Its nice to be back in Bournemouth after the Christmas break, and back at uni for our new briefs. Personally I’m quiet exited by them, they should hopefully give me the opportunity to get some work done that is worthy of the Portfolio.
Our first guest speaker of the new term was Marie-Louise Collard, a picture editor for CMP Medica who specialise in Business to Business weekly medical newspapers, journals, and more recently a photo library of medical images. A few interesting points were made in her talk. Firstly was that while the “Credit Crunch” has only started to take hold in the last few months, in the photo library sector it has been going on for much longer. Where there was once the budget to commission 10-15 photos a month, now its nearer five, with most other images coming from their own picture library. While on the subject of the commissioned editorial shots, many of them, while perfectly adequate, I didn’t think were up to the quality I was expecting. Weather the fact that showing an image 10ft across on a projector that is meant to be shown as a 1/3 page article illustration may have something to do with it, but there was a certain “something” lacking in many of the images. I would have thought that with the slightly higher rates that B to B’s pay over standard magazine editorial would have produced a better picture quality, but at the end of the day, they are the ones that get published, so they must be good enough.
As well as environmental portraiture, some of the commissioned work was to illustrate a medical procedure, For these type of images photographers with a medical background were employed, as expected for a journal sent to GP’s, the images have to be technically perfect, with captions 100% correct. Because the accuracy of these images is paramount, there seemed little room for creativity and so the images did look a little bland. I guess as my view comes from my zero medical background, I’m sure that they are interesting for doctors.
Overall it was interesting to see how a photo editor works, and their role in how they sort, find, and commission photography in todays market, especially one thats in a niche market such as a medical B to B company. I came out of the talk with two things buzzing about my head, the first as discussed was the apparent ‘normalness’ of the photos, and the second was that B to B, and trade magazines offer lots of opportunity for some solid editorial work, even in todays less than perfect economy.
