round financing
ImageSpan Inc., a software company that offers a content licensing platform for digital media based in Sausalito, CA, has announced that it has closed a second round financing of $11 million from a group led by Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments (BDMI). Existing investors Greycroft Partners, headed by Alan Patricof, and Village Ventures also participated. Additional funds came from the New York City Investment Fund, City Lights Capital Management and Ackerley Partners LLC. “We see ImageSpan solving a very serious pain point affecting the entire media landscape today—that of licensing and monetizing digital image and video content at a time when both of these content categories are growing increasingly important on the web,” said Richard Sarnoff, President of BDMI.
News
Corbis re-brands its rights services unit as GreenLight Right Services
Corbis announced that it has renamed its Rights Services division with the more up-beat sounding “GreenLight.” The new brand name for the division which assists clients to clear rights to celebrity likenesses, feature film and TV clips, music, trademarks, for use in advertising, comes with the addition of a new business activity, that of Talent Negotiation. Under the GreenLight brand, Corbis will now also help marketers to broker endorsement deals with sports, film, television, music and other celebrities for new product launches as well as for advertising and marketing campaigns.
Features
Book Review: Time Passes by Robert Adams
Time Passes by Robert Adams
Thames & Hudson (April 2008)
100 pages/hardcover/32 tritone photographs/$40.00
Robert Adams, master of recording transforming topography, releases Time Passes this year in conjunction with his recent Paris exhibition, On the Edge. Most of the book’s 32 plates show extending seascapes conveying Adams’ meditation on what he terms transience. His endless hours watching the Northern Pacific tides, catching dancing light and rolling liquid, have produced straightforward and submersing stills.
News
Corbis launches virtual Museum of Art for the Arts
Corbis, a leading stock licensing company, has launched an online initiative called the Museum of Art for the Arts (MofAA). The MofAA is a virtual museum fictitiously based in New York City housing 250 landmark works of art plus thousands of images from Corbis. The MofAA is the brainchild of FWIS, the New York City graphic design firm also responsible for the popular DIY pinhole camera campaign. “Corbis’ collection is astoundingly deep and broad, and the images contained within it have profound impact on our culture – creative or otherwise,” said Christopher Papasadero, Creative Director, FWIS “The MofAA highlights this imagery as a modern museum should - through well-curated exhibitions and public participation, on display.”
News
Photo News Round-Up
• Getty Images stockholders vote to approve $2.4BB (or $34.00 per share) acquisition by Hellman & Friedman (originally announced in Feb 2008).
News
Masterfile launches promotional magazine called Mysteries
Masterfile, a stock photography company based in Toronto with offices in France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom, has announced the launch of a new 32-page, full-color promotional magazine called Mysteries to be released by mid-June. The company states that the mysterious new Limited Edition magazine “takes inspiration from Oscar Wilde (the true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible).” The magazine was created in-house by Masterfile’s European design department.
News
ITN Source closes six figure stock footage licensing deal with Al Jazeera
ITN Source has announced that it will be supplying video content to Al Jazeera as part of a six figure giving the network access to over 800,000 hours of video content. The licence agreement covers unlimited global transmissions on the Al Jazeera Network, their associated carriers and online outlets including Al Jazeera’s YouTube pages for a period of 5 years. “This deal helps us plan and budget our productions costs more effectively. ITN Source has an impressive collection of editorial led video content that spans over three centuries and will add great value to our programming” states Tony Burman, Managing Director of AJE from Al Jazeera Europe
News
iStock announces Punctum Day awards and incentives for exclusive contributors
iStockphoto, the micro-stock business owned by Getty images has announced it will repeat the so-called “Punctum Day” awards on August 19. Last year, the company gave awards to contributors of various categories of content. In addition, iStock has announced several incentives for exclusive contributors; it will give 100% of revenue to its exclusive photographers whose images sell on a given date to be announced after the fact; it will allow more photographers to participate in its program to allow iStock contributors to submit to Photodisc; and it will offer personalized keywording assistance to exclusive photographers.
News
Alaska Stock signs distribution deal with National Geographic
Alaska Stock Images, a specialty collection from America’s last frontier, has announced that it is now contributing images for distrbution through the National Geographic Image Collection. The National Geographic Society currently operates a stock photo library featuring it’s widely acclaimed image library which contains more than 10 million transparencies, black-and-white prints, glass plates and pieces of original art. “I am excited to be able to offer our stock images to the world through nationalgeographicstock.com. We consider it a privilege to have them represent our work and we look forward to a long and fruitful relationship.” Alaska Stock Owner, Jeff Schultz remarked.
News
Africa Media Online lanches EU funded African Image Pipeline project
Africa Media Online Pty Ltd, the parent company of Africanpictures.net, has announced that it is launching a ZAR 5.5 million (Approx $700,000 USD) project Known as the African Image Pipeline to ensure that global audiences have access to quality pictures from South African sources. The project has been made possible with 70% grant funding from the European Union through Gijima KZN, an initiative of the Department of Economic Development in South Africa.
News
maXx images now representing World Portraits
maXx images, a Vancouver based stock photography agency, has announced that it now represents the World Portraits image collection distributed by Image Source. World Portraits was founded in the Netherlands by industry veteran Bas van Beek and the collection showcases cultural photography of people primarily from less developed nations with licensing revenue from the collection benefiting the models directly. “World Portraits is a truly unique collection and we’re very pleased to be working with maXx images in representing this imagery” states Fernando Oliveira of Image Source.
