photography

The Impact of Microstock Photography

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dzalcman
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Assignment:
Bruce Livingstone, CEO of iStockPhoto.
Reporting page:
Crowdsourcing Photos

How a crowdsourced business changes the world of profesional photographers and designers

Daniella Zalcman interviews NYTimes.com Design Director Khoi Vinh on May 22, 2007.

Khoi Vinh may not be a photographer, but he is intimately acquainted with the world of stock photography as both a graphic designer and as the design director at NYTimes.com. Here’s what he had to say about the industry and how the rise of microstock has affected the design world.

Daniella Zalcman: As a graphic designer, how much do you rely on stock photography? How important is good stock to your work?

Khoi Vinh: In general, we rely on stock photography more for online design when we’re creating new brands. When we’re trying to develop a Web site for a startup and they have no identity, there’s a stage where they need a logo and a visual language, and we look through stock photography to help them round out their vocabulary and how they express themselves though photos. And we might use photography to dress up various sections of the site and so forth.

5/24/07

Through the Pro's Viewfinder: Getty & Corbis Photographer Chase Jarvis

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dzalcman
in
Assignment:
Bruce Livingstone, CEO of iStockPhoto.
Reporting page:
Crowdsourcing Photos

Straight from the Pro: Getty and Corbis Photographer Chase Jarvis

Daniella Zalcman interviews Chase Jarvis via telephone May 22nd

Thus far, we've largely been speaking with the key players within the world of crowdsourcing. Chase Jarvis is on the other side of the fence: He's a photographer working for large stock agencies and primarily licensing images to advertising agencies. But Jarvis also has been keeping a close eye on the evolution of microstock — smaller photo companies that are selling royalty-free images for as little as $1 each. Here's what he has to say about the convergence of the two kinds of stock houses.

Daniella Zalcman: How did you get your start in stock photography?

Chase Jarvis: I’m a contributor to Getty and Corbis — but stock is just one part of the business. I’m primarily a commercial ad photographer. With Getty, I’m on an image-specific contract where I create images and then Getty licenses them. When I create stock, I shoot stuff that I think is going to do well in the marketplace.

5/23/07

Tapping Citizen Photographers Around the World

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in
Assignment:
That extra interview!
Reporting page:
Interviewing the Experts of Crowdsourcing

The inner workings of Shutterstock

Nancy Feraldi interviews Jon Oringer, founder & president of Shutterstock via telephone on May 22, 2007

"Shutterstock is the largest subscription-based stock photo agency in the world. Our outstanding collection of premium, royalty-free images grows every day, with photographs, illustrations, and vectors you won't find any where else." (Shutterstock, 2007). This is what subscribers see: "It's as easy as: choose your plan, pay one low fee ($199 for one month), download what you need when you need it." Jon Oringer is Founder & President of this growing business claiming, "1,874,626 royalty-free stock photos, 30,458 new stock photos added this week, and 60,380 photographers." In four short years, Jon has tapped into citizen photography from all over the world. When I asked if he was a photographer, he replied, "Oh yes, but never a professional, and never very good. I found there were much better photographers out there. I was just taking pictures all over the world and needed a library for my photographs." Jon went to Stonybrook as an undergraduate, and to Columbia for a Masters Degree in computer science.

Nancy Feraldi: Where are you located?

Jon Oringer: New York City

5/22/07

A new Photo Business Rises from the Crowd

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in
Assignment:
Kyle MacRae, Founder of Scoopt on crowdsourced photography.
Reporting page:
Crowdsourcing Photos

Scoopt, stakes out a spot where the market and the masses meet

Gregg Osofsky interviews Kyle MacRae, cofounder of Scoopt

Kyle MacRae founded Scoopt in 2005 with his wife using startup money from the sale of their home. Two years later, after pioneering the commercial licensing of citizen journalism, Scoopt is owned by Getty Images and distributing content to global media buyers. Kyle still runs the company with his wife out of Glasgow, Scotland. He sees citizen journalism as a proven commodity whose effect on the marketplace of ideas is only just beginning to take shape.

Gregg Osofsky: Where did the idea for Scoopt come from?

Kyle MacRae: If you remember the Asian tsunami, Boxing Day 2004, that was the event. I was living in France at the time. The only English language channel was CNN. I was watching this event unfold and I was fascinated by the fact that everything I saw taken was by people who were just there at the time. This wasn’t professional footage. Professional journalists hadn’t gotten there in time. And it just raised the question, the potential is there, people have the cameras, the camcorders, the camera phones, they have the technology in their pockets to capture an event like this. The mainstream media clearly wanted to use that content, and needs to use it, so how are they getting it? And it was really an old-fashioned model of air-dropping in journalists with envelopes stuffed full of dollars and buying people’s cameras from them, extracting the footage and feeding it up over a sat (satellite) link, and all of this kind of struck me as nonsense. You can get rid of the middle man here and connect on the ground directly with media organizations. The big question mark was how do you do that? Who wanted to represent these people? And that was the opportunity here.

5/22/07

Crowdsourcing in Photography

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dzalcman
in
Assignment:
Bruce Livingstone, CEO of iStockPhoto.
Reporting page:
Crowdsourcing Photos

A camera in every hand - and an easy space to upload. The story of iStockPhoto

Daniella Zalcman interviews Bruce Livingstone, iStockPhoto CEO and Founder

Since 1920, stock photography agencies like Getty Images and Corbis have built an industry out of providing images to advertisers and designers for hundreds of dollars a photo. But with the rise of crowdsourcing and the growth of online image sharing came iStockPhoto; and the microstock house—sites that sold member-generated images for as little as a dollar each—was born. iStock’s founder and CEO, Bruce Livingstone, sat down with me to share some of his thoughts on the company’s beginnings, its subsequent acquisition by Getty Images, and the future of stock photography.

Daniella Zalcman: What’s the story of iStockPhoto?

Bruce Livingstone: It started in 1994 when I was working at a place called Image Club Graphics. They were the first company to put clip art on CD-ROMs and market them by catalogue, and I used to enter credit cards numbers manually to process orders. I was going to university at the time and majoring in theology, and this was my afternoon job. When the company got better technology, my job was eventually phased out. Thank god, or I’d probably still be there.

5/22/07
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