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Key words in this issue: Freelancing | Folio | Spam | Spyware | ASPP | Virus | Contest | Performance | Free | Photo Search |
NEWSWORDS: First Photo | Fires | Mac vs. Windows | Slides | Digital Dilemma | Kids | Pop-up Ads |

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## PhotoAIM weekly newsletter for 07/06/02 ## 382a
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PhotoAIM, the weekly newsletter from PhotoSource
International. <http://www.photosource.com> ==>

ISSN 1530-0511

If you no longer wish to receive PhotoAIM, see the instructions at the end of this newsletter.
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"Should I go with a stock photo agency?" -- is a question asked by many photographers who amass a substantial collection of images.

"If you do, start at the top," is usually the advice of veteran photographers. The top? In the commercial stock photography world, the top currently is Getty Images.

Getty Images has aspirations of becoming the biggest of the world's image suppliers. How big is it? Right now about 60 million images big. Getty would like to become the Charles Schwab & Co. of the Internet. In the late 1990's, the company was on a buying spree: EyeWire.com, Art.com, Online USA, and The Image Bank, were some of their major acquisitions.

But big does not always mean best. When it comes to depth of photo supply and services offered, how does Getty stack up against the freelance photographers around the world?

Here's the Seven "S's" Test

SIZE: There are at least 345 million images available from freelance photographers through the Internet. Getty, with its 60 million images, falls short by 285,000,000.

SALES: Photographers with Getty Images receive only 40% of sales; freelancers receive 100% of all sales. Freelancers can sell clients quality images at less cost than when a middleman is involved.

SPEED: The bureaucracy of a large corporation means delivery can often be unacceptably slow. Editorial as well as planning decisions handcuff the administration. In contrast, freelancers can make decisions and follow-through with immediacy -- a major benefit for photobuyers.

In the world of the Web, monolithic companies with their convoluted hierarchical structures will lose ground to the streamlined directness offered by small one-person companies.

SELECTION: Getty can respond only to requests for photos that it has in its database. For reasons of cost-efficiency, Getty stores only photos that have promise of a shelf life that will give Getty a return on its investment in the photo. This translates to an emphasis on generic, wide-use photos. However, as the Web is becoming ever more efficient, photobuyers are able to request highly specific images. Freelancers are in a better position than a large agency like Getty, to respond to non-generic requests and with next - day service, even if it means walking outdoors to shoot a particular wildflower blossom in the snow, or a teenager in a red sweatshirt grooming her Apaloosa horse.

SCANNING: Getty must follow protocol in its scanning process (a very small percentage of its 60 million images are scanned thus far, and the entire process won't be completed until well into 2015, by which time thousands of the images will be virtually obsolete.) Freelancers, on the other hand, have to scan an image (or have a service bureau scan it) only when they're ready to make a sale. And freelancers don't need to invest in (and recover the cost of ) industrial strength scanners. They can rely on a high-powered service bureau downtown.

Want to read more of this article? Go to: http://www.photoaim.com/gen562.html

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SOFTWARE TAILORED FOR YOU. "Where's David Arnold's article?" We had so much good content for you in July we had to delay David's final installment in his series (Number 4) on stock photo software for a month. But have no fear, you'll find it in the August issue of PhotoStockNotes, right on page one. (And no, he wasn't late: needing to prepare for a 2-week photo trip to Madrid in early June, he delivered the finished manuscript well before his June 1 Deadline!)

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This week's featured photographer on PhotoSourceFolio: Kjell Sandved:
(http://www.photosourcefolio.com)
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PhotoSourceFOLIO Sneak Preview

For our loyal readers of PhotoStockNOTES who are also members of PhotoSourceFOLIO, we'd like to tell you about a new feature we've recently added. Now you can edit your FOLIO photo captions and ID numbers whenever you like. Any changes you make to your contact info (either via the BANK update page, www.photosourcebook.com/update, or the new FOLIO update page, http://www.photosourcefolio.com/update) will be instantly reflected in your online web pages. For example, if you change your address on the BANK page and also have a FOLIO page, your new address will instantly appear on your FOLIO page. You'll need your User ID and Password to access this new FOLIO service, just as you do for BANK changes.

Anybody Want SPAM?

E-mail spam, that is, and now that you mention it, Uncle Sam does! The Federal Trade Commission is preparing for a crackdown on deceptive E-mail and is asking the public to forward any to them so the spam can be studied for violations of the law. Don't count on seeing any spam reduction soon, but it may help with future enforcement efforts. Forward your spam to uce@ftc.gov. And if you're wondering, they've received over eight million submissions already.

