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

It's worrisome times for photographers.

Photo © John Brown All Rights Reserved - Follow Me On Twitter

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 Where photojournalism has been replaced by coupon journalism, where photo editors recruit amateurs to submit free images."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
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New Gaia Photos Facebook Photography Fan Page Makes It Easy To Follow International Photojournalism

Photo © Thierry Falise All Rights Reserved

Hi friends:Just a note to let you know Gaia Photos now has a Facebook Fan Page. If you are using Facebook, you can sign up and you'll get new features served on your Facebook wall automatically.

Please Join Here:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Gaia-Photos/85123069389

Then click on Become a Fan!

Feel free to suggest friends to become fans.

Never heard of Gaia Photos?

We are a new international photography source comprised of 41 photojournalists from around the world whose mission is to promote quality and diversity in documentary photography.

A review appearing on PhotoWings recently said, "They post stories that reflect local issues that, taken together, present a portrait of our times. There is some fascinating stuff here."

We were also mentioned on Rob Haggerts A Photo Editor in his post Photo Collectives On The Rise, who suggested, "Follow the flow of new documentary photo features from a selected group of the world’s leading freelance photojournalists."

And just the other day a freelance photo editor, Kiritia, over on Twitter, told me, "Great site, thanks for pointing me to it. That's the way it's supposed to be done!"

Gaia connects its photographers with each other, our audience and hopefully from time to time, new clients. Perhaps some time down the road, we will do some collaborative projects together, providing unique global coverage about the important issues of our times.

You can also search for assignment photographers at Gaia Photos, a place to explore and discover the issues facing the wide-ranging population and locations of our world, both near and far.

Please subscribe to our new features page to keep track of new stories.

Oh yea, and become a Facebook Fan Too!

Best Regards,

John Brown, Cambodia

GAIA Photography and Photojournalism

Introducing GAIA PHOTOS - A New Showcase For Photojournalism And A Source For International Documentary Photography And News

Gaia Photos Offers Views Of The World From Many Unique Viewpoints

Photo © John Brown All Rights Reserved

Many of you have seen my blog posts introducing you to guest photographers from GAIA PHOTOS and you may be asking yourself who are these people and can I join the group?

Gaia is a web platform showcasing the work of leading photojournalists and new talents from around the world. On the web site, our members are constantly presenting some of their recent work, allowing everyone to keep up to date with great new photo features.

Started 6 months ago, Gaia now has 41 members and over 50 features from our 6 regions of the world. Basically, Gaia is a multi-user blog with a fancy front page tuned for photographic content. In the style of a web magazine
our idea is that, by showing our work together, we can provide a single reference point for photo editors to find new and interesting work in the niche field we are focusing on: social, humanitarian and environmental issues.

Busy photo editors hardly have time to keep up to date with hundreds of individual photojournalism web sites, checking now and then only to see there's nothing new. With Gaia, that’s not so! New work is constantly ticking in from around the world and being presented on the site.

Gaia connects its photographers with each other, our audience and hopefully from time to time, new clients. Perhaps some time down the road, we will do some collaborative projects together, providing unique global coverage about the important issues of our times.

In challenging times like these, we feel there are many advantages of networking and building up a brand larger than any single one of us. The internet presents challenges and opportunities we can’t ignore and Gaia Photos is all about great visual storytelling, the cornerstone of our profession.

We invite you all to have a look from time to time and perhaps find new inspiration, insight and appreciation of the enormous diversity of our world.

We are open for new members, especially in areas of the world where we aren’t fully represented yet, including Africa, South America and the Middle East.

If you are interested in membership – and if you are an actively working (freelance) photojournalist who works on social, humanitarian and environmental issues, you are welcome to apply for membership! Please take a look at the site for further details:

http://www.gaia-photos.com/join-gaia/

Please note we are quite selective about members. Gaia Photos is not a new flickr or a citizen journalism project but rather, a professional network.

GAIA Photography and Photojournalism