PhotoShelter announced last week that it had decided to pull the plug on its stock photography business - the PhotoShelter Collection - blaming it on the supremacy of a few companies such as Getty Images.

'Stock photography is a slow growing market dominated by a single player,' the founders said. 'There was a single moment for a company to capitalize in stock photography, and Getty took it. The use of stock imagery isn't growing fast enough to create a displacement opportunity, and Getty is far too aggressive (and smart) to allow secondary players to displace them in any fashion'.

In the same heartbeat, Corbis announced it would slash 175 jobs worldwide. And last month, Jupiter announced a net loss of $3.286 million. The series of bad news from stock photography companies seems to draw the same conclusion online: Getty has won the war.

Ever since its launch in 1995, Getty has been seen as the big bad wolf, eating up smaller competitors while driving prices, and consequently the photographers' revenues, down. Getty reminded the market of its leading position when it acquired, in 2006, the micro-stock image company iStockphoto.

Speaking to BJP in March, Getty's CEO Jonathan Klein said that Getty is always looking for new business models. 'We want to bring new customers to the market or we want our customers to buy more of our products. But, you need to have the right picture or have a lot of traffic to make it work. It is difficult for new entrants to have both.'

And photos don't seem to be enough for Getty. it has also moved into the video and audio stock business. However, this diversification is also proof that being a stock photography player is now not enough. In its 2008 estimated revenue report, Getty said that the creative stills division was expected to bring in 51% of Getty's revenues. By 2012, that number will fall to 29%, according to the report.

So has Getty won? Or is the latest round of criticism normal for a company that has achieved the status of leader? As Jean-Francois Leroy told BJP during the Visa Pour l'Image photojournalism festival, 'Getty is a great marketer by showing that they can make money, but they still do have a pretty damn good editorial division'.

Thoughts?

After iStockphoto in 2006, Getty Images has done it again, going after one of its competitors in the stock image business - this time it's Jupiterimages to fall.

Getty Images announced today that it would acquire Jupiterimages of Jupitermedia for $96 million. Similarly to the iStockphoto deal, which cost $50m to Getty, the stock giant expects to retain the Jupiterimages brand and website.

'The digital content market is expanding, and the customers of both Getty Images and Jupiterimages will benefit from the combination of these businesses,' says Jonathan Klein, co-founder and CEO of Getty Images. 'Through this acquisition, we will be able to offer more content, better technology, more customer service and additional local content,' he says.

Read the full story here. In our next issue, BJP will feature an extended analysis of the deal and what impact it could have on the stock image business in general.

On 27 December 2007, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated after a rally. Getty Images photographer John Moore was one of the only two photographers present on the scene, standing a few meters away from where the bomb that killed Bhutto exploded.

In February, Moore talked to BJP about the experience.

'In a situation like the assassination, which was very chaotic and with quickly fading light, there were many images that were shot at very slow shutter speeds and simply didn't work. Plus, I have to admit, in the seconds and minutes after surviving a suicide bomb blast like that, I wasn't thinking about switching my 16-35mm f/2.8 for my 28mm f/1.8, which would have given me a lot more light. There were some photos I would have liked to have done better, but ultimately the set that we put together, I hope, told the story well.

'I should mention that it was not immediately clear that she had been killed. I heard the shots, saw her go down and then the blast came. But I had no idea she was seriously injured, much less dead. The hardest part was walking towards the carnage so soon after the blast. It is not something a normal human being walks towards. Before the screaming started, there was total silence and it was unnerving.

'The fact that I was one of the only photojournalists on the scene when the assassination took place was a little random. I got out of the campaign rally grounds before the other journalists, simply because I wanted to get ahead of the crowd. It was strange for me to suddenly be on the other side of the camera, talking about the event on the BBC, CNN and to other newspaper reporters.'

'The picture looks so tranquil and yet it was so rough and I love the way that Ben Ainslie looks like he’s trying to take cover from the harrowing winds and rough sea.' Picture © Paul Gilham / Getty Images.



Two Getty Images photographers received top prizes at this year's UK Sports Journalism Awards – Clive Mason for the best Sports Picture and Paul Gilham as Young Sports Photographer.

