Trigger Blog

Lighten the Mood

2011-08-19T17:27:00.004+01:00

With the end of summer now creeping up on us, our holidays long gone and only doom and gloom on the tv we thought it was time to lighten the mood a tad with a new look Trigger website. Out goes moody black and in comes a more subtle silvery grey, with a lighter brighter more refreshing tone to display your great images.

The homepage has a more interactive feel with a bolder design while the galleries are cleaner and allow the images to stand out on the page. We've kept the portfolio pages to show our clients how good your images are on the printed page and we now also have a 'selling' page that you should take a look at if you're serious about marketing your imagery.

This is where you can get a FREE trial of your personal Slideshow. Simply embed (we give you the code) this into your web and networking sites to virally promote your folio and get thousands more people to see your work. Turn these into sales by customers simply clicking on an image. You don't have to lift a finger, our sales team will do all the donkey work for you, you just wait for your Paypal payments from Trigger.

What else can you do to get more sales, the most important thing is to get more of your images in our licensing galleries. Clients want to see new inspiring emotive imagery and adding to your existing folio is the easiest option. Remember all new imagery goes to the top of our 'just arrived' gallery and gets seen before anything else and the more images you have in our galleries the more opportunities you will create.

just arrived - Images at Trigger Image

Being a Slim Jim

2011-02-27T14:22:00.008Z

We're not caught in the rush to be the biggest, the fattest, the most anonymous image resource in town. Hec, we're small, we're slim and we're tuned in to offer the personal touch that means we know who you are and what you're creating. You're more than welcome to contact us at any time because we're just the usual fallible humans you find everywhere. The difference is we love our photographers work and we can convey that to our clients. Trigger is the sum of it's parts, a combined effort where ego's are out the window and talent speaks volumes. That's why we have a creative base of photographers that covers the widest spectrum of experiences from raw students to award winning mega talent, no names, but you know who you are. It's that vitality, that constant sense of creative rebirth that makes finding the right photographers for Trigger so exciting for us.

We've seen thousands of folios from prospective hopefuls and we get daily requests to review portfolios from folks who also want to be a part of Trigger. It's not a bunch of fun telling 99% of them that they're work just doesn't fit, but that's just the way it is. Taking a crit personally rather than professionally can hurt those less used to it but hey, move on, there are other image libraries that will be a better fit for them. We're picky, we edit hard and that's why our clients come to us, to find just inspirational images.

Jimmy Williams - Images by Trigger Image

Being small and niche means finding the right fit is vital if Trigger is to stand out from those other libraries so we take a lot of time mining deep into the heart of the internet to unearth the gems. As we're all aware the web is awash with digital imagery and 'photographers' so while you may think you're easy to find the truth is often much murkier. If you're relatively 'fresh' making contacts that develop through to commissioned work takes time and effort. So the ethos at Trigger is to provide a platform where you can show your folio for FREE to our database of contacts and exploit the opportunities offered through licensing. We'll also pass-on client requests to commission imagery if they can't find the specific image in your collection so what might have been a small job could turn into a worthwhile long term contact for the future.

In a competitive marketplace you need to update your images as often as you can, sending in your low res samples as email attachments to studio@triggerimage.co.uk is vital, our hard-nosed editors will then review them and get back to you. Old content is just that, so be proactive to keep clients coming back to your work. New work also goes to the top of our 'Just Arrived' gallery so you'll be seen first. To get your folio further afield Trigger also works alongside a number of distributors and Fine Art print on demand publishers to increase your marketing and sales potential, these now include Alamy, Age, DPA, Polfoto, Bonne Image, Mauritius, Glasshouse, Art.com and ArtFlakes and we will be looking to add new names to the list this year, so keep an eye on the Blog for updates.

Thanks for all your input
Tim

Michal Karcz joins Trigger

2011-02-27T14:02:00.003Z

Michal comes from a painting background where vision was as important as technique. He has now opened "the door" to his own creative world by leaving paint and canvas and realising the opportunities that digital paint and photography offer. Michal generates unique realities that are impossible to create with ordinary darkroom techniques, creating journeys to places that don't exist. Places of dreams, desires and imaginations. His work has been featured on music and book covers and is pure inspiration.

Michal Karcz - Images by Trigger Image

Małgorzata Maj joins Trigger

2011-02-27T12:54:00.004Z

2011 is starting off in the right direction with some fabulous new photographers joining our select few at Trigger.

Malgorzata Maj, born in 1980 graduated from Warmia-Masuria University in Olsztyn with the title of the master in art, specializing in traditional techniques including painting on silk. As an illustrator & photographer she fell in love with XIXth century paintings, their colours and themes, ghostly moods & dreamy visions. Her work is a rich emotional journey through dark secret gardens where we only glimpse upon romantic figures for a moment before they disappear into the memory of our dreams.

Malgorzata Maj - Images by Trigger Image

Jimmy Williams joins Trigger

2011-02-27T12:16:00.007Z

Jimmy Williams - Images by Trigger Image

2010-12-01T12:29:00.001Z

Dear Trigger Contributors

I hope this email finds you well. This is just a quick chance to catch up and say 'hi' and let you know about a few new changes.

Firstly, we have a new portfolio section on the website with a drop down menu for categories so we can now better display your licensed images to clients. This will be updated regularly so make sure you keep an eye on it to see what our clients are licensing.

