SEO and Stock Photography Research

More and more, prospective clients are searching for imagery on the internet, and, more specifically, Google Images. Yes, the other search engines have image search, but for today, we'll limit this discussion and comparison of capabilities to Google's systems.

How do we compare SEO (that's search engine optimization if you're living in the dark ages) between the industry behemoth Getty (and their ankle-biter brands) with Digital Railroad, PhotoShelter, and, for kicks, our own SEO efforts.

It gets interesting fast.

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First, let's look at the results from a search for "maryland tobacco farmer":

Notice that Jamd is Getty's consumer media website (About the Image - reported here, 7/11/08). Jamd appears in position #1, #3, and #13.

On that same page, and for the same search, Flickr returns:

Flickr returns images in positions #6, #17, and #20.

This is a remarkable way to leverage the search tool that people are already using. So, how am I doing?

Several years ago, I obtained several URL's for this purpose. One of them is www.Stock-Photography-Research.com. Going there, you can browse though several thousand of my images, but they're not designed for you, the individual, to browse. They're designed in a way to maximize their ability to be returned on the search engines.

Suppose you were working on a travel book on Prague, and were looking for an image of the nightlife there - specifically the Music Park nightclub. A Google Images search would return:

Yes, that would be my image, in position #1.

Of great importance is the contact information that is not only embedded in the metadata of the image, but also added to the bottom of the large version of the image, as seen here:


Of critical importance to any client visibility and marketing service is for online services like PhotoShelter and Digital Railroad to do the same thing. So, how are they doing?

First up, Digital Railroad. Criticised here previously, they're doing well with SEO placement. Maris Berzins, President of Digital Railroad commented "SEO is a key focus area for us. Buyers have told us that they are increasingly using search engines to source photographers and images for licensing. As a result of our efforts and evolving buyer behavior, a growing percentage of traffic to the DRR platform— Member Archives and Marketplace— as well as competitor sites comes from search engines. Here are just a few examples of how DRR is driving buyer traffic to both our member archives and Marketplace." Here's a link showing that over 56,000 images on the DRR system are indexed:


So too, here, is a PhotoShelter 1st place result:


According to Grover Sanschagrin: "Search engine providers have told us that heavily watermarked images provide a 'poor user experience,' and they receive a lower search ranking or are not included in search results at all. They've also told us that larger images receive a higher search ranking.

So, photographers who insist on adding watermarks to their images, and
photographers who are making their images small, and especially
photographers who are doing both, are doing themselves a disservice if their goal is to show up high in search engines."

To that end, you can see how PhotoShelter (above, on the "man fixing his bicycle" search) and Digital Railroad (left) are unobtrusively watermarking their images with information.

DRR's watermark appears with a center- aligned one, while PhotoShelter has the photographer's copyright information, and PhotoShelter ID# in opposite corners.

Here are several #1 results from PhotoShelter:

• eggs on counter (beats Corbis)
• Skateboarder doing wallride (beats Flickr)
• Plane approaching landing strip
• scene from a motel
• man fixing his bicycle
• somewhat crowded beach
• commercial shrimp fishing trawler
• Alghowaizi Tower (returns 9 of the 12 on the 1st page!)

Digital Railroad has respectable results as well - check this link for "beijing Cheering practice" which returns this result, for example:


So, how deep does Google go into them? "well before the end of Q3 our total number of images indexed by Google is expected to well exceed 2.8 million images," said Tom Tinervin Sr. Director of Platform Sales and Support for Digital Railroad, and Sanschagrin reports that "Right at this moment, 41% of all the pages on PhotoShelter's site map are indexed by Google."

Sanschagrin went on to say: "We take search engine optimization very seriously. Over 25% of our traffic on the PhotoShelter Collection originates from search engines, and we monitor the efficacy of our SEO efforts on a daily basis.

"We've taken several step in order to allow the pages and images for the PhotoShelter Collection to be indexed by automated web spiders. Most importantly, all images on the site can be reached from pages without the use of Javascript or Flash via our photographer and term directories. Many sites that use AJAX to power their sites do not include the information in a manner accessible by search engines.

We also provide summaries of a page in the meta-description header and, when available, include keywords about the image. Our photographer and term index pages include links to RSS and Atom feeds that provide another mechanism for finding images. We provide sitemaps to the major search engines. The sitemaps are updated on an hourly basis to provide pages as quickly as possible to search engines, and by registering our domains with the major search engines we can monitor our site for any problems that may prevent indexing.

In addition, we are working with search engine vendors to prepare other forms of sitemaps that provide more information about our images."

Whew, that's a lot of information, but really shows how committed to SEO PhotoShelter is, and DRR's CEO's comments before echo the importance of getting their images to appear in the of Google Images.

So, if you're wondering just what you're shelling out your percentages of each of your sales for, SEO optimization of your images into the Google Images organic search results, and the ongoing efforts of both PhotoShelter and Digital Railroad, are a clear indication that this effort to reach the eyeballs of photo buyers continues.

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Surviving the Downsizing in Photography

With thanks to PDN (here) and MediaPost (here) for bringing this to my attention. I wrote about this in my book - essentially, if you're a staff photographer you must be prepared to become freelance unexpectedly. 3500 people (and counting) are being forced into the freelance world (from all areas of the media newsroom) without notice. Back in April, I wrote Staff Photographers - An Endangered Species, which is worth a re-read.

