Case Study:Internationally acclaimed shooter David Chalk appreciates the ability to market and distribute his own images instead of relying on large agencies.Using a Hasselblad, Fuji Fine Pix S3 digital camera, and Fuji 617 Panoramic camera, David Chalk has traveled the world taking pictures for leading publishers, museums and galleries, including the New York Times, Fortune, Forbes and the Museum of Natural History.
Chalk's imagery is represented in the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the George Eastman House, the Library of Congress, the Charles Rand Penny Foundation, and many other museums and corporate collections.
Click here to view samples of Chalk's work.
Having been active for 30 years in the photo industry, Chalk has always been attracted to innovation. Coming from the experience and long history of dealing with photo agencies, Chalk has grown increasingly dissatisfied and disenchanted with the representation of those bigger agencies, and the images they choose. He also disliked the slow workflow processes that existed within the larger photo agencies.
Chalk explains, "I was repped by some fairly large agencies, and I never felt they were really doing it for me. I never felt like they were taking my best images and pushing those out. Sometimes they were even apologetic and would say, "We love this, it should be in a museum, but we can't sell it." That has become more prevalent as the agencies get bigger, he said.
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On the workflow side with large agencies, Chalk found the process frustrating and time-consuming, "Let's say you're giving Corbis some images, you scan them and send them, and they don't want more than 30 to 40 images at a time. Those images go through all these channels and it takes forever. Each one goes through quality control, captioning, etc. Average turnaround time could be a month or usually more, because there are 500 to 1,000 other people giving them CDs with images too."
The time lost in image processing, also represented a financial loss. "Images are timely, and I was increasingly losing valuable time, clients, and the possible value of my images the longer it took to process them."
After seeing an ad for Digital Railroad on Dirck Halstead's highly respected The Digital Journalist and researching Digital Railroad, Chalk signed up for Digital Railroad's 30-day free trial.
New York-based Digital Railroad Inc. is a Web-based service that recently raised $5.2 million in funding from Morgenthaler Ventures and Venrock Associates. Digital Railroad gives photographers a comprehensive all-in-one suite featuring online image management, marketing and distribution tools.
A one-year subscription rate comes with 10GB of storage and 75GB of bandwidth comes with a $99 setup charge and $50 monthly fee.
Using the technology, photographers can upload captured images to their unique archive, manage the rights of usage, and even offer images using RSS feed technology to market and sell them to agencies and publishers around the world.
"One of things that resonated immediately was the ability to have so much space to showcase one's work. There are plenty of places you can showcase your work, but the powerful thing about Digital Railroad was that you have the capability to archive 1,500 to 2,000 images, and if you want to buy more space it's only ten dollars a month."
Chalk cited the RSS feed technology as another strong selling point for him choosing the solution long-term. "That is extremely useful to me in getting my images out. People can subscribe to my photo feeds and can track where I'm traveling and I can shoot thumbnails to them every time I update my gallery if they subscribe to my feeds. It's like a real-time update of my photo travels. That's the way it should be, keeping everything as fluid and timely as possible."
Digital Railroad founder and CEO Evan Nisselson spoke with Publish.com in regard to the RSS feeds, which were launched in February.
"Our number one goal is to empower photographers and give them back the control of their imagery that they've lost over the years," Nisselson said. "We don't want anyone to have a barrier to getting their work out there. We have photographers from all over the world. Bloggers, photo editors, print media all want to get the most unique images and timely content."
Next Page: Reporting tools help Chalk learn what buyers want.
On the image marketing side, Chalk has found the reporting tools to be particularly effective in enabling him to hone his online collection toward his sellers.
Digital Railroad's archive reporting feature lets members see what is being searched for successfully or not successfully, and what images are being saved in lightboxes.
"One of the strongest features in Digital Railroad is the reporting tool. It's still in beta so it has a few glitches, but I can see what people are looking for in my archive and haven't been finding. This gives me direct and immediate insight into how I can meet the searcher's needs. I can see the keywords they are putting in, and I can put the images up so people can find them," Chalk said.
Being able to caption his own images and keyword effectively also has boosted Chalk's branding and outreach initiatives.
"For the first time, I can partner in marketing my images. With the keywording, I know what captions to put up. I know my images better than an agency $10-an-hour assistant processing and captioning hundreds of images a day. They're not invested in the images and finding the best keywords to evoke them like I am."
Chalk said the technology has empowered and streamlined his workflow, "If a specific magazine is looking for a feeling or mood in images, I can almost instantaneously create a lightbox to address the need and send them the link. I can let them look at 15 images instead of hundreds that they would have to take hours looking through. I can do all that so much faster using Digital's technology."
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Chalk's interest in computers has helped him embrace the technology. He also said Digital's user support is the best bar none, but still he cautions, "It's not going to be everybody's cup of tea. You have to be willing to work hard on both the image archive technology side and the marketing side, but this technology makes all of that possible. Their support is very good, and I feel they're collaborators with my work."
Chalk is anxiously waiting for the next round of improvements to the technology.
"The one thing I'm waiting for is for them to automate the image rotation on the galleries. I do it manually now, but I would like to see the process automated as an option, where the main images are pulled from my archives and rotated every couple of weeks automatically."
In response to that query, Nisselson said that feature is one of the things the company is developing now, along with e-commerce capabilities and more unique marketing features. "We will continue to automate the non-creative production tasks that are presently a chore for photographers and agencies so they can focus their time on what they do best—making and selling pictures."
For Chalk, the innovative technology after a 30-year history has put him right where he wants to be for the next 30 years, "I'm in a great position now because I can control my own destiny and images virtually by what I choose to put up in my archive. When people go to my archive, it's not cookie cutter. I can have my own branding and my own look. It's my alternative to the big boys."
Chalk's advice to other photographers? "Remember: Your images are your images. You can still give them to the agencies, and I still do too, but you can also use Digital Railroad to move and sell your images and expand your image reach."
