Vintage Photos
A reader recently wrote: What is the possible editorial worth of my collection of aerials of the new Orleans Skyline, Lousiana, offshore oil, shipping and industrial subjects from the 1950's - 1980's?
In your case, photobuyers worldwide--whether they be a corporate art director in Omaha or a photo researcher in London, will someday, sometime, need your aerial and industrial photos.
The problem: how to connect their needs with your photo collection.
In the old days (in the 70's when we first started the Photoletter marketletter here at PhotoSource International), photographers, or the grown children of deceased photographers, would ask me a similar question. My only answer was to tell them to 'donate' their collection to the local city or state historical library or university archives.
Now my advice has changed. I've learned that such collections are usually relegated to basement vaults, rarely to be seen by the public because the institution doesn't have the funds to exhibit them, file them, or preserve them. Here's what I tell photographers now. Things have changed and the savior is the World Wide Web.
If you build a website, scan your photos and put good captions on them, you're in a position to begin to market those images--customers will come to you.
Back in 1998 here at PhotoSource International, we recognized that most photographers don't have the resources (money) or the time to educate themselves on how to build an effective website. Also, we recognized that in the editorial field, photo researchers look first for the SOURCE of a highly specialized photo (like a vintage aerial view of New Orleans), and once they find the source (the photographer), then they start looking at pictures (not the reverse). We looked up a way photographers could capitalize on this process by establishing the PhotoSourceBANK where a photographer can let web-searching photobuyers know the kind of photos he or she has available. The photographer puts up a list of text descriptions of their photos
You can see how this works by simply typing in your browser's address bar:
search.photosource.com (No need to put in http:// or www)
If you follow the directions and list highly specialized subject matter, such as the actual names of buildings, quarters, streets, events, boulevards, parade names (this is what researchers look for), not general, subjects (such as the words "bridge," "building," "automobile," you'll eventually get hit -- and not only from the USA but from across the world.
As you can see, this takes initially a bit of extra work and research on your part. However, if you roll up your sleeves and catalog your collection in this way, and get it out there on the web where photobuyers can find it, in the long run it will be well worth it to you and your heirs. - Rohn Engh
 Tommy Thompson |
 Kerry Kolb |
 Jon Saban |
 Jake Nelson |