What does this mean, exactly? And more importantly, what should current members of the freelance community do as those that are the talented photographers that are a part of these layoffs enter the freelance world?

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For staffers, your first thing to do will be to have a website. I know of several current staffers who have their own websites. that means having your own business cards to hand out where appropriate. This means knowing how to send a contract and figure out rates and rights.

Oh, and if you're one of those staffers who used to look at a $200 freelance job as gravy to complement your meat-and-potatoes staff job revenue, and now you're out of a job - those clients you have expecting you at $200 you can no longer afford to work for. This alone should be an argument for why you - as a staffer - shouldn't be doing these jobs at side-job rates, not to mention how doing this affects your freelance brethren's ability to charge a living rate in your community.

What must be done by the freelance community these photographers are joining? I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but you need to get them work. Really. The question is - how?

If your normal rate for a wedding is $3,500, or a press conference coverage is $750, or your family/pet/child portrait sitting rate is $350 and an enlargement is $950, then rather than trying to convince your newfound friend to charge those rates - book the job on their behalf - at those rates. By doing so, your friend will soon realize that that is what they're worth, and will apply that same rate structure to people calling them directly. Everyone, from time to time, gets a call for a period that they are double-booked. Don't forward on the job, and hope your friend does things right - do it right for them by taking the job and then you hiring your colleague to do the assignment, and you passing through the assignment fee to them. What chance to do it right do they have if they've never negotiated an assignment rate, or a rights package, before?

By embracing, and helping these talented people out, not only are you doing a nice thing, but you're also ensuring that your community will remain robust and survivable amidst the constant downward pressure on rates.

Here's a partial list of where they might need some assistance:

Contracts - If a photographer has been a staffer for awhile, it's likely their last agreement to provide photography was done on a handshake. If a photographer has only been on staff for year or so and came straight from school, they too don't understand the importance of a contract - signed by them and the client. Offer to give them a copy (prefably in a Word document so they can edit it) of yours to get themselves started.

Equipment - They likely need help getting their equipment setup. They may have been given their old equipment from their place of work, but in most cases the gear is on it's last legs. Redundant camera bodies, and lenses ranging from ultra-wide - 14-24mm Nikon, or 16-35mm Canon, all the way to 200mm lenses for each, plus two strobes, and a Jackrabbit/Quantum battery pack will be sufficient. In the rare case that they are going to do sports, or major news events, a 300mm with a 1.4x or 2x teleconverter is useful, but freelancers headed that direction with a need to sustain themselves are not going to find a lot of success chasing sports.

Software - They may have their own laptop, but are unclear about the importance of backing up their images, and acquiring legal copies of the software they'll need. Don't start them off on the wrong foot by giving them copies of your software. We recommend they get full versions that are registered in their own name of Photoshop, Photo Mechanic, FotoQuote, Microsoft Office 2008, QuickBooks Pro. They should also read: © Infringements - Don't be a Hypocrite.

Dealing With Clients - Send them this link - Lies, Lies, and More Lies , Traitors Among Us?, and this link - Top Ten Lies Told to Naive Photographers, and encourage them to read the posts - the first two are mine. Then, be sure to tell them that when the client says "oh, you're the first photographer I've talked with that has a problem with __________....", where the blank is either "work-for-hire", "wanting to be paid", "charges for post production", or "wanting a contract signed"; they they're being dishonest at best, and more than likely, lying.

Marketing - This one's tricky, because if you're not careful, you'll teach your newfound freelancer to compete for your own work - and will be doing so without the understanding of the true costs of being in their new shoes as a self-employed person, and so may well undervalue themselves (they did just get laid off, remember? Their self-worth wounds likely need a bit of time to heal before they remember that they're worth a lot.) About two weeks ago, I wrote a piece titled Getting Clients - A Few Options, that could be helpful. Most important is to get a website that you can get online fast, and is easy for you to make changes to - Effective SEO - Please Welcome liveBooks, talks about the solution we recommend highly (and yes, they're an advertiser here too). Once they get a website, they can begin their marketing campaign. The notion of having a printed portfolio these days applies maybe to 10% or less of the assignment work out there (much of which is in the advertising field) so the online version of that is the best route to go.

Pricing and Rates - The FIRST thing you should do is send them to the NPPA's pricing calculator. This calculator works for the vast majority of photographic fields, and gets your colleagues thinking about the true costs of being in business - which in turn, will assist them in calculating what they should charge. Reading Good, Fast, and Cheap - Pick Two, that I wrote in May is probably a good place to send them, also Selling Something You Don't Own is a cautionary tale. Cautionary to the person doing the helping is that neither of you say "we'll agree to charge $X for this..." because that could get you in a bit of hot water with the anti-trust folks. Discussing what an assignment could cost is one thing, agreeing what you both would charge is another. The biggest problem with photographers rates is not that they've been artificially inflated to a price that's too high, it's that photographers fail to contemplate the total costs of being in business, and thus price jobs too low.

