Creative Business Wire - Do Not Pass Go

Today, Creative Business Wire, launches, billing itself here as "Creative Business Wire is a digital imagery news service that specializes in business photography, and only business: the economy, Washington D.C., leaders, trends and other business related images are produced on a daily basis by our stable of acclaimed professional photographers." On the eve of their launch, with just about 8,000 images pre-populated on their site, we talked for some time with their President and co-owner, Sandy Huffaker.

In a wide-ranging interview, Huffaker seemed to come off as hoping for the best, while not really prepared for anything else. When asked about his photographers, he said "Ive wanted to get a certain number of photographers on board, which as actually been kind of a challenge...its been hard, because its kind of a spec agency", which is understandable. Not that hes trying to do that, but that hes having a hard time because spec agencies/models are bad. We dovetailed that question into a question about how he intends to differentiate CBW from, say, a Bloomberg. "Im trying to sign on really talented, high quality type photographers", I want to hire these documentary photographers... and have them go out and follow around a cobbler or a fisherman...really try to mix it up..." When we asked "so, its kind of like assignment work on spec", he answered "exactly, exactly. And Ill plan to send out a needs list every night. Itll be a little bit of redundant work. There seems to be three to five business stories a day. I want the photographers to self-generate their own assignments."

This didnt sound like a promising idea, at all.

Huffaker then offerred up David McNew, one of his primary contributors. "I have this guy, David McNew, whos a former Getty staffer, he got laid off, hes in LA, editors love him." So we asked, "So, if editors love him, why would David go out and churn images to be a part of a $100 a month online all you can use service? How is that economicaly viable for him?"

"I think he believes in it", Huffaker said. "He believes in the model where, say, you get 100 subscriptions at $300 a month, thats $30,000 a month, split between 10 photographers, I think thats real income." Then, it seemed, to a degree, he realized the challenge of his argument, then offered, "Im not crazy about having such a low subscription rate for downloads, but in my research, seeing how Getty is offering $30 editorial images, its kind of, its the only way I can see to do it right now."

Since photographers now have a choice of shooting their own stock, and putting them onto a platform like PhotoShelter and marketing to a group of clients, picture stories, as produced, we asked him about this, "how do you see this as different than doing this themselves with PhotoShelter, and doing their own marketing?" He answered, "I think whats going to differentiate us is its a very hand-picked select group of people. Im really banking on some of our name recognition. A lot of our contributors work for the New York Times and Wall Street Journal...when I go to the New York Times tomorrow, 3 or 4 of us already work for them..."

When we brought to his attention that the New York Times has their own syndication deals for images, and there are a number of images on the CBW site that have as the byline "...for the New York Times", and that this could be a contractual problem there, and further, that the NYTs contract (at least the last one we saw some time ago) precluded photographers from using the New York Times name to promote themselves, he responded "theyve never expressed that to me...I better go back and look at that, because I havent looked at that contract in awhile."

Despite billing CBW as "specializes in business photography, and only business: the economy, Washington D.C., leaders,", and co-founder Robert Benson over on the Lightstalkers forum (here) writing "We are looking for photographers in NYC and Washington DC" for "a very specific type of imagery: business photos (economy, transportation, green, economy, jobs, energy, washington, etc)" Huffaker said of DC and political imagery "Im not going to focus as much on the politics, you know, Washington, you know, AP, Getty, they all have full time staffers doing that. Another thing, I know if it was me, I wouldnt want to shoot that stuff on Spec...". yet CBW is asking just that of DC photographers, and marketing that as the objective on Lightstalkers.

As to overhead, Huffaker said "I dont have CEOs, no office, basically, you can do this from a computer. It was incredibly cheap to start this thing. I went through Photocore, which, they did US Presswire. It was basically $1,000, and about $150 a month to rent the storage.So, its very cheap to start up."

When we asked "have you run any projections as far as numbers", he responded, "I think our yearly goal for the first year is 40 subscriptions, I think 100 would be great. We need to be able to produce 3-5 of these daily stories, I think, to survive."

We presented a scenario to him, off the cuff. Since its not our role to be his accountant, we didnt have a definitive set of numbers, so we tossed out a few examples. He had said he would have two of his 10 photographers in New York City. So, we asked, keeping in mind his goal of 3-5 stories a day, and that at least one of those each day would come from NYC. So, with his two NYC photographers, that equates to 2.5 stories a week, or 10 a month. We then suggested that if they were to go the route of shooting those assignments for the AP, theyd get $2,000 a month from the AP. How much would CBW have to produce for them to get the same amount from CBW? We even walked him through the numbers:

You would have had to have sold about $5,000 of their images for them to get $3,500. That means CBW would have to generate $50,000 a month for each of the 10 photographers to see a gross revenue of $5,000, which they would then get their $3,500 from. Thus, since their model ranges from $100 to $300, a mid-point of $200 per subscriber would be reasonable for the purposes of this scenario. So, in order to get $50,000, CBW needs 250 subscribers, so each photographer can get their $3,500. When we then suggested that 250 subscribers is more than double the 100 he considered "great", that presents a problem. If 250 subscribers earns each of the 10 photographers a net of $3,500 for the month, then 100 would earn $1,40 a month ($140 an assignment), and, with an annual goal for the first year of 40 subscribers, thats $560 a month, to do 10 assignments, or $56 an assignment. Its important to note - the photographer contributing in NYC would have to do all 10 assignments, and hope that they had enough subscribers.

