The Verdict Is In... ImageSpan!

Having given very careful consideration, and having committed to deciding by the end of the year; I've opened an account with ImageSpan and I'm now using their LicenseStream PRO service to automate the licensing of my stock images. No, I haven't forsaken my ususal outlets, but I've added ImageSpan to the mix. Now there will be a click-through solution from my web site to the ImageSpan portal for e-commerce enabled licensing of my rights-managed stock images that are not included in my collections at Getty Images, AGE Fotostock or Mira.

Why ImageSpan? To quote from their web site: ImageSpan's powerful LicenseStream platform is designed with a number of audiences in mind — from enterprise to creator. LicenseStream delivers a smart, powerful, easy-to-use set of Web services that allows a buyer to license content quickly and a seller to syndicate content safely. The result? Dramatically lower costs, faster time-to-market for all types of digital media – images, audio, video and text – and no liability.

Another feature that I really like: ImageSpan's LicenseStream platform enables rapid compliance with the PLUS licensing standards, adopted by major global publishers, through its LicenseStream Creator PRO service for individual creators and small agencies, and it's API for media companies, advertising agencies, and content production businesses.

All I have to do now is redesign my web site to incorporate the portal and I'll be ready to roll. That'll keep me busy through April (or May?)!

The Six Degrees Of Separation

"Hello. My name is Mr. Peabody and this is my boy, Sherman. Sherman, set The Wayback Machine to July 1980."

"Where are we going, Mr. Peabody?"

"Why, we'll be visiting the East 29th Street studio of Bill Stettner, of course, Sherman."

"Who's Bill Stettner, Mr. Peabody?"

(I knew it when I wrote yesterday, if only in the far reaches of my imagination, that I wasn't finished blogging for the year. I knew it!)

In the summer of 1980 I found myself in the unlikely position of being Bill Stettner's First Assistant & Studio Manager. I'd sought that position previously but, being under 25 at the time, Bill wasn't inclined to hire me. However, in the strangest twist of fate for a photographer's assistant I was, in effect, traded by Klaus Lucka (I'd been his First Assistant since April) to Bill. That's a long story, a tale for another day, but the point is that I got dropped into the Polaroid Zone.

I'm sure you're wondering what I'm babbling about, and the key is a story in today's New York Times' Week In Review section, Imperfect, Yet Magical... about the pending demise, in bankruptcy, of Polaroid Corporation.

Bill Stettner had a deal with Polaroid. I don't recall, after all the intervening years, the particulars of the arrangement but I do recall an unlimited supply of Polaroid SX-70 film at Bill's studio. We were burning it up at breakneck speed. Case after case after case, the SX-70s were flying.

It was a really fun medium. Nearly instant, eminently malleable, incredibly versatile and... don't forget... in virtually limitless supply. I became addicted and my habit lasted well into the 1980s, until my camera broke.

It was fun working at Bill's. Not only did we have an unlimited supply of SX-70 film, but Bill Stettner was a very colorful guy with an unusually colorful, nurtured in The Bronx, equally unlimited vocabulary of expletives (nearly all of which need to be deleted in print).

And Bill gave good advice! I remember him arriving at the studio one Monday morning to my unshaven face and he asked, "What's up with that mug? Did you forget what a (expletive, deleted) razor looks like?"

I'm growing a beard, Bill.

"What kind of a (expletive, deleted), (expletive, deleted) schmuck grows a beard in the middle of the summer?"

It was years later that I met, here's where the six degrees of separation come into play, Alex Land. Alex Land was my ex-wife's, mother's aunt's, husband. The son of a successful businessman of the early 20th Century and first cousin of one Edwin Land.

Though it was many summers later, Alex and I met as I was... yet again... growing a beard. "My father always told me, 'Never do business with a man with a beard,'" Uncle Alex related. "Of course, my father made two egregious business mistakes." He went on to tell me how, when faced with a partner who wanted to expand their electric motor business when he didn't, his father bought-out his partner who took the money and founded a business that (according to legend) became General Electric. Don't know if that was an entirely accurate recounting but, according to Alex, that was the gist of it.

The other of Uncle Alex's father's 'mistakes' was not going into partnership with his nephew Edwin, who was seeking seed capital for a venture. According to Uncle Alex, "My father said, 'Edwin, just tell me what you need, you can have it, I don't want any more partners.'" Edwin went on to found Polaroid, no strings attached.

Well, Bill Stettner is long gone; Alex Land is gone, too. And Polaroid? Polaroid is going, going..... going to miss the magic of all three of them.

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All above: Polaroid SX-70 Alpha, 116mm/f8.0 lens, Polaroid SX-70 Instant Film

The Last Word 2008

I wouldn't want to guarantee it, but this may well be my last blog post for this year as I'm going on a reduced schedule... sort of a vacation at home... to clear some unfinished business before the end of the year. Doesn't mean I won't have more to say, but I'd think it unlikely.

Anyway, I was reading the paper this morning when I spotted a story on the resurgence of the use of coal as a home heating fuel and I remembered a story I'd photographed a few years ago about the use of coal as a fuel for heating NYC public schools. It seems that, at the time (and I don't think much has changed), 25% of New York City's schools were still being heated by coal.