Longevity - I sat at dinner three nights ago with a colleague who had thought he'd gotten his golden ticket - a staff job at a community newspaper. Just under three months later, he was laid off. Guess what? He wasn't eligible under the rules that applied to him, to even collect unemployment. Everyone is replaceable. No one is safe.

Then there's Where Does All Your Time Go?, that's all about time management and why $100/hr does not multiply by 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, and 52 weeks in a year to become a photographer that's paid $208,000 a year, and how $100 an hour isn't enough.

Lastly, I'd suggest they read: The Conundrum of Doing Nothing, that I wrote about how to get things going, and getting a few of the books that are at the right of this page - they are the tools that I used as I was growing my business.

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TinEye - Oh My!

I found myself packing up for the day at the Microsoft Pro Photo Summit last week, when I was approached by the co-founder and CEO of Idee - the makers of TinEye, Leila Boujnane. Leila wanted to chat about TinEye's capabilities, as I'd just finished talking about the problems of orphan works, and the image search technologies that were on the horizon, and I mentioned TinEye, among others, during my talk. I'd not tried TinEye, but I had heard of remarkable results by trusted colleagues of mine trying it out. So, it was serendipitous that I was now chatting with Leila.

I wanted very much to try it - it being in beta right now, I just hadn't gotten around to it. Though, just yesterday, on a whim, I clicked the "request an invite" link. A few hours later, I got accepted, and was curious to see the results. Some I expected, others I'm upset about.

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First, the expected. I looked for the first image that I had on my desktop that had seen the light of day outside of my office. And, as I've done the past two years at the Microsoft Pro Photo Summit, I was a speaker. Part of being a speaker means providing a headshot of myself, and that image was on my desktop. So, it was an easy image to choose.

All I had to do was click the "Upload Image" button, select the file, and TinEye immediately processed the image into it's digital fingerprint.

The results were as I expected. Of the over 701 million images (amongst billions and billions of images on the internet), two authorized versions of my headshot appeared - one when I did blogging for Amazon, and one for my recent talk at WPPI in Las Vegas. Both results were fine by me. Whew, I thought.

Then I got upset.

I thought next to my headshot, what other image might I have made that could be in circulation and was sitting on my desktop. The image that came to mind - and the first one I thought of, was an image of a Harrier jump jet (it can be seen here on the second page, lower left thumbnail corner). A search for that image yielded no results, which wasn't what upset me - it was what happened next. The second image I thought of was an image I had made for a defense contractor for a helicopter that was to be very high profile.

I uploaded my image, and TinEye, in under a tenth-of-a-second, returned my image as a part of a montage on a foreign government's website for their military. I was immediately and simultaneously blown away by TinEye's capabilities - applied in my real-world application, and angry because this was an infringement of my work. Grrrrr.

Next, I penned a brief, and friendly e-mail to my client asking them how this might have happened, and providing them with the URL. I am awaiting their response still.

Oh, and the best part? TinEye is free. They've got a gallery of really cool examples they've found here, but this gallery shows just how many derivations of an image can still be found using TinEye, and TinEye is constantly crawling the web - adding the fingerprints of images to their database at a dizzying rate of 3,000,000 images (give or take a few hundred thousand!) a day.

All around impressive! TinEye is your very own private investigator - scouring the internet for the visual pirates of the high seas and giving you the information to take responsive action.

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UPDIG - Why It Is Important

My literal interpretation of "up" and "dig."

This industry continues to overflow with acronyms. It started with ASA, then we graduated to ISO, then there was APO, then DAM, not to mention all of the associations - NPPA / ASMP / APA / EP / WHNPA / BAPLA / ASPP, and so on and so forth. Why do we need another?

Well, to put it simply - we do - and essentially all the anagrams that represent photographic organizations are on board with UPDIG - UPDIG is short for Universal Photographic Digital Imaging Guidelines.

Before you think you know how to handle your images, stop and think that you might learn a little (but more than likely, a lot) by reading through the information they've put together.

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Late in the Fall of 2004, David Riecks was tasked by Susan Carr to see about forming a group consensus on digital standards, and the auspicious project was formally started in early 2005 amid a vacuum of information on best practices guidelines for digital imaging. David Riecks, stepped up to created UPDIG's first website, and in the Spring of 2005 Richard Anderson, who is on the national board of ASMP came on-board to organize and write The Guidelines, along with Greg Smith, who is the Business Practices Committee chairman for the NPPA. The consortium continued to grow (see all the organizations that are a part of UPDIG here), as noted on the ASMP website here - "when leaders and representatives of nearly a dozen photographers groups from around the world gathered for a "Digital Summit." They agreed that Guidelines and Best Practices were needed, should be easy to understand, and should offer options for different workflows aimed at different outputs...". APA heralded the effort here "...15 clear and understandable guidelines as well as a best practices document prepared by the the UPDIG working group of photographic international trade organizations...APA is proud to play an active role on the UPDIG working group." Even John Nack of Adobe wrote here "UPDIG describes itself as "A working group of digital imaging professionals and allied trade groups and manufacturers, dedicated to promoting worldwide standards in the commercial application of digital imaging....If that describes your trade, the site is well worth a look."

