Editorial
At its annual General Meeting (AGM), held this year in Paris member owned
Magnum Photos nominated six new members: a record breaking number. They include:
Matt Black,
Carolyn Drake,
Lorenzo Meloni,
Richard Mosse,
Max Pinckers and
Newsha Tavakolina.
Newzulu Limited (ASX: NWZ) is pleased to announce that it has entered a strategic partnership and content syndication agreement (Agreement) with
Alamy. Newzulu’s crowd-sourced news archive will be featured among Alamy’s collection of over 50 million images from which the platform has generated over US$154 million for its contributors in the last 15 years. Newzulu and Alamy will work together to generate revenue through the sale and licensing of Newzulu’s crowd-sourced content to Alamy’s editorial, creative and commercial clients worldwide.
Shutterstock, Inc. and
Penske Media Corporation (PMC) have agreed to form an alliance that will create and license entertainment and fashion images and videos to the world’s top media, publishing and creative companies. (Check out PMC
brands and
events.)
As the stock photo industry has changed and revenue for many stock images providers has declined many traditional providers have been forced to cut back on staff, and in particular editors. This is also true of many photo users who previously had time to review portfolios, encourage new talent and support new photographers as they improved their skills. Now, most of the editors and picture buyers that are left have trouble keeping up with the images that fly across their desks, let alone find time to seek out the best images and encourage new talent. So who does the editing?
A photojournalist’s goal should be to supply the publications they work for with the best possible image that accurately reflects what they saw. If readers are to trust newspapers and magazines they must know that the images and information provided are an accurate representation of what really happened.
Global crowd-sourced media platform and live-streaming company,
Newzulu, and mobile photo and video crowdsourcing service
Scoopshot, have partnered to collect and market citizen generated content and offer untapped revenue opportunities to brands and publishers around the world.
Vault Archives has announced its debut into the stock photography industry. The New York-based agency offers the editorial and commercial photography market high-end imagery that is tastefully curated with authentic real life moments.
Popular photo services platform
LightRocket is accepting submissions for a photojournalism competition with prizes worth US$10,500, including US$4,000 for the Photographer of the Year.
Last week
Sports Illustrated, one of the most photo oriented magazines in the world, laid off all six of its staff photographers. They included Robert Beck, Simon Bruty, Bill Frakes, David Klutho, John McDonough, and Al Tielemans. In the future all images in SI will be shot by freelancers, or the wire services.
Yesterday, Shutterstock paid $33 million in cash to acquire London-based
Rex Features.
In the technology section of its website
Crain’s New York Business says, “The purchase of Rex puts Shutterstock in direct competition with Getty Images for a share of the editorial stock photography market, and ends long-held speculation that Shutterstock was looking to knock off its London rival.”
Shutterstock has announced that it is expanding its editorial and music services businesses with the acquisition of two companies --
Rex Features and
PremiumBeat.
Margi Sheard of the Greatstock (
www.greatstock.co.za) agency in South Africa recently published a story that raised an important issue about the world’s perception of Africa and the African people. The news media’s focus on tragedy and problems often provides an inaccurate picture of the real Africa, but it raises the issue of whether there is any way for photographers to do more to show the world the real Africa of the 21st century.
There are widespread rumors that, in an effort to get out from under some of its crushing debt,
Getty hopes to sell its Editorial Division early in 2015. It has been reported that Q3 2014 sales for this segment of their business was about $65 million up 21% year-on-year. Editorial represents about 30% of the company’s gross revenue.
One of the most interesting panels at the Digital Media Licensing Association (DMLA formerly known as PACA) annual conference in New York this week was on “Opening New Markets Through Image Embedding.” Back in March Getty Images launched its
Image Embed Tool and made 35 million images available for free embedding on social media sites. That number has now jumped to about 50 million.
Search for your name on
Images.Google.com or
Images.Bing.com. You may be surprised at the results. And there may be money waiting for you.
At the International Photojournalism Festival in Perpignan earlier this month and in a later press announcement GDI Media Limited announced the aim to consolidate many smaller independent picture agencies into a single publicly traded company that will be traded on the
AIM stock exchange in the UK.
TT News Agency, NTB, Scanpix Denmark and Scanpix Baltics have announced the formation of the
Scandinavian Photo Alliance. The core of the new alliance is the former Scanpix group. The SPA expects to work on pan-Scandinavian initiatives spanning both editorial and commercial areas.
Time Warner will spin-off Time Inc. on May 23, 2014. Shareholders of record at 5:00 p.m. on that date will receive one share of Time Inc. common stock for every eight shares of Time Warner common stock. For more details about the new company check out the SEC's
Preliminary Information Statement of Time, Inc.
Recently, I received a request from Clive Thompson, columnist with
Wired Magazine, asking about the number of stock photography images licensed annually. He was more interested in the increase/decrease of the number of images sold than in any impact it might have had on revenue. Here’s what I told him.
Getty Images has announced the call for entries for its
Getty Images’ grants programs for 2014. The grants will include – The
Grants for Editorial Photography,
Creative Grants and the
Contour by Getty Images Portrait Prize – as well as the
Emerging Talent Award. The deadline for entry and Applications is May 15, 2014 by 11:59 p.m. GMT (London Time). For more information see
http://www.gettyimages.com/grants.
If you want to see beautiful pictures and know what’s happening visually in the world at large there is no better place to go than the
Time Lightbox. Each Friday the Time editors put together a 40 to 60 image slideshow of the best pictures that have come across their desks in the past week that were shot by news photographers around the world.
Over time royalty rates have declined. Usage fees have dropped dramatically in the last few years. And the huge oversupply of images is making it less likely that any images will ever be licensed. Faced with these facts many photographers have pulled back on new production of stock images, if not dropped out of the stock photo business entirely. Now,
Lightrocket offers a marketing option that may make some of those businesses sustainable.
Last week a coalition of 37 news organizations, including the Associated Press, ABC News, The Washington Post and Reuters
called for better access to the president and the White House in a
letter addressed to White House press secretary Jay Carney.
The number of news photographers employed in the U.S has dropped 43% since 2000 from 6,171 to 3,493 according to the ASNE (American Society of News Editors). By comparison, the number of full-time newspaper reporters and writers dropped by 32%—from 25,593 to 17,422.
A jury has awarded photographer Daniel Morel $1.2 million in damages in his case against
Agence France-Presse (AFP) and
Getty Images for the unauthorized distribution of his images of the January 12, 2010 Haiti earthquake. At the time Morel received no payment from the agencies for almost 1,000 uses of his images.