Notes

Interview With Lanny Ziering - CEO of SuperStock
read more : Lanny, I understand you among the founders of Blend Images. Now you're CEO of SuperStock. Can you share with us a small amount of your background and the way you had become SuperStock's CEO?

Lanny: Well, it's sort of a kidnapped-by-aliens story. I found my first camera when I was about 8 or 9 and just about had one in my hand all the way through senior high school. I was the photo editor of my senior high school yearbook and determined to visit Art Center, but I kept looking at pictures taken by guys like Irving Penn, Richard Avedon and David Bailey. The more I looked, the more I thought my very own pictures were total crap and could not progress. So, I sold my enlarger and my Nikon F, quit all hope of ever meeting Jean Shrimpton, and went to UCLA where I eventually got an MBA.

After B-school I had a bunch jobs of including working at MTV right after it launched. Eventually, I visited just work at a TV station in LA as the program director. Here's the part where in fact the aliens kidnap me and I spend 7 years working at PricewaterhouseCoopers in global consulting projects for energy companies and long distance carriers. Fast forward to 2002: IBM buys the consulting business of PricewaterhouseCoopers. I was either pushed or I jumped (depending on who you think) and before hitting the bottom I decided that I needed to turn back the clock to the summertime I graduated from high school.

I couldn't do much about all my gray hair but I decided to pursue a lifetime career in photography. Looking back, it looks like a totally insane notion. However, something very odd happened. A pal producing short programs for a cable network, Fine Living, hired me to shoot stills and we used Avid editing software to animate the stills in a Ken Burns type of way. I bought a fresh Canon D60 rather than looked back. It wasn't long before I met Lawrence Manning, an extremely talented stock photographer. We partnered on a bunch of stock shoots and soon royalty checks started arriving in the mail.

Long story short, I went with Lawrence and Beautiful Betty (Mallorca) to just a little meeting around 30 stock shooters in NEVADA. Blend was created at that meeting and Rick Becker-Leckrone asked me to help with the forming of the company. I spent another four and a half years working with Rick to understand his vision. Then we began to wonder, "What do we do next?" A small band of us started kicking ideas around at the NY PACA meeting and Gustavo Baez tossed out the idea, why not buy Superstock?

Why not, indeed. Alan Bailey (from Rubberball) and I flew right down to Jacksonville. We woke up from the dream walking out of Federal bankruptcy court having out bid Steve Pigeon for Superstock. In a bloodless ceremony I was anointed Superstock's new CEO. It had been all a little unreal. In the finest tradition of the stock business we all went out to dinner that night with Steve, drank a great deal of wine, and agreed to distribute each other's content. Is this an excellent industry or what?

John: SuperStock was purchased in Bankruptcy court. Can you fill us in on the effects of what SuperStock has experienced and how which will affect it's photographers and clients?

Lanny: Superstock has experienced a trauma. The employees are an amazing bunch and, despite what they are through, they continue to believe in the company. Just about any photographer, client, image partner and distributor decided to keep employing Superstock.

Ownership of the company is back the hands of photographers and and Morgan Stanley and the financiers are gone. Superstock is once again a place that is concerning the photographic image and the ones who create those images and those who use those images to communicate.

John: What do you think are the strengths of SuperStock?

Lanny: Superstock has three essential strengths. First, hundreds of contributing photographers around the world who supply images to us. It has produced an extraordinary collection of fine art, vintage, travel and scenic, and contemporary imagery. Second, a large base of loyal clients in publishing and advertising. Third, an extremely talented staff that works each day to bring photographers and clients together.

John: What are SuperStock's regions of vulnerability?

Lanny: I could tell you but then I'd need to kill you.

John: What is your vision for where you intend to take SuperStock?

Our arrange for Superstock is pretty straightforward. We have been stabilizing the business so we keep the content, clients and staff that produce Superstock a great agency. We've just about completed this phase. Now we're optimizing the business's image assets and relationships.

It's no secret that the Superstock had not been very well led in the last few years and there is a lot we are doing to get more images to advertise and ensure it is easier for clients to get the images they need. We will compete by continuing to provide clients a unique collection of artwork, vintage, travel, and contemporary imagery plus a deep understanding of how those images are used.

John: Are you experiencing any plans to include Micro stock into your mix?

Lanny: We're considering many choices but I don't believe Micro would be the first thing we do.

