Eight questions, and answers, from me, about me.

Observed and Observing, Brooklyn, NY

Two of the eight questions and answers, from EDGE Tech Corp Blog Ask A Photographer: Taylor Davidson

Where do you get your creative inspiration from?

I’m an observer. I may not notice everything, but then again, I’m not trying to notice everything. My inspirations come from the intersections of the physical and the human environments, but usually without any people present. I tend to pay more attention to what has come and gone than what is there at the moment, and thus most of my pictures are of spaces created by humans, lived in and molded by humans, but temporarily abandoned by humans. That’s what tends to catch my eye, mind and soul.

Any advice or tips for someone wanting to become a photographer or to improve their photography?

Learn all the rules so you can break them completely.

And just shoot what you want to shoot. Because photography is for you.

A short recap from a week of panels, mixers and conversations from @CEPICDublin at the CEPIC New Media Conference and Congress.

The view from the front, CEPIC, Dublin, Ireland

Some didn’t have high hopes for CEPIC this year.

But I did. I was excited about the opportunity to meet a lot of industry professionals that I know only by name, email address or avatar. I was excited to participate in a panel about “The Future of Stock Photography”, led by Ellen Boughn, along with Shannon Fagan, Dittmar Frohmann and Cathy Yeulet. I was excited about our mixer “Before the Future”, hosted by Ellen, Shannon, Lee Torrens and I to bring together a diverse set of thinkers in the photography industry and create thoughtful and valuable conversations and connections between people driving the future of the photography industry (thank you to our sponsor Jonathan Ross and Spaces Images). And of course, I was excited about enjoying the good times that comes when you bring quality, creative, leading professionals together.

And that’s what happened, largely. Along the way, I learned that photographers prefer talking about photography than economics (I shouldn’t have been surprised by that). I learned that comparing quality stock photography to manufacturing is a little controversial, even if it’s the truth that nobody will admit, and even if it’s meant as a praise to the innovators in the industry. I met a lot of people trying to push along using traditional stock photography industry business practices, but I also met many innovative, forward-thinking people that really want to be the change the industry needs.

During my part on “The Future of Stock Photography” panel, I brought up five main points for conversation that I truly believe stock agencies need to consider when planning for the future:

• How can agencies aggregate and curate the crowd?
• How can niche agencies thrive?
• Can agencies use social media to attract contributors and sell images?
• Can agencies reach and make money from non-traditional stock buyers?
• What core value does an agency create and deliver?

Although we didn’t solve any of these questions, I hope that the discussion that ensued is one that will continue on in people’s minds and decisions as they plan for their future in the industry.

Also, view my slides on Slideshare, embedded below.

But beside that, like all conferences, CEPIC was time to mingle, engage, say hello to new and old friends, and enjoy a bit of space from our day-to-day business issues and focus on bigger issues. And enjoy a pint of Guinness or two :)

CEPIC Congress, Dublin, Ireland

CEPIC, Dublin, Ireland

Jerome Lacrosniere of Imaginechina and Shannon Fagan at “Before the Future”, CEPIC, Dublin, Ireland

More from CEPIC and Dublin:

• Ellen Boughn, To Russia With Love*…from CEPIC, with links to many other notes and photos from CEPIC.
• My photos on Flickr, of CEPIC, Dublin, and the Before the Future mixer.

Is Flickr’s new “Request to License” feature via Getty Images a big deal? For Flickr, it’s a feature that aids their competitive positioning. For Getty, it just adds to their efforts to bring more images to the market. For a photographer, it’s just the chance to make money where there was really no chance before, without any extra effort. And that’s fine. It is what it is.

The middle line is what’s new.

On the Flickr Blog,

Starting today in the Flickrverse, Flickr members and visitors can work with each other through a new program with Getty Images called “Request to License”. We’ve built this program on the success of our launch of the Flickr Collection on Getty Images just over one year ago.

Finally.

The original Flickr / Getty deal was a wasted opportunity for innovation in stock photography.

But perhaps it was just a start, the minimum viable product, the necessary first step towards a broader integration. Finally, with this announcement, Flickr and Getty take the next step towards curating photos rather than curating photographers.

But is it a big deal?

As Rob Haggart at A Photo Editor notes on the new Flickr / Getty opportunity,

Giving people the option to buy instead of steal or CC license images is a good thing. It’s only a bad thing if you’re a Flickr photographer who thinks selling images to Getty actually leads somewhere (see BBC Story).

See, here’s the thing. Right now, this is a feature, not a venture. I doubt Getty or Flickr are expecting massive sales out of it, and I’d bet they’ve set expectations accordingly. The goal is to make it possible for someone to buy what they might otherwise steal.

It’s actually a stronger offering as a competitive strike against Flickr’s competitors, combining the social, community nature of the site with the opportunity, however slight, to sell what might have otherwise been stolen. If they continue the partnership with a digital watermarking and enforcement engine, then that’s more powerful.

It fits within the broader trend of unbundling the stack of services in the photography industry taking an image from idea to buyer, by bringing more images under the realm of “available to buy”.

