StockPhotoTalk | Special Interest Blog

Brian Palmer´s Digital Diary: Witnessing the War in Iraq 07-03-2004 until 08-21-2004

[© Brian Palmer/SIPA Press]

Brian Palmer (Sipa Press; see his bio) has published (PixelPress) a text and photo diary with his experiences in Iraq, 07-03 until 08-21-2004. Palmer writes in the Epilogue of "Digital Diary: Witnessing the War":

All told, I spent about seven weeks with various elements of the 24th MEU. I was expecting plenty of rah-rah triumphalism and USA-first hyperpatriotism but found only a little, not a lot. There were a few folks who hooted at John Kerry when he appeared on the chow hall's TV screen, and then cheered when Bush came on. "John Kerry is a fucking communist" for tossing his Vietnam War ribbons, asserted a cocky young Marine from Arkansas, Corporal Michael Euler, a soon-to-be father who knows what he knows and will tell you so in a heartbeat. There was the major who paused mid-sentence when a US fighter jet flew overhead. "You hear that," he asked me. "That's the sound of freedom." More than a few Marines I spoke with, however, accepted without question the Bush administration's casus belli for going into Iraq -- the 9-11 connection with Saddam Hussein’s government and the alleged weapons of mass destruction -- an argument I do not buy.
[...]
It has been difficult to find venues for these stories and photos. They are quieter, more mundane and subtle than, for example, the graphic coverage of the fighting in Najaf. Gauging the progress of nation-building is difficult, time-consuming, expensive, beige. Flying bullets and screaming protesters provide ready-made drama for networks and newspapers that compete moment to moment for consumers' attention. It may seem counterintuitive, but it's less risky from an economic standpoint (though not from a personal one, as is the case with Najaf) to cover the story everyone else is covering. The very presence of the media transforms an event into news. Their absence, well...
Will the media start measuring the progress in Iraq, both in fighting the militants and nation-building, against the administration's promises? Will the Iraq story evaporate as Afghanistan did (as well as Haiti and Somalia and Liberia), or will Americans begin to demand accountability for this open-ended effort, which costs lives and limbs, Iraqi and American, every month, and billions of dollars? Will citizens, myself included, press both presidential candidates for their one-, two-, and five-year plans for Iraq? I'm skeptical, but not without hope.
[...]

Links to his entries of Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, with photos by Brian Palmer and Christopher Smith.

Pixelpress states

This is Brian Palmer's final installment of his 'Digital Diary: Witnessing the War.'" Other photo essays by different authors on various aspects of the War in Iraq and the political situation in the USA will follow as part of the "Democracy in America" series.

In The Case 'People vs. SIO'...

Stock Index Online (SIO) finally generously has agreed (read the Update section at the bottom of the page) to rewrite the review about Digital Railroad. Read the new entry: "All aboard the Digital Railroad". The old entry was terminated.

istockphoto.com: You do the math

First off, thanks for all the comments regarding istockphoto.com. Secondly, there were also lots of referrers regarding the post "istockphoto.com: "Bringing the price down to a level where everybody can afford to buy a stock photo" (this seems to have been a subject on the Alamy Contributor List/Yahoo). Besides the discussion of the Pros and Cons photographer Ei Katsumata recently wrote a reply to "istockphoto.com informal study" which was discussed [STOCKPHOTO] Digest Number 2086] at the Stock Photo List/Yahoo:

I did a bit of researching to estimate how much money one can make at istockphoto. Check out work by Lise Gagne--I used her for this 'study.' She seems to be one of the top sellers over there.
Her photos are highly produced business lifestyle imagery.

Here's a link to her istock profile:
http://www.istockphoto.com/user_view.php?id=162596

Since she joined in April 2003, Ms Gagne has 73,695 downloads (sales) over a 16 month period. Since then, she has uploaded 1,036 photos. The commission she receives from each sale is either $0.10, $0.20, or $0.30, depending on the file size. Let's assume, on average, that she makes $0.20 per sale (probably more, as I imagine most buyers will pay an extra buck or two just to have future access to a hi-res file). That translates to [(73,695)*($0.20)]=$14,739 over a 16 month period, with an average of 518 images on the site over that period (assuming that she contributed photos in a linear fashion). So her income per photo per year would be [($14,739/518images/16mo)*(12mo/1yr)]=$21.34 per image per year. If she can keep that rate of sales up for her existing collection for the next year, she'll make another [(73,695sales/16mo.)*(12mo./1yr.)($0.20/sale)]=$11,054,
without adding any more images.

