StockPhotoTalk | Special Interest Blog

Devine Closes Its Doors

Paris-based photo agency Devine, a Digital Railroad member since early 2006, announced yesterday that "we are closing our agency". Devine had three main specialities for editorial and commercial clients:

• Portrait and outdoor assignments
• Custom or speculation stock
• Features with text.

Founded in February 2006, Devine´s aim was "to create a light and a very efficient photographer´s agency organised for and around photographers." The agency admitted that they haven´t managed it to show a profit so far. But founder Nicolas Clément - he worked earlier for the nature/general stock agency Sunset - said "setting up this agency needed a lot of sweat, but we also had a lot of fun so we will have no regrets".

Related:

• Devine, a new french Paris-based photo agency (March 02, 2006)

United Superheroes: Black Star Rising Blogs With Jim Pickerell, Miracles Do Happen

Officially unveiled yesterday, Black Star is blogging.

Will it work this proposed way?

ImageClick Partners With JoongAng Ilbo

Seoul-based image distributor ImageClick announces on this date a partnership with the korean newspaper JoonAng Ilbo for the overseas copyrights of the editorial image assets of the company.

JoonAng Ilbo, one of the "big three newspapers" in Korea, published first in 1965 by Lee Byung-chul, also the founder of the Samsung Group, belongs to the JMnet (JoongAng Ilbo Media Network), engaged in newspapers, publishing and broadcasting, with offices in NYC, LA and Chicago.

The company says it was the first asian publication to offer internet news services to its readers in 1995 (in comparison, Yahoo started in 1994 as "Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web").

Gossip Gangsta Blogger Perez Hilton Vs. Celebrity Photo Agency X17: IP Attorney Notes "Impossible To Tell Who Would Prevail"

The LA Times (Robin Abcarian/Jessica Garrison) is out with a long two-page report on "Perez Hilton takes their best shots: The gossip blogger's use of an agency's paparazzi photos puts the legal spotlight on copyright infringement".

For people in the stock photo industry, the article starts with the surprising sentence: "It's hard to know whom to sympathize with in this fight".

 

New Photo Agency EyeCandy Images Launched

At the recently held PACA conference in Key West BJ Formento and Richeille Formento announced the launch of their new photo agency EyeCandy Images, which starts with multicultural RF and RM image collections.

BJ Formento, with a strong background as professional photographer and former contributor to Digital Vision, Image Source and Corbis, serves as the company´s CEO; Richeille Formento, a former CD working for Calvin Klein and DKNY, as VP Creative.

According to Richeille, after showcasing EyeCandy´s images for the first time during the PACA, "many of our peers stated that we were as good as, if not better than Photonica".

Do Not Steal Images of Brad Pitt: Celebrity Photo Agency Picture Perfect Creates Public Access Options

Will has the report that "Celeb photo agency Picture Perfect Agency based in Los Angeles, CA, are offering the public download accounts", for images and prints. The Platinum Package for 80 bucks grants unlimited access to the comlete archive. Here´s an overview of the "subscription" plan:

For Public Access Options Select A Package Below: Access is immediate upon credit card approval. Download images now!

$5 - One time downloads for $5 each   Download any image for $5 each

$10 - Buy 8X10 Prints for $10 each   Prints will be shipped within 10 working days.

$20 - Standard Package (Monthly)   View Watermarked Images from the COMPLETE Archive.

$30 - Silver Package (Monthly)   Download access to full size images all archived pictures of the past 30 days up to date of purchase.

$60 - Gold Package (Monthly)   Download access to full size images all archived pictures of the past SIX months.

$80 - Platinum Package (Monthly)   Unlimited download access to the COMPLETE Archive.

Picture Press Starts To Convert Images Of Photo Sharing Community Into Cash, Flickr Probably Follows

This blog speculated a lot in the past about the possible impact on the stock photo industry, especially  the micropayment business, if Flickr one day will give Flickr users the possibility to commercialize their images (Flickr has 4 million registered photographers of all levels and around 200 million photos, numbers as of July 24), even if only a low percentage of these image might currently qualify for selling.

Yesterday Internetnews.com ran an article ("Making Money For The Flickr Flock?") with some statements of Flickr´s founders Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield on this topic.

But, once in a blue moon, my fellow Germans are obviously faster.

Jason Pagan Launches Alternative Photojournalism Agency Anarchy Images

Tired of yet another new royalty-free collection with hispanic or southeast-moroccan focus and yet another new starting micropayment site from Greenbow, Alabama? 

Jason Pagan, formerly working for The Bettmann Archive, Corbis and the Black Star Photo Agency, starts a new career as President and owner of Anarchy Images, a new story-based photojournalism agency for deep photographic coverage on international social and political issues.

Ex-Corbis SVPs Jennifer Hurshell And Joe Barrett To Launch GoGo Images During The Upcoming CEPIC Congress

According to a notification this date of London based stock photo industry consulting company Pepper Stark, the former Corbis employees Jennifer Hurshell and Joe Barrett will launch their new venture GoGo Images during the upcoming CEPIC congress and introduce GoGo Images to the stock photo community in one of Pepper Stark´s seminars.

Jennifer Hurshell (Senior V. P. Commercial Image Licensing) and Joe Barrett (SVP, Marketing) left (or have been forced out of the company) Corbis in August 2005. Both are guest speakers during Pepper Stark's distribution seminars at Biarritz.

GoGo Images is described as:

Datacraft Japan Looking For International Distribution Partners

Datacraft, the japanese company that claims to be the Number One stock photo company in Japan through its stock brands, disclosed today that it is actively looking for international sales and distribution partners for their following collections:

• "QxQ"(Q by Q; also available here)
  

• "sozaijiten" (also available here)

by single image download.