Recently in Digital Photography Category
Stockxpert has been criticized by some contributors for being "unfairly" strict on model release requirements. The common complaint is usually that because other microstock sites accept these images, then Stockxpert should too or else it won't be competitive.
The law basically states that permission must be granted by identifiable people who are subjects of images used for commercial purposes. The idea is that human subjects of commercial photographs have a say in whether or not they want to be associated with a product or service.
The question then is what's considered identifiable?
Lately news has been trickling in from the microstock sites about single image sales in the thousands of dollars. Dreamstime last month sold rights to one if its images for $5,100, and Stockxpert only a couple weeks ago had a $10,000 sale.
On the surface, news of this nature is good for energizing microstock contributors, but what can these sales tell us about the microstock industry overall?
Mutate or Die. These words of wisdom were spray painted in yellow across the big blue dumpster behind the biology building at my alma mater, the University of Connecticut. I'd pass it every day on my way to class from my dorm (aptly nicknamed The Jungle), but it wasn't until I graduated did I understand the meaning of these words in a business context.
Over the past 10 years, I've been constantly reminded of my frequent encounter with the large trash receptacle thanks to our friend the Internet as well as the people who continue to resist the change it brings, most recently in the field of commercial photography.
As most of you know by now I've moved over to the images side of the business doing community development for our micropayment stock site, Stockxpert.com.
This week Stockxpert exhibited at its first tradeshow—Photoshop World in Boston. This was also my first time as an exhibitor, and what a great experience it was!
Emotions ran high, tears shed, laughter ensued. We all hugged and patted each other on the back; thanked all the volunteers, of course. The candidate whose campaign my wife and I helped manage won her re-election bid for CT state representative, and it was time to party. A reporter and photojournalist showed up to cover the event.
Of course, being a student of photography myself, I almost always had my eye, at least peripherally, on the young budding photojournalist hired to capture the mood of the evening. Unfortunately, I knew she missed much of the occasion.
Perusing many of the online galleries over the past year or so, I've noticed an increasing amount of eye-popping landscape imagery. The rich tones, high saturation levels, and vast range of highlights and shadow areas all indicated to me that these must be paintings, but what were they doing in photo galleries?
Being new to photography, I was shocked to discover that these were in fact photo-based images. But how could that be?!
Architects, board and commission members, engineers, environmentalists, past and present town officials, and concerned residents gathered Wednesday night at the local community center for a public forum to discuss the future development of an area of my town around the train station commonly referred to as "Town Center South (pdf)".
Some of the participants came armed with Power Point presentations, illustrations, and photographs. But which visual aid had the most impact?
Seeking reading material an hour into my 3 hour layover at Cincinnati airport on Monday, I picked up National Geographic Magazine's 112 page Guide to Digital Photography.
Despite my recent criticism of National Geographic Magazine's sister publication National Geographic Adventure, I must give credit where credit is due. For $9.95, you won't find a better general resource for digital photography.
There's nothing more frustrating than receiving a corrupt data error message during digital camera usage. This happened to me the other day, and it rendered my card useless. It may very well happen to you too if you are not careful with your flash memory. If you'd like to limit the number of "worst days of your life", I suggest reading on.
With all the makes, models, and features available, it's not easy deciding which digital camera to purchase. Eric Grevstad, JupiterWeb's executive editor for personal technology, has written a cut-to-the-chase 2006 digital camera buyers guide for Dynamic Graphics. But before heading over there, check out my short interview with Norman Koren, photographer, image quality specialist, and creator of Imatest—software for measuring lens sharpness and image quality in digital cameras, digitized film images, scanners, and printers.
Koren provides simple explanations of how sensor size and pixels determine image quality; provides general recommendations for designers; and offers some insight on where the digital camera industry is heading.