Considering the marketability of her images, I'm sure she can make lots more money at an agency specializing in RM lifestyle imagery (masterfile, workbook, corbis, etc). So why would Ms Gagne continue to stay at istockphoto? Perhaps she just doesn't know any better. Or perhaps she was once rejected by an agency and doesn't want to bother with the submission process again. Or maybe she has a hand in the workings of istockphoto. I guess there could be a number of reasons. But if I were to to through the time and trouble of producing model-released lifestyle images, I'd certainly check out more reputable agencies before ever considering istock.

See also "Analysis #7--Why Royalty Free WON'T completely take over the industry!" (Bahar Gidwani, Index Stock).

Corbis: Revenue up 27 percent in QI/II 2004

The Seattle Times in "Revenue up 27.1 percent in first half, company says":

Corbis...said yesterday that it increased revenue by more than a quarter in the first half of the year and was poised to become cash-flow positive in 2005.
[..]
Although privately owned, Corbis began releasing more details of its operations earlier this year.
Corbis, which said it grew revenue by 20 percent to $140 million in 2003, reported that revenue grew 27.1 percent in the first half of 2004 from a year earlier. Excluding currency gains, Corbis said revenue increased 23.3 percent.
"For the remainder of this year we're expecting to continue the momentum we've had in the first six months," Corbis Chief Financial Officer Sue McDonald said. Previously, Corbis was forecasting 20 percent revenue growth for 2004.

August Common Cents is online: "Living under the new regime"

This month in Common Cents by Mark Loundy: "Fear of Digital". Furthermore under "Leftovers":

The resolutions that I proposed to redirect the NPPA toward economic issues were defeated at the July meeting of the NPPA Board. To learn more about the proposals, go to http://www.loundy.org/nppa/. Stay tuned for further efforts to address the critical need for stronger leadership in this area.

Istockphoto.com: “Destructive Pricing”

Related story: "
istockphoto.com: "Bringing the price down to a level where everybody can afford to buy a stock photo"

Some quotes from a recent discussion at Stockphoto.net. All started with a message “istockphoto.com is scary for the industry“:

I tried to post this message on alamycontributors group a while back in response to one of Jeff Greenberg's post, but my posts rarely seem to actually get posted over there. Perhaps the moderator doesn't
like me... ;)

To the topic at hand...

http://www.istockphoto.com
[...]
They sell RF images for as little as $0.50 each, and as high as $3.00 each (dependent on file size). The photographer's cut is anywhere from $0.10 to $0.30 per sale.
[...]
There are big companies purchasing these photos as well. One of the contributors posted an AOL advertisement with a photo of his. AOL probably paid a buck or two for it--the photographer's cut was likely less than a quarter! I was quite surprised to read that--I would've assumed that a large company like AOL would want something a bit more unique....

So here's the scary data:
http://www.alexa.com/browse/categories?catid=253870
According to alexa.com, traffic-wise, they are rated below Getty (not surprising) and above Corbis (scroll to the bottom right to see the top 5 websites in the business>photography>stock category). Also ranking between these two stock giants is Photos.com, which is a subsription based RF site.
[...]
I'd like to believe that istockphoto and photos.com offers images to an entirely different market than agencies dealing in rights-managed imagery, but if companies like AOL are shopping there, I'm not really sure what to believe.

Readers were reponding:

This is what I call destructive pricing - an entirely different things from the RF model operated by Alamy etc.

and...

What you can believe is that if there are usable photos there, at least some photo users, like AOL, will be all over the new penny photography, especially if there are search methods for cutting through the crap to the photos that will suffice for their jobs (at their now lower photographic standards). They have been primed for it by RF purveyors.

furthermore...

Now I have visited the RF site with that low price and involved on Istockphoto there is a photographer,..., with some very good images and a high technical skill. Looks professional.

and finally...

