Last week the UK-based Alamy stock photo library announced that they're going to increase their commission fees by five percent (thus decreasing photographer's income by five percent) in order to open a U.S. office in New York and start competing for the commercial use dollars which Getty dominates. This has stirred up quite a bit of controversy on many of the photo forums. Not many people are happy that they're funding their American expansion with money out of suppliers pockets.
In particular, John Harrington posted on his Photo Business News blog that he thinks its a terrible move and a cover for CEO James West to shop Alamy around NY and find a buyer.
I disagree, and I posted these comments on his blog post:
John, I politely disagree with you. I think this is a great approach and a good business strategy. Atypical yes, but good nonetheless.
Alamy has a very predictable and ever increasing revenue stream. (Their sales and revenue figures are freely available on their website.)
CEO James West's approach ensures a consistent monthly budget within which to build the New York office. It is far better than raising million of dollars like Photoshelter did and then blowing it all in a few months. Competing with Getty in the commercial use market will take YEARS. It takes years because it's a game of major corporations like Alamy making inroads and preferred vendor agreements with large advertising firms and other major corporations. Longevity is key. As James said in their press release, "Around 80 per cent of our revenue comes from high value, high volume large accounts but we are under-exposed in this market in the US." If they can stay within their budget, then I think this will give them the time they need.
If they can just get a foot-hold, then it's self-perpetuating. Increased revenue from U.S. sales means more money they poor back into the market on advertising and free Martini hours for NY ad execs.
If it fails, so what? It would be an embarrassment obviously, but at least they will not be out millions of dollars in debt.
As far as whether this is a move to shop Alamy around NY and look for a buyer, I just don't think so. The market timing would be terrible and with the weak dollar I don't see any U.S. firms running out to buy foreign companies. I'm sure Alamy is quite a cash cow for its owners.
I also suspect James West thrives on a challenge and competing with Getty and Corbis in the U.S. gives him that. If Alamy eventually gains 33% of the U.S. market, then yeah, he might get bored and want to sell it off and do something else.
For now, I support the move, and I'm not pulling my images.
This dog in an original member of The Beach Boys, Canine Chapter.
Woman surfing together with Pug dog on surfboard on Kiahuna Beach, Kauai, Hawaii, USA.
On our last morning on Kauai before flying home later that day, I got up early with plans to drive to a nearby botanical garden and get some shots of the beautiful Hawaiian flowers and fauna. Much of Jurassic Park (as well as dozens of other movies) were filmed on Kauai and at least one of the scenes was filmed in the botanical garden just down the road from our hotel.
In slow motion, it seamed like, I got my photo backpack together, grabbed the tripod, and made sure to pull all the memory cards out of my laptop from the night before and then slogged down my tired body down to the rental car one last time to get some parting shots only to find... that the car wouldn't start! The battery was dead. So while I felt blessed that I was finding this out a few hours before we had to get to the airport on time, I was still very worried about getting the whole mess straightened out, whether we would have to exchange rental cars, etc. The rental car company was great though. I have to give Budget credit. They sent someone out fast to jump start it and all was good.
While the Budget guy was jumping the car battery the Pug dog that you see here ran right past me like he owned the whole beach. He knew exactly where he was going! (No swimsuit either. Very confident in his dog-inity!) Then I noticed the girl with the surfboard go by and shortly thereafter saw the dog get ON the surfboard!
After everything with the car was straightened out, I had to make a choice. Should I continue on to the garden and get photos that any photographer with a tripod and macro lens could capture, or take a shot at the surfing duo and hope I might get a model release?
I had to give it a shot. I put on my Nikon 70-200 VR lens, walked down to the beach, and started shooting. As it turns out, a lady came up to me on the beach asking about my lens and she turned out to be a professional photographer from California. A bit later she asked me to take shots of her son and daughter who had been taking surfing lessons. I didn't mind and she was more than willing to sign model releases for me in exchange for prints. (I also provide models with the images online where they're able to order prints at cost with no markup on my part.)
I was able to get some great shots of them. I might post a blog of those pics in the future. I started focusing mostly on the two kids but every now and then tried to get shots of the girl and dog. She had not gotten out of the water though, so I had given up at that point on getting a model release from her. It wasn't until I started walking back to the hotel to start packing my bags that I noticed she was paddling on her surfboard in the same direction and about to get out of the water.
