PHOTO INDUSTRY: Photography Collective L’oeil Public Files For BANKRUPTCY

It's worrisome times for photographers.

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As reported on the Thoughts of a Bohemian blog, French newspaper le Monde just announced that collective photo agency, L’oeil Public, was filing for bankruptcy.

This is certainly bad news for photographers, since according to a Lightstalker blog post written by Samia Marais, "It is an agency that has 2 full-time employees (including me) and one part time to handle the researches, scans and accounting."

It seems that overhead was low, yet photographers such as Samuel Bollendorff, Philippe Brault, Julien Daniel, Karim Ben Khelifa and Frederic Sautereau couldn't generate enough income from clients such as XL Semanal, El Magazine del Mundo, El magazine de la Vanguardia, Newsweek, Time, Le Monde, Elle, Italian Panorama, Io Donna, Greek Magazine Epsilon, Newsweek Japan, Panorama (French) and Air France Magazine to keep the doors open.

WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?

Thoughts of a Bohemian thinks, "The reason for L’oeil’s closure is now becoming a banality. Falling prices and lesser assignments. A declining demand for original photography thanks to a marketplace that is more eager to save money than make money. A marketplace that has become a playground for CFO’s and their armies of blindly dedicated bean counters. Where photojournalism has been replaced by coupon journalism, where photo editors recruit amateurs to submit free images."

Please read more Thoughts of a Bohemian and weigh in. Who will be left standing by the end of 2010?

John Brown Photojournalist On LIGHTSTALKERS
My Mondo Library Photography
My Photoshelter Photography Archive Homepage

Will Annie Leibovitz Be Forced Into Bankruptcy?

US photographer Annie Leibovitz poses during the press preview of her exhibition "Annie Leibovitz. A Photographer's Life. 1990-2005" on February 20, 2009 at the C/O Berlin - International Forum For Visual Dialogues in Berlin. The exhibition which ran from February 21 to May 24, 2009 was comprised of 200 photographs, many of them large-format works and monochrome landscapes, as well as a number of private family photos and small format black and white portraits.

Photo credit: Michael Gottschalk/AFP/Getty Images
Photo © 2009 AFP

While micro stock photographers are selling their work for 20 cents per photo, other segments of the industry plays for big money as "The War on Photographers" continues.

According to an article posted online at Gawker that has been read nearly 20,000 times:

"Photographer Annie Leibovitz was forced to mortgage the rights to all her photographs last year in exchange for $15 million, and she's been the target of multiple creditor lawsuits for not paying bills. Now a source tells Gawker that one of them is preparing to force her into bankruptcy.

Our source got a hold of an involuntary bankruptcy petition drawn up by photo supplier B2Pro, which has sued Leibovitz and Vanity Fair publisher Condé Nast for unpaid bills.

The document, known as a Form 5 (here is a blank version (PDF), claims that Leibovitz owes B2Pro $189,000 and is set to be filed in federal bankruptcy court in Manhattan. If successful, it could put a bankruptcy judge in charge of all Leibowitz's assets—including her entire photographic archive."

Please continue reading about another sad situation facing a good photographer.

It seems that photographers everywhere are losing their copyrights, from Annie Leibovitz to Michael Gottschalk, the man who took her picture (top).

John Brown Photojournalist On LIGHTSTALKERS
My Mondo Library Photography
My Photoshelter Photography Archive Homepage