There are others who do highly marketable stock work. Check out the "most popular files" section, and browse the work of the contributors there. You'll find that some of the photographers do much production work for the bulk of their photos, involving different models, wardrobes, and settings. It seems there are a handful of contributors that specialize in business or lifestyle imagery. Though their work is pretty ordinary, it is high quality stuff that I would consider quite marketable. And many of the better contributors use 6MP dSLRs.
[...]
But those high quality lifestyle shots deserve much more, especially considering that they are all model released!

Believe it or not, this is only the beginning routine. These words are only a cold comfort:

...how many of thesewannabees actually earn a living from photography (probably none), as opposed to how many of them get beer money from their "professional" pictures (at a buck a pop, or less, they better have an even greater output than JG), while in the day to day world they pay their bills by peeling potatoes at McDonald's.

[© Image: Barnes&Noble/Indiana.edu/The Unknown Artist]

Right Forecast: Thinkstock And Thinkstock Footage Sold

As predicted earlier (May 19: "Rumors, Rumors, Rumors"; first with real names, then in a figure of speech), Thinkstock and Thinkstock Footage have been sold to Jupiter Media (1; 2) "for $4.0 million in cash, the assumption of certain limited liabilities and 50,000 restricted shares of Jupitermedia common stock. Thinkstock has been in the stock imagery and stock footage business since 1999 and is based in Charlotte, NC" (Link). As written earlier: "a sweet nice agency located in - no, not in SC." (Link)

Related: "Comstock Images Acquired by Jupitermedia"
Related (in general, with big question marks): "The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition"

[© Ranchooasis]

Audioblogging From Hell -- From The Old Palace of Saddam Hussein´s Sons

Reader Glenn Tolle wrote in a comment to "Audioblogs: Nine bucks and you can post to a worldwide audience":

Speaking of audioblogging, I've been audioblogging from Uday and Qusay's old palace in Mosul, Iraq. No garden variety political rants, just fiddle and mandolin tunes recorded over a laptop in the early morning hours. A much better use of the palace than what Saddam's boys used it for.

The blog states:

An unrelenting student of Celtic and Bluegrass music shares his acoustic travails, while working as a Civil Affairs trooper in Iraq. What follows is a curious alchemy of a liberal arts education, two decades of military culture, and stainless steel optimism.

You have to select the July archive to hear some of the recordings:

The Star Spangled Banner (Fiddle) Play Ball! Saddam would have a fit if he knew I was playing this in one of his palaces. (Link)

Well, the times, they are achanging, as the song goes.

[© Image Glenn Tolle: "Posing with my Martin backpacker mandolin in front of a mural of a cuddly, father-figure Saddam. This cat was seriously into himself. Now he's all back of the bus, about to be sentenced by the Iraqis."; Link]

[Update] Digital Railroad: A New Hub For The Professional Photographer To Organize And Sell His Work

Some photo agencies won´t like this... . It is the old story of "turn the industry on its head by taking control from the big guys and putting it back onto the hands of the photographers“, the unforgotten sentence once stated by the CEO of Exactlyphoto in SF in 1999, the company that burned $11 million Venture Capital (Link 1 +2). But, this seems to be an example of a press release (and more, a presentation of an idea and a company) that is worth to be reprinted word by word (full text here):