Secondly, are you using your FREE Trigger Slideshow to sell your stock images? As you're already a Trigger Contributor you can use the Slideshow to promote your stock imagery for 12 months for FREE. Make the most of your stock archive by virally marketing your work. Simply embed your personal slideshow code into your web, blogs and networking sites and make more sales while you concentrate on your day to day commissions. The team at Trigger do all the work for you. If you need more info on how to get your personal Slideshow get in touch.

Thirdly, print sales through Art.com are now starting to fly! Their new higher price range of quality imagery has meant royalties are on the up for those photographers who want to sell their work via the worlds largest online art print supplier. If you want to be a part of this let me know.

Lastly, we're coming to the end of the year already, this means we're looking forward to the New Year and new imagery. Now is the time to start submitting your new stock imagery to us so we can promote your work to our regular clients and those who are visiting for the first time. All new imagery goes to the top of out 'just arrived' gallery list so it gets seen first. Make sure your work gets seen before anyone else. With art buyers moving away from traditional stock imagery to more niche orientated libraries Trigger is a real alternative they are using, but we're only as good as the work you supply us, so keep it coming!

Finally, thanks to everyone for making 2010 such a busy year, despite fierce competition Trigger has established itself as a real competitor in the creative stock arena and we will be fighting fit to continue putting quality before quantity in 2011.

From a snow bound England we wish you all a great season.

Best wishes
Tim

Market More Sell More

2010-10-31T13:21:00.007Z

Whether you're an aspiring amateur or professional photographer you can now sell your images online 24/7 with your own slideshow that includes an integrated shopping cart. Market your folio professionally and sell prints and photos without having to worry about delivering files or invoicing, the Trigger team look after that for you.

Creating great images is what you're good at, but if you want to sell your images you need to market your work successfully. We know most photographers would rather be behind the camera so you can now concentrate on what you do best, without having to miss a single sale.

Each image in your slideshow links directly to your shopping cart at Trigger, this means your images are only ever a click away from a sale. By embedding the slideshow code into your web, blog and social networking sites you can distribute your folio to friends, existing clients and new art buyers. In turn they can market your folio by clicking the SHARE button on the slideshow menu. Every sale from your slideshow links back to your personal account. Trigger then pays you by Paypal. It's easy to set up and easy to stop at any time, try it!

The Free Starter Slideshow is available to all photographers, students, amateurs and pros. Simply upgrade to sell more at any time. Free Setup. No commitment. Cancel anytime.

START SELLING>>>>>

"
Images by *Stephen Arens - at Trigger Image

Get your images seen

2010-08-19T13:43:00.008+01:00

If you're like most photographers, when it comes to uploading new images to Trigger you don't want to spend hours slaving over IPTC file data. It's the boring stuff that can add days to your file preparation before you get to uploading your high res files to us but unfortunately this dull wordy stuff is vital!! Having a good description and the right keywords with your images is very important if you're in this seriously and you want your images to stand any chance of being seen. Clients use these words to search and find your images so you need to try and put yourself in their position, what words would they use? It's not easy and it's virtually impossible to cover all possibilities and of course you are competing with all the other photographers using the same keywords. If you're not using software to help you select your keywords the next best thing is an online Thesaurus. It will open your mind to word associations you just had not considered but remember one thing, be accurate. The worst thing you can do is add keywords that are not relevant, this will send your valuable potential clients scurrying away frustrated as they see how unprofessional and unreliable your keywording is. So what else can help? Well, being a photographer in a small agency like Trigger rather than a giant like Getty has it's advantages. You simply have a better chance of being seen in a gallery of 10,000 images rather than 20,000,000.

Keywords are only part of the story of course, once the client finds your image you then have to have inspiring shots, with good lighting and great models with content that fits the client brief exactly and a suitable fee to fit the client budget!

Many photographers trying to sell their imagery for the first time as stock think it is a simple process of getting images with an agency and then they will sell themselves. At Trigger we edit hard to present the best images to our clients so they don't have to search through thousands of average images they can find elsewhere, but we live in an age flooded with digital photography where the number of images available far outstrips the demand. The general consensus is that most sales are made from only 10% of images held in a gallery. So, you need to produce imagery that is in the top 10%. That's the hard bit.

By regularly updating your images at Trigger your images go to the top of our 'Just Arrived' gallery and these get seen by designers on a daily basis, we also promote new images via social networking. So you can use this gallery to enhance the publicity of your images before keywords are even used by our clients.

There is keyword software to help in the time consuming process, but we can't recommend any particular supplier: http://www.imagekeyworder.com/ you can download this and try it free for 30 days.

just arrived - Images by Trigger Image

Market your images with a NEW Trigger slideshow

2010-05-26T22:17:00.010+01:00

You can now have a personalised slideshow to promote your licensed work at Trigger. Market your work more effectively by simply embedding it's code into your websites, on blogs and on other available sites that will attract clients to view and purchase your work.

Clicking on an image in your slideshow takes the viewer straight to your page where they can use Paypal for an immediate purchase. It's that easy.

The first 5 images are FREE and then it's only 50p per image per month. The more images you include the more choice you give your clients.

Email Trigger today for a free 5 image test run and start making the most of your licensed imagery.

