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19 Responses to “What Nice People We All Are”

  1. John says:

    Great that;I know from personal experience how helpful Colin is after he corrected one of my descriptions of a historic aircraft – much appreciated.
    One of the things I like about fotoLibra is its friendly, “family” atmosphere.
    All the best,
    John

  2. Sherri Carnson says:

    What a super account of aviation historians interest in solving mysteries. It’s why I became a librarian in the beginning and a PPL later on!

  3. Fantastic – having struggled and given up many times to identify photo content & subject provenance you’ll have to rename Colin the Photo Sherlock Holmes!

  4. John Cleare says:

    Lovely story – interest, patience, attention to detail – and not forgetting a bit of modern software of course.

    Interest in, and an in-depth knowledge of one’s subject, seems often to go with photography. The professional picture researchers of yesteryear knew this, but alas Mr Getty, where are they now ?

    I often get called upon to I.D. mountains, or parts thereof, and not long ago discovered that Mr Edward Whymper himself ( of eternal Matterhorn fame – 1865 ) had muddled his mountains in his own collection of Alpine photographs.

    As you say, microstockers and outfits such as Getty can’t hold a candle to we knowledgeable and meticulous fotoLibre folk. Why, only last Sunday Getty supplied the Telegraph with a ( quite nice ) picture of Lands End which they claimed was Durdle Door. No interest, no patience, no attention to detail, lots of modern software….and oodles of ‘don’t care’ eh ?

    • Gwyn Headley says:

      Quite right John! Only last week a promotion for Ireland used a photograph of Scotland’s Eilean Donan Castle.

      I forebore from blogging about it because I am beginning to sense a pattern — Birmingham got a lot of attention for using an image of Birmingham, Alabama, USA so maybe clients are doing this deliberately and with forethought, knowing they’ll get far more publicity by screwing up than they ever would from using a correct but unremarkable image.

      Or am I too cynical?

  5. Erik Strodl says:

    Ah ha we have found out who the expert guru on planes…Mr Colin Smedley….having uploaded many aircraft pictures I wondered how on earth the description of some them had changed…..not that I would argue as I am no expert.
    What detail and research went into the above just shows the commitment and dedication of your team to get matters spot on. If only picture buyers would realise that!

    • Gwyn Headley says:

      I didn’t realise I’d blown his cover — oops!

      But thank you for the comment Erik, and if only … if only … if only … but price now appears to be the sole, absolute, unique and all-overriding consideration.

      All power has been taken out of the picture researchers’ hands and they are told which picture libraries they can use — which are only those microstock companies which have done deals with MegaCorp’s board for tuppence a picture.

  6. King solo says:

    This are really falling in its place, no matter the age.

  7. Fantastic mystery, beautifully solved. Shows a level of care and attention to detail that many historians lack!

    I licensed an image of a pastry a while back (via another library – *hangs head in shame*). The image was clearly captioned and keyworded by me following some careful research on this particular local delicacy (local to town level) in a foreign land. The end user (a very popular Russian magazine with a large readership) decided to completely ignore the metadata and used the image to portray a completely different pastry in order to suit their purpose.

    An image of the particular pastry they were after is not available at fotoLibra, nor at the other agency. In fact, I can only find ONE photo of the actual foodstuff available at ONE agency! But is that an excuse for calling a dog a cat?

    Some may call it pedantry, I call it precision! Perhaps if some of us similarly-minded folk had been able to document these things a while back, we’d likely know a lot more about King Dick III.

    By the way, I think that I could easily out-moan you. In any case, I don’t think that you *completely* fit in with your cultural stereotype: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-31816926!

  8. jane martindale says:

    Brilliant and the orchids sublime.
    yes what is that secret software? i need help to resuscitate an iso1000 picture for enlarging without the grain….
    know you haven’t yet got my portfolio, but it will be happening this year…so hold your breath…..

    Thanks for all the good blogs and e mails.
    Jane

  9. kushelevitch says:

    the only thing I can add is that the plane is badly parked , you can see the parking bay lines very clearly ,pilot needs to test eyes.

  10. Arief Wara Perdana says:

    Nice, I really love it