Posts Tagged ‘stock agency’
Mountains into Molehills
April 1st, 2010
by Gwyn Headley
Managing Director
fotoLibra member John Cleare is a world-famous mountain photographer who made his reputation long before fotoLibra was even a gleam in my eye, so we can claim no credit for his fame, alas. Indeed, I handled the publicity for one of his mountain books back in 1979, so he knows whereof he writes (and shoots).
Brocken Spectre, Lochnagar ©John Cleare / fotoLibra
–
He sent me an email yesterday, lamenting the decline in standards of captioning, and I agree with every word.
I’ll share with you my indignation at the use, all too frequent these days, of wrongly captioned pictures by the media. It’s my current pet gripe, and I could recount a series of ghastly gaffs that I’ve noticed since digitisation became the norm.
Only the other day the Daily Telegraph ran a major travel feature on skiing at Lake Louise in the Canadian Rockies, illustrated by a (very nice) picture of Moraine Lake, which of course is somewhere else and is well known and easily recognisable to boot. Naturally I take note of the many pictures of Everest that I come across in the media — from the Times, to the BBC, to my wife’s magazines. Some 30% or more are not Mount Everest, yet are captioned as such. Colleagues tell me such happenings are all too frequently seen in their own fields too.
Is it that the photographer doesn’t caption the material properly ? Is it that Mr Getty doesn’t care ? Is it that the Picture Editor doesn’t care ?
I can’t see it happening with the fotoLibra system !
I’ve moaned about the matter to BAPLA many times over recent years but of course they can do little about it except to encourage “TRUTH”.
At the risk of blotting my copybook, I’ve moaned to guilty (?) picture editors and researchers in several really blatant cases. Even when we’ve known each other by name, in only one case has there ever been a response — and that was claiming the caption supplied was incorrect.
It may well have been true, but it’s as good excuse as any.
Thanks to digitisation, the whole picture industry has changed so much in recent years that the days of the small, specialist independent are in the past, perhaps fortuitously at a time when folk seem surprised that I’ve not retired long since. But of course like mountaineering, making pictures is a way of life from which one can never retire — I’ve done five books in the past eighteen months and led one excellent small expedition, although I suppose I shall gradually fade away in due course.
I do like the fotoLibra system, and for someone busy like myself, responding to specific picture calls is a convenient way to operate, besides airing pictures that no one would ask me for in the normal way, given my specialist reputation.
John has hit the nail on the head. There is a lot of sloppy work out there, and I don’t know whether it’s because people are too busy, overworked, stressed, tired, drugged, drunk or because they simply don’t care. Forty years ago if you did something wrong you got sacked. That can’t happen now.
And thank you John for your very kind comments about fotoLibra but the unpalatable truth is that it could occasionally happen. I don’t think many of our staff could readily distinguish between Moraine Lake and Lake Louise, so we have to rely on the accuracy of our members. We’ll correct errors where we’re sure we’re right (the Eiffel Tower is not white, circular and leaning), and thanks to the brilliant Colin Smedley our aviation photographic captions are the most accurate in the picture library world — but in the end we have to rely on the photographer.
Let’s work together to turn this picture captioning mountain into a molehill. For our part, it’s down to us to ensure the captions and keywords we give to our images are as precise and as accurate as possible. After they’re sold, publication is out of our hands — we can’t afford to go to the printers and stand over the Heidelbergs — but if the final image appears wrongly captioned or attributed, we can and always do make our displeasure strongly known to the buyer.
Don’t mess with fotoLibra members’ photographs!
autoFocus
March 18th, 2010
by Gwyn Headley
Managing Director
In her latest Newsletter Jacqui Norman reveals another new fotoLibra feature which is actually still on the drawing board.
It’s called autoFocus, and it’s envisaged as a rolling newsfeed of stories of interest to to picture buyers and photographers. I want it to appear as a tickertape band rolling across the screen but apparently there are technical problems with that which, though surmountable, are too development time intensive to commit to. We will see.