Order your slideshow by contacting Tim

Images by Elizabeth May at Trigger Image

Art.com Introduce New High Quality Prints

2010-03-19T20:53:00.004Z

If you're busy behind the camera it can be difficult finding time to market your work and when you do it often includes costly printing, postage, cold calling, email lists, websites and networking, time you don't have. That's why at Trigger we place your images in front of art buyers for free, saving you the hassle.

In addition to licensing your work directly from Trigger you can also benefit from our distributors in 30 countries including Alamy and Age and also our print on demand supplier Art.com, the world's largest online print supplier. To maximise your opportunities you simply need to get as many of your images past our editors, we then do the rest while you sit back and drink cappuccino's.

If you're not already doing so Art.com offers an opportunity to sell prints of your work and develop a wider fan base. The editors at Art.com love the work in our galleries and are now offering new high spec print options which include Fine Art Watercolour paper, Kodak Professional Endura Metallic papers and Art on Acrylic. These are in addition to their standard posters and sell at a much higher price so you could see a higher return.

We provide all our photographers with the choice to Opt In to Art.com so if you want to give it a go just let me know by return. We do all the work for you so you can continue with your cappuccino while we submit your images and collect your royalties on sales.

It's a great way to promote and sell your work and with the new repro options you can have confidence in the reproduction quality of your prints. If you want your work to be included in our next submission to Art.com simply reply 'ART.COM OPT IN' in the subject heading of your email and we'll do the rest, while you take a rest.

4 in 1

2010-03-15T19:40:00.003Z

A new series of ghost books is soon to hit the shops featuring the work of Trigger photographer Luc Coiffait. The Mediator series with two tales in each book features another Trigger photographer Lara Jade as the model. When she's not jet setting between shoots Lara is just as calm infront of the camera as she is behind it.

Luc had a good week, as well as this series he also had another image selected for the cover of 'Gifted' by Marilyn Kaye. Four covers in one week, not bad for someone who graduated only last year.

Luc Coiffait - Images by Trigger Image">

Trigger & The Big Boys

2010-01-15T15:23:00.015Z

In a world of bland mega agencies, Trigger occupies a small but perfectly formed creative atoll amidst a sea awash with stock dirge. Millions of images you wouldn't want to use and the rare one you might find if you have the patience of a saint. Art buyers face a frustrating search and are increasingly rejecting what has been, in favour of something new. As a result after years of filling their galleries with literally millions of average staged shots the big agencies are now seeing the light and adding 'creative' galleries to their stock pile. Welcome to the modern world big agencies.

As a small agency Trigger cannot compete on size and we don't want to, we're not designed to do that. It's not how big you are it's what you do with it, afterall when did big equal good and small equal not so good. Trigger is small, we're niche, we're boutique, we're specialist, we love creative stuff and we want our carefully selected photographers to fill our galleries with inspiring work offering art buyers a real new creative choice of images for their projects.

The big boys have recognised that niche can be good and so they've been chatting to us over the past few months. The exciting news is that most of the work in our galleries is now being marketed to a whole new clientele through some of these big boy agencies including Agefotostock with offices in Spain, Paris and New York, DPA Pictue-Alliance in Germany, StockPhotoPro and Glasshouse Images in USA and now Alamy based in UK.

Alamy have 17.58 million images to date, which in anyones books is big, very big. Did we go grovelling to their door in the vain hope they would be interested in a small agency? No, they approached us. The result is we now have over 5000 images online at Alamy and this number will increase as our photographers submit new work. If you've ever tried to get images accepted by Alamy you'll know how difficult it can be. Their QC (quality control) is infamous for rejecting the slightest image aberration and if they reject one image they reject them all!! At Trigger we love aberrations if they add to an image and so this makes the decision by Alamy even more revolutionary.

Congratulations to our photographers for creating great images and to Alamy for recognising their creativity.

Tim

Trigger 2010

2010-01-11T10:06:00.034Z

With snow outside we've had a cold start to 2010 after a year of downbeat economic news but I'm sending the warmest of wishes to you all in the knowledge that the worst is behind us and one day soon the sun is actually going to start shining. There's no denying 2009 was a difficult period for most businesses and stock generally took a downturn in sales over previous years. As a new business in a niche market we're under pressure from all the competition including the big boys of Getty, Corbis, Alamy and Microstock. Every image request we get also goes out to these mega image libraries and so we really need to have great images to get picked for the job. Having ridden the economic storm we're now in a good position to take advantage of a growing optimism where the small specialist boutique stock library is showing it can compete against the bland mega agencies on quality, creativity and personal service.

So what have we been doing? Over the past few months we've been making our galleries more efficient so they work harder for you. This has meant extensive reworking of the site which has included a subtle revision of the overall appearance and a simplifying of our gallery structure so that art buyers find it easier to locate the images they want.

NEW GALLERIES

The first obvious change is you now go straight to the new 'galleries' page with the

search bar. Slide shows look impressive on the home page but busy art buyers who may be visiting dozens of libraries don't want to spend their time sitting through them. So we've ditched the glitz and replaced it with more functionality, art buyers are visiting Trigger to find specific images and so we're now offering the most direct route for them.

