Hello and welcome to the May 2006 edition of the StockPhotographer.info Newsletter. In this month's Editor's Corner I ask, Is Creativity Dying?. In today’s market, many photographers as well as the distributors seem to be moving away from what makes a great image and now simply focus on what sells and the return per image per year. At the same time many buyers are bemoaning the fact that they can't find new, creative imagery despite the millions of images available online. We would like to hear your thoughts. We have created a new category in the StockPhotographer.info forums for Creativity and Inspiration.

Our newest contributor at StockPhotographer.info is John Hindmarsh who will be writing the column, "Traveler's Tales". In John's first article, California Raining, he talks about how weather can often effect the types of images we make. This past December, John made a visit to California just in time for record rain and floods. Though the trip was a damp one, it did not dampen John's enthusiasm for photography.

Most Recent Articles

In Steve Smith's most recent entry for his column, Adventures in Pixelland Steve takes a humorous look at some of The Lighter Moments of Running an Online Stock Photo Library. Steve also share a few excerpts from some of the more amusing inquiries they have received over the past few months.

Richard Weisgrau has added two more new installments to his All About Business column from his Successful Stock Strategies series. In Part 8, Richard writes that each of us who are licensing our stock images need to make an analysis of our particular traits, assets, capability, etc. and how that analysis will help us determine which licensing models best suit our individual style. Then in Part 9 Richard discusses his strategy to have only his best images for licensing online, and to increase his licensing of those images.

In the The Micro Shooter, Perry Correll writes about the virtues of being patient while waiting for the latest batch of images to be approved or disapproved by "THE REVIEWERS. That great, mysterious, populace of beings who make those life and death decisions about your photos."

Orphan Works Copyright Legislation

As of the latest update on the so-called Orphan Works Bill, it now seems increasingly unlikely that this legislation will pass during the current session of Congress. Check out the latest in our Legislation section.

Other News

There has been a great deal of other news during the past month from all around the industry. Don't miss our regular sections covering Industry News, Software News, Camera News and the latest information on Printers and Scanners.

The StockPhotographer.info Forums

There has been a very interesting conversation taking place under the topic "An Open Letter to Brian, Why RF? " The conversation has so far has been between Brian Yarvin, moderator of the Royalty Free Stock category and a stock industry veteran, and myself as to why Brian has chosen to market a portion of his images as RF.

We currently have 193 registered members at the StockPhotographer.info Fourms but to date, only about 15 have posted anything though the forums get an average of over 700 page views per day. I would like to invite everyone to participate in our forums. They are there for you. If you have questions, please ask. If you have answers to questions, even better. If you have comments about StockPhotographer.info in general or suggestions for additional categories you would like to see, please feel free to post them at StockPhotographer.info Website Feedback.

The StockPhotographer.info E-Shop

Don't forget to check out our Amazon Affiliate E-shop. By buying books, digital cameras, lenses, memory cards or software through our E-shop, you will not only get some of the best deals around from Amazon.com but you will also help support StockPhotographer.info.

Jim Hunter- Editor-in-Chief, StockPhotographer.info