In whatever form it eventually appears it will feature stories drawn from a glittering variety of sources, from our favourite personal blogs to authoritative statements and declamations from industry bodies. Of course it will have to be selective simply because of the sheer volume of information available on the net, but it will not favour money, influence and brand loyalties over iconoclasm, plaudits, discoveries, brickbats and advice, or indeed vice-versa. It will not take sides on Canon vs. Nikon debates (or Exakta vs. Thornton-Pickard for our Heritage members).
But as you will realise these are all fine thoughts during work in progress. What we finally release may be quite different, but whatever happens it will only be as good and as useful as its source material. We want to make this as broad ranging as possible.
If you enjoy a photo blog, forum or website, and better still if you run or write one, please let us know so we can add it to autoFocus. Obviously it must have an RSS or Atom feed enabled, but don’t you worry your pretty little head about that, we’ll check it out.
We very much hope you’ll all enjoy it and find it useful, and we also hope you’ll tell us what you want to see.
More Microstock Moans
March 16th, 2010
by Gwyn Headley
Managing Director
I really can’t get my head around microstock websites. The bit I can’t understand is why the participating photographers think so little of their work that they’re prepared to value it so cheaply.
Someone recently asked on a Canon forum “Has anybody had experience of using Fotolibra to sell pictures?” Having just helped send out over 100 sales notifications so far this week I thought I could answer that, but my application to sign up to the forum has not yet been verified.
Someone wrongly assumed fotoLibra was a microstock site and posted an answer linking to three blogs recounting experiences with these kinds of agencies. They weren’t universally positive. Out of interest, here they are:
Microstock Tips | Pixels Away | Erik Kolstad’s Blog
They are not right up-to-the-minute (the market has almost stiffened and died since these figures) but none the less I am astounded at how little these supplying photographers are prepared to accept. Have they no pride in their work?
One wrote:
I’m a climate scientist in Bergen, Norway. Starting in 2008, I have been contributing to a number of stock photography sites. I started out with iStockphoto, and after a while I joined Shutterstock and Dreamstime as well. Now I have quit Shutterstock, largely because of their ridiculous royalty scheme (they pay you $0.25 for each customer download). I’m currently trying out SnapVillage, Fotolia, 123rf.com and the German agency PantherMedia.
I couldn’t help but respond, although unfortunately I do sound a bit sniffy from time to time:
May I correct you? You are not actually trying out stock photography sites, you are trying out MICROstock photography sites.
Proper picture libraries such as fotoLibra.com sell fewer images than the microstock sites because we value the work of photographers more highly, and therefore charge accordingly.
You would probably only sell a fiftieth of what you could sell on a microstock site through fotoLibra.
But you would probably earn a hundred times as much.
Our average picture sale for a rights managed image is €56 / $77 / £51. Standard fotoLibra photographers get 50% of that.
So one fotoLibra sale would normally net you $38.50 / £25.50. That’s the equivalent of 154 sales through Shutterstock.
I think that’s a very compelling argument. I have no doubt the microstock apologists will disagree.
The Keyword Poem
January 29th, 2010
by Gwyn Headley
Managing Director
I’ve lifted the following verbatim from Jacqui Norman’s regular newsletter to fotoLibra members.
“This strange poem, discovered on a fotoLibra server, lists in strict sequence the most commonly used keywords for the images in the fotoLibra archive. It’s more likely to have been on an Apple XServe than an HP Proliant, but all we know for sure is that this is the precise unedited and unaltered order of frequency of all keywords. Words appear individually; where they appear as if they could be linked, such as in
yellow
stone
east
africa
they’re not; that’s just the way the mop flops. Oh yes — and we inserted the punctuation and line breaks where we felt it to be right.
Of the water — England — and sea blue nature: UK!
White sky in park, travel, architecture: Britain!
Red landscape, river, beach, city tourism, north united, holiday trees.