SLIDESHOWS

For those of you who want slideshows to promote your work, we'll be making these available in the near future, so watch this space. You'll then be able to take advantage of marketing your licensed work virally. Any interested clients will be able click on your slideshow images and be taken directly to your sales page on Trigger. We still provide all the sales and personal customer service as usual and make your payments to you via Paypal as normal. All you will need to do is get your slideshow out there by linking it to your website, blogs, facebook, twitter pages etc. Also let your online friends, colleagues, workmates, designer, art director contacts etc know that your images are available to license and purchase as prints.

KEYWORDING

Now we have fewer galleries, visitors will be using the search bar more for specific searches this means 'keywording' is now even more important. This also means before you upload new images you really need to be thorough in applying your 'keywords' to the file IPTC data. This is how clients find your work and so it's no good spending hours creating a great image if no one can find it. We all know keywording isn't fun but if you want to maximise your chances of making sales you need to have a professional approach to your file preparation.

UPLOADING

Once you've put all the hard work in preparing your high res files you need to upload them to us as jpg files. As part of our update the upload process is now slightly different. You can now only upload your files using the standard File Transfer Protocol (FTP). You will need an FTP client software for this such as Transmit or Fetch. You can use any FTP program to upload images to Trigger.

FTP client software:

Mac Transmit

Mac Fetch

Mac : PC : Linux FileZilla

PC Smartftp

PC Cuteftp

Linux Kasablanca

Linux Ftpcube

Opening your selected program the left window is your computer, the right window is our server. Select those files you want to transfer in the left window and drag and drop into the right window, or use the 'return' key on your keyboard. The process is similar to the Photoshelter Uploader that some of you have been using but just requires the input of the details below. As always it's important your files names start with your initials eg 'tim kahane' tkah00001, tkah00002 etc.

The configuration details you need to enter are:

'Server' or 'Host' should be ftp.photoshelter.com

'Username' should be 'your_name' (eg. tim_kahane)

'Password' is 'trigger'

'Protocol' should be 'FTP'

'Port' should be '21'

Click 'Connect

We realise this new upload process may cause a few problems to start so if you have any questions we'll do our best to help you.

As our select band of photographers we need you to supply us with great images in 2010 to inspire our clients. Nothing more, nothing less. This means submitting new sample imagery (low res jpgs by email) as often as you can to keep your licensing folio of work fresh and interesting. If clients are seeing the same images time and again they will go to the next image or worse, the next agency!

Make sure your images are working for you in 2010 by getting them into our galleries and infront of our design and advertising clients.

Best

Tim

The Future of Photography?

2009-11-14T16:46:00.006Z

Here's a really interesting viewpoint on how to market your work by a photo editor.

A Thought on the Future of Photography

Photographers need more fans.

Photographers spend waaay too much time and money trying to develop a very small and elite group of fans at the top. What needs to change is instead of thinking about having a couple of fans with deep pockets you need to start adding a large number with shallow pockets. These fans are actually just the same consumers you would potentially reach through traditional media except now they can find you without the help of magazines and newspapers. As these people abandon traditional media they’re looking for places to spend the time and money they used to spend at the top. Why not be there waiting?

If you somehow find marketing and selling yourself to average citizens somehow revolting, not to worry, there will always be a group of 500 successful elite photographers who dominate the top of this industry with a handful of deep pocketed fans (top Photo Directors, Art Buyers and Creatives) and if that’s your goal you can continue the long slow climb to the top, but for many people it’s just not possible to make that climb anymore or maybe the mystique of it all has suddenly evaporated.

If that’s the case you need to prepare to go get your fans back.

Christopher Anderson, Editor of Wired gives the following relevant example in his article,Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business (here)

Traditionalists wring their hands about the “vaporization of value” and “demonetization” of entire industries. The success of craigslist’s free listings, for instance, has hurt the newspaper classified ad business. But that lost newspaper revenue is certainly not ending up in the craigslist coffers. In 2006, the site earned an estimated $40 million from the few things it charges for. That’s about 12 percent of the $326 million by which classified ad revenue declined that year.
But free is not quite as simple — or as stupid — as it sounds. Just because products are free doesn’t mean that someone, somewhere, isn’t making huge gobs of money. Google is the prime example of this. The monetary benefits of craigslist are enormous as well, but they’re distributed among its tens of thousands of users rather than funneled straight to Craig Newmark Inc.

Here's the link for the full article and feedback from fellow photographers.... remember to post your replies on our Blog.

http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2008/03/19/a-thought-on-the-future-of-photography/

Art.com Sales

2009-10-12T11:17:00.005+01:00

Sales through Art.com are up 300%. Are you taking advantage of this income stream?

Having a good selection of images on Art.com and their associate sites means your work is reaching an enormous global poster and print market. They promote themselves as the biggest poster retailer with over 1 million purchase options online in multi-lingual sites to cater for every possible customer and they deliver globally with a money back guarantee if customers are not totally satisfied with the quality of the reproduction.

Trigger has been working with Art.com over the past 12 months providing imagery from those photographers who specifically requested to license their work in this enormous market place and now we're starting to see what can be achieved through regular sales and a regular pay cheque to those photographers.

Of course it's not for everyone and we offer our photographers the option to license their work with Art.com right from the start. In order to get the most from licensing you need to put the most in and this includes having a broad approach to where your imagery might be licensed. The market is broad and your work could be reproduced on book covers, greeting cards, coffee mugs on websites or appear in the board room of major companies from Chile to Czechoslovakia. Clients are paying to use your imagery because they think it will sell their products. So being open minded and accepting that although some products may not appeal directly to you this is a commercial environment and not a fine art gallery.

