StockPhotoTalk | Special Interest Blog

QuickLinks For 2006-08-31

• Reuters offer royalty free sports images:
  Action Images (now owned by Reuters) has added an exclusive collection of royalty-free sports pictures to its digital archive following an agreement with leading American stock photography provider Jupiterimages.
  Will Carleton/PAN. All details here.
  Tags: Action Images Reuters Jupiterimages

Getty Images´ Rights-Ready Managed Collection Riser Is Here, License Duration Now Limited To 10 Years

When Getty Images announced the new Rights-Ready licensing model and the new Riser collection in early August, Getty said that Riser will be available in late August, starting with 80,000 images.

Ever since myriads of freaks visited the Creative section of Getty´s website to be under the first to discover the exact conditions and licence images tentatively. Yesterday visitors still had no luck. But today it reads: Rights-ready is here.

QuickLinks For 2006-08-25

• MicroStock Watcher, a new nifty widget:
  The tool allows microstock photography contributors to quickly retrieve earning from six microstock agencies: iStockphoto, Dreamstime, Shutterstock, StockXpert, LuckyOliver, and Fotolia, and to check their stats at these sites simultaneously.
  All details here.
  Related: How "ordinary" photographers are making Big Money shooting for small stock agencies in "25 Cent Fortunes" (three pages), Popphoto.
  Tags: MicroStock Watcher microstock photography

American Photo´s "State of the Art" Blog Hits The Street, Getty Images To Acquire Creative Photographers Inc.?

PDN might possibly introduce blogs one day for the "Bezieherkommunikation" (the dateless and immortal expression of VISUELL´s publisher Dieter Brinzer about future developments of his magazine, loosely translated "communication with subscribers") in the not-so-distant future, but American Photo did it already on August 15th.

The immodest name of the new group blog is simply State of the Art. So far thirteen blog posts, but not all entries indicate the name of the appropriate author (contributors are David Schonauer, Jay DeFoore, Russell Hart, Jack Crager and Miki Johnson, the editors of American Photo magazine) properly.

Hispanic/Latin Themed RF Brand Somos: Stock Shooters Needed

SOMOS, the new Hispanic/Latin themed RF brand being distributed by Veer is now searching for additional freelance photographers worldwide.

All details and contact information here at Worldwide Stock Photo Industry Jobs.

Related:
•Veer Introduces Somos Hispanic Images (Aug. 08, 2006)
•Veer Introduces Somos™ Hispanic Images (June 16, 2006)

Reuters On Getty Images, The Doghouse And Value Investors

Reuters/Daisuke Wakabayashi runs today a three-page report on "Value investors eye Getty as growth investors flee":

Getty Images Inc. the best-performing publishing stock over the last five years, has moved from investor penthouse to doghouse this year as increased competition raised concerns over growth prospects.
Stifel Nicolaus research analyst Kit Spring said he now fields more calls from a new type of investor asking about Getty: value investors. "They're looking at the valuation and strong balance sheet of the company," said Spring, who has a "hold" rating on the stock.
"The overall concern is what's the long-term growth of this company," said Aaron Kessler, senior analyst at Piper Jaffray.
"Nothing fundamental has changed," Getty Chief Executive Jonathan Klein said in a telephone interview. "I have yet to find anybody on the planet who thinks there will be fewer pictures used to communicate messages and sell products than in the past."

Well, here´s one: "Consultant Jim Pickerell insists the demand for images is flat or shrinking, even as supply grows astronomically" (Daryl Lang in "What's Next For Stock? Depends Whom You Ask", but he adds: "Absent hard data, it’s basically a guess").

QuickLinks For 2006-08-23

• A Portrait of Alan Bailey, Co-Founder, Rubberball:
  We currently have about 32,000 images on the site. About 13,000 of those are ours. At the moment, we are getting 1,000 finished images out every month.
  A lot of customers tell us that when they find an image they like, they also want to see the other images that didn’t make it past the final edit. So we’re introducing new functionality on the Rubberball website in August that allows customers to see other images from the same shoots that weren’t selected as primary images. They’ll be able to click on a link under the image that says: “View other images from this shoot”. I think this is an inevitable direction the market will take as customer demand for this kind of service grows.
  The low cost of entry will propel the Microstock. Over time, the quality will go up, but not drastically. I tend to look at the industry simplistically. I really believe at the end of the day people are going to need a new image and that image has to be well produced. At the moment, there seems to be an emphasis on numbers of images instead of production value. That will likely shake out over time and the market will reward those who represent creative, well-produced photography.
  As for our involvement in subscription or any of the new models, we have no plans to enter those spaces. We feel our time is best spent producing for the high end of RF.
  MacTribe/Pat Hunt quoted here in a resampled version.
  Tags: Rubberball Alan Bailey Baileys® Irish Whiskey Cream Liqueur

a21 Reports Strong Q2/2006 Revenues, Stock Down Over 50% In The Last 90 Days

A21 (ATWO), the parent company of SuperStock, the Royalty-Free brand Purestock, the subscription brand PurestockX, of Ingram Publishing/Ingram Stock and ArtSelect, has released the Q2/2006 results:

A21 Revenues (in T$)

YEAR	Q4/04	2004	Q1/05	Q2/05	Q3/05	Q4/05	2005	Q1/06	Q2/06
Total	2.100	7.475	2.312	2.327	2.064	2.859	9.563	2.935	4.511

 

Highlights in both directions for the Q2/2006:

More On NewsCom/StockPhotoFinder From Randy Taylor, And The New SPFF Search Process

Some more information about the NewsCom/StockPhotoFinder (SPF) partnership directly from SPF´s president Randy Taylor. I asked him if all of the 15 million photos, graphics and illustrations of NewsCom will be availabe through the SPF, or only a part of this huge imagery. Here´s his response:

• It's not yet clear exactly what portion of the total will be included because each image provider is being asked to confirm that they want this marketing, which is free to them as part of their relationship with Newscom.
• Based on current acceptance, it will be at least 5 million images, which we are now actively adding.
• We expect to have roughly 12 million of the 15 million images at the peak of integration.
• On an ongoing basis, we are also receiving between 4,000 and 12,000 new images daily from Newscom in addition to legacy files.
• All Newscom images will be available for search in our free public site at StockPhotoFinder.com and also available for the customized corporate versions that we supply to publishers and advertising agencies.

QuickLinks For 2006-08-22

• Photojournalism in Crisis:
  The Israeli-Hezbollah war has left many dead bodies, ruined towns, and wobbling politicians in its wake, but the media historian of the future may also count as one more victim the profession of photojournalism. In twenty years of researching and teaching about the art and trade and doing photo-documentary work, I have never witnessed or heard of such a wave of attacks on the people who take news pictures and on the basic premise that nonfiction news photo- and videography is possible. [...]
  Democracy is based on the premise that it is acceptable for people to believe that some politicians or news media are lying to them; democracy collapses when the public believes that everybody in government and the press is lying to them.
  Editor & Publisher/David D. Perlmutter.
  Tag: photojournalism