GETTY AT CANON PRO SHOW IN LONDON

This week in London at the Canon Pro Photo Solutions event Getty images were part of the free seminars being offered. Tom Hind and Nick Mullord were there. Nick talked about the production side of how images were handled while Tom chatted about the current creative direction.

As a getty contributor I went along to see if I could gleam some gems of information to help me shoot more accurately. What they said actually surprised me. I don't quite know what I was expecting but they seem to want more imagery and don't seem to care that much where it comes from.

For those photographers who might be interested in what they said below is a brief summary, if I can read what my notes say!

If you're a experienced getty stock shooter probably none of this will be new and will only reinforce what you already know, for others, it may help.

Tom started off talking about portraits. They are looking for more realistic pictures of people. The warts and all photos with wrinkles, not necessarily smiling and showing more attitude. He was particular about pointing out they are looking for more on-location lifestyle portraits showing real people doing real things. The real-life things people do. Not people running and jumping on a beach - it could be as simple a someone reading a paper on their bed. There is a lack of imagery of older people doing young people's activities and shots of the less heroic side to people.

Tom then went on to talk about family-type pictures. Similiar to the individual portraits they want pictures that capture the real moments in family life with the gritty backgrounds and unflattering poses that come with them.

He touched on the flickr collection which is probably proving a little unpopular with regular getty contributers especially those who are paying $50.00 to submit a picture to the photographers choice collection. To see flickr photographers have their images signed up without them having to pay a fee is bound to cause some tension.

Flickr, he says, seems to be doing very well, especially in europe. Their flickr scouts have been searching for more european images showing culture of the country of where they were shot, again, less generic imagery.

Anyway, hope that helps a bit. Probably nothing new to regular getty shooters but a bit of an insight into what they are looking for at the moment.