Sell & ReSell Your Photos Bookstore

Readers of this great work ("just the facts, ma'am!"), currently in its fourth edition with over 110,000 copies sold, often ask where to get some of the books and reference material mentioned throughout the text, or simply would like to know a little more about a book or software we mentioned. Thus was born the S&RS Bookstore Web Page, where we list books that are referenced in Rohn Engh's Sell & Re-Sell Your Photos. You can read our review of these books (as previously published in PhotoStockNOTES), or click on the book's hyperlink to see what others have to say over at Amazon's (or Barnes and Noble's) online store. This is a work-in-progress, so we'll be adding (and occasionally removing) listings as we move along. http://www.photosourcefolio.com/BookStore-SRS.htm. Happy reading!

Freeware, Shareware, Spyware

You know about the first two, but maybe not too much about the latter. Spyware is software, often disguised as "valuable freeware," that contains tools to send data about you and your surfing habits to advertisers, almost always without your consent (or it's buried in the pages of fine print extolling the virtues of the program and how they're concerned for your privacy, to which you agree in exchange for being allowed to install/download the program). Here are just a few spyware apps you may already have on your computer: Comet Cursor, Flyswat, NetZany, Alexa. This is not the same as the ubiquitous cookie, which is much easier to find and block. Nope, this is spy-vs-spy black ops kind of stuff. One solution is Ad-aware by Lavasoft, "a free multi-spyware removal utility, that scans your memory, registry, and hard drives for known spyware components and lets you remove them safely." Download it, or learn more, at http://www.lavasoft.nu/.

Bill Hopkins is the Webmaster of PhotoSourceFolio* (www.photosourcefolio.com) and a regular contributor to PhotoStockNotes. Send comments via e-mail to wh@photosourcefolio.com. Fax: 1 818 831-0916. (*Display 6 of your own images for photobuyers to view, on your page on the PhotoSource website.) For on-line marketing questions, contact Bill on the Kracker Barrel at www.photosource.com/board.

ASPP PRESIDENT RESIGNS. Christina Shutes , National President of the American Society of Picture Professionals, resigned her post in June. Louis Plummer has been nominated to take over the position of National President. The Board has unanimously approved his nomination. For information about ASPP: contact Cathy Sachs at 703 299-0219.

THE VIRUSES ARE COMING. E-mail is the playground for hacker experimentation. This was brought home recently when Doug Brooks, Director of Acquisitions & Visual Resources, Publications International, Ltd. wrote to PhotoSource International to say that that he received a large number of e-mails as a result of his updated listing in the "CHANGES" section of PhotoAim and every one of them was automatically deleted by his virus scan utility as being infected with no option for 'cleaning.' Doug wrote: "May I suggest photographers locate a service like Symantec or McAfee, who offer state-of-the-art virus detection services for a very low annual rate. I run McAfee on my PC automatically. It is an online service and it performs the virus scan via the Internet using the absolute latest virus definitions. $30.00 a year. Symantec, http://www.symantec.com, will do a scan of your computer for viruses over the Internet for free."

Note: Here at PhotoSource, we run PC-cillan (for about the same price). Check out last month's On-Line column for an explanation of how e-mail viruses are able to use a "found" e-mail address as the return address when it sends itself out again. -RE

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DIGITAL REPORT READY. The brand new 2002 Photobuyer Survey Report ($14.95, electronic version) is now out and can be ordered online at http://www.photosource.com/101/survey2.html. Phone: 1 877 404-7790.
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PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITION. Deadline: September 15, 2002. Awards: $3,000, publication of a book of photography, and inclusion in a traveling exhibition. Fee: $25. Contact with SASE: Center for Documentary Studies, 1317 W. Pettigrew, Durham NC 27705-4854. Phone: 1 919 660-3663. Fax: 1 919 681-7600. Web: http://cds.aas.duke.edu/grants/index.html .

INTERNATIONAL PHOTO CONTEST. Theme is Naval and Maritime subjects from countries other than the United States. Deadline: August 1, 2002. Awards: $200, $100, $100, $50, $50. No fee. Contact: Tom Bartlett, Marine Corps Photo Contest, US Naval Institute, 291 Wood Rd, Annapolis MD 21402. Phone: 1 410 268-6110. Fax: 1 410 269-7940. Web: http://www.usni.org/membership/contests.htm .