A green south coast (formula Europe).
National great, grand black Wales.
London building garden, British west;
Flower, lake, old bird tourist art.
Summer kingdom, prix heritage, flowers tree to boat on wildlife people.
One Church — Scotland! Street winter history, new vacation bridge.
Mountains young, view wild, sand countryside, house (yellow stone) —
East Africa?
USA?
Clouds, snow, mountain, transport, country sport, car, animal island, town colour — Italy! Boats, sun …
America: light tower, road holidays, sunset world.
Castle: English man attraction portrait. Autumn birds, buildings spring, fishing; grass, air — life.
Animals rocks harbour, from up plant rock Spain food plants. Woman by colourful France at natural historic walking religion; village leisure leaves China bay forest seaside girl.
American sunny night (racing culture) ocean gardens — coastal brown — scenic day valley war with motor.
Ireland: ancient David beauty, wall orange.
Traditional beautiful wood female children, aircraft farm woodland royal field; pink color, hill high — reflection.
Sunday states steam evening is market for lifestyle. Close religious centre!
Head flying, canal weather, abstract ice coastline.
Cold railway district. Environment islands? Scene bright.
Horizontal rural Yorkshire; Canada; Asia; European child.
Stunning, isn’t it? Eat your heart out, Gerard Manley Hopkins. Can an Apple XServe be nominated for Poet Laureate?”
Talking about poetry, last year the local council in Gwynedd put on a series of Poetry Appreciation night classes, so along went Jacqui Norman. Only women showed up. Typical.
Jacqui had a word with the organizer, who this season announced the same course renamed as Advanced Poetry Appreciation. It’s now packed out with men.
fotoLibra 2009 Pro Blog Index
January 7th, 2010
by Gwyn Headley
Managing Director
Tags: Aaron's Apps, Aaron's Time Machine, Adobe, Amazon, Apple, BAPLA, book publishing, books, CS3, CS4, drag and drop, easy upload, ebook, ebooks, Encyclopedia of Fonts, fotoLibra, Google, heritage, iphone, iphone apps, Macintosh, marketing photographs, Microsoft, Model releases, photography, Photoshop, picture library, picture sales, Prices, property releases, rights, selling photographs, selling pictures, stock agency, territories, upload checker, user experience
Here’s an index to the fotoLibra Pro Blog for the whole of 2009.
As I complained 6 months ago, it takes a surprising amount of time to compile, so if there are any WordPress experts out there who know how to automate this process, we’d love to hear from you.
If you’re new to fotoLibra, welcome, and may we suggest you read through the HINTS & TIPS section, and if nothing else read Great Expectations. If you enjoy a bit of controversy, read BAPLA Shock Horror.
Comments are welcome, even on old posts, and will be read and often responded to.
HINTS & TIPS
- Three hundred pixels per inch
- Shots of Redemption
- How To Take Aerial Photographs When You Haven’t Got An Aeroplane
- Compression
- Great Expectations
- RSVP
ABOUT FOTOLIBRA
- New fotoLibra
- BOMBSHELL
- Most Popular Searches
- White Labelling
- A Third of a Million
- Picture Calls
- fotoLibra DND & Checker 2.1 Released
- Drag ‘n’ Drop Upload Checker
- The New Picture Call Tab
- SPQR
- Search Engines and fotoLibra
- Yahoo Blocks Our Emails
- It’s got to be today
- 300,000 up!
ADOBE
BAPLA
CUSTOMERS
E-BOOKS & PUBLISHING
- Free iPhone App: Aaron’s Time Machine: London Lyte!
- Orphan Books
- The Killer eBook Is Nearly Here
- UK Politicians Not Entranced by eBooks
- Primary School Books
- Getting ready for e-books and Graphics
- Kindle 2
- More Kindling
- The Killer Book for e-books
IT
LAW
MISCELLANY
- Winterval
- Reunited
- Prophecies & Prophets
- Unpleasant Comments & Spam
- Proto-foto-Libra
- Cancelled Air Show
- Giving It Away For Free
- A heritage in photography
- Farewell Kodachrome
- The perils of publishing
- Happy New Year
NETWORKING
NEWS
PICTURE CALLS
SECURITY
TRADE FAIRS
Reunited?