Digital Railroad Inc. today launched the first online archive system that gives the power of a large photo agency to individual photographers.
Digital Railroad's Web-based application services transform the individual photographer’s business. Digital Railroad, www.digitalrailroad.net, automates repetitive workflow tasks, as well as streamlines delivery of images and communications with clients—providing photographers an online searchable archive that unlocks potential image revenue.
Photography legends and previous White House photographers Dirck Halstead and David Hume Kennerly, who have tested the system, believe it is a watershed product that will change the way business is done in the professional photography industry.
"Digital Railroad eliminates the daily technology hurdles photographers struggle with; finally photographers can have access to efficient tools for editing, archiving and simultaneously distributing their work," said Halstead, award-winning photojournalist and publisher of Digital Journalist.
Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist David Hume Kennerly says Digital Railroad has proven to be the answer for many of his production workflow problems and enables him to interact more easily with his editors.
"I like the real-time collaboration with editors using the digital lightbox features—I can be online in Bangkok, and making selections with an editor in New York. Digital Railroad is the answer for those of us who want total control over our own marketing and distribution,” says Kennerly.
"With Digital Railroad, photographers can finally take control of their creative businesses," said company founder and chief executive officer Evan Nisselson. "We've created an affordable, automated system as powerful as any of the proprietary major agency systems. We free photographers from managing technology and allow them to concentrate on what they love—being creative."
[...]
A core value of Digital Railroad lies in its unique marketing features. Typical photographer Web sites without archives provide no value to buyers as they have no search, download or interactive sharing features. Digital Railroad provides the all-in-one solution so member photographers can have personally branded archives that better market their images, publicly or privately, to buyers around the world—all for a low monthly fee.
Photographers share a lightbox with buyers via a unique link in an email, which opens a Web browser displaying selected images within their archive. Buyers can choose the images they want from the lightbox, share those with their editorial staff, or even search the photographer's entire public online archive. Buyers negotiate and finalize pricing with the photographer, who then makes the purchased selections active for download.

Looking back: since 1998 (in some countries it goes back to 1996), the question for the professional photographer with a certain level of success has always been: how do I sell my work in the digital age? Should I sell my work via a photo agency? Should I sell my work via a photo portal? Should I set up or buy my own web-based image archive for my images? Should I work non-exclusive with two or three agencies and portals and additionally build my own website? What about pricing? What about the conditions? What about the split? What about negotiating? If the photo agency or photo portal promises to pay 70% or more, will they finally retain enough money for marketing? What about the photo buyers, how do they get to know that this portal or my website exists? If I´m (for example) a food photographer, should my work become a part of a big agency or should I talk to some other food photographers to found and build "the one and only" food photography portal? Who is doing all the technical stuff (maintenance, security, back up, etc.)? What about the future? Should I wait with all that digital internet crap until a respected photographer community or association builds a serious photo portal? Will small portals, founded by former photographers, survive in a world of giant portals with million of images? What about the advantages of models that are "monthly-fee-driven" instead of "percentage-driven"?

In this field of new photo agencies and photo portals we all have seen a lot of companies appearing and disappearing. And a lot of companies who quickly changed their business model from a "photographer-concentrated" way to a "Wal Mart" model. No names here, and no hard feelings. A short history of those old days can be found here (1; 2). A wise man (we all know him) once wrote about his own internet adventure: "The ... is another of those Internet Businesses that failed to achieve the critical mass necessary to make it useful... . As a result the site has continually disappointed those who use it". In those old days, that simply could happen.
So now, there is another newcomer: Digital Railroad. The core sentences describing the activity are:

Digital Railroad gives you the tools to easily manage, market and sell your digital images online. With Digital Railroad, you’ll have a personalized online archive system as powerful as that of a large agency for a low monthly fee. Focus on making great pictures rather than worrying about managing your technology.
You control how, where, and when to share or sell your images. Members can use the system purely to minimize their workflow and syndicate to agencies. Others may choose to leverage the system to sell their images directly to buyers. Some may do both.

Digital Railroad works with the "One-time Setup" ($195 waived) and "Subscription"-fee model ($49.95/month; Link for the pricing), so no need to concern about a 70/30, a 80/20 split and possible unpleasant future developments of this split. Additionally, "Upload data traffic (uploading images to your archive) is free and is not deducted from your monthly bandwidth allowance".
For the specialists among us there is a small hint that Digial Railraod may be powered by Venture Capital:

All your images are stored on our highly secure SQL database and Linux storage systems which are located in a first class co-location facility with an OC-48 speed IP backbone, redundant power feeds, uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems, backup diesel generator power, 24 x 7 monitored security, fire-suppression systems, as well as 24 x 7 system administrators on-site to monitor and maintain the data center infrastructure and client equipment.