So, well, what are the 12 guidelines? (Note - there were 15 to start, they were boiled down to 12.) I think you'd be best served to read them directly on the UPDIG site, (here's the executive summary - Quick Guide) and here are the 12 guidelines:

1. Color Management
   • The best ways to use and embed ICC color profiles (and what they are if you don't know)
2. Monitor Calibration
   • The importance of hardware calibration and profiling; as well as information on monitor soft-proofing
3. Color Spaces
   • Understanding the various camera settings for color spaces as well as the color spaces for image editing; offset printing; CMYK conversions; and photo lab prints
4. File Formats
   • Why should you shoot in your camera's RAW mode; the value of DNG, and the various formats for the web and for printed output
5. Naming Files
   • Best practices for cross-platform file naming; and avoiding duplicate file names
6. Resolution
   • How to describe; optimizing for the screen; for inkjet prints; for continuous-tone printing; for offset printing
7. Sharpening
   • Capture sharpening; process sharpening; sharpening tools; dealing with noise; output sharpening
8. Metadata
   • IPTC Creator and Copyright; keywords; the importance of metadata
   
   
9. File Delivery
   • Media; methods; file info; ReadMe files
   
   
10. Guide Prints and Proofs
    • Print and proof viewing
    
    
11. Archiving
    • Who; what; where
    
    
12. Workflow
    • Matching to needs; what it should do; choosing the right tools
    
    

If you're looking for answers about how to best handle your workflow - This is THE place to start. And since technology evolves, so too will the efforts of the working group to change with the times.

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Advanced Common Sense - E-Mail Edition

How much time do you spend on SPAM? I recieve upward of a thousand e-mails a day, and about 2% of those e-mails, I want to read, and maybe 5% I have asked for.

I encourage you to spend an hour of your time watching Merlin Mann give a talk at Google about managing e-mail. (Video for Merlin's "Inbox Zero" talk, 7/25/07). The good folks at Google don't waste a lot of time on numbskulls, and this guy's got an amazing approach to solving your e-mail inbox woes.

By watching the "43 folders" presentation, I spent an hour of my life saving exponentially more down the line by LEARNING about how to manage my e-mail. Inbox Zero is the source.

One citation that Merlin made was about David Allen, and his book - Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity he talks about "Advanced Common Sense" - it could not be any more obvious, but the trouble is we don't always do the obvious.

Processing - that is, doing something, isn't about checking your e-mail, it's about taking action on every e-mail, from deleting it, to responding to it. Yet, the next step is to not respond to 200 e-mails, it's processing them, and decide what it means to you - what actions do I have to take as a result of this e-mail?

Five things can you do with the e-mail:

• Delete (or archive)
• Forward/Delegate (give yourself a reminder to make sure the delegated task happened)
• Reply/Respond
• Defer - this can be tricky
• Do - if it's something you can do, do it now.

Your inbox should be for something you haven't read yet.

Now, watch the video.

(Comments, if any, after the Jump)

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Orphan Works - FAQ's

There's a lot going on with Orphan Works behind the scenes. ASMP reported in their member announcement "...the House version of the orphan works bill is expected to go to mark-up very soon, perhaps this week or next," and I have heard that Sen. Sam Brownback has placed a hold on the Senate version of the bill. For how long that hold is, no one knows. That said, both ASMP and I agreed while on stage at the Microsoft Pro Photo Summit last week - and that was that this bill is not likely to make it through the legislative process this session, before dying.

Engraved beneath a statue on the north entrance to the National Archives on Pennsylvania Ave, is the phrase "What is Past is Prologue", and that surely applies to Orphan Works legislation. Whatever changes are affected this session will be fodder for the resurected version of the legislation when everything starts anew in the next session, sometime in January or February. That's one thing you can count on when it comes to Orphan Works. It will rear it's ugly head again and again - it's the werewolf of legislation.

To that end, the Illustrator's Partnership has sent out a missive with a great many Q&A's - their version of a "Frequently Asked Questions" (FAQ) for Orphan Works.

With their permission, I am posting here what they wrote:

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIPWe've had word that the House Judiciary Committee may mark-up the Orphan Works Bill this week. This is the session where Committee Members will propose, accept and reject amendments to H.R. 5889. After markup, the bill could be reported out of the House Committee and go to the floor for a vote.

We've submitted several critical amendments for consideration: These would limit the scope of the bill to affect only true orphaned work. Unless such amendments are adopted, we believe the bill should not be reported out until its impact on small businesses can be determined. Here's our summary of the issues at stake in the House version of this bill:

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Q What is the Orphan Works Act?

A: A proposed amendment to copyright law that would impose a radically new business model on the licensing of copyrighted work.

Q: How would it do that?

A: It would force all creators to digitize their life's work and hand it over to privately-owned commercial databases or see it exposed to widespread infringement by anyone, for any purpose, however commercial or distasteful.

Q: How would it hurt me if I didn't register my work?

A: The bill would let infringers rely on for-profit registries to search for your work. If your work is not in the databases, it's a potential "orphan."

Q: What about my unpublished work?

A: The bill would apply to any work, from professional paintings to family snapshots, home videos, etc., including published and unpublished work and any work ever placed on the internet.

Q: How would these databases work?