In order to do this you should only submit images you are happy to license into these potential markets. For example care should be taken submitting images you may want to produce as limited editions in the future. To gain the most from licensing you also need a degree of patience as I've mentioned in a previous blog. Unlike winning the lottery, this is not an instant reward, it takes time to develop your licensing folio and it takes time to distribute those images to your potential customers but patience can be rewarded.

Trigger photographer Mel Allen has been licensing his images with Art.com for some time and now has one of the top selling images bringing in a regular pay cheque!

Distribution- Are You Missing An Opportunity?

2009-10-09T19:16:00.030+01:00

What's the most boring side to being a creative dude, it's got to be marketing your work, the whole process just doesn't fit with being a solitary creature bent on self criticism and doubt. All you really want to do is be creative even if that does mean sitting in front of your computer with Photoshop open while Tweeting your 'friends'. I bet most of you would rather be walking the streets in the pouring rain rather than spending your hard earnt cash on actually marketing your portfolio. The problem in this day and age is that competition is greater than ever, you need to sell yourself harder than ever and it can all get very expensive.

As creative folk at Trigger we feel the pain with you, empathy it's called and we have it in the bucket load. With the economy gone to pot commercial artists are feeling the pinch. Clients with healthy budgets are nowhere to be seen, art sales are in a fragile state and every Tom, Dick and Harriet has a digital camera, wants to be called a photographer and is uploading as fast as you can take the next shot. So how can you develop an income stream on a budget of nothing while all hell is breaking lose. Well it might surprise you but Microstock is the fastest growing area in photography sales. That might be good for the Microstock companies but ouch! Where does that leave the photographer? No better off unless you can sell thousands of image licenses. If you're anything like me you'll be wincing at the thought of selling anything for a mere pittance, let alone your hard earnt talent.

If you're lucky enough to have some spare cash spend wisely, or you might as well just set light to it now or the sales rep will snatch it from your creative fingers. Any sales rep who has been to sales rep school will then give you the line " you'll get a much better response to your ad by booking six months worth now, that way you can build your brand". What they actually mean is that they can extract more money from you, in one hit, more quickly. Let's face it, if your work's good it will sell, you just need to put it in front of the clients, lots of clients, across a diverse range of uses. So what do you do, spend valuable creative time dragging your folio from one glazed over creative director to another? Yip. Maybe create a masterpiece of a website that nobody can find? Yip. Or you invest in the sales reps promises exchanging real cash for a small ad at the back of a trade magazine? Why not try all three, blow that cash after all what else can you do with it apart from purchase life's necessities? Nothing ventured nothing gained as they say.

So what alternative could you try, something that works for you 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and is FREE?

Licensing your existing imagery to art buyers by having a FREE subscription to Trigger provides the potential to create repeat income from the same image. Having a creative folio of images in our galleries can generate real extra income for no cost to you. We provide FREE marketing, FREE file storage, FREE file delivery to clients and a FREE payment collection service. All you need to do is provide us with great imagery and be professional in your commitment. We only charge a commission on actual sales so if you don't sell anything, you don't pay anything.

A major new addition to our FREE services is our new online distribution network which now includes the following picture agencies in 30 countries:

Alamy - www.alamy.com
Glasshouse Images - www.glasshouseimages.com
DPA - Germany - picture-alliance.com
Stockphotopro - USA - www.stockphotopro.com
Polfoto - Denmark - www.polfoto.dk/polfoto/app/stock
AGE Fotostock - Barcelona - Madrid - Paris - New York - www.agefotostock.com
allphoto - Czech Republic - www.allphoto.cz
Archivo Digital - Digital Stock - Mexico - www.archivodigital.com.mx
Arquivo Internacional de Cor, Comunicação pela Imagem, Lda. - Portugal - www.aic.pt
Avenue Images - Germany - www.avenueimages.com
BrunoStock - Netherlands - www.brunostock.nl
Dinodia Photo Library PVT LTD - India - www.dinodia.com
East News Russia - Russia - www.eastnews.ru
East News SP ZOO - Poland - www.eastnews.com.pl
East News Ukraine Photo Agency - Ukraine - www.eastnews.com.ua
FOCI Image Library - Denmark - www.foci.dk
FotoStock S.A. - South Africa - www.aaifotostock.com
Fresh Images - Netherlands - www.freshimages.nl
Graph East - United Arab Emirates - www.grapheast.com
Grupo Keystone - Brazil - www.grupokeystone.com.br
Hemis.fr - France - www.hemis.fr
IBL Bildbyrå - Sweden - www.ibl.se
Imagefile - Ireland - www.imagefile.ie
Imageplus - Brazil - www.imageplus.com
IML Image Group Ltd. - Greece - www.iml.gr
Kactus Digital - Chile - www.kactusdigital.cl
Lehtikuva Oy - Finland - www.lehtikuva.fi
Marka S.R.L. - Italy - www.marka.it
Orbanca Images - Venezuela - www.orbancaimages.com
Photo Stock, S.A. de C.V. - Mexico - www.photostock.com.mx
PhotoNewZealand - New Zealand - www.photonewzealand.com/international/
Prisma Bildagentur AG - Switzerland - www.prismaonline.ch
Profile Photo Library Ltd. - Thailand - www.profilephotolibrary.com
SlideDepot Ltda. - Colombia - www.slidedepot.com
The Bigger Picture - South Africa - www.thebiggerpicture.co.za
Van Parys Media - Belgium - www.vanparysmedia.com
Zenon Images - Turkey - www.zenonimages.com

If you have subscribed or renewed your FREE subscription since January 2009 you will now benefit from our new distribution network. If you want to update your FREE subscription at Trigger you can simply do this online. If you're not sure just drop me a line for more information.

