© 2007 Andy Biggs

We get a lot of calls from photographers during the course of the week inquiring about PhotoShelter and whether it will suit their needs. In some cases the conversations are brief, and in all honesty, sometimes we don't even catch their names.

I have a brief recollection of speaking with a photographer that told me he was traveling to Africa and shooting wildlife, and it sounded like PhotoShelter would be a good fit for what he wanted to do. I hung up the phone and went on with my day, figuring we'd see some images in the future.

Earlier this month, Grover and I walked into David Schloss's inaugural AUPN party, and I looked up at the presentation screen to see some remarkable images from Africa. I mean absolutely stunning. And it turns out that the images were created by Andy Biggs, the same guy who had spoken to me months earlier.

We started chatting it up and he showed me some pretty awesome things he was doing with imprinting images on pieces of metal. And then the conversation turned to fotoQuote, his website and future projects.

So even though Andy is a PhotoShelter user with a customized site, he is a amazing photographer and great guy, and if you like cool wildlife photography, then check him out. He's set up most of his images for sale as self-fulfilled prints and rights-managed licensing with fotoQuote.

© 2007 The Strobist

Grover likes to tease me because I'm the kind of guy that believes you simply cannot have enough watt/seconds of lighting (seriously, can you ever have too much?). I frequently joke that the only problem with a picture is a lack of a few more strobes.

Being a gadget guy, I have a bunch of high powered strobes from dynalite, Profoto and Elinchrom (don't ask) becaue I believe the more lights the better. So imagine my dismay to find The Strobist, whose motto is "Less Gear, More Brain, Better Light." Less Gear? Are you nuts?

Then I look at the Strobist's pictures, and damn, they look better than mine. And all he's using is some rinky dinky flash. More validation for not having pursued a career in photography. It turns out, I needed less gear and more talent. Unfortunately, talent isn't on sale at B&H.

Alas, I was so impressed, and saw so many message board threads about the Strobist, that Grover and I decided we should put our little banner ad on his site. The Strobist is one of those great Internet stories where some guy follows his passion to create his little space on the Internet, and then gains a loyal, niche following. It's totally homegrown, and awesome.

I'm not ready to sell my Profoto's just yet, but maybe I'll pull out the Nikon speedlight a little more frequently.

"On February 21, the Copyright Office submitted a report to Congress that analyzes the fees charged by the Office and proposes an adjustment to the registration fee for online registrations. This fee will go into effect with the activation of the online registration system on or about July 1. If Congress takes no action within 120 days, the Register may implement the new fees. As an incentive to use the new online registration system, the fee for a basic registration filed online will be $35. The fee of $45, established in 2006, would remain the same for paper filings. The Register proposes the $35 fee both for those who submit their deposits online and those who submit deposits in physical form."

— US Copyright Office

When we first launched PhotoShelter, we contemplated developing a system that would allow photographers to automatically register their copyright, but then we heard that the Copyright Office was developing online registration. And now it looks as though things are proceeding, including the setting of fees for the service. Time will tell whether the mechanism is actually effective and efficient, but I'm happy to see some movement.

Zooomr to Sell Photos
Consumer photo/geo-tagging mash-up, Zooomr, is apparently working on some sort of photo sales capability. Undoubtedly, it will be royalty-free sales, and I imagine it will end up being something iStockPhoto-ish. The challenge for photo social networking sites in moving to sales is not tearing apart the social fabric through the commercialization. It will be interesting to see how Zooomr, and eventually Flickr, handle these sales, and the numerous copyright infringements on their sites. The move into image sales, of course, is not surprising.

With so much user-generated content, some percentage of which has to be monetizable, it would be silly not to pursue such an avenue.

Anti-Trust Investigation Initiated for Getty Acquisition of MediaVast
I'm not a lawyer, so I won't even bother trying to interpret the legal situation. And I'm sure that the inquiry is standard operating procedure for two market leaders, so I would expect the outcome to be favorable for Getty in the end. But from an editorial coverage perspective, it does appear to be a dubious situation as Getty and WireImage have historically had exclusive positions as the "official" photographer for many professional sports leagues and high-profile events.

And I don't think that this is a situation of crying over spilled milk. There is a legitimate concern over the monopolistic tendencies of the business as well as the veracity of photojournalism to survive in places where there is no separation between the league and the media outlet covering it.

WPPI
Grover and I are venturing out to Vegas for the 2nd time in the same month for the WPPI conference. Come say hello, and watch while we lose our shirts at the blackjack table.

On July 13, 2005, I wrote a blog entry discussing total cost of ownership, and contemplated why a photographer should use PhotoShelter when they could "get a 1TB hard drive for $1000" to back-up their images. At that time, 1TB of storage cost $4800/year on PhotoShelter.

I made the case in 2005 that the reason you should pay (significantly) more was that you were getting geographically redundant RAID, plus a feature set that was built for professional photographers. Having files online not only makes sense from a back-up strategy, but from a workflow strategy as well. We can't reiterate this enough. We felt then, as we do now, that online storage will be the norm, not the exception for file storage. But I think we intuitively knew that the price had to be price competitive with desktop solutions to be considered seriously.

The pricing is now competitive.

Today, we announced an add-on storage option for our subscribers with a Pro or Standard account. These users can get 1TB of additional storage for $1000/year, or 500GB for $600/year. A desktop solution with 1TB of usable space currently runs about $1300 at a minimum.

And if you did buy a drive, you still couldn't:

• Easily access its contents remotely
  
• Assemble online galleries
  
• Use collaboration tools like our lightbox
  
• Integrate it into your website
  
• Price and license online
  

We all use multiple computers. We all travel to various destinations. All our clients need images at the most inopportune times. We've all suffered hard drive crashes. Having your images online has so many advantages, we shouldn't even need to argue the point anymore.

Still think it doesn't make sense? Tell me why.

Although we won't have a booth, Grover and I will be walking around PMA talking to photographers and photo manufacturers, and drooling over the cool gadgets (He shoots Canon, I shoot Nikon). So if you see us, say hello. He's the bald one, and I'm the good looking one. ;)