A: No one has yet unveiled a business plan, but we suspect they'd operate like stock houses, promoting themselves as one-stop shopping centers for licensing art. If you've registered your work with them, they'll probably charge you maintenance fees and commissions for clearing your work. If you're a publisher or art director, they'll probably charge you search fees. If you're an infringer, they'll probably charge you a search fee and issue orphan certificates for any unregistered work you'd like to infringe. We assume different registries may have different terms, and any start-up terms will of course be subject to change.

Q: How will the bill affect the market for commissioned work?

A: It will be a gold mine for opportunists, favoring giant image banks over working artists. Some companies will probably sell access to orphans as royalty-free work -- or they'll harvest orphans and bundle them for sale as clip art. Other companies can harvest orphans, alter them slightly to make "derivative works" and register the derivatives as their own copyrighted product. Freelancers would then be forced to compete against their own lost art - and that of their colleagues - for the new commissions they need to make a living.

Q: But the bill's sponsors say the bill is just a small adjustment to copyright law.

A: No, it's actually a reversal of copyright law. It presumes that the public is entitled to use your work as a primary right and that it's your legal obligation to make your work available.

Q: But isn't the House bill an improvement over the Senate version?

A: Only for those who intend to operate commercial databases. These registries will exist to make money. To make money, they'll have to do a lively business in clearing work for infringements. That means making their databases infringer-friendly.

Q: But isn't the House bill better because it requires an infringer to file a Notice of Use, documenting their intent to infringe?

A: The House bill creates a very low threshold for infringers to meet. They'd only have to file a text description (not the image itself) of the work they want to infringe, plus information about their search and any ownership information they've found.

Q: But won't that let artists consult the archive to see if their work has been infringed?

A: No, as currently written, the Notice of Use is a dark archive, which means you won't have access to it. If someone infringes your work and has filed a Notice of Use, you wouldn't know about it.

Q: Then how would I know if my work is in the Dark Archive?

A: You wouldn't, unless a.) you discover you've been infringed; b.) you sue the infringer in federal court; c.) the infringer asserts an Orphan Works defense. Then you can file a request to see if the infringer has filed a Notice of Use to infringe your work.

Q: Then what good does it do me for the infringer to file a Notice of Use?

A: It's of no probative value to you at all unless you go to court. And if you do, you'd better be sure of winning because otherwise, without the possibility of statutory damages and attorneys' fees, it will be too expensive for you to sue. If the Notice of Use helps anyone, it actually helps the infringer: it lets him prove in court that he followed the prescribed protocol to "legally" infringe your work.

Q: Then shouldn't we ask Congress to change the Dark Archive to an open one?

A: This would still place an impossible burden on you. Can you imagine routinely slogging through a "lost and found" containing millions of text descriptions of works to see if something sounds like one of the hundreds or thousands of illustrations you may have done?

Q: So should the infringement archive be changed to display images rather than text descriptions?

A: If so, you'd have a come-and-get-it archive for new infringers to exploit works that have already been identified as orphans by previous infringers.

Q: The bill's sponsors say the House version includes specific instructions on the requirements for diligent searches.

A: No, read the bill. It's full of ambiguous terms like "reasonable" and "diligent" that can only be decided by courts on a case-by-case basis. That could take a decade of expensive lawsuits and appeals. How many millions of copyrights will be orphaned before we learn how the courts ultimately define these vague terms?

Q: Then what can we do to improve this bill?

A: We don't believe the bill can be patched up to mitigate its harm to creators. The Orphan Works matter should be solved with carefully defined expansions of fair use to permit reproduction by libraries and archives, or for family photo restoration and duplication. Narrow exceptions like these would also meet the needs of other orphan works usage without violating artists' rights as defined by the 1976 Copyright Act, The Berne Convention and Article 13 of the TRIPs Agreement. These copyright-related international trade treaties are not just a matter of law. They codify longstanding business practices that have passed the test of time.

Q: What can we do now to oppose this legislation?

A: If you're opposed to the House bill in its current form, contact members of the full House Judiciary Committee. Ask them to adopt our amendments limiting the scope of the bill to affect only true orphaned work. Tomorrow, we'll email you a short basic letter which you may use as a template.

--Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner, for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership

Over 60 organizations are united in opposing this bill in its current form. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses.

Don't Let Congress Orphan Your WorkTo use the Orphan Works Opposition Website just go to this link, put in your zip code and follow the instructions. Your letters will be addressed and sent automatically. It takes less than 2 minutes to fight for your copyright.

The Illustrator's Partnership has asked that you please post or forward this message in its entirety to any interested party.

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The Curious Case of Getty and Flickr

Just when you thought that Getty was in it's last throws of existence, before its massive library of wholly owned content gets broken up by Hellman & Friedman and sold off for pieces, Getty comes in and lowers the bar that much further. The only upside to the impending Getty breakup will be the mass exodus of the creative content producers (especially the prolific ones) who decide that either PhotoShelter or Digital Railroad are the only two platforms where they can get their images sold.

PDNPulse has written about it (Getty and Flickr: What Just Happened?, 7/8/08), as has Thomas Hawk (Yahoo and Getty Strike Deal to Sell Stock Photography Through Flickr, 7/8/08), and Thomas has some great links on it in his blog entry. Here's my take.