Photographer Elizabeth May has already benefitted by licensing work to the MSN homepage.

More major stock image distributors will be added over the coming months which means your work will be seen by a growing number of potential clients globally. Keep them interested in your work by updating your images on a regular basis. Submit your low res samples by email to studio@triggerimage.co.uk and we'll ensure your work gets FREE exposure to art buyers in exchange for realistic Rights Managed License sales fees.

Tim

The New File Spec

2009-06-09T18:03:00.006+01:00

We're upping our file spec. This will ensure your imagery is more commercially available and of a higher value to clients. File enlarging is called interpolation and can be tried in Photoshop or Genuine Fractals. Increasing the size of an image can reduce image quality so always start with a high quality raw or tif image and save the enlarged image as a jpg at maximum quality before uploading to Trigger.

File Spec:

Colour: Adobe RGB or sRGB

Dpi: 300

File Size: Only upload JPG files. When these are uncompressed as TIF files they should be 48MB or higher.

Interpolation: If you are having to increase the size of your original files this should only be done using high quality original images to avoid any loss in quality.

Pixel size: 16MP (5000 x 3200) Minimum

IPTC Description: Enter a full and detailed description of the photograph

IPTC Keywords: Enter words separated by commas, that describe the image, its contents and the emotion conveyed.

Model Releases: If you include adults you should obtain signed release forms from them. If you include children you should get a signed release forms from their parent or guardian.

Property Releases: If you include private property, ie cars, boats, planes, buildings etc you should get a signed release from the owner to use the image commercially.

You should keep the signed release forms safely. If our client request to see a release form we will ask you to email a copy to us.

File names: Four letters followed by five numbers. For example if your name is John Smith take the first letter of your first name 'j' followed by the first three letters 'smi' of your second name, jsmi00001, jsmi00002, jsmi00003, etc.

If you have any questions just drop me a line.

Meet & Greet @ BAPLA

2009-06-09T12:02:00.017+01:00

The dawn chorus was a mere whisper, my body required coffee and the sun was somewhere over a greyish blurred horizon. A great time of day to be about with a camera, unfortunately I was on the early train to London, however it was running on time and there was a buffet car. That's got to be a good omen. That was the extent of my joy at 5.30am pre caffeine.

Joining the first commuters of the day is a reminder that self employment has its benefits and working alongside a great bunch of creatives is a refreshing and inspiring place to be in a world of tired grey suits. They were heading of to the office for another 8-5 day but fortunately for me I was heading for the Business Design Centre for the annual BAPLA ( British Association of Picture Libraries and Agents) Spring Fair. This claims to be the biggest gathering of picture libraries and picture buyers on the planet and who am I to argue the toss. This is where art buyers meet art licensors face to face and where libraries such as Trigger can meet new distributors.

Arriving at 7.30 am I headed straight for a caffeine top up with a freshly baked croissant followed by so called breakfast meetings with numerous European distributors and even the occasional photographer who had sneaked in past security. Crumbling croissants and conversation with European colleagues is not an ideal mix so early. Encouragingly we made ourselves understood and all the distributors showed interest in marketing Trigger to their specific clientele expressing that the market for stock images is looking for stimulating, creative imagery in an arena where all too often posed predictable shots fill the larger agency galleries. The niche content we currently offer in our galleries from our community of photographers is backed by our Rights Managed License which is now the predominant method over Royalty Free pricing options. This is partially due to clients favoring the potential to negotiate on a fee, particularly apparent when multiple mages are required and a degree of flexibility enables the client to work to a budget, allowing us to develop a working relationship with them. It also ensures the photographer receives a higher fee for their work according to how and where the image is used and you hang on to your all important rights.

We currently work with a number of publishers on a repeat basis and we hope to expand on this as we market ourselves to a wider image buying audience via new distributors. However supplying the right imagery is only half the battle. All distributors have their own specific file requirements, whether that's file sizes or how all the IPTC information is supplied to them and having discussed this with a number of distributors we're now looking at upping our current file spec to meet their needs. This means from now on we'll be asking for bigger file sizes and file IPTC info in the keywords and descriptions sections. The industry standard is about 48MB for an uncompressed tif file. There are options for enlarging imagery and we'd suggest using Genuine Fractals. This is relatively low cost software that you can download, try before you buy with the trial version. Photoshop also offers a similar feature that uses a different process. Enlarging your images from your originals is not ideal, but unless you have a high spec camera it's the alternative option. Remember your aiming for Adobe RGB files at 300dpi that are 48MB as uncompressed tifs, that's a 16 Mega Pixel image. You should then save your files as jpgs at maximum quality before uploading to us. I'll put a post up to clarify the new full spec.

