MacTribe's Image Guide for Designers
MacTribe gets in the designer's corner and takes a look at six leading high end producers of contemporary Photography and what makes their offerings special, including the U.K.'s Image Source, rookie upstarts Photoshelter, and boutique agency Blend Images...
 Art Resource
Need a shot of Napoleon for that new ad campaign? Well you've come to the right place. The world’s most comprehensive source of fine art images available for licensing, offering images from over 6,000 museums, representing officially the Metropolitan Museum, MoMA, the Louvre etc. With over 350,000 images on-line and millions more accessible, they put the power of the masterpiece at your fingertips. Art Resource prides itself on being designer friendly. Their researchers settle for nothing less than the ideal image when making selections for design and advertising clients.
artres.com
 Dreamstime
Based in Romania, CEO, Serban Enache has built on yet another marketplace and offers imagery extending into the editorial market, reflecting events from social, cultural and political scenes. Offering both credits and subscriptions, image prices can double if their popularity increases. Dreamstime has become a major worldwide source of fresh commercial images, enabling designers, art buyers and others to buy credits that they can exchange for images. At the same time the pool of photographers and illustrators has grown as well as this group of amateur, semi-amateur and professional artists want into this new venue to showcase their portfolios and monetize them at the same time. The image collection has grown to well over 3.5 million images from its beginning in 2004.
www.dreamstime.com
 Image Source
A leading independent producer of royalty free stock photography. The business was set up by CEO Christina Vaughan and it has grown today be one of the leading high end producers of contemporary Photography in the world. Image Source focuses on high production value, contemporary creative images and the collection spans over 130,000 images. Image Source is responsible for the conceptualization, creation and
production of every one of its own images - each of which are protected by the highest level of technical and legal integrity. The collection focuses on 100% Model Released Imagery of People in Lifestyle, Beauty, Business, Healthcare, Sport and Leisure - created by some of the world's top photographers and art directors.
www.imagesource.com
 Photolibrary
Photolibrary has been known for its specialty collections, “which have a longer useful life, and a more defensible position in terms of the market.” They include: The Anthony Blake Food Collection (now called Freshfoodimages), the Garden Picture Library, Oxford Scientific, and Monsoon Images.
The Photolibrary Group represents over 250 of the world's leading brands and 2,000+ photographers from around the world, to bring memorable, workable content to the creative communities in Europe, America, Asia and the Pacific.
www.photolibrary.com
PhotoShelter
 One of the new guys on the block, and is coming at this market from a totally different direction. Allen Murabayashi is CEO, and he has brought together a community of over 20,000 photographers offering two products to the photography industry. The flagship is Personal Archive, a subscription-based service, providing photographers with the tools needed to archive, distribute, price, sell, and market their images independently. The PhotoShelter Collection is said to be the “world’s first open-but-edited stock marketplace where 14,000 amateur and pro photographers from 140 countries contribute images for RM and RF licensing.” Unprecedented in today’s market, they offer 70% royalties to the artist. Four thousand new images are uploaded everyday, and photographers set their own prices, a change from traditional agent models.
www.photoshelter.com
 Blend Images:
A brief interview with the team at Blend Images.
MacTribe: When and how did Blend Images get started?
Blend: Blend Images was founded in February 2005 by a prestigious group of some of the most experienced and successful stock photographers in the industry. The company is photographer owned and managed by key industry veterans. Blend was created in response to market demand for quality multicultural business and lifestyle imagery.
MacTribe: Is it fair to call Blend a high end stock photography company?
Blend: Blend Images is the world’s leading multicultural stock photography agency. We offer high-quality, premium collections created by some of the best photographers in the industry. We are dedicated to consistently providing imagery that meets exacting standards.
MacTribe:Is Blend more of a boutique agency in terms of its collections?
Blend: Blend’s focus is on providing visual content to those trying to reach multicultural audiences. We specialize in ethnically diverse business and lifestyle imagery, with a robust collection of more than 100,000 images online.
MacTribe: Can you explain your tagline "Celebrating diversity" is there a heavy multicultural theme in your collection?
Blend: Our tagline “celebrating diversity” embodies Blend’s brand positioning and our exclusive focus on multicultural imagery. The Blend collection celebrates ethnic and cultural diversity, reflecting the realities of today’s multicultural society.
www.blendimages.com
Home Page image courtesy of Image Source.
All images used by kind permission copyright in order of appearance:
Art Resource
Dreamstime
Image Source
Photolibrary
Photoshelter
Blend Images
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