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Getty, in conversations at what I am guessing is the CTO level, decided to do this deal with Flickr, likely after seeing PhotoShelter announce a portal between them and Flickr, and then get shut down by Flickr. For months and months, PhotoShelter made outreach to Flickr in an attempt to get a commercial key (link) for an application plug-in (API) that would
make a direct connection between Flickr and the PhotoShelter system, so that photographers could send their own images back and forth between their Flickr and PhotoShelter personal archives. But did they really need a commercial API? Users were just sending their own images to themselves, and services like Smugmug use the Flickr API in the exact same way. Then
PhotoShelter obtained a non-commercial API - which is freely available to anyone who wishes to use it for their own personal use. Within a short time, Flickr shut them down, without explanation, and they would just not engage them in discussions about either API permission key.

For some reason, however, Flickr has decided that it in their best interests to have Getty trolling around Flickr for the best Flickr producers, and lock them up in exclusive deals to represent their work, but these photographers would get a paltry percentage of their sales, and I have to ask the question - is Flickr going to be a silent recipient of a percentage of all those sales? Why wouldn't Flickr buy the entire PhotoShelter or Digital Railroad platforms, and scale that technology up to serve the 3 million images they get each day? Could it be that this deal is a precursor to Flickr being someone that Hellman & Friedman see as a future suitor of a piece of the Getty pie (either from a content, delivery platform, or both, standpoint)?

When I spoke at the PhotoShelter Town Hall Meeting (Do the Wright Thing: PhotoShelter Town Hall in Atlanta, 9/28/07), Grover during the Q&A, when asked by an audience member about the possibility that PhotoShelter would be established, and then bought (potentially) by Getty, said "no." Then, to make himself perfectly clear, said "let me be more clear - over my dead body." Getty clearly was interested. Allen Murabayashi, the CEO of PhotoShelter, in his reaction (posted here ) to the announcement of the Getty Images/Flickr arrangement, made a bold statement, that literally puts his (and Grover's) money where there mouth is. He said:

"... one of Getty Images' Executive VPs started contacting us as early as July 2006. Initially it was to use PhotoShelter technology to provide a way for non-Getty photographers to submit images. But once the PhotoShelter Collection was announced, they wanted access to our content because we provided ready-to-license, edited content from thousands of contributors around the world.

They contacted us in July 07, September 07, October 07 and November 07, and we turned them down for one simple reason: It was a terrible deal for photographers (then, as it is now), and did very little to alter the fundamental imbalance in the stock industry."

Now, that's conviction.

I know that the people at Getty think they understand this business. Trust me, they don't. You can start at the top with Jonathan Klein - Mr. Investment Banker turned "lover of photography" (JDK's World, 8/29/07), Mark Getty, who, when the stock tanked, essentially got family money (see: Getty Restates . . . , 6/13/07;Getty Investments L/L/C; and SEC info here, for more insights) by way of Hellman & Friedman to take the company private, and Mr. failed commercial photographer Bruce Livingstone (The BBC & The 'Infinite monkey theorem', 11/26/07), and just continue to work your way down. There are a lot of people there who just don't get it. Those that do, are probably polishing their resumes right now looking to make a move, realizing that the company has finally completed their turn in the direction of the land of really really bad ideas, and the iceberg that lay ahead is emblazoned with the name Hellman & Friedman, which is sure to sink the Getty Images ship.

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Microsoft Pro Photo Summit 2008 - Recap

What can I say about the Microsoft Pro Photo Summit that just concluded today on the Microsoft Campus in Redmond, Washington? Well, let's start with what other folks have said:

• PDNPulse - Microsoft Targets Pro Photographers With Summit: Who Is Listening?
• PDNPulse - Is The Amateur The New Professional?
• PDNPulse - Pirates and Money and Bears, oh Microsoft!
  Thomas Hawk's Digital Connection - Report
• Robert Scoble - The mesmerized audience

There was a degree to which I would echo the question PDN asked - is amateur the new professional? I can't say that you are, by definition, a professional photographer if you've been paid for your photography. There's an interesting thread over on SportsShooter about this, where someone wants to become an NPS member along these lines. Jeff Greene posited the question to Miss Anieila about her future, and ended his question "...when you turn pro." This set forth Jeff's assumption that she wasn't already, and her response was that she considered herself a professional because she'd been paid for her work.

(Continued after the Jump)

Yet, Jeff's question was an informed one - as Jeff perceives that a professional is one who's profession is photography, and one's profession is defined by, I'd think, what you do to earn a living. Let's take the question first to Merrian-Webster:

Professional - "participating for gain or livelihood in an activity or field of endeavor often engaged in by amateurs (a professional golfer) b: having a particular profession as a permanent career (a professional soldier) c: engaged in by persons receiving financial return (professional football)"

By that definition, and let's consider that an old-school definition, possibly in need of updating, she might not have yet achieved "professional" status. However, she's among the "new school/new paradigm" photographers that are emerging, so, looking to a possible new-school definition, turning to Wikipedia for a slightly more verbose definition, Wikipedia details Professional, in part:

A professional is a person in a profession which requires certain types of skilled work requiring formal training or education...A professional(Kamal Shanmugam) is a worker required to possess a large body of knowledge derived from extensive academic study (usually tertiary), with the training almost always formalized. Professionals are at least to a degree self-regulating, in that they control the training and evaluation processes that admit new persons to the field, and in judging whether the work done by their members is up to standard. This differs from other kinds of work where regulation (if considered necessary) is imposed by the state, or where official quality standards are often lacking. Professions have some historical links to guilds in these regards...Typically a professional provides a service (in exchange for payment or salary), in accordance with established protocols for licensing, ethics, procedures, standards of service and training / certification.

