Getty has changed hands and nobody knows what are the plans of the new owners to make the company more profitable.
Jupiter has reached the new low ($1.17), losing in one day 30% of its value.
A21 value is between 1 to 3 pennies.
But worse than everything is that all the photo agencies instead of promoting their pictures pointing on the quality, they promise low prices.
They should say: we have pictures that if you use them to promote your products you will increase your sales by 50%. What has happened in the magazines or newspapers for years is that when the editors get free publicity material they don´t even look at it and they throw it in the garbage.
But they are ready to buy the same material by the agencies because they think that if they pay for something, this must be good.
Facts are that nobody talks anymore about great picture and how beautiful they are. What counts today is the price. From 16 cents and up.
We are going towards self-destruction and nothing seems to stop the madness. I´m starting to think that one of the problems of our industry is the escape of brains.
I will be more precise. Too many people who contributed to the success of this business in which they worked for decades have left or they were forced to leave.
At the Perpignan Festival I saw Goksin Sipahioglu, the man who started Sipa, an agency that is in the history of photojournalism. After almost 35 years Sipahioglu had to sell his beloved photo agency and the new owners didn´t think to use his great experience and knowledge which, I´m pretty sure, would have helped the agency a lot.
But there are a lot of people like Sipahioglu who have left the business: Richard Steadman, Jim Roehrig, Sally Lloyd, Floris De Bonneville, Eliane Laffont and many others.
Can the industry do good without people like these ?
Pino Granata
Pino Granata is the founder of Italy-based Granata Images. Granata Images is now run by his sons and Pino works as an editorial and stock photo consultant. He is been working in this industry since 45 years.
Related:
- Pino Granata: Photography is dead (June 24, 2008)
- Pino Granata: About The New Corbis Museum (June 18, 2008)
- BAPLA Fair: A Happy Island (May 27, 2008)
- New York Photo Festival: Much Ado About Nothing (May 22, 2008)
- Pino Granata: Let´s try to do the right things (March 01, 2008)
- Pino Granata: Yahoo, Corbis, Flickr and Bill Gates (Feb. 03, 2008)
- Pino Granata: What´s next? (Jan. 30, 2008)
- Pino Granata: Publicists, vile damned race! (Jan. 15, 2008)
- Pino Granata: Much Ado About Nothing (Jan. 08, 2008)
- Pino Granata: Who's afraid of Getty Images and company? (Dec. 12, 2007)
- Pino Granata: Hollywood, I'm shocked! (Nov. 15, 2007)
- Ceterum Censeo: Pino Granata´s THE PHOTO MARKET IS SICK (Nov. 01, 2007)
- Potere Fotografico: The Power of Photography (Oct. 24, 2007)
- Ceterum Censeo: Pino Granata´s NOTHING TO CELEBRATE (Oct. 18, 2007)
- Pino Granata: The Rise and Fall of Getty Images (Aug. 06, 2007)
- Pino Granta: Everybody wins but not the photographers (July 23, 2007)
- Pino Granata: I´m so sad for Alexandra Boulat (July 23, 2007)
- Ceterum Censeo: Pino Granata´s We are not butchers (July 04, 2007)
- Ceterum Censeo: Pino Granata´s It's time to react (June 30, 2007)
- Ceterum Censeo: Pino Granata on SnapVillage by Corbis (June 26, 2007)
- Pino Granata: CEPIC - Time for a Change (June 21, 2007)
- Letters from Italy with Pino Granata´s Ceterum censeo: The Stars Look Down (Feb. 23, 2007)
- Letters from Italy: Pino Granata´s Ceterum censeo on Corbis entering the Microstock Business (Feb. 18, 2007)
- Pino Granata: Who is the Dinosaur? (Feb. 06, 2007)
- Sipa Press Founder Goksin Sipahioglu Receives Premier French Order Légion d'honneur - A Comment By Pino Granata (Jan. 26, 2007)
- Pino Granata: Two Worlds Apart (Jan. 10, 2007)
- Picade, The New Photographer-Driven Stock Photo Agency: Forget RF Licensing, Photo Portals and Microstock (Nov. 28, 2006)
- A New Photographic Renaissance, by Pino Granata (Oct. 31, 2006)
- "Just fly in a different direction" (Oct. 10, 2006)
- The Bill Gates Mystery: An Open Letter From Pino Granata To The Founder Of Corbis (Oct. 03, 2006)
- "Is There A Future For Stock Agents?" (Sept. 20, 2006, by Jim Pickerell, Story 873, subscription required).
- Pino Granata: "Is there any future for photographers and agents?" (Sept. 16, 2006)
- Jason Pagan Launches Alternative Photojournalism Agency Anarchy Images (July 18, 2006)
