GETTY IS FOR SALE!

Getty Is For Sale! The New York Times last week broke a story that Getty Images may attempt to sell itself off in an auction which is to close in the next couple of days. If the story stands up, the target buyers are Private Equity firms. However, as the Times pointed out, Private Equity works by financing its acquisitions with massive debt. The current credit squeeze could mean the stock agency may fail to attract a buyer. Getty shares fell 47 per cent in the last full year, and while the giant is by no means stricken, it certainly has to strive to adapt. It's business model has been disrupted by the continuing digital revolution. Striking at the heart of Getty's way of making money is the World Wide Web, with its ability to massively aggregate the supply of - and demand for - digital images. The web opens the market to a mass of new participants, and enables ultra-low transaction costs. As the Times summed it up, it allows clients to find images more easily, for less money. Stock as we knew it, it seems, has been blown to bits.

KATIE GOES TO FUJI

Katie goes to Fuji ! – Fujifilm UK Imaging Division's new PR Manager is Katie Teesdale. Katie is quite well known in the industry. She formerly worked as an advertising manager on photo mags for publishers Archant and, before that, EMAP. She worked on Professional Photographer, Photography Monthly, Practical Photography and Digital Photo amongst others. Katie Teesdale was also involved with Magezine [sic] Publishing, the firm which launched the successful online UK photo site Ephotozine.

METRO LEAVES SOHO!

Metro Leaves Soho! – Metro Imaging is to close all its branches except the flagship headquarters in London's Great Sutton Street. This is due to the evaporation of demand for professional film processing. The closures will include Metro's well known Soho branch, which shuts at the end of this month. Soho has been one of the centres of professional and trade photo services in London for generations, serving the needs of busy fashion, advertising and editorial photographers and their West End clients. Metro has been one of the best known Pro Labs located there. Metro of course will continue to trade from its Clerkenwell branch at 32 Great Sutton Street.

JESSOPS SURVIVES CHRISTMAS!

Jessops survives Christmas! – Christmas is over, and Jessops is still there! Executive Chairman David Adams, admits that, joking aside, the company did have to prove it could trade through the festive season. Having done that, Adams' next step will be to seek refinance on terms less onerous than current arrangements. Jessops is still a very high risk proposition for lenders and investors. The management still have a job on their hands to stabilize the company, which remains in a critical condition. Only if they achieve that can they begin to think about making it profitable. Jessops is expected to announce new appointments to the vacant Chief Exec. and Finance Director posts soon.

ASDA DEPLOYS SONY DYE SUB!

ASDA Deploys Sony dye sub! – Supermarket chain ASDA is embarking on the second phase of a roll-out of fast SONY UP-DR150 dye sub photo printers in its stores. In phase 1 of the roll-out the digital printers, deployed in kiosks, replaced wet lab facilities in many stores. In phase 2, an additional hundred stores that previously did not have photo facilities will gain Sony kiosks. ASDA experienced extraordinary customer up-take of the new Sony photo facilities, with around nine million 4"x6" prints being made on them in 2007.

GETTY SEES BHUTTO GO DOWN!

GETTY SEES BHUTTO GO DOWN! - Getty Images senior staff photographer, John Moore (a member of the 2005 AP team that won a Pulitzer for Iraq), was photographing Benazir Bhutto moments before the attack that left her dead. He has taken what is probably the last press photograph to show her alive. More importantly, he was a witness to the disputed circumstances of her death. John Moore was standing in front of Benazir Bhutto's vehicle, photographing her as she stood in the sun roof, waving to the crowd. He heard what he describes as a number of shots and saw Benazir Bhutto go down into the vehicle, which accelerated. He pressed his shutter button and began to capture the event. He shot a rapid succession of images on motordrive. This series, taken after Bhutto went down, shows the eruption of a fireball, marking the explosion that went off behind her. She was already down before the blast occurred. Moore was largely unhurt by the bomb that killed a score of other people and horribly injured many more. He believes he may have been shielded by Bhutto's vehicle, and sadly by the crowd between him and the source of the explosion. His shirt and his face were spattered with the blood of other people. John Moore has said his final photograph of the former Pakistani Prime Minister was taken from some distance out. The image as it has tended to be used in the press has been a close crop on her vehicle, simulating a point-of-view situated in the jostling crowd immediately in front of her. This enlargement makes the image appear more blurred than it was. You could speculate that, were it not for the historical significance of the shot, it might have been discarded.

NEW YEAR, NEW PASSPORT PHOTO RULES!

NEW YEAR, NEW PASSPORT PHOTO RULES! - For the third year in a row, the former UK Passport Office (Now the Identity and Passport Service), is renewing efforts to enforce its 'new' standards for passport photos. The latest change for 2008 is strict refusal of photos taken against a white background. The new regulations have always stated that passport photos should be taken against an off-white, or 5% - 10% grey, background (a 'digital grey background'), but this regulation was not enforced. A survey of pharmacies and photo labs by the www.photomart.co.uk field sales team has revealed that very few of these outlets are aware of the 'new' background requirement. (Let's hope more studios are!) On the plus side - and contrary to out-of-date documents on the IPS website - the service will not be enforcing its prohibition on backprinting anymore. Backprinted passport photos will be accepted as long as they are shot against a digital grey background and scan acceptably on the service's (unspecified) equipment.

NEW APPOINTMENT!

NEW APPOINTMENT! - www.photomart.co.uk has appointed Alan Lamport as a Key Accounts Manager in the South of England. Alan was formerly an Area Sales Consultant with Noritsu, and before that a salesman with Colorama. At www.photomart.co.uk Alan will have special responsibility for Key Accounts in the South, particularly in the photo lab and pharmacy segments.

EXPRESSDIGITAL ONLINE TRAINING UK!

EXPRESSDIGITAL ONLINE TRAINING UK! - ExpressDigital, the makers of photographers' workflow software DARKROOM, are to offer their free online training classes in the UK this year. The classes will be conducted weekly as web meetings, with delegates joining a conference call and viewing a shared computer screen in a web browser. The UK training times will be 5pm Wednesdays. The link to the online training is here: http://www.expressdigital.com/support/trainingcenter-Online.shtm

TOGS FAVOURITE CATS NEED HELP!

TOGS FAVOURITE CATS NEED HELP! - A big cat project perennially popular with photographers (including Andy Rouse), is facing difficulties. Santago Rare Leopard Project, an enclosed habitat of several acres on a family home in Welwyn, Herts., faced an excruciating hike in insurance premiums at the end of 2007. The small project has been a perennial favourite with photographers who take groups there to photograph these beautiful big cats. Ephotozine, the online publication for photo enthusiasts, has been drawing attention to the project's difficulties, and has run an appeal for donations.