It was a December day, cold, snowing like crazy... just like today, in fact... that my assistant, Doug Lloyd, and I loaded the car and drove down to the Brooklyn office of the Board of Education to meet our contact who would then shepherd us out to PS 73, in the Brownsville section.

Doug and I had arrived early and decided to grab some lunch so I sent him over to a deli I'd spotted on the corner of Fulton Street and he brought back two turkey sandwiches on rye with mayo, lettuce and tomato; two bags of chips and two cans of Coca~Cola... grand total under nine bucks, which the client refused to pay for when I noticed the payment for the shoot was short the price of the lunch. We ate it in the car, in the snow, on Joralemon Street and it was less than nine bucks!! Some clients are just plain cheap, the explanation was that since we never left town..... but I digress.

So, yeah, 25% of NYC schools were still being heated by coal..... amazing! I also learned that John, the guy in the picture, had this great union job shoveling coal. And, Johnny had this coal shovel that he'd special-ordered from the one hardware store he could find where they actually knew about the existence of coal shovels (looks like a regular shovel to me).

I learn so much interesting stuff on this job, it blows me away.
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Furnace: Canon EOS-1N, 70~200/2.8 Canon Zoom Lens EF L Ultrasonic, Fujichrome Provia
Johnny: Canon EOS-1N, 28~70/2.8 Canon Zoom Lens EF L Ultrasonic, Fujichrome Provia
both for Invention & Technology magazine

Season's Greetings from Chicagoland

It's 10:00 PM. Do You Know Where Your Pictures Are?

I made a post to APAnet regarding under-priced photography, citing an outfit called NY Food Photography as an example. No sooner had I spoken than James Lauritz, of Melbourne (Australia), responded: I am an Australian photographer and all (bar 3) of the photographs on their entire site were taken by me about 2 years ago for Convent Bakery here in Melbourne (for a lot more than they would quote).

In my last post here, Flattery Will Get You Nowhere, I wrote about scams directed at photographers. This NY Food Photography operation is a scam perpetrated by photographers! Does anyone know these guys?

My colleague, John Harrington, picked-up my comment on APAnet and did his own investigation which appears on his blog, Photo Business News & Forum today. The whole story is a shocker and points to the larger question: It's 10:00 PM. Do you know where your pictures are?

Flattery Will Get You Nowhere

Once upon a time, the early 1970s, I studied fashion photography at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology. Perhaps needless to say, I thought I was going to be a fashion photographer and I spent the better part of my apprenticeship assisting fashion and lifestyle shooters. Had I not become interested in other aspects of photography I may well have been a fashion photographer but..... I did shoot a few fashion jobs, the last one in 1983 (see image at right) for International Gold Corporation, and while I wouldn't mind doing shoots with fashion models rather than real people occasionally (and I suppose I could), I don't market myself as a fashion photographer.

In fact, if I was given an assignment to shoot fashion I'd probably do very well, but I'm not expecting that to happen out of the blue and so an e-mail I received this morning from a potential client made me unexpectedly laugh so hard that the coffee I was drinking... well, never mind about the coffee... but I was quite amused and more than a little suspicious. Call me a cynical New Yorker, or even a cynical Chicagoan if you must, but there was something that wasn't quite right about this.

The e-mail said: "My name is David Hunt.I have a paid Fashion job (contract),One of my clients wants to update her Catalog with her new year release Fitness Fashion outfits.I'm a model agent by profession with about 5 years experience.The event will take place on the 20th of December.Find all details for the job below..

The shooting will hold at a rented photographers studio in your location and different states,so you dont have to worry about travelling and accomodation logistics.However it will be provided by my client if neccessary.The name and address of the studio will be fowarded to you before the date of the shooting,.You can come along with any body of your choice on the day of the shooting,your friend,body-guard anybody you wish to come with just for you to feel more comfortable.

The total pay for the jobs is $2,500 for the total clothing for models ,but as a photographer you will be paid $1500 and you will get an advance payment as security fee from our client as your confirmation security deposit."

Leaving aside the fact of Mr. Hunt's poor spelling, grammar and typing it was the offer of an advance that set off my city-boy-ain't-falling-for-that alarm. While I routinely get advances on assignments, nobody has ever offered one. This is a scam!

If you receive an e-mail like this one, and there are many going around, you'll know it's a scam by the following earmarks:

* Your correspondent likes your work but never says where s/he saw it;
* The job is outside your normal area of operations;
* Location (sometimes the date) is not specified;
* Spelling, punctuation, typing is faulty;
* Inquiry is typically from abroad;
* An offer to pay you in advance.

What's wrong with an advance? The writer makes a reasonable sounding offer and you accept. When a money order arrives it's drawn for $2500, an amount that exceeds your fees by $1000, and when you inquire your correspondent tells you that his assistant has made an error but, that's okay, "would you kindly send the excess to our stylist (caterer, rental studio, model agency, etc) and save us all the hassle of returning and replacing your payment?"

You agree and deposit the instrument, your bank credits your account and you pay the stylist or whoever. A week or two later your bank informs you that even though it initially credited your account, that deposit didn't actually clear, the money order was a forgery and guess what? The shoot's canceled, the check you wrote was cashed and you're now out the other $1000!!

Phony weddings, phony tours by church groups, phony speaking engagements... all requiring the participation of a photographer... you. And, hey, do you need a body guard? An assistant would suffice. Let's be careful out there.