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[OM] Re: olympus Digest V1 #54

Subject: [OM] Re: olympus Digest V1 #54
From: cochran@xxxxxxxx
Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2004 13:26:59 -0400
HOME RUN!

Well said Tris!

peace

David


> 
> Olympus has been "late to market" for some time, not just with their E-1, 
> though none of that argues against a breakthrough by Olympus down the road, 
> providing the money and genius remains available for further R&D.
> 
> I'm somewhat confused as to what the real and implied messages are re this 
> stock agency. Is there a real-world "more is necessarily better" or "this 
> is the pixel threshold below which no 'pro DSLR system' dare come in below" 
> mentality at work? Is the advertising tail still desperate to wag the 
> editorial/technical dog?
> 
> If I understand what I've read thus far then part of this agency's message 
> seems to be "don't even bother showing us a "good" image which does not 
> meet our nominal requirements with re to file size. If I did hear that 
> right, what are the implications, are any of these implications pertinent 
> to anyone not in need of cash for MB and does any of this speak to an even 
> rudimentary understanding of what goes into making useable ("quality")
> images?
> 
> Do all stock images now need to be capable of being blown up to twenty-some 
> or thirty-some inches along one dimension? I don't think so. Do "many" 
> images, expressed as a significant percentage of all images in all 
> stock-photo agency inventories, ever see that kind of production? As far as 
> I know (expressed again as some percentage) only few do. (Unless the agency 
> in question only sells its inventory to, say, Gannett Outdoors for display 
> on billboards. And does such a stock agency exist? I doubt it.)
> 
> It would make as much sense for a film production company to tell film 
> makers "We will only accept work based on scripts which run to a minimum of 
> 5,000 words of dialogue," this based on an authoritative study by someone 
> somewhere sometime which dictated "Nobody enjoys films with fewer than 
> 5,000 words of dialogue" and just going with that as your film-business 
> gospel. None of this is meant to say that such a film company could not 
> enjoy startling success in the market; it wants to demonstrate rather the 
> folly at base of so potentially self-hamstringing such an operation over 
> one's proverbial transom.
> 
> Someone mentioned yesterday or the day before, in relation to Johan's new 
> site, that some images do best with more modest presentation, and this is 
> correct, of course. I don't know, just for example, how Johan's image of 
> Anna on the quay at Visby would look were it presented at double or four 
> times the size. Perhaps it would not look as good or fail to lure the eye 
> to the page so quickly, and so not be as useful for whatever purpose the 
> pagemaker might have had in mind. Hard to say. The image does seem to work 
> on that page as it stands, without a lot of clutter around it, and while I 
> think it really does need to be "expanded" for larger presentation, I can 
> readily imagine it used for any number of very good reasons in any number 
> of very good ways in all sorts of very good publications both print and 
> electronic. But maybe that's just my crazy imagination at work. Or lack of 
> an "eye" not to mention professional judgment . . . though keep in mind 
> always I do not labor under some 17MB "theory of quality," either.
> 
> What I mostly get out of this requirement for so many MB of file size is 
> that someone who lacks sure understanding of what "good" and "useable" 
> imagery means has arbitrarily decided (or allowed someone to decide for 
> him) that this demand guarantees an image with maximum usability potential, 
> or at the very least that any file under this minimum requirement implies 
> something of less intrinsic useable-image potential, and/or that this 
> minimum file-size demand equates into more real-world application and so 
> brings with it more inherent shelf life and by extension (implied) sales 
> potential. It might even be that this agency would reject out of hand any 
> submission falling below this MB threshold no matter the subjective quality 
> of said image in other respects. A kind of "we've done the math so we're 
> just not buying anything with a smaller file size of so many MB"
> declaration.
> 
> Maybe I have that muddled. What I don't think I have muddled is that 
> messages of this kind usually (if not always) speak to a stone's ignorance 
> and all too often suggest not a lot of healthy intelligence at work as 
> well. Which is fine for this stock agency, I suppose, and for that matter 
> for the stock-image business as a whole--I doubt anyone involved cares a 
> whit either way for my unsolicited opinion re same.
> 
> I think if I worked there, though, that I'd escape permanently by noon. Can 
> you imagine how stifling the air must be inside? Would you love to rub 
> elbows up and down and throughout this company's labyrinth of 
> florescent-lit hallways with 17MB suits? For the rest of your sorry life?
> 
> Tris
> 
> 
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> 
> 




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