But for an individual photographer, it’s not a serious opportunity. It isn’t intended for any photographer that is trying to evaluate which stock agency to use to distribute their images. It’s for the photographer that already uses Flickr and is now a little happier that they *might* make a little money. And it’s certainly nothing any photographer interested in selling stock licenses should really care about, except for the fact that it only continues the price pressures in the industry.

It’s just the chance to make money where there was really no chance before, without any extra effort. And that’s fine. It is what it is.

Recap from CEPIC, coming soon.

Updated June 23
Jonathan Warren wrote an interesting anaylsis about the Flickr “Request to License” feature in his post The Getty Monster, focusing on Getty’s 70% commission from image sales via this feature. Of note:

Now Getty doesn’t have editors crawling Flickr what exactly are they doing for their 70% cut? Before digital cameras came on the scene photographers would send agencies their slides or negatives, the agency would scan or print them, touch them up and make any colour corrections before sending them on to clients as digital files or prints. They would negotiate sales with clients and at the end of the month they would send the photographer a sales sheet showing what had sold to who and for how much. For this work agencies would take a 50/50 cut of the sales, more generous agencies gave photographers a 60/40 cut.

So now photographers are capturing their files digitally, making adjustments on their computer, captioning and keywording files before uploading them to Flickr. And all Getty are doing for their massive 70% cut is negotiating a price when someone asks and sending the invoice. That doesn’t sound like a fair deal for photographers who are doing more than 70% of the work.

Honestly, the fact is that Getty can take a 70% cut, so they will. The vast majority of photographers using Flickr aren’t using it to sell but to share; it’s a social exercise, not a commercial enterprise. People adjust, caption and keyword for themselves and their friends, not for Getty. Any sales are gravy.

Any comparison to the old 60/40 split is irrelevant. Uploading and making an image available to buy on Flickr is an entirely different exercise than attempting to sell through a stock agency. But more fundamentally, we all know it’s a very different market for images than it used to be. The old split made sense in the old market. The new split makes sense in today’s market. That’s how change works.

JP Rangaswami, musing about social objects and why social objects are created by our stories, lives and shared experiences, not the content.

If you’ve ready anything I’ve written about the photography business, or marketing through experiences, or the value of context, you’ll understand why JP Rangaswami’s thoughts resonate so deeply with me.

JP, Thinking about social objects and limbo dancing:

You know what makes an object “social”? We do. Without us there is no “social”, even if we use objects to extend and enhance that socialness.

Photographs are social objects, which is why it would come as no surprise if Facebook now had more photographs than Flickr. Films are social objects. Songs are social objects. Books. Sporting events. TV programs. Concerts. They’re all social objects.

When we see lists like that, we can start believing that all social objects are “content”, which gets the “rightsholders” of content salivating up the wazoo. Perish the thought.

Content is not what makes an object social. We do.

Again, we do. Back to JP,

There was a time when “content” was created by a tiny minority of people, largely because the tools for making that content were elitist in nature. Scarce, expensive, needing specialist skills. To make matters worse, the techniques for distributing and sharing that “content” were also elitist in nature. So people who “owned” that “content” felt like kings.

Now things have changed. There’s been some limbo-dancing. The barriers to entry for creating, publishing and distributing “content” are getting lower by the minute. Which means that the content kings are all dressed up with nowhere to go. And so the only option they think they have is to try and recreate the barriers they used to enjoy, in paradigms where they are technically and economically difficult to recreate.

This is why incumbents make unbased arguments like crowdsourcing is “ripping off artists”.

Back to JP,

People who used to “own” “content” still have roles to play. While digital content will continue to trend towards free, there are many ways to make money because of that content rather than with that content, the “because effect”. Time-based premia. Analog sales. Authenticity. Merchandising. All the “better than free” ideas that Kevin Kelly tells us about.

As the cost of producing content drops, as the cost of distributing content drops, as the process of creating the content gets more and more democratised, something new happens. We start having too much content. Which means the role of curators increases in importance. Curation is about access, about trust, about relationships, about expertise, about context. So the content rightsholders of old have an opportunity to excel, since they have the inside track to providing these. We used to go to them for content they generated. Now we can go to them for content we generate. That is, if they stop their paywall tomfoolery. We pay for service, not for content.

Curation is a valuable service. The question: how will curators (individuals and companies) combine algorithms and people to curate content? How will we create layers of curation, creating different curatorial efforts for speed, efficiency, delivery methods, personalization, etc., all different and valuable ways to add contextual value to content.

Creating value through curating content and adding context isn’t new. But when the equations that have defined how we create and consume content and context change, we’re forced to create new systems, and the transition creates a lot of debate between the old and the new, between technology and business, between “laws on the books” and economic realities, between culture and tradition.

These are the debates that journalists, photographers, artists, writers et. al. all face. Choose your side of the debate wisely.

(Read JP’s full post for more thoughts, background and links to related posts by him, Hugh, and others. It’s worth it, as always.)