'Sports photography is a great documentary discipline, inherently full of spontaneity, capturing it in the best possible way is the challenge that I thrive on,' Gilham tells BJP's Marina Scukina.

Gilham joined Getty in 2003. He specialises in Formula One and has covered major sports events, including The 2008 Beijing Olympics. The Young Sports Photographer of the year admits choosing images for the portfolio was not an easy task. 'I was looking for a variety of sports, for a variation of angles and techniques, and images that captured the essence of sport,' he says.

Mason's Sports Picture Of The Year shows the Austrian Sailing teams 49er class sailors at the Beijing Olympic games. 'Some images are obvious competition material,' he says. 'Anything that has an instant visual impact and is well composed, dynamic and well photographed is a good starting point.'

He adds that the photographer needs more than excellent technical skills to win a competition – luck is an important factor. 'If you are also lucky enough to have been at the major sports story of the year and can complete your set of 10 with a relevant and good picture from that event, your set should stand a good chance of catching the judges eye,' he says.

Both professionals agreed competitions depend on the personal views and experiences of the judges. 'Competitions are always subjective,' Gilham says.

'Every one of us sees something different in a picture, some like it, some don't, some think it should be "newsy", some think it should be "arty",’ Mason comments. 'I know some of the best photographers in the industry that have not been in the least bit successful in their success at awards, so winning awards is far from being the benchmark that defines good from bad, it is just having the right images on the right year with the right judges.'

The SJA award is a sign of professional respect in the industry, the photographers say. 'To be recognised by my peers is fantastic, this is a career that takes a massive amount of dedication and belief, not just from myself but from my family too,' Gilham comments.

The SJA awards remain the premier event in the UK sports photographic industry, according to Mason.

$500,000. In four years, that's the amount of money Getty Images has donated to photographers to finish various reportages. This week, Getty has donated another $70,000 to three professional photographers and two student shooters.

Image © Brenda Ann Kenneally.

US-based photographers Krisanne Johnson, Brenda Ann Kenneally and Afghan Zalmai all received $20,000, as well as collaborative editorial support from Getty Images, to pursue their documentary photography projects.

Johnson's work is dubbed I Love You Real Fast and examines the lives of young women in Swaziland, where women have a life expectancy of close to 31, due to the country’s high rate of HIV infections. 'My intent is not only to shed light on their struggle, but to present the full spectrum of their experiences and to capture deeper, truer visual references that are distinct from a sea of status quo images that define Africa to most of the world,' says Johnson.

Kenneally will use her $20,000 to continue her five-year project on Upstate Girls, a study of the issues of class and poverty in Troy, New York. Zalmai, who also won €8000 with the Visa d'Or Feature Award, will try, with this grant, to bring a new vision of Afghanistan to the Western world. 'As most of the western media focuses on what is taking place militarily, I feel strongly that the extensive human tragedy taking place in my country is being ignored by Western eyes and is going unnoticed to the rest of the world,' he says in a statement.

Student photographers Ed Ou of Canada and US-based Carl Kiilsgaard will both receive $5000. Ou, an energetic young photographer has been working on Perilous Journey, which documents the full journey that Somali refugees take as each year thousands flee from the violence in Mogadishu to the port city of Bosasso and the perilous boat journey to Yemen begins, as they seek work as laborers in the oil rich Persian Gulf.

Kiilsgaard's project, The White Family, follows a family that has lived in rural Kentucky – where, in 1964, President Lyndon Johnson declared a war on poverty that has not yet been won – for generations.

The grants were awarded by a jury that included Cheryl Newman, picture editor of Telegraph Magazine in the UK, Jean-Francois Leroy, director general of Visa Pour l’Image and Volker Lensch, department head at Stern Magazine.

With the decline of commissioned assignments, the grants are seen as one of the only ways to spend longer period of time on personal projects, the photographers admitted at the award ceremony in Perpignan, France. 'For special long-term stories you want to do, you often have to do it yourself,' says Ou. 'At the end of the day you have to put down your own money because most newspapers and magazines will just say that they don't [invest] that.'

Eugene Richards, who received $20,000 earlier this year, adds that the grant is more than just money. 'It's the pick up you need when you need it the most.'

For more information visit gettyimages.com/grants.