With clients coming back to our galleries it's essential we maintain their interest by providing engaging imagery on every visit. This is why it's important for you to upload those new shots as often as you can via your personal link. If you've lost your link just let me know and I'll resend it to you. We recommend you have atleast 100 images in your stock folio with Trigger, this gives you a higher degree of visibility in our galleries. If you want more visibility, send in more images just like Alaya Gadeh has done. She is an unstoppable creative force and has over a 1000 images online and practically owns the 'floral gallery' with increasing sales as a result.

As the marketing manager from Corbis related in his seminar, strong editorial selections presented with clarity that demonstrate an emotive, engaging content sell. That's exactly what we're looking for and we're doing in our own house style. With your continued input Trigger is a real resource of creativity, placing your work infront of design professionals on a daily basis.

If you haven't done so already, make sure you benefit from our new distributors by simply renewing your FREE SUBSCRIPTION today.

Tim

Get optimised and get higher on Google

2009-05-14T00:02:00.003+01:00

Hey, if you want to get ahead with self promotion you know you've got to be easy to spot on Google, but how the hell do you do that when everyone else is up to the same thing. Well it's not easy but optimising your website to increase visitors can help.

As you know Trigger work with Photoshelter.com who provide lots of great information on their site for photographers on how to market yourself. This stuff is FREE so if you have the time to watch some videos on setting up your search engine optimisation (SEO) why not try it out. You can get all the info you need here.

If you want to share this info with non-members, go for it, the SEO guidance is designed for all photographers.

Look who's Looking

2009-04-12T16:48:00.004+01:00

To give you a better idea and a closer look of just who is scanning through your images in the Trigger galleries take a peek at this short list. These are clients who are looking for inspiring work and have chosen to register with Trigger because they can see the potential in your imagery. By continually updating with your new work they will at some point turn their enquiry into a purchase. Think positive and be pro-active to meet your clients image search needs.

Verstegen Trading : Germany
Black Cat Design : USA
Hilden Design : Germany
Cree Design : Italy
Hachette Books : USA
Butcher Design : USA
Ogilvy Mather Advertising : India
Schweitzer Design : USA
L'Espresso Edoitoriale : Italy
Turrini Design : Italy
The Design Works : USA
JFD London : England
Robinson Design : England
Random House : Spain
Folk Creative : USA
Tilly Marketing : England
Slade Deisgn : England
Guter Punkt : Germany
Anu Design : Germany
Oxford University Press : England
Little Brown Books : England
Planeta : Spain
Starwood Hotels : USA
Random House : Germany
Harper Collins : England
Grand Central Books : USA
Head Design : England
Pan Macmillan : England
Terner & Sons : England
Leidon University :
Hachette Livre : England
Redcow Creative : England
IKOS :
Mays Publishing:
Love Commercials :
Momentum :
Chandler Chicco Agency :
Capital Publishing :
Swanke Hayden Connell : England
Hodder & Stoughton : England
JWT Advertising : Dubai
Pocket Editions : France
Seed Design :
Blank Canvas : England
River Publishing : England
Ogilvy One : England
Harlequin Publishers : Australia
Taylor Inc : USA
Pygmalia : France

JUST ARRIVED - Images by Trigger Image

New Photographer - New Licensing Opportunity

2009-04-12T16:06:00.004+01:00

Luc Coiffait

Unlike some photographers Luc doesn't choose to focus on one type of photography. He fulfills his love for photography by covering a broad range, including Fashion, Portrait, Landscape, Macro, Landscape and more. Now setting up in London he recently completed his commercial Photographic Practice degree at Newcastle College and has just made his first licensing sale at Trigger.

New Photographer Cristina Carra Caso

2009-04-06T13:42:00.005+01:00

Mysterious yellowing landscapes with dreamlike qualities typify the emotive work of new contributor Cristina Carra Caso to Trigger Image.

Angela Melling Exhibition

2009-04-06T09:54:00.008+01:00

Are You Having an Exhibition?
Spread the word by sticking all the details on our Blog. Just email the essentials to me and I'll do the rest so more people know about your show.

Angela Melling has done just that. If you're in the south east of England near to the small town of Dorking in Surrey, then take a diversion to Denbies Vineyard where she is having her debut exhibition with fellow photographer Philip Banfield. The show is open from Monday 18th May - Sunday 24th May 2009.

Denbies Vineyard Picture Gallery
London Road (A24)
Dorking
Surrey
England
RH5 6AA

Patience & Persistence Pays

2009-03-03T01:02:00.002Z

One of the best ways to make more image sales is to get more images past our editors at Trigger. That's no mean feat as they're renowned for being very picky. The longer you then leave your stock shots in our galleries the more opportunity you will have to sell licenses for your work. If you only submit a handful of images you're going to be frustrated by the lack of activity so you want to build your licensing folio over time until it represents a variety of emotive content. Just like any folio of work instant sales are a dream we'd like to come true but the reality is marketing your work takes time, money and patience. German photographer Alaya Gadeh is a prime example of how to develop a great folio and be rewarded by having the patience for the right client to use her work. Despite being relatively new to photography, having never sold a picture in her life, she persisted with her creativity and updated her licensing folio almost daily, now she is getting results. With over 1000 images in her licensing folio she has filled the floral gallery and the right client was sure to spot her work sooner rather than later. After a 12 month wait The Almanac Gallery based in The Kings Road in London spotted the potential in her folio. Alaya now has a range of stunning floral greetings cards about to hit the shops across England. She has also licensed her work to Italy's biggest magazine L'Espresso and is our top seller at Art.com. Watch this space for what happens next for Alaya.

