Archives: May, 2009
News
Jon Arnold & John Warburton-Lee launch specialist travel image collection AWL Images
Jon Arnold, a former travel photographer who shot for the Telegraph Library (now part of Getty Images), and John Warburton-Lee, one of the UK’s leading travel photographers, have announced that they have teamed-up to launch AWL Images Ltd, a stock photo agency with specialist collection of over 70,000 travel images from over 200 countries.
News
Photolibrary now representing content from VisitBritain
Photolibrary, one of the leading independent global stock licensing companies with offices in the United Kingdom, USA, Australia, Singapore, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, New Zealand, Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates, has announced that it has signed an exclusive deal to distribute imagery and footage from Britain on View, the on-line image resource of VisitBritain. As part of the agreement Photolibrary will develop and manage a commercially orientated website specializing in UK related material located at britainonview.com.
News
Masterfile’s Endless Media named as an Official Webby Honoree
The Webby Awards established in 1996 by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, which includes such diverse members as Richard Branson, David Bowie, Matt Groening and Harvey Weinstein, as well as writers and editors from a large array of publications. It is considered by many to be the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet. This year Masterfile submitted their new Endless Media search interface and received the award of Official Honoree in the Professional Services category in the 13th Annual Webby Awards. There were nearly to 10,000 entries received from over 60 countries.
News
Framepool sponsors CLIO Awards
Framepool, a stock footage company founded by filmmakers with offices in Munich, London, Paris, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Miami, has announced that it is sponsoring this year’s CLIO Awards in Las Vegas. The CLIO Awards is one of the world’s most recognized international advertising and design competition honouring creative excellence and innovation in the industry. All awards will be presented during the 50th Anniversary CLIO Awards Festival at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, May 12 - 14, 2009.
News
Fotolia appoints former iStockPhoto co-founder Patrick Lor as President for North America
Fotolia, a popular micro-payment stock photography site, has announced that it has hired of Patrick Lor, co-founder of iStockPhoto, as the company’s new President for North America. Lor has been tasked with overseeing North American operations for Fotolia, which currently has a presence in 10 countries worldwide. He will be working with co-founder and CEO Oleg Tscheltzoff on continued expansion strategies for the company, which has nearly 4 million monthly unique visitors (comScore), more than five million images available for license and more than 1 million members worldwide.
News
Oddball Film+Video building archive of quirky and unusual footage
Oddball Film+Video, a stock footage company based in San Francisco, has announced that it has recently added several interesting new collection to its archive including rare 1960s surf footage, licensed footage for Marlon Brando and Barak Obama docs, and exclusive footage in South India for Global Performance Media for their feature “Beard Club” a film exploring the social politics of facial hair.
News
Getty Images and AFP renew partnership agreement
Getty Images, widely considered to be the world’s largest stock licensing company, has announced that it has renewed a deal with the global press agency, Agence France-Presse (AFP) allowing both companies to leverage the others archive. The renewed contract takes effect on 1st June 2009 and extends the partnership between the two companies for an additional three years from the initial agreement put into effect in 2003.
News
Focal International celebrates with annual award ceremony for stock footage industry
FOCAL International, a trade body representing footage archives, researchers, consultants, and facility houses in the UK and worldwide, has announced that on May 5th it celebrated their 6th annual “FOCAL International Awards” in association with AP Archive at the Royal Lancaster Hotel, London. The evening welcomed a host of footage archive executives, researchers, technicians and other media professionals from the UK and around the world, including France, Ireland, Germany, Canada the USA.
ITNSource partnering with KPM Music to offer stock music and footage together
ITN Source, a division of ITN and a leading provider of stock footage from the UK, has announced that it is now representing stock music from KPM Music (owned by EMI Music Publishing). The agreement will provide ITN users with seamless access to 175,000 music tracks alongside ITN’s archive of stock footage clips. KPM represents artists who have composed music for feature films such as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Troy as well as major TV shows including The Daily Show, Gossip Girl and Dexter.
News
Thought Equity Motion representing footage from NBC Sports
Denver based Thought Equity Motion, a leading source of stock footage, has announcedthatit hase signed a deal to become the licensing agent for NBC Sports. Thought Equity Motion will digitize and represent NBC Sports footage including premier broadcast event content such as the French Open, Kentucky Derby, Olympic Games and more. ”We have partnered with Thought Equity Motion, an industry leader in digitizing and selling content. To be able to digitize our collection of legendary sporting events and make them available globally in multiple formats is of great benefit to NBC Sports,” said Ken Schanzer, President, NBC Sports.
News
SCALA now representing content from The National Gallery, London
Scala Archives, a fine art stock image archive from Firenze, has announced that it has signed a deal to represent content from The National Gallery of London. Founded in 1824, The National Gallery houses one of the most prestigious painting collections in the world including over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900.