TODAY'S PHOTOGRAPHER MONTHLY PHOTO CONTEST. Awards: each monthly winner receives $50 in cash. All monthly winners and honorable are eligible to compete for the Grand Prize. The annual Grand Prize winner will receive $400 in cash and be published in Today's Photographer magazine. Fee: $4 for each photo entered. Contact: American Image Press, Editorial and Administrative Offices, P.O. Box 777, Lewisville NC 27023-0777. Phone: 1 336 945-9867. Fax: 1 336 945-3711. American Image Press at http://www.aipress.com .

ELECTRONIC ART PERMANENCE. Does electronic fine art face technological extinction, and can something be done about it? Time has a way of deteriorating anything, and that includes computer graphics and electronic works of art. For one thing, because viewing monitors that display the art evolve, the changes can change the art's appearance. Updates to software and operating systems and platforms raise the spector of obsolescence for computer art of today. And there's always the magnetic blizzards, with causes ranging from thunderstorms to extraterrestrial mysteries to mouse malfunction, that cause file disappearance. A paper prepared at UCLA tackles this question of permanence for electronic fine art. Computer artists will find it at:
http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/~howard/Papers/elect-art-longevity.html
- Bob Hollowell

"A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight."
-Robertson Davies

Get a free sample of Wikki Stix. It's recyclable. Teachers and seminar presenters use it to illustrate concepts. Fill out a form to receive a free copy of their office and craft supplies catalog.
http://www.exceptionalteaching.com/index_files

Want to know what they're saying about the PhotoDaily MarketLetter? Check it out at our Talk section.
http://www.photosource.com/talk/pd_talk.html

Watch for developments in the field of stock photography in PhotoAIM's
PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE NEWS
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You'll be the first to know...

Note: If the URL is long, it may extend to two lines. In that case - clicking on it won't work. Instead, "copy and paste" the URL.

Scientists Get Portrait of the 'First Photograph.' It was the Chinese philosopher Mo-Ti, about 2,500 years ago, who first described the optical phenomenon of light passing through a tiny hole in the wall of a darkened room and casting a full-color, upside-down image of what was outside on the opposite wall.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5653-2002Jun30.html

A Hot Shot Photo Journal - Follow a U.S. Forest Service Hotshot Crew as they fight forest fires in America's wilderness
http://www.sover.net/~kenandeb/fire/hotshot.html

Mac OS X vs. Windows XP: It's No Photo Finish - Microsoft and Apple disagree about many things, but they're unanimous about the importance of digital photography
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64882-2002Jun29.html

First Take: Big changes for Epson, HP scanners - From software to improved slide/transparency features, these models debut with plenty that's new.
http://www.zdnet.com/products/stories/reviews/0,4161,2872471,00.html

Digital photography's road ahead - Imagine if the roll of 35mm film you just bought worked with only one brand of camera and could be developed by only one drugstore. That about sums up the current dilemma of the digital photography business.
http://news.com.com/2008-1082-940868.html

Photo makers need silver despite going digital - Digital cameras are all the rage among holiday makers this year but it's too early to write off traditional film cameras, especially in Asia.
http://investor.cnet.com/investor/news/newsitem/0-9900-1028-20112063-0.html

What If Kids Built the Cities? - A new public art project in Ohio encourages kids to think bigger than that new porch swing: using software and digital cameras, the youngsters are collaborating to re-design their city.
http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,53134,00.html

Majority of Printing Firms Use At Least Some Kind of Color Management
http://www.trendwatchgraphicarts.com/fastfacts/fast178.html

Publishers of Web Sites File Suit to Stop Pop-Up Ads - A group of 10 Web site publishers is suing Gator, an online advertising and information storage company, to stop it from placing pop-up ads over their sites without permission.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/28/business/28GATO.html

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Need to find specific information on our web site? You can easily find it by using our search facilities. Check out the Search Page. It's free!
http://www.photosource.com/search.html

PhotoAIM is a collection of excerpts from our monthly newsletter, PhotoStockNotes, available through the web anywhere in the world $3.00 per month. (We now have it available in German.) PhotoStockNotes is also available via postal mail in the USA: $3.00 per month. Outside the USA: $5 per month. >http://www.photosource.com/psnintro.html

Feel free to forward this issue of PhotoAIM to your photographer friends.
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Have questions about marketing your editorial stock photography? Put your questions on our Kracker Barrel and find the answers.
http://www.photosource.com/board/wwwboard/wwwboard.html

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381a

Next Week: Training Photobuyers

"I love your PhotoRESEARCHER newsletter. I read it religiously."
- Judy Feldman, Feldman Photo Research, Chicago IL