The photo, which was estimated to bring in anywhere from $50,000 to $70,000, was sold to an unidentified buyer.

The 5.5-by-4-inch, black and white daguerreotype shows a New York country estate.

The half-plate daguerreotype dating from 1848 shows what was then known as old Bloomingdale Road and referred to as “a continuation of Broadway.”

As usual, the photographer will never see a penny

Read the Article

Two and a half years in development and it’s finally here.  I am test driving it now and putting it through its paces on this site and all seems faster and as expected.

So why upgrade? Here are a couple of reasons given by Microsoft.

Microsoft claims that IE8:

• is almost 50% faster than other browsers at page loading
• offers quicker browsing with Accelerators
• allows websites designed for older browsers to be “fixed” using the Compatibility View button
• helps you keep up to date with news and other information with Web Slices, and
• blocks two to four times the amount of malware caught by rival browsers

I have had problems with Firefox and Google’s Chrome. Nothing to get too excited about, but I’m willing to give Microsoft’s version a try.

Available for download from the Microsoft website.

From PDN “Nearly 200 photographers responded in February to PDN’s first survey of emerging photographers, providing us with a snapshot of how photographers are getting their training, how they are paying for it, and other information about how they are launching their careers. ”

Link Here

My earlier post “Shooting Concerts with Nikon D300” talks about how nice it is to shoot in a small venue where one doesn’t have to deal with the three song rule BS imposed on photographers. But have you ever wondered where this may have originiated? 

Nicole Radja interviews Chicago music photographer Paul Natkin on her blog and he gives a bit of clarity on how this came about. 

“ It started in the ’80′s with bands in New York, especially Springsteen. When a band played in New York, especially places like the Garden, they gave out tons of photo passes. At least half to paparazzi guys. Those people don’t know how to photograph, their only option is to put a flash on a camera. Alot of people didn’t even know how to change film, they knew they only had 36 shots. They were just doing it for the excitement of doing it. Bruce would go up on stage, and there would be 50 photographers, all shooting flashes in his face. I don’t blame him, he walked off stage one night and said, we have to do something about this. Somebody said, why not just let them shoot the first fifteen minutes? Somebody figured out at a normal rock show, a song is about five minutes. Somebody said, let’s just let them shoot the first three songs. So it started with him and people in that era. It was also that MTV started around that time, and everybody wanted to look perfect, the way they looked in their videos.”

I’ll be at the Hot Rocks Music Awards in Seattle this weekend and get some thoughts from musicians on this policy. 

Kudos to Aphotoeditor.com for originally finding this link.

Getty Images and Flickr launch first-of-its-kind creative imagery collection

SEATTLE and SAN FRANCISCO, March 11, 2009 – Getty Images, the world’s leading creator and distributor of visual content and other digital media, and Flickr®, a Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO) service and one of the world’s largest photo sharing communities, today announced the launch of the Flickr Collection, a creative imagery collection now available exclusively on gettyimages.com for commercial licensing. With the debut of this first-of-its-kind collection, customers can easily access and license the inspirational and unexpected photographs for which the Flickr community is known.

“We are thrilled to provide our customers with this ground-breaking collection,” said Jonathan Klein, co-founder and chief executive officer of Getty Images. “We are impressed with the talent from the Flickr community, and are proud to once again lead our industry in this exciting new direction. We are eager to hear what our customers think, and look forward to their input in shaping this ever-expanding collection.”

“This collection reflects the unique perspective Flickr offers as the ‘eyes of the world’ and is testament to our community of photographers, who have shared their authentic visions with the world through Flickr,” said Kakul Srivastava, general manager, Flickr. “Providing our members with a way to bring their imagery to Getty Images’ worldwide customer base through this partnership has been an important step for us and we look forward to seeing the collection evolve over time, just as Flickr itself continues to do.”

Photographs for the Flickr Collection were selected by Getty Images’ editors based on their expertise in licensing digital content and insights into customers’ needs. The collection features a variety of conceptual imagery, such as everyday scenes and believable subjects, and original and regionally relevant content. It is a living collection, with thousands of new images added each month to meet the evolving needs of Getty Images’ customers. Images from the Flickr Collection are available in both royalty-free and rights-managed licensing models.

