Who needs microstock anymore ? Thanks to a new plug in for Microsoft office, it has become child play to easily rip an image found with Google Image and include it into a presentation or word document. There are absolutely no copyright warning and nothing to advise the user thatContinue Reading

Google just released a white paper on image pattern recognition, yesterday, in Miami. Not really a new concept and already developped by a few companies, like Imense, in the UK, this however is a sign that Google is going beyond text tagging to retrieve images. In brief, this technology usesContinue Reading

I was looking at this video of Clay Shirky presentation to TED TV today. It’s a little long ( 17 minutes) but very informative. especially the middle part. What made me thinking is  how he portrays the development of media. If you do not have the time to look atContinue Reading

Your stock photography at work : For those who have never been, this is a CEPIC congress. Rows and rows of tables and chairs. Every hour, on the hour, people move from one table to the other, looking at another computer screen while listening to a used pitch. Really, itContinue Reading

There is only one certitude in the photography business : If you don’t spend money, you will not make money. Everything else is educated guess that some confuse with a lottery game. As much as we never know for sure if an image will sell, and how many times, asContinue Reading

There is something very puzzling about this whole Orphan works bill and what is implied. The gist of it says that if a user cannot identify the owner of an image, he/she can legally use it without suffering a huge penalty. In a nutshell.  Hear me out. One of theContinue Reading

There used to be something called “digital rights”. That is, when a publication wanted the right to publish a copy of an image to use in a digital format, it would pay an additional license fee. At first, like the internet itself or CD ROM (remember those ?) circulation, itContinue Reading

“In five years? Maybe the only stock businesses are companies that add value by scouring the web for the best work within a genre?.sort of back to photo research services.“ When the great Ellen Boughn speaks, the world of photography listens : read the whole interview here : http://learnaniche.com/blog/2009/04/22/ellen-boughn-and-the-future-of-stock-photography/Continue Reading

Lots of people have asked what to do in a down economy ? Some answer with what not to do, like slashing prices, but no one really offers a solution. Yet, answers are everywhere. I know of at least 2 photographers that had a hard time selling their images whoContinue Reading

In an email send globally, Jonathan Klein finally announces the layoffs: It starts : “ I am writing to you today with some unpleasant news. We have tried very hard to avoid lay offs during the continued turmoil in the world’s economy. However, it is now clear that we haveContinue Reading