StockPhotoTalk | Special Interest Blog

QuickLinks For 2009-05-10

• Freelens Petition:
  Many Magnum photographers have signed the petition against the Jahreszeiten publishing house and its contract conditions, meanwhile overall more than 2,800 photographers, photojournalists and other professionals.
  Check it out here.

Pino Granata: The Misery of Contemporary Photography

Nowadays, most discussions on photography focus on the birth of some new microstock agency where pictures will be sold for a few cents or the closing of one of the new initiatives started to make money easily.

There are a few exceptions, but certainly there is no interest in promoting photography. Analysts have overlooked though that all those agencies that had gone public, they have now either gone bankrupt or have chosen to become private again. This is the case of A21, Getty Images and Jupiterimages.

What does all this mean? Probably, it just means that this option isn't viable and that no other agency will choose to go public. I have no idea how many investors have lost money, but I do believe there are quite a few such people.

Photography doesn't allow much return over investment.

World Press Photo of the Year 2008

How the times and the images have changed.

   

Anthony Suau, USA, for Time. US Economy in Crisis: Following eviction, Detective Robert Kole must ensure residents have moved out of their home, Cleveland, Ohio, 26 March.

Jury chair MaryAnne Golon said: "The strength of the picture is in its opposites. It's a double entendre. It looks like a classic conflict photograph, but it is simply the eviction of people from a house following foreclosure. Now war in its classic sense is coming into people's houses because they can't pay their mortgages."

More about this photo here and the other winners here.

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 2008-07-08

• Photojournalism for the Web Generation:
  "Exactly upside down" is how Brian Storm, 37, describes the business model that guides the making, selling and viewing of photojournalism.
  How have they turned photojournalism upside down? Old LIFE stories began with an idea, and editors would assign photographers to produce pictures and a writer to produce text to fit that concept. MediaStorm producers start with the photographs.
  Using one client as an example, Mr. Storm talks about the benefits of MediaStorm´s workshops for writers, photographers and other media professionals. "The L.A. Times is no longer a newspaper trying to make a Web site work. It is a multimedia production company with great resources."
  MediaStorm, he says, "is a purpose-driven organization. I want to make photojournalism work by sharing the secrets other journalists knew, the backstories, the context for the images that made it to print. The problem isn´t bad pictures. The best stuff got left out because in the days of print we couldn´t use it. Photojournalism can make people care about the world if we learn to stop and take the time to tell a good story. Quality rules."
  WSJ/Mary Panzer (compiled).

Henri Cartier-Bresson, interviewed by Charlie Rose

   

One Hundred Minutes James Nachtwey

Now on YouTube since a few hours: for his award-winning film War Photographer, Christian Frei followed James Nachtwey for two years into the wars in Indonesia, Kosovo, Palestine... . He used special micro-cameras attached to James Nachtwey´s camera.

10 videos, each around 10 minutes long. Below is Part I. Full DVD here.

 

 

Reportage by Getty Images

Bringing a "voice to the voiceless, power to the powerless and help to the helpless" through powerful and poignant imagery:

 

Reportage by Getty Images is the company´s new flash-based platform for promoting the work of Getty´s photojournalists.

The Circle of Life: separate UGC page now available

You can now access and play instantly the best and most significant user generated videos with images from Getty Images Footage, Corbis and Flickr here on this separate page. From joy over love to pain, from enthusiasm over melancholy and gloom to death: the images, the videos and the music cover nearly all aspects of our life.
(video below with Flickr images)

 

Bleeding Africa

Following two earlier posts (see related stories) how non-user-generated content appears remixed on YouTube as a vehicle to tell about your life, your thoughts and emotions, here is another visual narration by Kwapi T. Vengesayi on YouTube about Bleeding Africa with images from Corbis and their photographers.
This time it is not appropriate to post the original video and its content here in this context, so please simply click on the screenshot below or follow this link to YouTube.

 

More about Kwapi T. Vengesayi on his blog, his profile and on YouTube (the person which produced the video and uploaded it to YouTube in July 2007 seem to be identical).