John: Can you see potential in expanding stock sales beyond the original buyers of stock?

Lanny: Individuals are the Holy Grail, I suppose. Consumers seem to have a never-ending fascination with celebrities, so there will be new methods to download shots of Miley, Madonna, Rihanna, and then week's it girl. I can also envision consumers who enjoy looking at images of fine art, distant locations, and historical events. This is where we'll be well positioned to serve that market.

John: There exists a large amount of buzz in the photographic community about the lack of concern large agencies have for the average person photographer. Is the economic viability of the average person photographer vital that you SuperStock? Should it be important to agencies?

Lanny: I cannot speak for other agencies, but Superstock places great value on the average person photographer. After all, the owners of Superstock are photographers. It's inside our DNA. Blend has certainly proven that an agency can succeed by caring about the success of photographers. We can not succeed unless our photographers succeed. So we're creating a very close relationship between our sales people who talk to picture buyers each day and our editors who speak to photographers so that they will know the subjects that may sell.

John: Agencies like Getty are constantly reducing the human interaction with photographers along with clients. Is that a thing that is inevitable and necessary, even for SuperStock?

Lanny: We think a lot about how to improve the interaction between our editors and our photographers.

John: One of SuperStock's offerings is subscription. Can the subscription model work for photographers together with agencies?

Lanny: Different clients have various ways they like to buy pictures. Some have no problem paying $20,000 for the perfect image to be on a can of beans among others need to download a hundred images a day to put in a blog for butterfly collectors. Photographers and agencies have to find ways to make money from either kind of client.

John: I am under the impression that the market for stock images is moving away from print and more in to the internet as the print world shrinks and the internet increases. Is my impression accurate? If that's the case, does this present an issue in the low prices charged for internet use?

Lanny: True, there is a shift from paper to pixels. I think it is too early to precisely predict the near future shape of the internet market for images. Right now internet audiences are pretty fragmented but as they become more concentrated there might be a chance to charge more for compelling images.

On the other hand, the type of print and the web are different. A robust image is probably the key thing to attract a customer to buy a magazine or even to stop and appearance at an ad on a full page. But internet browsing is ironically less visual and more text driven than print so images may not have quite the magnetic power (or economic value) they do in print.

John: Along those lines, do you think the pricing structure of RF stock images, and I suppose Micro, needs to change? Do you consider it will change?

Lanny: Pricing is alchemy. Obtain it right and you also turn lead into gold. Get it wrong and you also turn gold into lead. Nominal RF prices might appear to be they are rising, but there's a lot of evidence that overall RF prices are falling (dare I say the words "Premium Access"?). As well prices are rising in the micro space. Macro and micro seem to be converging but prices won't ever meet. Certainly, the 1 to 100-price ratio of 2 yrs ago will continue steadily to shrink.

John: Does the increasing use of video threaten the market for still Images?

Lanny: Video will grow, that's inevitable. But there is nothing that has the energy of a still image. My generation was shaped by TV, but every major event inside our lifetime is defined by way of a still image. When people think about the Vietnam War they think about the image of the man being shot in the head by the guy in the short sleeve shirt or the napalm-scarred girl running later on.

When we think of the student revolution on Tiananmen Square it's the image of the guy with the plastic shopping bags in front of the tank. I believe it had been actually shot in video but we remember it as a single frame. And the defining image of Barack Obama is that stolen shot found in the "Hope" poster. I don't believe anything will ever replace just how a still image we can do what life denies us: stop time.

John: Can you see SuperStock offering video?

Lanny: Yes.

John: Some are predicting a radically different world of stock images in as little as five years. Can you see any big changes coming?

Lanny: One thing is for certain: search fails very well for anybody so search for innovations in how agencies enable clients to find images. I'd also expect a convergence between stills and footage, perhaps packages for integrated campaigns.

check here : Do you have any advice for the veteran stock shooter?

Lanny: Talk to people who buy pictures, discover what they want, go and shoot it.

John: Do you have any advice for photographers who are just entering the field of stock photography?

Lanny: As William Goldman said about the movie business, "nobody knows nothing". Learn all you can about photography and advertising and journalism and publishing and let it all go and listen to your instincts.

Visit John's website for unique and interesting concept stock photos: Lifestyle Ethnic People

Visit John Lund's Photography Blog: Stock Photo Guy
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