October 2008- US Sales at Getty

click for a full-size look

How can it even be worth the accounting to license an image for $2? And this isn't Royalty Free - this is Rights Managed. My total US Sales at Getty Images for October 2008. Maybe Vince is right.

Staying Positive

Do not, I repeat, do not read Vince Laforet's latest economic outlook report entitled The Perfect Storm Has Arrived. Also don't peak as the Grim Reaper visits the NY Times Play and Cottage Living.

Instead, stay upbeat and positive.

Enjoy your morning reading Amy Stein's blog and watching the 28 minute 1962 science fiction film La Jetée by Chris Marker that is comprised of only black and white still images.

Or for a quicker morning of blog reading check out Michael Shaw's "Reading the Pictures" at Huffington Post. It's an entertaining look at Obama and Joe and uses photographer Mark Wilson's perfect picture of Joe Lieberman as seen below.

©Mark Wilson, Getty Images

The Red Object of Desire

from Gizmodo - check it out here

The Money Hole - Embeded Video of the Day

The Money Hole (thanks to Jon Crane)

In The Know: Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?

Change is Volcanic (again)

This week I've been seriously under-employed. One day of "paid" work this week and nothing for next week. And listening to way too much NPR-talk about the gloomy economy and bailouts and credit default swaps - made me revisit my thoughts on change and volcanos from last week. I reread a comment from reader JB:

from Gifford Pinchot III author of INTRAPRENEURING: Why You Don't Have to Leave the Corporation to Become an Entrepreneur:

The purpose of the economy is to support our health, wellbeing and happiness. Unless we find ways to produce substantially more happiness with far less stuff and damage, our civilization is doomed. But this is a happy task, a joint project of sustainability experts, entrepreneurs, consumers, citizens, corporate innovators, academics, legislators and policy wonks. Given that most of happiness comes from relationships and most of consumption uses stuff symbolically rather than for its intrinsic value, it won’t be hard to make 1000 fold improvements in the ratio of happiness to stuff. These innovations will often be very popular, cost-effective and profitable. In this direction lies hope and true prosperity.

Hope and true prosperity - sign me up! But what, then, I wondered, is Intrapeneuring? A quick look at Mr Pinchot's bio tells us that he has defined the ground rules for an emerging field of enterprise: the courageous pursuit of new ideas within established organizations. And he rolls this idea of working within the corporation to innovate and change in order to develop a sustainable business. Sounds like he's on to something. Maybe GM could use a bit of Pinchot's consulting help. Maybe I could use a bit of his consulting help - I wonder what he charges....

Note: Gifford Pinchot III will speak THIS WEEKEND at Green Festival San Francisco on the topic "Health, Happiness and Sustainable Business: The Happo/Dammo Ratio"

Multimedia on the Web

Sandra-Lee Phipps mentioned that she showed a simple yet powerful multimedia story by legendary Magnum photographer Giles Peres in her documentary photo class at SCAD last week. And then a comment by returning super-blogger Alec Soth also refernced the same Giles Peres story on Magnum in Motion.

I finally took nine minutes out of my day to take a look. You should too.

I'd love to know more about how this piece was developed. Was it preconceived by Mr Peres going in or was it put together by a multimedia team once they saw the images? Was Mr Peres shooting the video himself? Somehow I can't imagine him with a handycam. Was he recording the audio? I love the bits that sound like they're just recorded off a local radio station in his rental car. Have a look and listen:

**note** video works best in Firefox

CHAMPION OF PHOTOGRAPHY and ART

Job Listing: CHAMPION OF PHOTOGRAPHY and ART

I had just mentioned looking for a job and then this shows up in my in-box:

"On behalf of our client we are seeking an 'impassioned and talented champion of photography', to join a uniquely positioned enterprise that gathers and sells (curates commercially) an archive of sought after, contemporary photographers' work."

Can't you hear the conversation at the PTA meeting: so what do you do for a living? Oh, well I am a champion of photography and art....

Here's the link

Change is Volcanic

Open-ended, not so well-written blog post of what I started my day off today thinking.

Jack Meyers calls himself a media futurist. He wrote in 1998:

"Change is volcanic. Volcanoes lull those nearby into a false sense of security. Their constant rumblings and small, uneventful eruptions convince those living nearby that they can manage and survive. But there is no security. When the top blows and the lava flows, everything it touches is either destroyed or changed forever."