I waited for her to shower off and then I approached her about signing a release for me. I admit that even though I've shot plenty of people before whom I've only just met and gotten releases from them, most of the time, in fact nearly all time, I ask beforehand! It's a bit intimidating to approach a beautiful woman in a bikini who you have been photographing from a distance and explain yourself! Luckily though, she didn't mind at all, and she even mentioned she had been wanting prints of her and her dog. (Sorry, I don't remember the doggie's name.)
In hindsight, I would have taken hundreds of pictures of the two of them surfing and really wish that I had done so. As I started editing the pictures I found I had a lot fewer shots than I thought, especially ones without other surfers in the frame. I suppose the lesson learned from this experience was to never assume you might not get a model release. Shoot like crazy and hope for the best.
By the way, the doggie was a surfing animal! (pun intentional) Every now and then she would go out in the water without him and he (or she) would pace back and forth on the shore watching her every move! Waiting to go again! The waves would come in and he would run toward the ocean as the waves receded and then run away when the next wave crashed on the beach!
Here are some macro shots of a Champagne glass I took a few weeks ago to test out the macro capabilities of the Canon G9. For a small point-and-shoot it packs some powerful capabilities. The first two shots were at 400 ISO and the third shot was at 200 ISO. I took some even more close-up than the last shot. The lens was quite literally IN the glass! Certainly something you can't do with an SLR! But the top-down view you see here in the third shot is as close as I could get and keep sharp focus. With all of these shots though, I had to clean-up the digital noise (the downside of a small point-and-shoot) with Noise Ninja.
Last year my wife and I were going back to our hotel in Rome when I heard a loud ruckus down the street in the Plazza della Repubblica. She went on to the room while I continued on to do some hard-hitting news photography. (Or at least practice for a few minutes.) I didn't have a clue what was going on other than there being a lot of red flags pointed in the air and Guns N' Roses music barring at full blast. It looked like a grand ole time.
I don't read or speak Italian, but I can make out a hammer and sickle emblem when I see one and reading "Comunista" on the flags--well, it wasn't hard to put two and two together. It was a rally/strike for the Communist Refoundation Party. I don't know what they were trying to "refound" but it seemed like a great excuse for all the subway workers to go on strike, take an extended smoke break, and parade around to Paradise City. Maybe they didn't understand the American lyrics any more than I understood Italian, but I've yet to see any communist city I would associate with mental images curiosity of Axl Rose. I suppose they were thining, "Guns and roses... hammers and sickles... Hey! We have a theme song!"
Politcal rally for the Communist Refoundation Party in Plazza della Repubblica, Rome, Italy on October 20, 2007.
The Moment It Clicks by Joe McNally would certainly win the Photo Book of the Year award if such an award were given, largely based solely on the hype that this book received. The book created a big buzz when it was released earlier this year, but I have only recently found time to read through it.
If anyone is qualified to write a "Been There, Done That" book on photography it would have to be Joe McNally. He has worked for Sports Illustrated, Time, National Geographic, and Life. Most notably, "from 1994 until 1998, he was Life magazine's staff photographer, the first one in 23 years".
In many ways the adventure story telling of Joe's book reminds me of one of the greatest photography books I have ever read, Life Photographers: What They Saw by John Loengard, former Life editor who interviewed all 88 photographers on the staff of Life magazine from 1933 until it ceased weekly publication in 1972. What they saw, first-hand, during their lifetimes from behind the camera was unbelievable.
Joe belongs in the same category.
The format of the Moment It Clicks is extremely simple. Every time you turn the page there is a photo on one side, and the story behind the image on the other. This is not the type of book where you will find detailed lighting diagrams and "follow these steps to carbon-copy this picture". Many of the write-ups do include a "How to Get This Type of Shot" box with a short paragraph describing what type of lighting equipment he used, where it was placed, the lens he used, etc. However, that level of detail is not the focus of this book. Rumor has it that his next book, The Hot Shoe Diaries: Creative Applications of Small Flashes (Voices That Matter), will have more of technical details. That's not to say there is not plenty of great technical tutorial information in the book. It's there.
What really makes this book valuable though are the very intriguing stories, some quite hilarious, and the type of lessons gained through a lifetime of on assignment work. I'm not going to try to list them out here because you often have to read his whole story about a photo in order to really "get it". It's the stuff that is not so easily put into words and often not shared at all.
The thing that brings it all together though, besides the tremendous photography, is that Joe is a great speaker and story-teller and that talent comes through in the writing of the book. I could give this book to my mom and she would really enjoy it. She would gloss over all of the photo tech "mumbo jumbo", but the stories themselves would be interesting to almost anyone.