When we presented this scenario, and asked him if he had run the numbers in some similar type of scenario, he said: " I havent done kind of the math as you just did...I am so in the dark right now. I think we could get anywhere between 40 and 250. Im feeling its almost a shoe-in we can get, we have a list of over 4,000 publications, and we have a full-time salesman whos going to be on this." He then went on, "You know I dont know if its proven or not, we worked hours on just trying to find some kind of formula ...I have to be honest, this model isnt proven...Im not super experienced when it comes to the numbers stuff." Well, thats certainly a vote of self-confidence, in the eve of the companys launch.

When we asked Huffaker who would be doing sales, he responded "A photographer whos worked for Zuma, hes been in their system awhile, so I can be out shooting. His name is Jerod Harris. Hes kinda new, hes done some entertainment, so I am monitoring his shooting, hes very driven. " When we asked about him being full time sales, or part times sales part time shooting, since he has images on the site himself, he said "hes going to be fulltime sales....Ill let him go out and shoot the brands, you know, we have this brands link..." So, hes going to be doing both, it seems. Certainly, from the images on the site, hes got a lot there.

He then went on about the number of photographers, "right at this minute we have five really commited people." He then pointed out "Ive officially stopped accepting new photographers". Whew, Ill take that as a sign that no one else out there is going to be subjected to this bad deal. He said he cautioned everyone hes signed already, "this is something on the side of your daily assignments...dont quit your day job...I have no idea if its going to fly or not."

I do. Its not.

Near the end of our conversation, he offerred, "Come back in a month and well see if this thing is going to fly or not." Ok, Ill start with your website in a month, to see if anyone other than you, McNew, and Robert Benson, are still contributing images. When Huffaker said "Im a little inexperienced, to be honest, with this", and coupled that with a comment early on in our conversation he made - "my biggest fear is dicking over photographers", I say, stop now. Do not pass go, do not collect $200 from even a single client. Use the platform to license stock on an image-by-image basis, as the subscription model only profits the agency, not the photographer. Oh, but you just opened an agency, and are also one of the photographers too. Now I see.

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New York City Photo Shoot Permits - Get Over It

In New York City, the government entity that is charged with managing the citys assets on behalf of the people of New York, so that the city gets its due for the use of city assets, and does not interfere (or if it does, you may more) with the comings-and-goings of New Yorkers, is looking to implement a fee of $300 when you are exploiting the city assets beyond what every other citizen is doing (i.e. walking around enjoying them.) This isnt some restriction on your movements, its business, and you should get over it as some personal affront, and pony up (which youre passing on to your clients anyway!)

While $300 per shoot may be a bit excessive, and perhaps a $300 annual permit with, say, a $25-$50 per shoot application processing fee may be more appropriate, especially for the level of production that most still photographers bring to the assignment, production in the city puts a burden on the local government, and photographers should step up and recognize their responsibility to chip in. So, if youre an out-of-town photographer coming into the city and shooting on city property, you should pony up that $300 annual fee plus a the nominal shoot fee, and New York based photographers would be paying it once a year plus the per-shoot fees.

Permits and permitting fees are nothing new. They are a form of a property release for the location you are working in, along with being an indicator that someone in authority has reviewed your stated intentions for doing what you propose, and acknowledges that what you are doing is proper, and does not leave it to the beat cop who nows little about whats happening, or why.

"But I pay taxes, this is my property too, why should I have to pay to use it?" This argument is about as productive as saying to a cop who pulled you over for speeding "hey buddy, I pay your salary...", to which more than one cop has pulled out a shiny penny, handed it to the driver with the issued citation, and said something along the lines of "heres your portion back." Your right to use collectively owned resources is subject to the approval of the others who also own it. Its like a restaurant deciding to use city sidewalks to make money by adding a few more tables.

What does a permit get you? In many cases, exclusive use of that space, and on larger productions, you can have a security guard (often in the form of a uniformed off duty police officer) direct your fellow citizens around the shoot area so theyre not in your background, or tripping over cords. In some instances, exclusive use permits may cost more than ones that just validate what youre doing is ok.

