Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
their period of foundation. Marquis's study legitimizes the possibility that geographical
proximity endures in network practice even though the communication and travel tech-
nologies have changed and now allow for dif erent patterns of spatial interaction. These
arguments are challenging with respect to sales alliances in the case of stock photography
because digital technology has enabled picture agencies to operate nearly independent of
physical constraints and to exchange pictures with other agencies in any location. Will
geography still matter for the creation of new alliances in the network, although the busi-
ness processes are almost fully digitized and virtualized?
3. A case from the cultural economy: the evolution of stock photography
Photography is an essential element of visual information and communication at all
levels of society. We encounter still images in press, television, the internet, books,
exhibitions, corporate communication, and advertisement campaigns. Wherever we
i nd a photograph, there is a supply chain behind the placement and there are basically
two ways for a photo to reach the market. One is to assign a photographer and have
photos produced in photo-shootings, the other is to buy a licence for the use of an exist-
ing photograph from a stock picture agency. Licensing a stock photo has a number of
advantages. In contrast to a photo production, the customer avoids the production risk,
that is, she sees what she gets, and saves the production cost, which might add up to
considerable sums for location, equipment, models, stylists and the photographer crew.
The customer only pays a royalty to the agency for using a photo, which might be just a
small percentage of the production cost. Typically, it is the picture editor in a publishing
house or the art buyer in an advertising agency who takes the decision whether to assign
a photographer for production or to buy a photo 'from the shelves'. In the USA, picture
editors and art buyers spend about double the amount of money on stock photography
than on photo-shootings (Sachs, 2003) and use about four times more stock photos than
their own productions (Kjemtrup, 1997). Today, there are around 1000 picture agencies
in Europe of ering photographs and illustrations from about 21,000 photographers and
generating revenues of roughly 1 billion euros (CEPIC, 2001).
The historical evolution of stock photography might well be interpreted as a contin-
uous response to technological innovation. Ever since its invention by Louis Daguerre
in Paris and W.H. Fox Talbot in London, photography has been shaped and developed
through the ongoing advance in production and transmission technologies: Talbot
was the i rst to develop the principle of the negative pattern, an invention that laid the
ground for repeated duplication in 1840 (Frizot, 1998); and Arthur Korn's invention
of the
Telefotokopie
in 1902, for instance, built the technological base for long-distance
circulation and distribution of photographs within a short time and thus made photog-
raphy available as a visual medium in the established news press at the beginning of
the twentieth century (Albert and Feyel, 1998). The emergence of picture agencies as
intermediaries between photographers and publishing houses was a consequence of the
rapid growth of photography in the 1920s. Toward the end of the 1930s a signii cant
number of i rms specialized in archiving and marketing photography on commission
of photographers. After this historical departure, the organizational i eld of stock
photography experienced some fundamental changes. Three major organizational and
technological shifts are apparent in this context (see Glückler, 2005 for an extended
elaboration).
