Thursday, January 28, 2010
Photography was once the preserve of buffs. Whether amateur or professional, most photographers operated as individuals, their creativity firmly tucked away in their camera cases or only shared with individual clients. Photography was a solo pursuit-and selling images, unless at the top of your game, was an impossible dream.In 2000, photography changed with the launch of iStockphoto, a member-generated image and design community. iStockphoto provided the first online marketplace for professional and amateur photographers and designers to buy and sell royalty-free images. It also allowed photographers to connect through its forums, setting a precedent for contemporary social networks.
Over 10 years, more than 80,000 artists from across the world have contributed their artwork to iStockphoto, establishing it as the world's leading royalty-free, stock multimedia website. An iStockphoto file is downloaded every second from over six million photos, illustrations, video, audio and flash files. Photographers and creatives at all levels buy and sell stock images at iStockphoto, at eminently affordable prices.
Since its inception, a vibrant community has been at the heart of iStockphoto, including high-profile professionals, photo enthusiasts and occasional snappers. No matter what their level of expertise or experience, the people around the world who come together at the iStockphoto forums have one thing in common: a passion for their craft.
There is lively discussion on everything from iStockphoto applications to favourite designers; community members arrange offline meet-ups all over the world with recent get-togethers including a 'walkabout' in Bath and a photography-inspired treasure hunt in London.
iStockers-as community members are known-also discuss their working lives, ask for advice on freelance work, pass on work opportunities and have a good grumble about late-paying clients or design company politics. The 'off topic' section includes everything you'd expect from a thriving creative community-discussions cover anything from the Muppets to the world's strongest beer.
Another reason iStockphoto has become so popular over its decade of existence is its user-friendly interface. Membership is free, and they created the micropayment business model in stock media (the site has its own 'credit' currency, used when you download a file).
Credits are purchased through a pay-as-you-go or corporate account, with pay-as-you-go plans starting at £12.50. The number of credits required to download each file depends on its size and complexity, but a typical image will range from £0.66 to £47. When you're ready to download images, the site is fully searchable and downloading files is fast and easy.
iStockphoto also enables photographers to turn their passion into an income. To sell images on the site you follow three simple steps; join iStockphoto, apply to be a contributor and supply three samples of your very best work.
Contributors are paid a base royalty rate of 20% for each file downloaded, and if you sell files exclusively through iStockphoto, you can earn even more-up to 40%. Exclusive iStockphoto artists also enjoy 'iStockalypse' events, gathering in gorgeous locations like Prague, Istanbul, Boston and Barcelona, to learn from each other and come away with art at the highest levels of quality.
The site is an expanding, evolving community, but quality over quantity remains key. The creative stakes were upped in 2009 when the site introduced its Vetta™ Collection - images hand-picked by iStockphoto editors for their uniqueness, art direction and well-executed concept. Like every other aspect of iStockphoto, Vetta has been designed to appeal to creative professionals and aspiring photographers alike.
iStockphoto is a hotbed of creativity, bringing together both the artist and customer, professionals and enthusiasts. As iStockphoto celebrates its 10th birthday in 2010, its members reflect on the new era of contemporary imaging they have ushered in, leading the pack as the world's foremost image-sharing, design and photography community.
posted by Circleyou News @ 3:57 AM permanent link | 0 comments
Monday, January 25, 2010
Most hardware news revolves around the large variety of processing, graphics, storage, memory and display solutions and technologies released by companies, as well as the various legal battles that arise between them. The past few years in particular have been rather hard on creativity, with hardware makers focusing largely on cost reduction and efficiency improvements. Nevertheless, it seems that there is still room for uncompromising (cost-wise) creativity even in such harsh times. Ortery has introduced an innovative device, which it touts as the "world's first fully integrated solution for creating professional still photos and product animations in spherical, hemispherical and 360-degree formats".The company names its product the Photosimile 5000 and describes it as the world's first "office photography machine". This desktop studio system is able to create professional product photos and includes a specially designed 3D box, where any suitably sized object may be placed and captured as a 3D picture.
In fact, the Photosimile is really a photocopier that makes 3D virtual replicas of whatever is placed inside it, such as shoes, toys or small sculptures among other things. The system uses four daylight bulbs, which provide a 6500K illumination, as well as a CANON DSLR on a mechanical track. The turntable rotates the object while the camera shoots up to 72 pictures per 360-degree rotation, form zero to 90 degrees.
The software does all the work, fully controlling the studio, the camera location, camera settings, picture taking, turntable movement and post processing. End-users must only decide what format to use when saving the 3D model, whether GIF or Flash. In addition, they can also convert the files into Microsoft Silverlight animations by using the Ortery Real3D format.
Unfortunately, the device's price tag is consistent with its sophistication. The Ortery Photosimile 5000 office photography machine is already selling for the high-caliber sum of no less than US$17,000 (£10550).
posted by Circleyou News @ 4:34 AM permanent link | | 0 comments
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