“The Flickr Collection is determined by the lives of those who contribute to it,” said Andy Saunders, vice president of creative imagery at Getty Images. “The collection changes the definition of ‘stock’ photography by making it even easier for our customers to find and license imagery that is unexpected, genuinely original, and created by an untapped imagery resource – people everywhere.”

Getty Images will continue to build this collection over time by inviting select Flickr members to participate. Members who choose to participate will benefit from the global reach and distribution power of Getty Images to help market their images, as well as its unmatched expertise and experience in rights and clearances of digital media. Please visit the collection at www.gettyimages.com/flickr.

About Getty Images
Getty Images is the world’s leading creator and distributor of still imagery, footage and multimedia products, as well as a recognized provider of other forms of premium digital content, including music. Getty Images serves business customers in more than 100 countries and is the first place creative and media professionals turn to discover purchase and manage images and other digital content. Its award-winning photographers and imagery help customers produce inspiring work which appears every day in the world’s most influential newspapers, magazines, advertising campaigns, films, television programs, books and Web sites. Visit Getty Images at www.gettyimages.com to learn more about how the company is advancing the unique role of digital media in communications and business, and enabling creative ideas to come to life.

About Flickr
Flickr is one of the world’s leading online photo and video sharing communities where people explore, find and manage pictures and video clips of life’s daily moments with friends, family and the world. With 73 million worldwide visitors each month and more than three billion photos stored by 35 million members, Flickr serves as the ‘eyes of the world’ and has revolutionized the sharing and discovery of what people see and experience through digital imagery. Flickr was developed by Ludicorp in February 2004 and acquired by Yahoo! in March 2005. To share and explore the world’s photos and videos, visit www.flickr.com.

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For more information, please contact: 
Bridget Russel, Getty Images, 206-925-6405, bridget.russel@gettyimages.com 
Alison Crombie, Getty Images, +44 (0) 207 424 8081, Alison.crombie@gettyimages.com 
Meaghan Smith, Edelman for Getty Images, 212-704-8196, meaghan.smith@edelman.com 
Kryssa Guntrum, Yahoo!/Flickr, 408-349-3351, kryssa@yahoo-inc.com

After testing WpTouch I am happy to announce that all our articles on Pixebian.com can now be viewed easily on your iPhone. Combining this with our new hosting service at Westhost.com and our new template from Woothemes.com, this site has never run faster or looked better.

WpTouch automatically loads when you go to the site. Give it a try, it’s a pretty impressive plugin.

Welcome to the new look of Pixebian.com. After some challenges with transferring the old data over to our new host, Westhost.com, we are back in business. Over the next few days this site will be a bit wonky as I readjust image sizes to meet the new format as well as adding thumbnail images. My intent is to not go backwards too much, but move forward with this new format.

I have been working on another project that required a more robust hosting service and after using many services, Westhost has been by far the best technical help I have seen. I have screwed up databases, locked myself out of sites, etc. and they have always helped in a matter of minutes not days, to get it resolved.

If you ever wonder why your shared hosting is so slow, based on a report at http://whois.domaintools.com/pixebian.com the IP address I was on was hosting 3,719 websites.

The old site worked OK for photos, but was harder to navigate and I hope this new theme gives a better user experience. Feel free to comment for added enhancements or suggestions.

For years I have subscribed to Eric’s email list and only recently have I gone back to check out his work. I was blown away by the revamping of his site, which could have been a year ago, but to me it is new.  It is one of the cleanest designs I have seen for a photographer’s site and his images are outstanding. I never realized he shot everything with a large format Toya AX camera. At more than 40 lbs for all his gear, you know he has to be dedicated when it makes a decision to go out and shoot.

I just had to share my new rediscovery. Check out Notes from the Road

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Thanks to Pear Biter for allowing his image to be manipulated under Creative Commons www.flickr.com/photos/pearbiter/566128230/