News
Corbis opens Sygma Photography Preservation Facility near Paris
Corbis, widely believed to be the world’s 2nd largest stock licensing company, has announced that it has opened the Sygma Preservation and Access Facility in order to Preserve Sygma’s Photography Collection of 50 million negatives, prints, color transparencies, and contact prints, while Making Images Accessible for Photographers, Researchers, Iconographers, Historians and Creatives Worldwide. “The Sygma Preservation and Access Facility is a testament to our commitment to preserving the profoundly important Sygma collection,” said Gary Shenk, CEO, Corbis. “So many talented photographers have contributed to Sygma, and we are honored to safeguard and make accessible these treasures for today and the future.”
News
A Look at Alamy’s 1Q09 reported revenue
As stated in previously in this space, with the disappearance of publicly traded companies from the stock photo industry, Alamy’s quarterly reports tell us much about the company itself and help us draw conclusions about what goes on in the industry, in general. Over all, nothing comes as a surprise. But the news is not exactly optimistic for the company or the industry.
News
PicScout hires Dan Heller as Vice President of Marketing
PicScout, a technology company with offices in San Francisco and Herzelia Israel best known for their Image Tracker and PicApp products, has announced that it has appointed industry blogger and consultant Dan Heller to the post of Vice President of Marketing. “Dan’s experience and strategic vision within the photo industry perfectly complements PicScout’s management team and direction at this time,” said Offir Gutelzon, CEO and Co-founder at PicScout. “His technological background and business development make him a perfect fit for leading our marketing strategy within a technology-centric company as we embark on the next important milestone in global growth with our industry-leading image-recognition platform.”
Editorials
In Memory of Walter Plessner: 1918 – 2009
Many stock photo colleagues were saddened to learn of the passing of Walter Plessner last Friday at the age of 91. Mark Ippolito has kindly offered a brief history of his life and his storied career in the stock picture business, which you will find below. To Mark’s words, I’d like to add a few personal comments of my own:
News
BBC renews partnership with Youtube
BBC Worldwide and YouTube has announced that it has renewed their global partnership for BBC Worldwide YouTube channels and short-form videos. The extension ensures that the BBC’s most watched and beloved programming, like “Doctor Who”, “Top Gear” and “The Mighty Boosh”, remain available to YouTube’s massive online audience. “The BBC is renowned for high quality programming and we’re thrilled to expand and deepen our relationship with them,” said Patrick Walker, YouTube’s Director of Video Partnerships. “The demand on YouTube for compelling, thought provoking, and entertaining videos like those offered by BBC Worldwide increases every day and we look forward to connecting both existing fans and new viewers with their content.”
News
SAA launches PhotoMetadata.org and getMETAsmart tour
The Stock Artists Alliance (SAA) , a trade organization for stock photographers, has announced that it has launched a new website located at PhotoMetadata.org and an educational speaking series called getMETAsmart . These intitatives have been launched under an award from the Library of Congress and supported by industry partners, the SAA Photo Metadata Project is on a mission to promote industrywide use of standard photo metadata in every digital image file.
News
Young Photographers Alliance debuts in Chicago with scholarships for aspiring photographers
The Young Photographers Alliance (YPA), a not-for-profit organization established in early 2009 as an educational foundation focused on bringing disadvantaged students opportunities for advancement in photography, recently made its debut in Chicago at Picturehouse’s 4th annual event held on Thursday April 16, 2009 at the River East Art Center. YPA is the creation of Jerry Tavin, co-founder of IC Worldwide and Deborah Free, President of Picturehouse Marketing US. Both are widely-recognized as advocates and leaders in the photography industry. “We are pleased that YPA was so well received after our announcement. The enthusiasm and support was immediate, both at the Picturehouse event and the PACA Annual Meeting held in Chicago,” said Jerry Tavin.
News
Global ImageWorks to make footage database searchable through Footage.net
Global ImageWorks, a boutique full-service stock footage company, has signed a deal with Footage.net, the stock footage search engine, to make its entire database avialble on the Footage.net search platform. “We are extremely pleased to have Global ImageWorks on board,” said Footage.net president Domenick Propati. “At Footage.net, we’re focused on making footage research as simple and efficient as possible. The addition of this unique, high-quality collection to our search platform will greatly enhance our ability to help footage users discover the best motion content as quickly and easily as possible.”
News
ITN Source launches “New Classics” vintage footage collection
ITN Source, a division of ITN and a leading provider of stock footage from the UK, has announced that it has launched a new footage collection entitled ”New Classics” featuring more than 10,000 hours of digitized footage covering historic events between 1896 and 1970. New Classics footage has been plucked directly from ITN Source’s partners including Reuters, ITN, Fox Movietone, Images of War and Paramount.
