by Tim Gander

No One’s Bursting My Bubble

I’m not sure “busy” quite describes the intensity of my work recently. The fact is, since April I’ve been busier than at any other time in my 23-year freelance career.

This is a post-covid bubble for sure. Pent-up plans, postponed events and long-neglected websites have suddenly become the focus of many corporate marketing teams, and I’ve had the pleasure of working with many to shoot the stills, and now video, they need to bring those plans to fruition.

Biggest Project to Date

One project in particular has dominated my diary. I suspect this won’t be the only blog post I reference to it either, and that has been the stills and video content for Shaw & Co’s new website.

The Shaw & Co website homepage.
The new Shaw & Co website.

Shaw & Co has been a long-standing client of mine. In fact I first photographed company founder Jim Shaw way back in 2010 when he was at a different, now defunct firm in Bath. But my work with the Bristol-based corporate finance firm came about by a chance google search for a photographer which has kept me going back ever since 2017.

And so for the past 5 years I’ve been taking Shaw & Co’s team shots, head shots and office stock images. But then during 2020 their Chief Marketing Officer Paul Mills brought me into the picture about their plans for a re-brand. This was going to be a bit more than the usual photo session.

This time there would be video alongside stills on the website, so I started to look into whether I could deliver that for them. My cameras were video-enabled, but I knew enough about video to understand you don’t simply switch from stills to video mode and wave the camera about a bit. At least not if you want anything vaguely usable.

Lockdown Learning

Lockdown proved a useful breathing space for me to research and learn the very basics, but there’s nothing quite like having an actual commission on the books to focus the mind. In fact it was essential for me to have a goal to work towards. Video is a huge discipline and you can stray off in all directions if there’s no end-goal. You can also spend your way to bankruptcy if you’re not careful. Knowing what the requirements were for what I needed to deliver allowed me to focus on the kit and the skills I needed to develop as priority.

Being Part of the Process

Perhaps what has been most unusual about this project is just how deeply embedded I’ve been with its development – seeing the brand graphics as they evolved, liaising with the design agency Design By Structure at various stages and even finding my own suggestions being incorporated where appropriate. With some projects I feel I could be a robot with a camera, told to “stand there, shoot that,” but not on this occasion; I was definitely part of the team here.

The website launched this week and given the time period over which it has been developed and implemented, it really is an astonishing achievement. I’ve known much smaller projects to take far longer, which is testament to Paul’s enthusiasm and drive and his ability to enthuse all those around him.

Having Faith Helps

It’s also fair to say that the confidence Paul (and Jim) placed in me has sometimes outstripped my own self-belief, but I’m incredibly proud of the speed of my development and more importantly of the work I’ve turned in.

You can now see the stills and video clips over at Shaw & Co’s new website and even if their work isn’t an area you’re familiar with, I’d love to know your thoughts here.

Is That It Then?

Now I know I said this was a post-lockdown bubble, and things have quietened off a little as we get into August, but I’m still busy with new work and projects which were delayed by covid.

I also know that whatever happens next, I’ve gained valuable skills I can offer new and existing clients. I also know Shaw & Co are keen to build upon what we’ve started, so bubble or not, I’m confident there’s more to come.

in Case Studies / My News 0 comments
 by Tim Gander

A Hand Up for Startups

Necessity is the mother of invention, so they say, and a lot of people are going to be doing a lot of inventing in the coming months and years.

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Brainstorming a new venture?

People who have been made redundant and those who have just had enough of the daily office grind will be setting up new ventures, which in the teeth of the fiercest of recessions is a brave thing indeed.

Which is why I’ve launched a new service to help anyone considering such a move. Called Startup Exclusive, this is a photography package designed to give new ventures the vital images they need for their websites, marketing materials and social media channels.

From headshots to product shots, or pictures illustrating the services they offer, new business startups will have the basic images they need to get going and at a price that shouldn’t sink them at launch.

At the very least I’ve always prided myself on publishing a fee structure which allows clients to get an idea of what to expect before they’ve even called me, and with Startup Exclusive added to my fees guide, they’ll be able to work the cost of bespoke photography into their business plan long before they’ve committed to booking me.

So if you, or anyone you know, is considering a new venture, point them to my website so they can at least get a sense of what’s available and what the likely fees will be. You never know, I could end up documenting the birth of something really big.

in Advice / My News 0 comments
 by Tim Gander

Getty getting bigger

Livestock auction in Somerset

At least in a livestock auction bidding tends to go up, not down.

The parallels between the photographic industry and farming aren’t as obscure as you might think.

Imagine Getty are the Tesco/Asda/Sainsburys of the picture world, where the suppliers of the produce they sell have little control over the price they’re paid for their goods, regardless of the cost of production.

There are only so many outlets for farmer photographers, owned by some very powerful businesses that will set the selling price to wherever they think they need to in order to gain market share and make a profit.

I mention profit, but I’m not sure if Getty (who also own iStockphoto) are in profit for their stock photo portfolio of businesses, and reliable figures seem elusive, but they’re certainly good at spending whatever money they have on expansion plans.

One advantage farmers have over photographers is that they are paid for their produce by the wholesalers or retailers who then sell it on for a profit, while stock photographers give their work to the libraries for free in return for a commission, but only if a photo sells. And a photo might never sell, or might only sell for a few pence, of which the photographer might get a few pennies.

By way of leaving the farming analogy to one side, I’d like to say I have the utmost respect for farmers and I’m glad they do a job many of us couldn’t cope with.

The news that Getty have now acquired the Australian stock image library Photolibrary, close after the announcement that they’ve also acquired image-tracking firm PicScout, means Getty are still aggressively expanding and consolidating their business, but you won’t see photographers jumping for joy and I think in time neither will picture buyers be especially delighted.

Getty will want to see a return on their investments, so it may be we can expect them to switch the PicScout phaser from stun to kill as they target image infringers and recoup their money through either higher or more numerous payment demands.

As for their buying up yet another image library, what possible advantage is there to a business or a designer that they can now choose from an even larger library of the same old same old? Surely once you’ve seen one sterile business picture, you’ve seen them all. Getty can’t claim to have extended buyer’s choice any more than Heinz can claim to have extended our choice of baked beans by making more tins of the same beans.

It also appears that Getty are looking to turn the screws once again on their contributing photographers by introducing terms that mean Getty will be able to move images from Rights Managed to Royalty Free licensing, with no mechanism for contributors to opt-out of such a scheme. This leaves contributors with less control over how their images are used and the prices set. For buyers, it will mean even less exclusivity, making stock imagery even less attractive than it already is.

That final point probably explains the rise in enquiries I’m getting from businesses that are wanting to break free from the herd and be noticed (back to farming!), but I’d rather Getty used less aggressive tactics anyway because they don’t reflect well on the industry as a whole.

It’ll be interesting to see where all this activity leads. If Getty want to take a lion’s share of the market with a view to pushing up stock image prices, they may find this is a very long game indeed. I’m sure they have a plan, but in this world of over-supply and finite demand, it’ll have to be a very cunning plan or a game with infinite budget.

UPDATE: ASMP makes thinly-veiled suggestion to American photographers that if they contribute to Getty, they should consider other means of distributing their images (in other words, quitting Getty). More at PDN.

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