Back to the Future: Life.com Goes Live

Life magazine published as a weekly from 1936 to 1972. From the early '80s until 2000 if was published as a weekly. Now it is back, in a new form, on the web. Life.com went live today, after about three years of planning and development. The new site features about 7 million images from the Life archive, many never seen before, along with contemporary photos from Getty Images, which is a partner in the new venture. (Getty also brought its considerable technological resources to the project, which is one reason the site is so fast and easy to use.) For me, this is a fantastic resource for exploring the history of the greatest photo magazine of all. You can search the archive in a number of ways: searching for a particular celebrity (Marilyn Monroe, for instance, seen above in a a famous 1953 portrait by Alfred Eisenstaedt), or for sports images.
It's great to see Life get another chance at life. CEO Andy Blau and editor Bill Shapiro have really put together a splendid site--they tell me it's the biggest photography website on the Internet, which seems pretty accurate, considering the archival depth of Life.com. Here's some insider info: American Photo will be featuring a portfolio of some unknown treasures from the Life.com collection in its July/August issue. --David Schonauer

Annie Leibovitz Signs with Getty Images

The famed portraitist and editorial photographer who has shot everyone from Angelina Jolie to Queen Elizabeth II has signed a deal to be represented by Orchard Represents, a division of Getty Images that markets high-end and specialist photographers. The announcement was made by Getty earlier today.
    In the press release detailing the news, Leibovitz was quoted as saying, "Getty Images has quietly become one of the leading agencies in the world. I look forward to working with Jonathan Klein and his team.”
   Other photographers represented by the boutique division include Lorenzo Agius and Tom Stoddart.
  The announcement comes several weeks after a New York Times article disclosed that Leibovitz had put up her past work and copyright to secure $15 million in loans to cover a financial shortfall. (Go here for details.)
    Getty itself recently announced that it would be eliminating 110 jobs, or five percent of its workforce. The company must be grateful to add the best known photographer in the world to its roster. --David Schonauer

Epitaph For Digital Railroad

The news that Digital Railroad has shut down its servers is sad if not unexpected. It was clear the business was in trouble when the Diablo Management Group took control and chief executive Charles Mauzy departed with other employees. Nonetheless, I was shocked to hear that a notice had been posted on the DRR site today saying that it was shutting down. That left a lot of photographers around the world in the lurch. Apparently competitor PhotoShelter is offering a special rate for former DRR subscribers. I am a friend of DRR founder Evan Nisselson, and he sent me a note this morning, which I share here:

It is a very sad day! I am very sorry for our members.
     There are many variables that have helped and challenged the success of DRR. There are many things that could have been done differently and I am sure we all have learned through the process – I know that I have.
     I evolved to chairman of the board almost a year ago and since then have had no control and limited input.
     After Diablo Management took over the board and operations of the company on Oct. 10th I tried to gather people to acquire the company back. I came very close but unfortunately it didn't happen. These
didn't materialize for several reasons including the very challenging financial times we are in.
     After these initiatives didn't materialize - Diablo wouldn't even return my emails or calls. We kept advising that the members needed and deserved advance notice if the company was going to turn off the
platform but after this advice from several people - Diablo Management only gave members 24 hours to transfer images.
     Unfortunately sharing this perspective doesn't change anything but I hope it helps clarify a bit.

Best,
Evan

The history of the Internet is filled with the names of products and companies that are no longer with us. The fact that new VC funding wasn't available now isn't surprising either, given the state of the economy and tight credit markets. Does anyone have thoughts about what went wrong here?--David Schonauer

Photoshelter Collection Comes to a Close

We received sad news a bit ago that the Photoshelter Collection is shutting down, effective October 10. Started only a year ago, the Collection's big idea was to use technology to make a user-friendly upload system that would allow photographers who don't exclusively shoot stock to get into the stock game. I was impressed by their new ideas and enthusiasm, as were many photographers and editors, obviously. But as CEO Allen Murabayashi explained in a characteristically honest post to the Photoshelter blog, the odds were stacked way too high against them. They underestimated the extreme complexity of licensing images, as well as the complete hegemony that Getty exercises. And despite hearing from image buyers that they were desperately looking for better, original images, as we heard at the Photoshelter Shoot The Day! symposium a few months ago, those buyers rarely actually purchased Photoshelter images. Allen's blog post has drawn many frowny emoticons and, unsurprisingly, several indignant comments from photographers who feel they wasted their time uploading to the Collection and are disappointed to see it close after only a year. I have to say I'm surprised to see the Collection fold so quickly, but if it wasn't making enough money, in an economy like this especially, I understand the decision to cut their loses. The FAQ page here has more answers for photographers affected by this decision.
~Miki Johnson

Three Glimpses of Photography's Future

By now I'm guessing that most people who read blogs (or email) have read Vincent Laforet's insightful, tough-love opus at Sports Shooter about the state of photography today (and tomorrow), The Cloud is Falling. It's a long piece, so there's a chance you might not have gotten to this late paragraph:

I'll leave you with this. If I were 22-years old right out of college looking for a job or a career path, I wouldn't be focusing on working on x newspaper to get to y newspaper and then eventually z magazine with my 20 image portfolio that contains 2 spot news photos, 4 sports pix, 4 feature photos, and a 10 picture story. That model is dead - to put it bluntly. I'd be thinking big - realizing that I have a chance to be a pioneer in this new world of opportunity. Trying to think up of the next big thing.