I've given the Moment It Clicks a ranking of five highlighters out of five in my system, because I will read this book cover-to-cover again. In fact, I could read it again in 5 years, 10 years, or 20 years and it would still be relevant.
Here are some shots from my last trip to The Vatican that I just completed editing.
It was the second time I visited The Vatican, and one of the things I brought along to Europe with me on my last trip was the super-fast, Nikkor 50mm 1.4 prime lens. I knew from prior experience that it is very difficult to get sharp shots inside the large cathedrals of Europe, and they tend to frown upon photographer's setting up tripods inside churches and telling the priests to "strike a pose".
St. Peter's gets more light inside it than most others, but still it is a challenge. Even with a 1.4 lens I still had to shot at ISO 800. St. Peter's is so big and filled with so many Japanese tourists (no offense to the Japanese) that is nearly impossible inside it to get grand, wide-angle shots, so I focused on a lot of details.
St. Peter's basilica in Rome, Italy.
Sculpture of St. Peter at The Vatican. Vatican City, Rome, Italy.
Cobblestones in Piazza San Pietro in front of St. Peter's basilica in Rome, Italy.
Columns lining the facade of St. Peter's basilica in Rome, Italy.
Church pews inside St. Peter's basilica in Rome, Italy.
Michelangelo was the original architect of St. Peter's. His design called for a "plus shaped" nave, but it was later extended to the longer "cross shaped" nave. The dome of St. Peter's was designed by Michelangelo, though not finished in his lifetime.
The spectacular dome of St. Peter's basilica in Rome, Italy.
Sumptuously decorated Interior St. Peter's basilica in Rome, Italy.
Catholic priest walking into a confessional inside St. Peter's Basilica. Vatican City, Rome, Italy.
Detail of the intricate marble floor of inside St Peter's Basilica, Vatican City, Rome, Italy.
Minor cupola inside St Peter's Basilica, Vatican City, Rome, Italy.
Michelangelo was 25 years-old when he finished this Pietà .
Pietà by Michelangelo in St. Peter's Cathedral. Vatican City, Rome, Italy.
My blogging rate has slowed down the past couple of weeks because I've been so busy, but with any luck I plan to have something for you every day this week. I have some photography book reviews in my head that I would like to get out of there (free up some space) as well as some more travel photography from Rome, maybe even a few from Hawaii, and shots from some shoots I did earlier this year.
For now, here are a few more pictures from the same photo shoot I mentioned in my last blog:
Last Thursday I did an advertising shoot with the pretty young model above for Stunique Inc. (Speaking of, check out Stunique's Fall & Halloween Invitations as well as Halloween Party Supplies.) Stunique will be using the shots for their newsletter and advertising. We did a number of variations with our young model including some with her holding sunflowers:
My heart sank today as I read an email from PhotoShelter announcing that the PhotoShelter Collection is closing. I have spent hundreds of hours over the past year getting over one-thousand stock images on-line and pushed through their incredibly difficult keywording system. There are hundreds of other photographers in the same position.
Honestly, I never expected Digital Railroad and PhotoShelter to both succeed longer term. They were too similar to one another, but I didn't expect PhotoShelter to bail out so fast.
As one of many who have invested so much time with them as a stock agency, I was very angered by CEO Allen Murabayashi blog posting blaming their failure on the industry instead of their own incompetence and failure as business people. Listing things like Getty's dominance, PhotoShelter's inability to succeed on the research request market, and the "crowd-source model for stock will likely never work", Mr. Murabayashi is oblivious to all of the other profitable stock agencies in the marketplace who are succeeding on those very fronts and whose names are not "Getty", the most notable of which are Alamy and Digital Railroad. (DR certainly beat PhotoShelter to the research request market and appears to be doing quite well.)
One thing that is not debatable is that it takes a long, long time to gain traction in the stock industry. The fact that the PhotoShelter Collection didn't have the resolve or the capital to build a business over the longer time makes me highly question their ability to be sustainable as a company, even though they've pledge to keep operating the Photoshelter Archive. As of this writing the galleries and search features of my website are all driven by and integrated with my images on the PhotoShelter Archive. Now I, and all of their photographers I believe, will have to reevaluate that as PhotoShelter no longer deserves our faith and confidence.
How many weeks will be before an email appears completely out of nowhere, just like the one we received today, announcing that the PhotoShelter Archive is dead? All customer lightboxes inaccessible? All integrated websites non-function effective immediately?
The first shot below is an example of a simple architectural shot that was licensed in the past week. The second shot is a wider-angle view of the same building.