The National Park Service has been charging for permits for several years now, and that makes sense. While it is hard to differentiate the avid hobbiest who takes his camera, tripod and long lens into a remote park to try to photograph some elusive animal, versus the photographer with a tripod who is making a living shooting stock of the same animals in the same way, so too is it difficult to differentiate the "family friend" amateur photographer who is doing bridal portraits at the Lincoln Memorial versus the $10,000 wedding photographer doing the same thing. Yet, the differentiation must be drawn when you are operating a portion of your commercial business on public property. Think about it this way - if you earn $5,000 a wedding, and do 20 weddings a year, thats $100,000. If out of an eight-hour wedding day, you shoot at the various monuments in DC for one hour, 12.5% of the time you are earning money each day you are doing so on publicly owned property. So, how much of that $12,500 in gross revenue should the government be entitled to? Well, at 2% the fee would be $250.

What about the insurance requirement that people are complaining about? Frankly, it is irresponsible for any photo editor/art director to allow a shoot to commence at their assigning without knowing that the business that employs them is protected from the accidents or errors that occur under the direction and control of the photographer they assigned. I know I cant walk into the Four Seasons Hotel, for example, to shoot a wedding reception without having provided them with a certificate of insurance proving I have coverage, nor can I do a photo shoot in the DC metrorail system without doing the same. Further, its absolutely a poor business practice to not carry that insurance to cover yourself.

There are, however, challenges to this permiting issue. Is this effort a deceptive way to rid the streets of the paparazzi? As written, I can see that a paparazzi is engaged in a shoot for commercial gain, and thus, could they could be eradicated from the streets around celebrity apartments for not having a permit. What about news gathering? For all the altruistic statements about it, news gathering is a commercial endeavor, and thus, would news photographers be required to get a permit to cover breaking news? I know that a phlanx of 6 photographers back-walking someone in the news, or a horde of 15 still and videographers back-walking, say, Bernie Maddoff can run into granny on the street and knock her down and cause injury.

In the end, the fee is going to be imposed by New York City, and soon, other jurisdictions as well. Miami has permits and fees for the shoots that take place on public beaches too, so this is all the more reason why you should be passing along these expenses to your clients, and not complaining that its coming out of your profits, because it shouldnt be in the fist place.

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Corbis Subsidiary Files for Bankruptcy Protection

Sygma, purchased by Bill Gates wholly owned and privately held company Corbis back in 1999, has filed for bankruptcy protection according to a report in the French press here (via Thoughts of a Bohemian, 5/21/10), with tax debts of approximately 73 million euros.

As Paul Melcher at Thoughts of a Bohemian wisely surmises, French laws are remarkably more pro photographer than if this were a case in the U.S., and further, whatever court would take on this case could also be affected by anti-American/anti-big-business sentiments.

With a pro-photographer leaning in French law, Sygma was found liable for the loss of photographer Dominique Auberts images, with a judgement of 1,500,000 euros. Following this, property and assets owned by Sygma were seized, and the game was essentially over.

Likely many of the Sygma photographers, with digital assets already in Corbis asset system, will migrate to Corbis proper. In the end, as someone who knew of Sygma and worked alongside their photographers in its heyday, it is sad to see the name disappear from the bylines, but, well, business is business, and so it goes.

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Video Compression For Still Photographers

MediaStorm is the preeminent outlet for multimedia stories by photojournalists that incorporate still images, with intermittent video, and incredible audio to tell a story in an increidbly immersive way. Brian Storm, who founded the company, has been a leader in the industry for a very long time, and also spends a great deal of time getting things right.

One of the challenges for still photographers migrating to video is how to properly prepare the final package for publication/broadcast/posting in the many different arenas. To bring understanding to what can only be descibed as a Tower of Babel when it comes to the proper settings, MediaStorm has put together MediaStorm’s Guide to iPad Compression for the Web (5/17/10) which is well worth the read. In fact, Storms entire blog should be on your daily (ok, maybe weekly) list of blogs to check out.

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Getty Images and the Incredibly Shrinking Usage Fee

Everything is about business. Plain, and simple. Getty Images continues to travel on its path of corporate suicide with their latest - slashing non-exclusive stock images to what amounts to a flat rate of $50. Yes, this is somewhat of an oversimplification of the deal, but for all intents and purposes, its accurate.

The subsciption model isnt new, but it is what is causing so many of the image providers to become unsustainable properties. They only appear to be profitable, and while revenue does come in in the short-term, in the long-term it will not survive.

More than one photographer Ive been in contact with raised the concern about this deal, that essentially includes Getty, AP, and Reuters, all agreeing to $50 images for Time Warner. If this is the case, could there be reasonable concerns about anti-trust issues? Indeed, its worth someone looking into.

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