StockPhotoTalk | Special Interest Blog

QuickLinks For 2008-08-02

• 20th Visa pour l' Image photojournalism festival 2008 in Perpignan:
  If you intend to travel to Perpignan this year ... here´s the full festival brochure (PDF download) with all details about the exhibitions, the evening shows, the special features, the awards, the symposium and other activities.

• Angelina Jolie-Brad Pitt pix for $14 mil, most expensive celeb fotos ever:
  Exclusive photos of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie´s newborn twins fetched $14 million, a person involved in the negotiations told The Associated Press, giving People magazine and London-based Hello! magazine joint rights to publish the most expensive celebrity pictures ever sold. The person asked not to be named because he was not authorized to release the figure.
  The couple ultimately chose to go a familiar route with its joint deal between People and Hello!, with Getty Images as the photographer and go-between. Getty CEO Jonathan Klein said his company was "delighted that all proceeds from these stunning images will once again be donated entirely to charity."
  AP story, more details here.
  Related: Brangelina baby pics bring excitement, yawns (Reuters)

QuickLinks For 2008-07-21

• Shooting stars: Citizen paparazzi should be raking it in:
  Big Pictures, owned by the infamous Australian paparazzo Darryn Lyons, has started an offshoot called Mr Paparazzi and claims that a set of amateur pictures of Cameron Diaz surfing made £16,000. The cash was split evenly between the agency and the photographer who just happened to be strolling past.
  In the UK, the Press Complaints Commission states that it is unacceptable to photograph individuals in a private place without their consent - and the definition of a "private place" includes public property "where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy". Bennett, a photographer for the New York Times and adjunct professor of Photojournalism at Columbia University, thinks that the rise of untrained photographers has contributed to the sometimes violent scenes in the LA paparazzi pack. "It gives all photographers a bad name," he explains.
  On the whole, however, he sees good in this industry revolution. "Frankly, the reason that a lot of photojournalists bitch about it is that it raises the bar for all of us," he says. "We have to really differentiate ourselves and prove we're better."
  The Guardian.

QuickLinks For 2008-02-26

• Jonathan Klein spent some time with me this morning:
  We do want to focus on more long-term growth and we want to put more into our consumer offering and we think that music or footage or multimedia can grow faster. But we will still have the priority of stabilizing that traditional creative stills business, which showed some improvement in the fourth quarter sequentially but remains subject to those broader issues. [...]
  It was a competitive deal, and the proxy document that will come out in the next several weeks will have a lot of detail on that.
  Seattle-Post Intelligencer/John Cook, Q&A with Getty Images´Jonathan Klein.

Pino Granata: Publicists, vile damned race!

 

In the Verdi opera, Rigoletto sings: Courtiers, vile damned race!

In these days photographers and editors yell: Publicists, vile damned race!

Anybody involved in covering celebrities portraits outside or at their homes or interviewing the stars knows the reasons.

The former owner of once one the biggest celebrities photo agencies sold his agency for just not to have anything anymore to do with publicists.

Anytime I´m in LA or Rome everybody underlines the difficulties to shoot celebrities, and not only the big stars but even those young actors who will very likely be famous one day.

 

All Access Photo Agency: The About-Turn From "No Fees" to $45 Per Photo

Condensed in a compiled nutshell the latest news from LA-based All Access Photo Agency (AAPA):

 

"We have had an amazing amount of pressure from the other photo agencies about giving away free photos.

They have teamed up and have threatened to not shoot an event if we are credentialed. PR firms that book events and press lines want the other agencies to show up and us as well, but if it comes down to choice they have to back all the other major agencies.

If we can´t get credentialed, we can´t shoot, we don´t have a product, we are done".

MySpace + Getty Images = MySpace Celebrity™ Images

At the time of writing, shares of Getty Images jumped +10.43% or +$2.55 to $27.00, apparently mainly because Barbara Coffey -- she was also quoted in this recent WSJ article "Getty Images Bolsters Its Web Presence" -- of Kaufman Brothers "boosted Getty´s rating to 'Hold' from 'Sell'", according to today´s Associated Press´ story "Getty Images Rises on Analyst Upgrade" on Forbes:

Getty Images continues to be a company in transition, adjusting from being the leading player in an oligopolistic market to being one of many players in a highly competitive market", Coffey wrote in a note to clients.

Getty Images noted recently -- besides ViewImages and JAM´D -- "we have other consumer initiatives to discuss" in this new year 2008.

As a matter of fact, MySpace announced today that "Getty Images will provide the latest celebrity photos on a daily basis" for MySpace´s new venture MySpace Celebrity™.

PS. MySpace Celebrity™ is a trademark of MySpace, not of Getty Images, and the title of this blog post is only a play of words.

Update on All Access Photo Agency

A few more details about All Access Photo Agency:

• The number of celebrity images in the database is currently small, around 1,200 photos.
  Next milestone for 2008: 10,000 images.

• As assumed earlier, there is some "old stuff" from summer and autumn on the website right now.

• New images from at least five celebrity events having taken place in December were uploaded.

• All Access plans to cover 20 - 30 celebrity events in January 2008, after that date the number of covered events will continuously rise.

 

Image: Copyright All Access Photo Agency/AAPA 2007.
Jack Nicholson arrives at the World Premiere of "The Bucket List", Cinerama Dome, Dec. 16, 2007, Hollywood.

All Access shows five images with Jack Nicholson from this event. WireImage´s $200 million heavy image database returns 30 images: "If you are interested in a WireImage editorial and/or commercial account to license images for print, web, and broadcast use, you can apply here."

All Access´ response:

Getty Images, WireImage, All Access Celebrity Photo Agency and Wireimaged

Three days ago (1; 2) I mentioned the new LA-based celebrity photography venture All Access Photo Agency (second URL: aapagency.com).

A charming idea and concept.

As to no surprise, Getty Images reacted quickly and has threatened in the meantime a suit over the domain name wireimaged.com (the initial name of All Access Photo Agency´s blog) as an attempt to "maliciously" threaten their branding.

Update on All Access Celebrity Photo Agency (AAPA)

Finally some selected and explaining sentences from the new All Access Celebrity Photo Agency (see previous post) who runs also the new Wireimaged blog:

"We have a real address in Los Angeles and in March in NYC. Our photos do not credit the photogs because we want the credit to be the agency name only.

The company is owned by the photogs who take the pics. The images come from the photogs who run/founded the company."

New All Access Celebrity Photo Agency ... And A New Wireimaged Blog

Yesterday the very new celebrity photo agency All Access Photo Agency (second URL: aapagency.com) announced anonymously its launch and the Wireimaged blog.

In announcing the news, the LA-based (the website adds NY) company noted that this "new concept" offers "free high res celebrity photos for your unlimited use from our events, we are giving our photos away for free, no account login, no sign up, no fees, it´s free."

All Access Photo Agency believes that "the media coverage photo industry is a laggard in terms of service to its clients and the industry as a whole."

"All Access Photo Agency (AAPA) believes that the future of the industry includes unlimited, free press and photo distribution to the public and media outlets alike."