The Pulaski County Courthouse in Little Rock, Arkansas is on the National Register of Historic Places. I made this picture on an early Saturday morning so that downtown traffic and parking would not be of any concern. I actually arrived so early I had to wait in my vehicle for the sun to rise high enough over the gigantic skyscrapers we have here in Little Rock in order for the building to be lit. With the exception of a single liquor-smelling street beggar who apparently didn't get drunk enough the prior night to sleep late, I was left undisturbed to wander the streets, setup my tripod wherever I wanted, and frame some pictures. Here, the crisp blue sky made things easy as pie. In fact, I drove on to Memphis after this shoot and shot several other photos on the same day which have also been licensed. When the light is great, take advantage of it!
Last year a female fox raised her two pups in the band of woods between my parent's house and Greers Ferry Lake. I spent a lot of time photographing the fox family from behind a self-made photo blind, an old bed sheet with a hole cut in it for my lens! Over the winter they left for denser and warmer, I presume, forests. I believe my mom has seen one of the foxes only once this year. This past spring all the rain that we received caused the lake level to rise higher than it ever has before, and their old territory was completely under water for many weeks.
I'm glad to have had the chance to photograph them though, especially from the comfortable setting of home. The picture below is one of the pups after it was approximately three months old (personal guess). This image was licensed today for a children's book.
Mira, the stock agency of the Creative Eye Cooperative, has recently added a new Green Issues gallery of environmental photography to their homepage. I'm honored that six of my images are included in their featured collection including this one which I captured earlier this year: I'm also pleased to report that the following image from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam of school children viewing The Nightwatch by Rembrandt van Rijn was licensed twice to a textbook publisher through Mira. While a picture like this may not be the most edgy form of photography, editorial images are the lifeblood of a lot stock photographers like myself. Besides, I remember when I first looked at this very painting pictured in a textbook when I was a school kid as well!
My wife and I returned this past weekend from a week in Hawaii. All of my blog posts from last week were actually scheduled in advance. We spent 3 nights in Waikiki on Oahu and then flew to the island of Kauai. While this was a vacation and not a dedicated photography trip, I spent plenty of time taking pictures of course.
My total for the week was 2,583 pictures but that number is really meaningless because I was in a lot of rapid-fire mode situations. The first was a helicopter tour of Kauai (with no doors on the helicopter) during which I took 600 shots trying to get something, anything, sharp. I love shooting from a helicopter though my wife only managed 4 shots with her point-and-shoot because she insisted on holding on for dear life! (Actually, considering how she is very afraid of heights I'm just proud she went at all.) My stomach was fine during the flight but afterwards I was instantly very queasy thumbing through the pictures on the back of my camera and thinking that nothing whatsoever came out sharp and usable. Thankfully though, having just completed a pre-edit checking for sharpness I'm happy to say that I did get some great shots, though there are also tons of pictures in there I wish were usable but are simply not. Lightroom 2.0 has been invaluable to me as I compared duplicates side-by-side on my second monitor to judge which one was sharpest.
I also did several snorkeling "dives" with the Canon G9 in an underwater housing. My first few attempts were really horrible, but I made some progress and continued to refine my camera settings and technique. On our last full day of the trip we drop to Tunnels beach on the north coast of Kauai, and WOW was it great! The water was crystal clear with tons of fish. I still didn't get anywhere near the number of decent shots that I wanted, but I did manage to see a sea turtle and get at least 2 or 3 good pictures of it. I'll blog more about my snorkeling photography experiences soon.
We had a good time, and I'll be posting pictures from Hawaii during the coming weeks.
Terry is a professional photographer and illustrator whose work is widely licensed as stock photography and illustration by a diverse mix of commercial, publishing, and editorial clients. His images have appeared in books, magazines, calendars, brochures, advertisements, TV commercials, and other media in countries worldwide.
. For a small point-and-shoot it packs some powerful capabilities. The first two shots were at 400 ISO and the third shot was at 200 ISO. I took some even more close-up than the last shot. The lens was quite literally IN the glass! Certainly something you can't do with an SLR! But the top-down view you see here in the third shot is as close as I could get and keep sharp focus. With all of these shots though, I had to clean-up the digital noise (the downside of a small point-and-shoot) with 
.
by John Loengard, former Life editor who interviewed all 88 photographers on the staff of Life magazine from 1933 until it ceased weekly publication in 1972. What they saw, first-hand, during their lifetimes from behind the camera was unbelievable.
, will have more of technical details. 
