ON-LINE PHOTO LIBRARIES – LIKE MOST PHOTOGRAPHERS, HAVING TO THINK OUTSIDE THE VIEWFINDER

 

This week we completed a major upgrade of the Papua New Guinea Tourism Authority’s On-Line Photo Library which we built for them about five years ago. The library has proved to be an invaluable tool in promoting the destination, with the software we have just introduced providing a range of new features including added security, search engine capabilities, the ability to track and monitor downloaded images, and a user-friendly registration and management interface (it’s completely managed by tourism authority staff; we just oversee it).

On-Line Photo Libraries are an amazing resource to promote a destination (particularly when you think that just 10 years ago we were all having to burn images to a CD and send them off  in the post). Now, high resolution promotional images can be downloaded instantly from virtually anywhere in the world to be used in advertising, magazines, newspapers and electronic media .

We build the On-Line Photo Libraries (above) for tourism authorities as an extension of the service I offer as a travel and tourism photographer. That means that if you’re a travel writer, a publisher, a travel agent or anyone else who wants a photograph to promote one of the destinations I work with, you can go directly to one of the libraries we’ve created and instantly download high resolution pictures for free.

As a photographer, I’d have to say, the libraries are a bit of a two edged sword as, once my images are available for free on-line, it certainly diminishes my ability to sell them commercially through my own library or the two international agencies that represent me. On the other hand, it adds value to the service I offer, I’m obviously paid to create and capture many of the images that populate the libraries, and it extends my reputation as a travel photographer (one of the few condition of usage is that the images must be credited).

Certainly, it’s a brave new digital world for professional travel photographers – as exciting in terms of new opportunities as it is challenging.

…..there’s no doubt we’re all having to think outside the viewfinder to make a living.

Next Assignment: Back down to Victoria’s High Country – hopefully to capture the changing seasons.