November 5th, 2009
by Gwyn Headley
Managing Director
99% of our Support queries ask “How do I make my pictures 300 ppi?”
Well here is the answer, but this morning we had a support query of a different nature:
I am trying to trace Rock Hardplace, who was a friend of mine in New York 40 years ago and on doing a yahoo search found some photos by him on your site – when I knew him he was a budding fashion photographer. I don’t expect you to give out personal information, but is there a way I could track him down through you?
Fifi L’Amour
Well, we don’t disclose our members’ contact details, but of course we’re more than happy to forward emails, especially ones like this.
I hope it’s a nice surprise. Maybe it’s an invitation to the triplets’ 40th birthday celebrations?
Of course, the names have been changed to protect the innocent.
BAPLA Shock Horror
October 28th, 2009
by Gwyn Headley
Managing Director
Yesterday was the Annual General Meeting of the British Association of Picture Libraries and Agencies, our trade body. BAPLA represents the interests of picture libraries large and small, and fotoLibra has been a member since before we started trading. There is a link to the BAPLA web site on every single page of the fotoLibra site.
Nothing prepared us for what we heard at the AGM. Times are tough for everyone, BAPLA as well as fotoLibra. They’ve lost about 50 members over the past year or two, and as the annual fees are substantial, that makes a hefty dent in their finances.
So they have cast around for a way to improve their cash flow. And they’ve come up with the same idea that we came up with seven and a half years ago.
They’ve invented fotoLibra.
More precisely, they have created something called the BAPLA Academy. The idea is that photographers pay an annual fee and get to upload their images to the BAPLA web site where they can be viewed and made available for “non-commercial sales” (a wonderful oxymoron on a par with business ethics, or military intelligence).
I don’t have all the details to hand, because all this came from the BAPLA Director’s presentation and we don’t have a hard copy. But as I stared slack-jawed in amazement at the screen he blithely described the business plan of fotoLibra — except we provide commercial sales; our members make money from their photographs. That’s the whole point of fotoLibra; otherwise they might as well be on Flickr.
The concept of fotoLibra was to provide a platform for any photographer to make money selling his pictures. No tortuous submission procedure, no minimum upload, no “professionals only” barriers, no elitism — just raw market forces. Display and sell. And we provide all the advice and tools the photographer needs to achieve that aim. Jacqui Norman does an astounding job of advising, chivvying, helping, correcting, and pushing fotoLibra member photographers to make their images as saleable as possible. The web site and the Submission Guidelines are packed with information, advice, hints and tips.
Now our own Trade Association — the guys we pay to represent our interests — have announced that they are setting up in direct competition to us. Yvonne and I could not believe what we were hearing. Up went Yvonne’s hand. She was ignored. From personal experience I knew that was a bad move on BAPLA’s part — you ignore Yvonne at your peril. And indeed after the AGM she cornered the BAPLA President, the BAPLA Chairman and the BAPLA Director and subjected them to a withering blast. If they’d forgotten about fotoLibra — as they obviously had — then they were left in no doubt whatsoever that one section of their happy community was disaffected by news of the BAPLA Academy.
They attempted to placate us. The BAPLA Academy was no threat or competition to fotoLibra whatsoever. They’d trialled it with focus groups, and it wasn’t going to be a problem. But looking into their troubled eyes, we could see this was going to be a BIG problem. They simply hadn’t thought of us.
We’ve done this. We’ve sweated blood to set fotoLibra up and it has cost us a fortune. We know how hard it is. It’s a full time job for eight people. And there are only five of us. Without the help of a company like ours, a company that has already ploughed this unique furrow, BAPLA with its 2.5 staff and its capital derived entirely from member subscriptions is going to have a hell of a hard time running this Academy.
