PJ. Morley

Well, not just models but photographers and make up artists amongst others. Model River is brand new and looking for models, photographers and make up artists to register. Registration is completely free and allows you to find models, find photographers and make up artists and make contacts through the forums.

Although it’s in beta stage at the minute, it is fully functional. You can add images your portfolio, add all of the usual important information in a very comprehensive resume of physical characteristics, work experience and conditions of employment etc.

There are models of the month as voted for by other members which gives the winning model their own high profile presence and a neat little feature where you can link your youtube and myspace videos directly into you profile.

Goto http://www.modelriver.com

iStockphoto have revealed more details it’s new subscription packages to be launched on 26th May 2008. Why is this news? Well, this new package appears to be a competitive move aimed directly at Shutterstock’s long standing and until now, unique subscription model. See Previous Post.

If this is the case then iStockphoto will have an edge that could severely impact on sales over at Shutterstock. New details of the iStockphoto package reveal that is very close to the existing Shutterstock subscription package with only a few minor differences in the way that contributors are paid. Ultimately, for buyers that requires a lot of images, iStockphoto will offer a realistic and attractive alternative to Shutterstock which is a situation that hasn’t existed before.

Early indications suggest that iStock will offer 3 month subscriptions with packages allowing subscribers to download images with a value of between 30 and 480 credits a day. With each iStockphoto image selling for somewhere between 1 and 10 credits, that offers a potentially amazing 480 images per day for small blog sized images. And even large images that sell for 10 credits will see iStock subscribers having the potential to download as many as 48 images per day.

Assuming there isn’t a massive and previously untapped customer base for the new subscription model, it looks like iStockphoto may well be targeting the existing Shutterstock customer base. Although prices for the iStockphoto packages haven’t yet been confirmed, the model itself compares very favourably with Shutterstock packages that allow a maximum 25 images per day regardless of image size. Only time and price will determine the outcome.

This page is to highlight times that photographers are wrongfully suspected and accused doing nothing more than taking photographs when they have a legal right to. There are many examples of times when the police, park wardens, security officers or any other official for that matter use completely inappropriate reasons such as anti-terrorist laws or even non existent powers to stop and search. What do they do? Just make it up as they go along. In some cases it seems they do, especially if they lack experience or don’t know the law themselves.

Can you justify stupidity, bully tactics, intimidation of the public and lack of common sense in the name of national security?

Here are some examples. I’ll add more as I find them.

Terror Laws Used on Photographer

Innocent photographer or terrorist?

Father Angry at Photography Ban Ridiculous! A father told that taking photos of his own children ice skating was a breach of the Child Protection Act.

Have You Got a Licence for That Camera?

What sort of nonsense is this?

You see this sort of story from time to time. When will officials realise that just because you carry a camera it doesn’t automatically make you a terrorist or a paedophile? In fact. How many actual terrorists or paedophiles have actually been caught because they were randomly stopped from taking photos in a public place? None!

This example of thoughtless and inappropriate stop and search of a photographer taking pictures of a soap opera actress in a public place is completely unnecessary and just confirms that in many cases, officials themselves haven’t got a clue.

Why does this ridiculous and paranoid suspicion carry on? Come on people. Get a grip!

See the story here.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7351252.stm

The excuse is often that the officers or officials involved in wrongful accusations of this sort are inexperienced. Well that is NO excuse. If I broke the law then I wouldn’t be allowed to claim ignorance of the law to get away with it. And certainly a law enforcement officer shouldn’t be able to make that claim when trying to explain why he wrongfully stopped and search someone. Can you believe he actually asked the question;

‘Have you got a licence for that camera?’.

The microstock site Lucky Oliver founded in 2005 is closing its doors and will cease to exist on May 15th 2008 according to a recent announcement on the site by boss Bryan Zmijewski. LO prided itself on its fresh and innovative approach to selling images using a carnival theme as the design of the site but lack of funds has forced the site owners to remove the tent pegs, fold up the big top and leave the entourage to peddle their wares elsewhere.

“We spent the last year looking for the funds to grow Lucky Oliver because, without the addition of significant capital, the return on investment for LuckyOliver and its contributors would not be satisfactory. After reviewing the options, the investment team decided that it was in the best interest of all stakeholders to shut the company down.” said Bryan Zmijewski in a statement that broke the news to buyers and contributors alike.

Lucky Oliver was considered one of the stronger contenders of new sites trying to break into the cut throat business of microstock. In a video interview as recent as October 2007, Bryan Zmijewski gave no clues that the company was in trouble however, his responses seem less than enthusiastic and lack the vivacity that are the trademark of the company.

For buyers of images, the user terms and agreement remain valid but where does this leave contributors that have supplied hundreds of thousands of images over the past 3 years? Those that have reached the minimum payout level of $25 can request payment of earnings before May 15th and for those that haven’t can convert their earnings to tokens which they can use to download images from the site.

This latest announcement is bound to make photographers and image makers think twice before contributing to other start up microstock sites which seem to be appearing at an ever increasing rate. It has been predicted that the microstock bubble is about to burst leaving the established big players such as Shutterstock, Fotolia, iStockPhoto and Dreamstime to dominate the market.