- Nothing But Blue Sky For New Photographers
Via Rob Haggard this morning a great piece about all the problems facing photographers written by Vincent Laforet. I met Vincent a couple of years ago at the Microsoft Photo Summit and have come to enjoy his work since. His piece for Sports Shooter is both depressing and invigorating at the same time (go figure!) and Vincent has hit the nail on the head:
The challenge is to find a way to continue to produce quality original content, and to connect with your audience - not to hold on to the old, traditional way of doing things. So while the cloud may be falling - there’s plenty of blue sky above - and the possibilities are endless. Good luck.
- The Magic of TinEye
We love to hear from our community about their surprising TinEye experiences. When we read about Jeff Clow’s story in the Flickr forums the team here was just thrilled and I knew we had to share his TinEye story.Jeff lives in Texas, is a training consultant and picked up photography over just the last three years. He is truly a die-hard digital photography fan with a passion for creating beautiful images.
Jeff’s Flickr profile notes “The best compliment I ever received about my photography came from Flickr. A visitor simply said ‘Boy, you can shoot.‘ Isn’t that what it is all about when you peel back all the layers? We ’shoot’ and we are glad when someone likes how we do it…”
We feel the same way, Jeff. The great team here at the Idéeplex are putting their hearts (and long hours) into TinEye and are so excited to hear that our fans love TinEye too!
What are your thoughts on some of the challenges that photographers are facing today?
Jeff thinks that while image theft is a constant issue it is also something where most often “the juice is not worth the squeeze” as far as trying to pursue action against infringements, particularly outside of North America. The biggest challenge, he states, is simply finding out where your images are in use, legally or not. “For every photographer that has images online it has simply been impossible to know what happens to them once they are sold - until TinEye.”
He estimates that of the over 4000 images he has sold, he knows where only about a dozen have been used.
How do you typically find out where your images are being used?
“Either legal or illegal it’s almost impossible to know where your images are unless you stumbled upon one online by accident or someone you know and who knows your photography sees it and reports it back to you” he concludes. An infinitesimally small number can be found with a regular google text search - Jeff has over 300 images currently for sale and says it would take “forever” to try to find them, with little return.
How did you find out about TinEye?
TinEye was mentioned on one of the message boards on Flickr and Jeff’s initial reaction was skepticism but also curiosity. He said “I am so pleased and have already become a huge TinEye fan because the concept and the reality are the same - most often these things don’t actually work.” He sees Idée becoming the world leader in image search.
Tell me about the album cover story - what happened?
In Jeff’s first few TinEye searches he discovered that one of his licensed images was being used as an album cover!He had been paid for the stunning photo of a horse in a field but didn’t know how or where the image was being used online or otherwise.
Jeff says that finding the image in use on the cover was “one of the highlights in my career”. Fantastic! He even bought a copy so he can use it as part of his portfolio.
What does it mean to find your images in use?
“Any photographer who’s worth his weight in film or photography would want to know where their images are used” says Jeff. “Most photographers take photos because they want to have someone validate that it’s a good photo - that’s the magic of Flickr and that’s the magic of TinEye.”
He goes on to say that TinEye is a way of validating that all his hard work is worth it, that others appreciate what he does. “Getting paid is great, but it doesn’t give you the same thrill of discovery as seeing your image in print, on a website, a book or album cover. You are creating a validation machine with TinEye - and validation is a huge part of life.”
As we wrapped up our talk Jeff mentioned that he can see in the near future a time when people say ‘what did we do before TinEye?’ We like the sound of that too, Jeff!
To learn more about the photography of Jeff Clow visit his online gallery and flickr profile.
To request a TinEye invitation register online.
** All Images Copyright Jeff Clow
- MediaStorm: The Evolution of Photojournalism
If like me you are a big fan of photojournalism and multimedia storytelling then you need to make sure that you drop by MediaStorm. MediaStorm creates next generation storytelling and publishes social documentary projects incorporating photojournalism, interactivity, animation and video. MediaStorm documentaries that I have enjoyed include:
Kingsley’s Crossing: in this story a 23-year-old lifeguard from the impoverished town of Limbe, Cameroon, dreams of a better life in Europe. He embarks on a harrowing journey that takes him halfway across Africa. Photojournalist Olivier Jobard documents the passage.Low Morale: Creep is a music video of Radiohead’s ‘Creep’ song. It took 3 months to create and contains over one million key frames. Creep was created as an extension to a series of shorts called `Low Morale’ which Bahrani began to develop during a well-paid, comfortable yet soul-destroying job as a senior designer in a multimedia agency. The countless days spent in the run down converted office, churning out banal multimedia and animation for faceless, lifeless, clueless blue chips had taken their toll on his soul. Creep became his creative escape tunnel.