Now, that presents problems too, because of the notion that the field of photography could certify those allowed to call themselves professionals like doctors of lawyers. That has always been a complaint of my fellow photographers - that they wished there was some certification process, a union, or some other way to "police" the profession, and to that end, PPA has instituted certifications, but few photojournalists or commercial photographers I know have them, or even know of them. They are used by the many wedding and family/school portrait photographers, but it's a start. Interestingly, New York State is trying to require a certification of Wedding photographers - likely after a legislator or legislator's staff member had a bad experience with one (Lightchasers blog entry here, entire proposed law here). ASMP has a review process for admitting members, and other organizations, like the WHNPA and APA have as a requirement the recommendation of current members.

Surely, other notions put forth question the "PRO" level of the summit - with presentions suggesting that you should give away your work for bloggers to use on the internet for the purposes of getting your name out. I questioned Lou Lesko on this, as he was the one who proposed that idea saying that this model in the analog/old-school days was called "will work for photo credit", and over the years has not turned out to be a viable business model.

This event was surely a "PRO" photography summit, and where there might be questions about the benefits to "professionals" about presenting istockphoto photographers, self-portrait artists like Ms. Aniela (Flickr site, her site) fame coming from Flickr, the notion that you should work for today's version of a digital photo credit, there should be no question that these perspectives and paradigms will continue to have an impact on those that earn their livelihood behind the lens and meet both the Merriam Webster ("participating for gain or livelihood in an activity or field of endeavor often engaged in by amateurs") and Wikipedia (a professional provides a service (in exchange for payment or salary), in accordance with established protocols for licensing, ethics, procedures, standards of service and training / certification) definitions of "Professional".) definition.

Jim Pickerell spoke on the subject of Microstock, as noted in the PDN piece, and did his best against Lise Gagne, who talked about how great it was to be among the most prolific istockphoto producers, after she herself was used to paying several hundred dollars per use for images during her time as a designer - a job she got fired from because she was spending so much time making $1 images for microstock. As she kept talking, I kept thinking "I know that that image that you sold for $1 left so much money on the table you'd be retired in Fiji with what you could have earned licensing even a tenth of those images for traditional rates".

I was asked to speak again this year and update attendees on the subject of Orphan Works, and I was asked to present opposite Vic Perlman, General Counsel and Managing Director of ASMP. I thought twice, and then three or four more times, about that idea, but since my proposed presentation topic on the state of search engine optimization in our field, and how things are evolving (I had a great plan to talk about some of MSN's value to photographers) got nixed, I accepted, after trying to talk to two other people about being there instead. Given my serious criticisms of the ASMP position, and my otherwise appreciation for the work they do in so many other areas, I preferred to talk about SEO, but it was not to be. I felt that much of the audience, albiet experts in the field of photography's many facets, likely knew little about the legislative process, so I opted to spend 3-4 minutes of my time giving people a primer on it, and then get into all the problems of the current version of Orphan Works. Both Vic and I agreed that the chance of the final bill getting all the way through and headed to the President's desk for enactment was highly unlikely, we did disagree on the extent to which the bill will look different in it's final form from what it looked like now. Backstage Vic and I discussed other issues on copyright unrelated to this, yet there were a few folks (and I'm guessing from ASMP) that expressed a concern that I might attack ASMP onstage, as if, somehow, I am an unreasonable person. Hmmm, not sure why those that had those concerns felt that way, but that had never been my approach. In fact, with the vast number of problems with the current version of the House bill that I believe are fixable, and my interest in conveying the legisltive process primer, I had my hands full with talking about that. So, if you were among the two or three people reading this that had that concern - I'm sorry that I didn't live down to your expectations. Of note was almost the complete absence of panel discussions this year - the differing perspectives Vic and I presented on the status of Orphan Works could have been augmented with the perspective from the other side - someone from the libraries or museums. Yet, in the end, I felt that people's attention was drawn to this serious issue of Orphan Works, and that has a net positive benefit in the end. If you're interested in the changes that I discussed, and how they would take the form of amendments to the 5/8 version of the bill, send an e-mail to orphanworks-AT-photobusinessnews.com and an autoresponder will give you a link to download the PDF. It's a fairly extensive and exhaustive 30 page document.

One of the things that was presented here were visual stimulation and insights from Frans Lanting, reknowned nature photographer and Melina Mara, from the Washington Post. Against a heavy backdrop of mind-overfowing information on the state of the industry, and peeks into the future, both presentations provided a left brain break to allow the right brain to get in some exercise, and both were appreciated by me.