The Spanish are Enchanted by Vanesa Muñoz

2009-03-01T23:25:00.002Z

Spanish Publisher Espasa are licensing imagery by Trigger photographer Vanesa Muñoz.
Since its foundation, its mission has been to promote the cultural development of Spain and Latin America through a wide range of works complemented by the best fiction and non fiction today. 'A Dark Enchantment' by Roland Vernon originally published by Transworld Publishers in UK in 2008 is now set to be reproduced in Spanish with the cover by photographer Vanesa Muñoz.

First Sale for New Trigger Photographer

2009-03-01T23:12:00.001Z

Elizabeth May from California joined Trigger only a few short weeks ago but has already made her first sale. Her work has been selected by Harlequin Publishers in Australia and will appear on a book cover entitled 'Bloodline'.

Welcome to Vintage Floral

2009-03-01T23:01:00.001Z

Welcome to Angela Melling who joins Trigger from England. New to photography but the proud owner of a D300 she dumped her day job working in accountancy for a more precarious life as a snapper. Producing stunning vintage floral imagery she is currently working on a new series called 'idioms'.

Read it now listen to it

2009-03-01T22:56:00.003Z

Hey, congratulations go out to Trigger photographer Martina Zancan who has just had her book cover for Pan Macmillan Publishers reproduced as an audio cd cover. Chao.

New distributors to work with Trigger

2009-02-28T21:27:00.001Z

Just like every other business on this little spinning planet we're always on the lookout for new customers. Thanks to the web and digital techno stuff artists are in the fortunate position of being able to communicate, sell and deliver imagery in an instant, any time of day or night to anyone with a computer and a credit card. This is the easy bit of course, the tough part is finding the new clients who want to part with real cash. This usually means investing our money or a great deal of time or both in the pursuit of people who want to use your images in exchange for hard currency. As a small agency with a niche licensing art product we have to search even harder to find those specialist clients who recognise the value of creativity. We're not providing the safe, standard stock image you can find on most sites at knock down prices. We're filling our galleries with new inspiring emotive imagery that will captivate our audience.

Trigger clients include the BBC, The Almanac Gallery, Random House Publishing in England, Germany and Spain, Transworld, Orion and Little Brown Publishing in UK, L'Espresso Editoriale in Italy, Espasa Calpe and Editoriale Planeta in Spain, jewellery designers in Paris, interior designers in Sweden, Harlequin Publishers in Australia and JWT advertising in Dubai. Our reach is broadening and we're becoming a real resource for art buyers who are looking for something different.

In our first 18 months of business we've been putting out the feelers, dipping our toes in the water and sometimes getting our fingers burnt. We've doubled our library to 9000 images and now we're attracting attention from other much larger image agencies who see the value in our highly selective image content. This is an exciting time and over the coming months we'll be working closely with image agencies ic.worldwide in USA and Polfoto in Scandinavia to broaden our reach to new clients by utilising their extensive marketing power. We've spent the past few months working day and night preparing all our contributors images. Now we're ready!

To benefit from this new marketing opportunity all our photographers need to update their FREE subscription at: http://triggerimage.co.uk/form.html . You don't have to do anything else, we have done all the work for you and it's totally free. This will ensure more clients see your stock imagery and ultimately your folio.

Best
Tim

Trigger Slideshows

2009-02-19T00:47:00.000Z

We now have 100 great photographers onboard at Trigger. Some are pro's some amateur, but who gives a fig about letters after your name when what's in your folio really counts. Whether you're creating inspiring imagery with a Hassleblad or a Holga putting it online is vital to get your folio seen and create interest from potential clients whether that's for your licensed imagery of your personal work. We provide a free pool where all our photographers licensed works can be seen and purchased from our galleries at any time day or night. In return we just ask you to provide a link to your licensed images at Trigger. We now want to make that link work even harder for you by utilising our new slideshow feature. We will create a personalised slideshow with just your work, you can then place your slideshow on your websites and blogs where clients can click an image and immediately link to your sales page on Trigger. Spread your slideshow as far as you can and it will always link back to your licensed work where clients can buy online. It's viral marketing and we're going to be offering 12 months worth of free slideshows to 5 Triggerites who leave the most interesting comments on our new Blog.

Make the most of your assets with our free marketing slideshow.

A new dawn a new day

2009-02-19T00:26:00.001Z

Well here we go, I've never written a blog, never owned one, never felt the need to be a part of one, until now that is. Well, that's not true, I still don't feel the urge to go public, afterall what might happen, why do I have to share what I've never shared before. Possibly, maybe, now is the time to be a part of something larger than just sitting infront of the computer and talking to myself about what I should do from day to day and hour to hour. I'm quite happy to sit and think and then maybe do something about it on my own terms but this blog stuff will invite you all to comment, to get involved, to discuss and to share your thoughts about being a part of Trigger. Bloody hell do I really want to know what's inside all your heads when I could just blunder along in a relatively carefree mode from day to day attempting to do my best without to much outside argy bargy. More to the point do I have the time and inclination to write stuff that I never felt was public property before now. Ok, let's give it a go, find out what's happening, invite your ideas and get this public torture on the road.

2009-02-18T23:57:00.000Z