Woohoo Vincent. You tell 'em. I've been saying this for years, especially because many of the photographers I'm frequently in contact with are, to varying degrees, just out of college, and I know they have the talent to get this revolution off on the right foot. Anyway, it's nice to have that idea reiterated by one of today's biggest photojournalists, especially when he supports it with so much first-hand evidence.

This whole thing has gotten me thinking about what this "new world" might look like, and I've found a couple of promising things (see below). To my mind, the faster we recognize and assimilate the good ideas, the faster we can move on to the even better ones.

This Day In Photographyy, 1937: The Hindenburg

On May 6, 1937, the German zeppelin Hindenberg exploded while attempting to moor in Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 36 people. The disaster resulted in the death of the commercial trans-Atlantic zeppelin service and the rise of the mass news media. On this date, still photographers, filmmakers, and radio broadcasters put together a perfect storm of coverage that set the stage for the future of communications.
     At least it seems that way to me, but I’m no historian. Yet I can’t think of any event before the Hindenburg explosion that equaled it’s multi-media coverage.
     There are a couple of angles here that are interesting for photographers today.
     (And lots of interesting trivia: According to this article, the Hindenburg was to have been filled with non-flammable helium; however, the United States owned all the world’s helium and had placed an embargo against selling it to Nazi Germany. The Graf Zeppelin Company, which built the Hindenburg, turned to hydrogen as an lifting agent. Kapow!)

It's Official: Getty Images Sold to Private Equity Firm

After a decade of acquiring nearly every stock photography collection and agency with promise, Getty Images has itself been acquired. The buyer? Private equity firm Hellman & Friedman LLC, in a transaction valued at approximately $2.4 billion.

Starting just over a decade ago, the imaging company built with money from oil baron Mark Getty set about transforming a sleepy, largely mom-and-pop industry built on analog slide shipments into the leading digital photo library in the Internet age. Over the years the company's work impacted nearly ever professional photographer in the business, and, as is the case with most disruptive businesses, engendered more than its share of criticism.

Still, the company's power and success are undeniable, as evidenced by today's heft price tag.

What's next? How will the purchase, if approved, impact photographers working today? Stay tuned as this all shakes out, and please share your thoughts in the comments below. Also, if you're at all interested in the history of how Getty got to where it is today, see our analysis of its acquisition history.

Full press release after the jump.

A History of Getty Images' Acquisitions

With news of Getty Images' acquisition by private equity firm Hellman & Friedman, we thought we'd share this list, compiled by research firm Ketupa.net and analyzed by yours truly, to show how Getty became the prime mover in the photo industry. Full list of Getty's acquisitions, and prices when available, after the jump.

A Wrap-Up on Photo News

I vowed to avoid work over the longish weekend and forbid myself from posting. But the news of photography and our modern culture piled up. Here is a short, slanted wrap-up:

LINDSAY LOHAN POSES AS MARILYN
I really wanted to say something about this when I saw the images in New York magazine yesterday, but wisely held back. This was a promotional ploy, and it worked—lots of publicity all over TV and the web. But photographically it caused me to wince, and I don’t wince easily. Bert Stern, who famously photographed the “last sitting” of the real Marilyn, took the new photos, but he did Lohan no favors. She looks like a transvestite in that blond wig. She also looks about 10 times more haggard than the real Marilyn did when Stern shot the originals—and that was only a few weeks before Marilyn committed suicide. Above all, the new photos remind us that Marilyn was simply transcendent in photographs. She made pictures better just by being in them. Sometimes photographers have to put their egos on the shelf and admit that it’s the person in the image that makes a picture great.

THE PRICE IS RIGHT: MICROSTOCK FOR $7
Photo District News reports on the on-going effort by microstock agencies to find the optimum price for royalty-free photographs. According to Adam Brotman, senior vice-president of SnapVillage, that price is $7. SnapVillage, owned by Corbis, lets photographers assign prices to their images, and, as Brotman notes, the average price paid for images is $7. The news could be worse, since SnapVillage allows such images to be prices at $1, $5, $10, $25, or $50.

BABY PHOTOS EARN BIG MONEY
But photographers probably don’t see much of it. AdAge.com reports that People magazine is prepared to pay Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony between $4 million and $6 million dollars for exclusive U.S. rights to the first photos of their expected twins. People also reported paid $1.5 million for the first pictures of Christina Aguilera’s new baby. The magazine was rumored to have paid $4 million for pictures of baby Shiloh Jolie-Pitt. According to AdAge, those images drove up sale 45 percent. However, the issue with the first shots of Britney Spears’s son Sean Preston saw a decline in sales of 15 percent. Anyway, being a good baby photographer might be a good business—better, at least, than microstock.

MONKEY PARENTING IS ALWAYS GOOD, PHOTOGRAPHICALLY
With all this otherwise negative news, I’ve got to end on something photographically worthwhile. Below you see one of pictures of the week from nationalgeographic.com. It shows Vale, a four-week-old titi monkey held by his father, Thiago, in London zoo’s new rainforest habitat. Beautifully framed, the photo was made by Peter Macdiarmid for Getty Images.--David Schonauer

Getty Images Can't Find a Buyer

Getty Images set the photo world talking last month when it announced it was putting itself up for sale. Now, according to this report in the New York Times, the sale is off. Apparently Getty couldn't find a buyer.
The Times reports that Getty received no bids above its current market value of $1.6 billion. The timing for the announced sale was terrible, coming just in time for the current economic slowdown, which may or may not officially be a recession. At any rate, the tight credit market means that private equity firms like Bain Capital and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts can't get the money they need to do big buyouts. Maybe this will turn out to be good thing.--David Schonauer