This is usually a clear sign of a greater amount of money in the background, and also "We provided extensive online help and tips throughout the system. Our veteran team of engineers, editors and photographers are available to you via online support", but so far we have no real evidence (comments are welcome!). The company was founded by Evan Nisselson (Founder and CEO, who worked -- among other jobs -- as photo editor at SABA Press Photos; here is the link to the management team). Peter Nisselson is on the board of directors ("He is an investor...Chairman of Star Struck, Ltd., a public company. Since 1982, he has been investing in small companies), this might be a sign of a family Angel Investor. Link to the impressive "Board of Advisors", too many people, too many careers to name them all here.

The site comes up with "real world" testimonials from Sisse Brimberg, Photographer, National Geographic; Ron Haviv, Photojournalist, VII Agency; Damon Kiesow, Senior Photo Editor, America Online; Jon Levy, Photojournalist and Founder, Foto8 and Ei8ht Magazine; Lisa Quiñones, Photojournalist, Black Star; Roger Richards, Photo Editor, Virginian-Pilot and Photographer, and a section "What professional users have to say about the Digital Railroad system".

This is the good news: well-known pros and photogs involved from the beginning. Sundance DiGiovani, Chief Creative Offficer, Temple NY Gallery: "We just can't go to thirty different photographers' websites and hope they have a searchable online archive with high resolution images. If we had a system with a consistent interface to get content from a variety of different photographers, we're going to use it because we're about speed, variety and great photos."

The technical features Digital Railroad offers (esp. the new lightbox function) are among the most sophisticated available today: ftp syndication, Captioning can be applied to whole groups or individual images ONLINE, Syndicate group, Manage permissions, Look and feel of your own website, Manage Viewer Permissions, Dashboard, Feature Images, Share Production Tasks, Search for Model Release/Property Release Y/N, etcetc.

Remember, it´s a web-based system (cataloguing, archiving etc.), and this can be a very tricky thing, to architecture something solid for the professional market (just remember the history of the two other companies who ever tried so). Maybe I´m the wrong person to judge about that with gigantic enthusiasm. Let´s instead quote Jon Levy, Founder, Publisher, Foto 8:

Digital Railroad is set to be the tool that will enable photographers to take control of their very own stock future: as easy as one two three! Cataloguing and archiving will become a pleasure rather than a chore... AND at the receiving end, the photographers' clients - we the photo editors - will get a submission of images that can be edited, shared with other photo editors and art directors, and downloaded in the blink of an eye. Get ready to throw out the old lightboxes!

I´m hungry to see the details of the "Coming soon" features: "Keyword System", "E-Commerce: Set firm pricing on your images" and NATURALLY "Digital Rights Management: Associate specific rights management for selections of photos in your archive".

However, some questions remain: an interactive query refinement (all that machine-learning and neuronal-network stuff working with Keyword-Related Image Retrieval or Content Based Image Retrieval) is, no, not is, but should be the standard for such a system (some details here). Furthermore the possibilty of a 7/24 automated pricing model without user (i.e. copyright owner) interaction (as said above, this may be a "coming soon"-feature). What about categories? And a "switch"-function: searching for a keyword in all images of all websites of all photographers, but also only at one website of one participating photographer. And: can the system suffer from the success it probably -- and hopefully -- will experience? What if there are -- one day -- 4,000 personal Digital Railroad websites of participating photographers, each one with 10,000 images: which picture researcher can handle or search efficiently 40,000,000 images if he doesn´t want to look at only one or a few of his fellow photographers? There are solutions for this problem, but I haven´t found a recommended solution for this problem written clearly in letters at the site of Digital Railroad (hint for readers: that doesn´t mean that the people at Digital Railroad haven´t already a solution for this problem...).

So far, from what we can see today in the present status quo, this is the best system ever for the single professional photographer, and we are snoopy to experience what future developments will bring.

Small hint: a real contact address (street, phone) would be great. Talk to your VC.
Another hint: Scott Braut, Director of Product and Photo Services at Digital Railroad, maintains a photography news blog at www.PictureEditor.com.

[Update August 13:

Off Topic: What Others Talk About

Just two great posts:

Ross Mayfield: "Internal and External Corporate Blogs"

JD: "Men in Black: from the Iraq frontlines" ("CBFTW, a soldier in the Stryker Brigade in Iraq who hails from San Francisco, has a blog called MY WAR - Fear and Loathing in Iraq")