The audience seemed to be made up of about 20% full-time photographers who rely on getting and keeping paying clients to pay their bills (as differentiated from people who produce products or services to be used by photographers but also are photographers themselves) and a presentation by Skip Cohen, of WPPI on marketing to photographers was engaging and entertaining. I am guessing that the CTO's, company Presidents, and CEO's on hand were not as engaged as I was. I certainly enjoyed what Skip had to say. He said he was condensing into 10 minutes or so a four hour presentation he normally would do on the topic, so that tells me to tell you that if you're somewhere where Skip is doing that four hour presentation, make sure you don't miss it.

Other things that were amazing was the demonstration of the PhotoSynth application, which it was said, could be released as early as this Fall. I will be among the first to get my hands on it - it's an amazing application that would cause me to upgrade my aging PC and just so I can install and use it - for that reason alone. I also concluded that adding a Windows Home Server (currently only available in the US through HP) is on my to-order list when I get back to the office. A $599 or so cost for the ability to access my data back in the office - even in parallel with Apple's Back to My Mac capabilities - is a small price to pay, in my opinion.

Also something that I really enjoyed was the impromtu breakout session (that actually happened during lunch on Thursday) with half of the Expression Media team. They talked about the current version, and listened (and took copious notes) from the feedback that was provided. If you're a Lightroom or Aperture evangelist, don't count Expression out - they have some amazing plans as they move forward.

Also of interest was the presentation by David Reicks, on behalf of the Stock Artists Alliance, on metadata, and how it is being handled by several of the big agencies. I'll write more on this later, but suffice it to say that it was an eye opener on a Thursday afternoon that kept my attention.

Josh Weisberg did an excellent job of shepherding the speakers along (including me, when I ran 3 minutes over), posing good start-off questions of each of the presenters after each presentation, and minimized the "we're running behind" issue that so often arises at conferences like this - that was no small feat.

I was able to have about 80% of the offline conversations during the breaks and reception that I wanted to have. As I was leaving for the airport, Neil Latham, who was the ever-so-patient speaker liason, thanked me and said he looked forward to seeing me at next year's summit, if not before. Me too, Neil. I look forward to the next Summit - it provided an abundance of insights into the future, and learned perspectives on the state of our industry.

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You Suck at PhotoShock - Iranian Edition?

No doubt, Donnie would have done a better job than the Iranians, who tried to hide their test failure (hey, tests fail all the time - that's why they call them tests!). PDN reported on the false photo (Breaking News: AFP Retracts Iranian Missile Photo, 7/10/08), and I immediately thought of the good folks at You Suck at Photoshop (here for all their hillarious tutorials!) and we wrote about them ("You Suck at Photoshop" - So Damn Funny, 2/16/08). Maybe Donnie will return and do this right, but for now, we can only hope, so we have this visual to tide us over until then.

(Comments, if any, after the Jump)

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Copyright Form VA - Being Phased Out

So I went looking for a link to the Copyright Office's Form VA today, and when visiting this link:

http://www.copyright.gov/forms/formva.pdf

This was the resulting page:



So, what gives?

(Continued after the Jump)

The Copyright Office is now phasing out paper registrations in favor of their eCO (i.e. electronic Copyright Office) system. They want you go to their eCO Online System to learn more, and begin your registrations that way.

The site directs you to use the Form CO, as noted here:

1 - Registration with Fill-In Form CO • The next best option for  registering basic claims is the new fill-in Form CO. Using 2-D  barcode scanning technology, the Office can process these forms  much faster and more efficiently than paper forms completed  manually. Simply complete Form CO on your personal computer,  print it out, and mail it along with a check or money order and your  deposit. The fee for a basic registration on Form CO is $45.

They go on to say on the site:

2 - Registration with Paper Forms • Paper versions of Form TX (literary works); Form VA (visual arts works); Form PA (performing arts works, including motion pictures); Form SR (sound recordings); and Form SE (single serials) are still available. The fee for a basic registration using one of these forms is $45 payable by check or money order. Form CON (continuation sheet for applications) is also still available in paper. These paper forms are not accessible on the Copyright Office website; however, staff will send them to you by postal mail upon request. Remember that online registration through eCO and fill-in Form CO (see above) can be used for the categories of works applicable to Forms TX, VA, PA, SR, and SE. See below for Group Registrations.

Also according to the site:

"Certain applications must be completed on paper and mailed to the Copyright Office with the appropriate fee and deposit. Those application forms appear " [here].

Of very interesting note is the following warning/disclaimer that I'd not seen before:

Notice: Please be aware that when you register your claim to a copyright in a work with the U.S. Copyright Office, you are making a public record. All the information you provide on your copyright registration is available to the public and will be available on the Internet.

This is of note because your registrations are accessible by the public now, albeit in a limited manner, and will likely be available in a much broader sense once OrphanWorks legislation, in whatever final form it is, passes.

It is important to note - sending in a Form VA for your registration is still perfectly acceptable. Using the eCO system may get you your completed registration certificate and registration number back much faster, but not with any more protections than the Form VA certificate will.

Alternatively, you can use the sample Form VA that I've completed, with explanations for what goes in each section, and why we've chosen to do that, by visiting this link. If you'd like to know more about the hows and whys of our registration process, it's in my Best Business Practices for Photographers book, Chapter 14, beginning at page 203. If you'd like to see every step of the registration process from inside the Copyright Office before all the modernization, we wrote about it and have photos for your viewing pleasure here.

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