StockPhotoTalk | Special Interest Blog

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.

Pino Granata: Once Upon A Time In Photography

There are a few things that make me think that Photography the way we have known it doesn´t exist anymore.

It doesn´t exist anymore a culture of photography and editors consider pictures something they can´t do without but that doesn´t deserve much attention.

With a few exceptions the pictures published in the papers today have little to do with the text that should be illustrated.

A lot of people blame the large offer of images we have today. Only on Flickr there are 3 billion pictures and it´s better not to make fools of ourselves and say a good share of them are not garbage and also they are almost free.

Pino Granata: Desperate Stockphoto Dealers

I went to Stockholm for the weekend to see a friend of mine who is also a business associate. He works very hard but he is very unhappy about the business and he is very concerned about the future. He is exploring other options in the world of photography - but also in other businesses.

It´s not worth to work very hard to hear from picture editors that there is no money anymore in this industry. The offers he gets for his pictures are not even enough to cover the expenses.

He tells me of agencies which sell images to publishing houses for a ridiculous low monthly amount of money.

His girlfriend and partner in the business is even more desperate than him: there is no money anymore, she tells me.

Pino Granata: For Photography Big Is Bad

After the acquisition of Jupiterimages Getty Images will become bigger and will gain more share of the market.

As Clark Gable said, I don´t give a damn.

Now we´ll have over ten millions of LIFE pictures on Google which is quite a lot of competition for agencies which specialize in historical pictures.

The good thing about this operation is that, as it seems, Life is not going to charge for private usage and that we´ll have the chance to see the treasure that is the LIFE collection. I´m very, very excited about that.

This is something that our friend Bill should have done with the Bettman collection years ago.

Pino Granata: Errare humanum est, perseverare diabolicum

There are very deep changes in the industry and all are very bad.

Alan Meckler has sold Jupiterimages to Getty Images and we can imagine why he sold. If I remember well he bought PictureArts for $65 millions and he made other acquisitions that somebody says have cost around $170 millions dollars including PictureArts so I realize that in selling Jupiterimages for $96 millions Alan Meckler and his shareholders have lost some money.

Maybe it was a good choice and by selling he has saved his company from bankruptcy which is a bad thing.

Slowly but safely Getty Images is going to have the monopoly of the industry which is not good news for us. Now I hear the news from Corbis.

Pino Granata: The Stock photo market crash

Barack Obama and John McCain have Joe the plumber from Ohio. We have, let´s call him, John Smith, a friend of mine who used to live between New York City and Los Angeles.

I saw him again after a few years in LA during my last trip. He told me: I have to reinvent my life which wasn´t bad.

Until a few years ago, shooting stock, I used to make a couple of thousands with one of the big three and another couple of thousands with an english photo agency.

I also used to have assignments for 3 or 4 thousands and my life wasn´t that bad.

Pino Granata: The Death of William Claxton

Every time I see a William Claxton picture I can´t help thinking of the time I had the chance to work with this great photographer.

For most people Claxton is the jazz photographer and this is partially true.

He worked for many years for Globe Photos, at that time the best celebrity photo agency of the 50's, 60's and 70's.

For more than 20 years I was the sales manager of an agency which represented Globe Photos in Italy and William Claxton was one of the best photographers of that agency.

Pino Granata: We have reached the bottom

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.

Pino Granata: Photography is dead

When I read that Corbis is selling pictures for the incredible low amount of 16 cents each I felt a terrible discomfort and depression.

I wondered why this nightmare is happening just to me. It looks like there´s no ending to insanity and craziness.

Talking about our business it seems to me that we are going from the stars to the stables. I´ve never seen an industry changing philosophy so dramatically like photography.

For decades we used to talk with great pride about high prices we used to charge our clients, now we see photo agencies selling pictures for a few cents.

Why is this happening?

Pino Granata: About The New Corbis Museum

So I´m about to visit the site of the new Corbis museum: the MofAA. It was time, I thought, for our friend and colleague Bill Gates to do something of some cultural value for the community.

So very excited I go to see this new marvel. Well, it says that it is a virtual museum which - if I understand it right - means that it exists only in the digital world. Well better than nothing, I thought. So I went on www.mofaa.org, ready to see wonderful exhibitions and more.

A few shows are announced and the problems start. It looks like all the shows are reserved for benefactors only and I understand, our friend Bill Gates has a large family to support and he desperately needs my money and your money.

I try to register, but no luck. So I try again and nothing happens. Please, is there anybody who can suggest how I can enjoy the exibitions of this new "virtual" museum?

BAPLA Fair: A Happy Island

 

Maybe it´s too late to talk about the BAPLA Fair, but I hope it´s not.

This event is a very special event. Being there you have the impression that the Brits have a blind faith in the future of photography.

The atmosphere among the participants was friendly and positive, you could feel the british humour and it helped a lot in these very difficult moments.

New York Photo Festival: Much Ado About Nothing

 

Even though I´m in favour of anything which can help photography I don´t feel to say that the New York Photo Festival has been a big deal.

New York should have done something more important and lasting.

A city like New York with ten millions people living in that area and with millions of tourists coming from all parts of the world, should have offered something that every visitor would have remembered.

To start with, 4 days it´s a too short time. I would like to remember to the curators that the Perpignan Festival lasts 2 weeks.

To be honest from what I´ve read I daresay that the NYPF has been very little advertised and that the content seems not very attractive.

Pino Granata: Let´s try to do the right things

 

The stock photography at all is doing very badly.

Still we have to analyze what will be the impact on the industry of the sale of Getty Images to Hellman & Friedman which is the most important event in years. This is a fact that can´t be denied.

Every day there are some more bad news. Now we get to know that Masterfile will fire some employees and other agencies will lower some prices.

But these things now happen almost every day. To lay off employees and to lower prices will not solve the problem of this industry and it will make things even more worse and this is another fact.

20 years ago I was dealing with Tony Stone to represent his agency in Italy.