Today at JackMeyers.com he writes that we're in the "relationship age" and that the election of 2008 was a volcanic event: "our nation and world are changed forever."

He writes ( or predicts or scares or whatever a media futurist really does) further:

"If you do not believe your business is about to be destroyed or changed forever by the events of the next two years, you are dangerously mistaken. You can play by the established rules or take advantage of the opportunities this economic downturn is creating and adapt quickly to the future. The solutions are not, however, apparent in economic models, on Wall Street, on Madison Avenue or in Silicon Valley. Your future depends on your vision and your ability to define it, share it, communicate it and offer hope to those who you can motivate to join you on your mission."

Hmm. I think. I never knew I needed a vision? All I really wanted to do was pay my bills as a photographer working for magazines. Hmmm, I think, "business is about to be destroyed?" Whoa. That's pretty big. And I can't really argue. The handwriting has been on the proverbial wall. I'm certainly experiencing a lack of assignments and reduced budgets when we I do get an assignment. And then we all did read Vincent Laforet's treatise about the state of editorial photography entitled "The Cloud is Falling" (Laforet advises that there will always be a need for wedding photographers.) And then we've all read David Carr's recent "Mourning the Decline of Old Media" in the media section of the NY Times. And we know how easily we can be replaced if we don't sign that work-for-hire agreement. And we are well aware of the recent failures and closings of the photographer-friendly stock photography sites Digital Rail Road and Photoshelter.

I even keep up with "Magazine Death Pool."

I just didn't think about a vision and a mission, let alone, have a vision or a mission.

Why then don't I just quit freelancing and go get a real job? My friend John Bruce says having a job is like having a vacation. "Vacation," I reply," I don't really take vacations either." Working is too much fun.

November 4 2008

Patrick Moberg's November 4 2008

Print is Not Dead

Headed out first thing this morning for a souvenir NY Times but sadly all the newstands were empty.

Immediately thought of ebay

And then I just saw this on Swiss Miss

The Queue on 8th Ave to Purchase a NY Times

addendum: NY Times Store (online) is selling November 5th issue for $14.95 plus shipping

We're A Better Country Than We Ever Imagined.

Where Is The Record Turn Out?

High Noon Today in Decatur, Georgia.

The Imperial Presidency

Politics Abounds Today. Up at 4Am this morning thanks to the switch back to standard time but also to the oh so many files to edit and jpg. I shot over 1400 files in three days last week. (betcha you can't do that with 4x5 and polaroid.)

While I work I listen to Bill Moyers, by far my favorite journalist on the planet. Take a moment and dial in to a recent conversation with Andrew J Bacevich. Bacevich is a historian and former US Army Colonel. He is able to succinctly and soberly talk about the American way of life - our economic crisis. Our militarism and how we got to the place where as a citizenry we are not at all responsible for ourselves or our government's actions.

Here's a sample of the interview:

BILL MOYERS: I was in the White House, back in the early 60s, and I've been a White House watcher ever since. And I have never come across a more distilled essence of the evolution of the presidency than in just one paragraph in your book.

You say, "Beginning with the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960, "the occupant of the White House has become a combination of demigod, father figure and, inevitably, the betrayer of inflated hopes. Pope. Pop star. Scold. Scapegoat. Crisis manager. Commander in Chief. Agenda settler. Moral philosopher. Interpreter of the nation's charisma. Object of veneration. And the butt of jokes. All rolled into one." I would say you nailed the modern presidency.

ANDREW BACEVICH: Well, and the - I think the troubling part is, because of this preoccupation with, fascination with, the presidency, the President has become what we have instead of genuine politics. Instead of genuine democracy.

We look to the President, to the next President. You know, we know that the current President's a failure and a disappoint - we look to the next President to fix things. And, of course, as long as we have this expectation that the next President is going to fix things then, of course, that lifts all responsibility from me to fix things.

One of the real problems with the imperial presidency, I think, is that it has hollowed out our politics. And, in many respects, has made our democracy a false one. We're going through the motions of a democratic political system. But the fabric of democracy, I think, really has worn very thin.