PhotoPlus Eve!

It's like the eve of the gifting season. Whether Christmas, Hanukkah, or other holiday celebrations that are full of anticipation of surprise gifts, tommorrow hold that promise, but it's better! You know what you want, will be surprised by several new offerrings, but, moreover, will be only limited in your acqusitions by what your bank account (or line of credit) can bear!

I've just left the Picturehouse networking gathering, which is an amazing collection of photo agencies all under one roof, where you can go to meet folks. I was there in an official capacity representing the White House News Photographers Association, and can honestly say that if one of your responsibilities includes licensing work from photographers, you should visit your nearest Picturehouse gathering. If you're looking for photos, of say, King Tut, you will find yourself probably licensing images from Kenneth Garrett, and he's there in person! It truly is the opportunity to connect, in person, with those who you usually only speak to over the phone. Garrett licences all his images through a Digital Railroad who was there with what looked like six tables, all to showcase member work, of which Garrett was one, NBC Universal, Redux and others were there as well under the DRR umbrella.

On the "take control of your own destiny" front (detailed in my
Best Business Practices for Photographers book), where I talk about solutions such as
Digital Railroad, IPNStock, and PhotoShelter, I am hearing rumors of a big announcement from the folks at PS come day 1 of the show, Thursday. You can expect that I will make the time to learn what they are doing that could make charting your own course an even better way to avoid the big agencies who want more and more from you yet are paying less and less. On that, Digital Railroad outlines there latest e-commerce capabilities on their site here: DRR e-commerce.

It's off to the PDN Press Preview, where they will be sharing work from Dirk Halstead (alonside whom I made pictures when he was covering the White House for Time), Frans Lanting, and Joel Meyerowitz, then a break to catch a comedy show. I ascribe to the scientific findings that comedy is very good for your health, and there are numerous google articles on just that.