(Quick advice: never take a soul destroying job in your life and if you do, make sure that you have an outlet!).
MediaStorm’s entire project list is worth an afternoon of viewing.
- Digital Journalist
I am a big fan of the Digital Journalist and rarely miss an issue. Last month was so busy that I did not have time to drop by until last night. June’s feature is a walk back in time: “A Time It Was: Bobby Kennedy in the Sixties”. This is both an editorial and photojournalist tour de force.
- World Press Photo Interviews
Great interviews from the World Press Photo winning photographers from 2008. Each image awarded by World Press Photo tells its own story but these photographers interviews tell us what it was like for them working in a war zone, dealing with restrictions or simply getting “the shot”. These first-hand stories do an awesome job of providing us with background information, and sometimes the before and after stories of the winning photograph. And if you have missed the 2007 interview series they are there as well.
- Jim Goldstein interviews Leila Boujnane for EXIF and Beyond podcast
Catch our CEO talking all about the exciting features coming down the pipe for TinEye on EXIF and Beyond with Jim Goldstein. Jim is an independent photographer specializing in landscape, travel, nature and event photography. He also produces the informative and engaging EXIF and Beyond podcast and shares insights on photography and the photo industry on his blog.TinEye has only been in a private beta for just over a month but it has “captured the attention and imagination of the photographic community” says Jim.
Have a listen to find out about the future direction of TinEye, our “groundbreaking image search engine”.
Download the episode:EXIF and Beyond: Leila Boujnane
For the non-iTune listeners: a streaming version of Jim’s podcast can be accessed here.
Don’t have a TinEye account yet? Head over and request an invite!
- Taking TinEye for a spin
Michael from macro art in nature takes TinEye for a spin and is impressed. His review and comments are pretty much in line with what we have been hearing these past weeks: TinEye is an awesome image-to-image search engine when it finds results! Well of course, of course! What would an image search engine be if it did not find results! As we mentioned our index is growing, our next larger index is about to be released (so hang on to your pants). This is just the beginning of our image search adventures.
What I liked about Michael’s comments are his butterfly findings - because yes…. drum roll… TinEye does find results. We keep seeing modifications and adaptations to images that are quite stunning and that shows “the amazing capability that [TinEye] has” in Michael’s words. All good news!
- Visual Content Market Size
is estimated at 7 to 8 billion dollars by Getty Images. Excerpts from a confidential information memorandum makes for a good afternoon read.
- Britney Economy 101
Duff MacDonald from Portfolio Magazine writes about a back-of-the-napkin calculation of just how much Britney Spears is worth to the multitudes who make money off her.
A bit of background for those of you not familiar with Britney (!):Britney has sold 83 million records since the release of her debut album in 1999, bringing in more than $400 million to Jive Records, her recording company. Even her 2007 album sold well, despite her troubles. Her tours have grossed nearly $150 million; the average take for her 265 solo shows is $583,138, according to Pollstar, which tracks touring data.
But what I found fascinating is the Paparazzi generated revenues.
A Britney photo garners anywhere from $250 (for a run-of-the-mill shot of her at Starbucks) to $100,000 or more. The photo agency X17, which has a team trailing her 24-7, estimates that Britney accounts for 30 percent of its revenue: It sold $2.5 million worth of Britney photos in 2007 alone, including $500,000 for its exclusive Bald Britney pics. Competitor Splash News says that Britney accounts for 10 to 15 percent of its business, boosted this year by $200,000 for photos of Britney in a hot tub. All told, Britney probably makes up a full 20 percent of the paparazzi business.
Something to think about this cold Monday morning! Full article and photo gallery here.
- The End of Keyword Spamming?
Via Lee Torrens: Dreamstime introduced a feature that allows contributors to see which keywords resulted in their photos being sold. This is a great move towards more openness from a provider’s perspective. I can see how this will influence photographers, will allow them to review their keywords and clean them up, remove keyword spam (I mean really who thinks that keyword spamming actually works!), and most importantly it will allow photographers to better understand how users search. And Lee is right: I would expect this to be adopted by other microstock firms.
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