The Photo Feed 09.18.07

Getty’s A-Fallin’ (Forbes via Photo Business News & Forum / PDN)
Things seem to have gone from bad to worse for Getty, which finally caved a little last week to photography groups protesting the $49 rate for Web use. Now shares of the company’s stock have dropped 5.6 percent to $26.86. Kaufman Bros. Research analyst Barbara Coffey expects Getty’s Web price cuts to increase royalty-free image sales by 24 percent and volumes of other categories by as much as 30 percent, but she expects Getty sales and profits in the December quarter and 2008 to come in lower than previously anticipated.

And Yet Another Luxury Lifestyle Mag (Women’s Wear Daily)
Forbes subscribers got a surprise when they received the October issue on Saturday: They also received a copy of ForbesLife Executive Woman, a mag for female execs seeking what editor-in-chief Catherine Sabino calls a “different kind of luxury lifestyle magazine.” The cover highlights J.P. Morgan Private Bank CEO Mary Callahan Erdoes. Both Paul Stuart and Brioni, which had previously only placed ads geared toward men in ForbesLife, featured ads targeted toward women in the first issue, which had a print run of 125,000 copies. Next year, the magazine will be published quarterly.

MORE BELOW: Adobe updates Camera RAW and Lightroom ... UK National Portrait Gallery announces short list for Photographic Portrait Prize ... Realistic Reflections teams up with Getty Images ... NAPP announces 2007 winners ... Sony begins recycling program ... Redskins nix SLRs ... BrightQube meshes microstock and traditional RF pix ... Embedded in Iraq ... plainpicture expands to France ... Justin Timerlake hits photog's camera ...

Adobe Updates Camera RAW And Lightroom (Digital Photography Review / Reuters)
Adobe’s got some good news for those who have purchased new cameras recently. The software company has posted updates to Lightroom and the Camera RAW plug-in for 14 new camera models, including Canon EOS 40D, Olympus EVOLT E-510 and the Sony A700. The Lightroom update corrects Windows Vista grid display errors and XMP auto-write performance. Both updates offer improved noise reduction for Bayer patterned sensors. The updates can be downloaded at Adobe.com. Also: Mac owners who plan to rush out to buy the new Leopard operating system when it’s released next month probably shouldn’t hurry. Apple still hasn’t given Adobe a final copy of Leopard to make sure the software is compatible with CS3. Adobe will, of course, make the necessary adjustments if Photoshop or other CS3 programs aren’t compatible with Leopard, but at this rate those updates may not come until sometime after Leopard goes on the market.

UK National Portrait Gallery Announces Shortlist For Photographic Portrait Prize (BBC)
Nominees for the 12,000-pound (approximately $24,000) prize include Jonathan Torgovnik, Michelle Sank, David Stewart and Julieta Sans. All four shortlisted photos feature women. Torgovnik’s image shows a Rwandan woman who was raped during the 1994 genocide. The former Israeli army photog shot the photo while on assignment in Rwanda for Newsweek. Sank’s nominated photo highlights a girl at a German center for troubled teens. Stewart snapped a portrait of his teenage daughter, and Sans is being considered for her portrait of a friend.

Realistic Reflections Teams Up With Getty Images (PR.com)
Now available on GettyImages.com: pix from Realistic Reflections’ collection featuring people with disabilities. Realistic Reflections is the brainchild of Lorraine Woodward, who noticed a lack of positive images of people with disabilities.

NAPP Announces 2007 Guru Winners (BusinessWire)
Winners include Kevin Boyd (artistic), Frederico Guinand (commercial), Supachai U Rairat (illustration), Federico Guinand (photo montage), Elaine Martino (photo restoration), Suzie Guerrant (photo retouch), Joseph Orsillo (photography), Chad Strobach (Vincent Versace Award), Carlo Rossi (Best-of-Show). All were attendees of Photoshop World, which was held in Las Vegas earlier this month.

Sony Takes Back Recycling (The CameraArts Blog via PopPhoto)
It’s no secret that the three r’s—reduce, reuse, recycle—are big these days. But electronics companies have been peculiarly slow to embrace at least the last of those three r’s. However, now that Sony has announced launched an electronics recycling campaign, dubbed “Take Back Recycling,” that might change. If you’ve got old cameras or other electronic equipment that you can neither sell nor use, you can recycle them at one of 75 U.S.drop-off centers. If the product was manufactured by Sony, the company will recycle it for free. If the product wasn’t manufactured by Sony, they’ll still recycle it, but at market price. To see a list of recycling centers, click here.

Redskins Nix SLRs (Raw Fisher)
Next time you go to a Redskins game, don’t bother taking your SLR unless you’ve got press credentials (and your little red vest) or you’re willing to sacrifice your time to security guards. When University
of Maryland student Reza Farhoodi took his SLR to the Redskins game this weekend to snap some pix of him and his friends, two security guards removed him from his seat and questioned him about his camera. Even though Farhoodi assured the men that he had no intent of selling any of the pix, the officers took his camera and said he could pick it up after the game. They told him the only cameras allowed in the club level are “the tiny ones,” presumably point-and-shoots. When Farhoodi picked his camera up after the game, the Guest Services rep told him that signs outside the stadium indicated that cameras were not permitted inside. But when Farhoodi looked at those signs and snapped pix of them, there was not one word about cameras being prohibited.

BrightQube Meshes Microstock And Traditional RF (Thoughts of a Bohemian)
BrightQube touts itself as “the new creative resource that revolutionizes the way the world finds images” by showing all image results through what it calls the Dynamic Mosaic, or tiny thumbnails of each image. The site, which has two DigitalRailroad ex-VP’s onboard, already offers more than two million pix, including offerings from 17 RF companies such as Corbis and ImageSource.

Embedded in Iraq (Reuters Photo Blog)
If you’re thinking about going to Iraq, or just want to understand what goes on for photojournalists shooting there, be sure to read Reuters photog Damir Sagolj’s post about what to expect, packing lightly, applying for embed and more.

plainpicture Goes To France (About The Image)
The German photo agency, which launched in the UK earlier this year, is opening a Paris office, which will be lead by Pedrix Hans, who previously served as sales manager for photonica/iconica and Pix/Giraudon. plainpicture has also launched a French version of its Web site. Currently, plainpicture has over 135,000 RM and RF pix, many of them experimental.

Justin Timberlake Hits Photog’s Camera (Us Weekly)
When the SexyBack singer entered the Beverly Wilshire hotel behind Jessica Biehl on Saturday, he stopped to pay a visit to an X17 photog standing near the entrance. Timberlake evidently slapped the paparazzo’s camera and yelled, “Get out of my face!” No one said the singer had to bring sexy back every day of the week …