Michelle Alvarado, the director of photography at Panoramic Images, was in town for the day, in meetings at Getty Images. Afterwards she met with a group of us PI photographers for dinner in Ballard. Kevin Schafer was there, just back from India. So was Pete Saloutos (soon to leave for China), Greg Probst and Terry Eggers.
Panoramic Images has been through some transition and turmoil over the last few years. Back in 2002 they had a new director of photography and a new business manager, and at a meeting in San Francisco they announced new and vigorous plans for the agency. They were going to be more than that "city skyline agency". Send us your people, your lifestyle, your edgy work, they told us. It invigorated me, and I shot a ton of panoramic work that year.
With 2 years the DP was out (and moved on to OnRequest Images, a photographer-unfriendly concept if there ever was one). None of my family lifestyle and urban life panoramics ever made me a nickel.
It was no surprise that I was a little cold-shouldered to Michelle when she joined the agency. She urged me to keep sending work though, and said they were gradually getting their scanning workflow and marketing in order (and was honest to me about the problems they had). They became a Getty portal, and recently I got a nice $1000 share of a black and white Chichen Itza shot.
"There’s more on the way," she hinted to me. PI might be coming around, and one reason is that they don't compete where they shouldn’t. "Lifestyle images have a lifespan in the marketplace of about a nanosecond," she said. There is such a volume of that material, and so much new work always coming on the market, that there is no point for Panoramic Images to try. "Fine art travel, like you do, lasts a lot longer," she told me. She’s very interested in my Israel material. "We have the Western Wall, but that’s about it." Because she edits the work that goes onto the Getty site, she can get material onto the site, like black and white, that probably wouldn’t make it through the Getty editing process. It may be that black and white has passed through its nadar of commercial unpopularity, and might be resurgent.
Then there’s digital. She sees few photographers who are able to construct decent digital pans without stitching artifacts. I’ve tried it, and I can’t do it. But she’s open to the "David Hockney" conceptual look, which I’m actually pretty good at.
It was a hopeful meeting. There may be a life for me in stock yet.
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