I don’t know about you, but it was a busy week at PhotoShelter! We released the much anticipated Google +1 button on all PhotoShelter members’ websites; friend and PhotoShelter member Adam Stoltman came by the office for the first in a 3-part workshop series for our junior staff covering photo technique and workflow; and we finalized our team goals for 2012, aka the best year ever.

But enough about us! Everyone else in the PhotoShelter community seemed to be pretty busy as well. Here are a few of the highlights from this week:

Newly released “Sexy Pizza” calendar

Our friend and former PhotoShelterer Ashley Macknica just released a pizza photo project in calendar form with Greg Barris, comedian and part owner of L’asso restaurant in New York City. Titled “Pizza Is My Lover”, the 2012 calendar is collection of so-called pizza porn images. See for yourself in the slideshow posted by The Huffington Post.

Company website tests stock images vs. real people

The guys over at MarketingExperiments conducted an interesting experiment and released the findings in a blog post we stumbled across this week to answer the age-old question: do people respond to generic stock photos? In this case, judging whether people “responded” to stock imagery was measured by the number of people who signed up for their client’s free consumer debt consultation. The company in question here had a website that featured a generic stock image of a random lady wearing a headset next to the offer. So they were curious if more people would sign up if they featured a photo of the company founder, rather than this random stock lady.

 General stock image

Photo of company founder

Turns out people were 35% more likely to sign up when the offer was placed next to the founder’s image. So does this signal the decline of generic stock? For better or worse, probably not. But it does reinforce the importance of imagery that effectively connects with an audience.

LUCEO Images “Great Than The Sum” exhibition

LUCEO Images continues its track record of noteworthy innovation. They break from tradition this week at 25CPW Gallery in NYC with its “Greater Than The Sum” group exhibition. It features a broad curation of LUCEO photographers’ work into one 163-foot run that will span the entire gallery. The collection includes everything from personal projects to commissioned works to family albums. And rather than selling individual prints, they’re selling CUTS – 24×24 inch sections that you cut yourself from the entire span. Opening night is tonight, January 13th – learn more about this unique opportunity here.  (Congrats on the CNN coverage guys!)

Martin Herrera’s “Peñarol” project published

PhotoShelter member Martin Herrera has certainly started 2012 off with a bang – his photo project “Peñarol” was published in the Leica Fotografie International January issue, which is a German publication focused on photography done with a Leica. The project was co-authored with Diego Vidart and features the town of Peñarol, Uruguay, where Soler says “past and present coexist in a singular and contradictory way”. Check out more in this blog post and see the image gallery here.

20 free must-read eBooks – suggested by PhotoFidelity

PhotoFidelity curated a list of 20 free photo related eBooks that you can add to your 2012 reading list. Included in the list are resources from the Strobist, Adorama, Scott Bourne, Craft & Vision, and yours truly – PhotoShelter. We want to thank PhotoFidelity for including the 2012 Photo Business Plan Workbook and Selling Fine Art Photography Guide in their list!

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