The BAPLA Academy will be directly competing for the subscriptions of the same photographers who supply fotoLibra with its top images. The same graduates, keen amateurs, semi-pros, wedding and studio photographers we work hard to attract, encourage and foster.
It’s not about print and mousemat sales versus rights sales, it’s about diverting a body of good, keen and potentially great photographers to ally with BAPLA rather than fotoLibra. That’s not BAPLA’s remit.
But if they’re determined to do it, then they should talk to us — once we’ve overcome our horror and dismay. We are better placed than any other organisation to help them.
New fotoLibra
October 1st, 2009
by Gwyn Headley
Managing Director
We’ve kept our heads down over the past few weeks but now, finally, it’s complete.
The new fotoLibra web site was launched a couple of hours ago. It looks great, it has a host of new features and it’s just as reliable and fast as it ever was.
Now we’re going to go out and party. So I’ll describe it to you tomorrow. But if you can’t wait, then explore fotoLibra.com right now.
Frankfurt Appointments
September 16th, 2009
by Gwyn Headley
Managing Director
I’m booking myself appointments at the Frankfurt Book Fair. I don’t bother with my old pals, because I’ll run into them anyway. I will check with the contacts I already have to see if they’ve got a few spare minutes so we can catch up.
But what I’ll concentrate on is the publishers we don’t already have relationships with; in other words, I’m cold calling.
And a more fatiguing, depressive, unwelcoming task is hard to imagine. There must be some, I suppose.
At least I’m not getting rejected on the phone. I’m emailing these people, and I’m selecting publishers who specialise in illustrated books and who therefore presumably need a good supply of images.
THEN I get rejected. No comprende.
Of course, I get a slew of appointments out of it. Most people are polite and happy to fix a meeting. That’s great. Many simply don’t respond. Fair enough. Some reply and they’re all booked up. Fair enough. Some reply saying they’re the wrong person. Fair enough.
But I am constantly surprised by the steady minority of business people who are shocked and appalled by an unsolicited approach. How dare I contact such important people and suggest they soil their hands by shaking mine? What possible reason would a publisher of illustrated books have for meeting someone from a picture library? What temerity!
These aren’t casual rejections. They’ve often done a little bit of research so they can mention a competitor, or refer to a field in which we have little expertise (increasingly rare nowadays). There is a basic intent to wound.
I don’t know if it makes us less important and them more so. It can’t be that, because it doesn’t work.
Human nature I guess, hitting blindly out at someone unknown, on a par with my impotent raging at voicemail and bank security questions.
Most Popular Searches
September 4th, 2009
by Gwyn Headley
Managing Director
When new members join fotoLibra they occasionally ask us questions (prodding us to see if we’re mortal, I suppose). If they do ask, perhaps the most common is “What are people searching for?”
It’s easily answered, and it’s of no commercial use to them or us.
The answer is
1. Sex
2. Breasts
3. Tits
Need I go on?
A professional picture buyer doesn’t do repeated searches anyway, so it’s hard to analyse the information. Most of them simply tell us what they want and leave us to do the searching, which is why we keep rabbiting on to our members about the importance of key words.
When I saw a list of the most pirated ebooks this year I had a feeling I could guess what would be on it. I was not wrong.
These are the books that have been downloaded through BitTorrent between 100,000 and 250,000 times this year:
1. Kamasutra
2. Adobe Photoshop Secrets
3. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Amazing Sex
4. The Lost Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci
5. Solar House – A Guide for the Solar Designer
6. Before Pornography – Erotic Writing In Early Modern England
7. Twilight – Complete Series
8. How To Get Anyone To Say YES – The Science Of Influence
9. Nude Photography – The Art And The Craft
10. Fix It – How To Do All Those Little Repair Jobs Around The Home
Depressing, but not as depressing as I’d feared.