With a concentration of top photographers, media companies - publishers, advertising, design, broadcast, corporate-- and picture libraries, London's photo community is incredibly vibrant and diverse. It was therefore wonderful to see so many picture buyers, photographers and agency members turn out to attend the BAPLA Picture Buyer Fair this week.

Opening night reception, BAPLA Picture Buyer's Fair, London, May 7, 2008
© drr.net

During the opening night reception, BAPLA announced annual awards for newspapers with the highest percentage of images published with proper photo credit. The winners were The Sunday Independent with 73% pf published images credited; Telegraph with 64%. The Sun was chastised for having the lowest percentage with only a mere 37% of all published images appearing with a credit.

Digital Railroad UK Sales Manager Andy Mitchell meets picture buyers at BAPLA.
© drr.net

The most well received featured at the show for Digital Railroad was our Research Network. After being introduced to the service, several buyers were so excited by the potential to tap 1000's of member archives for fresh images, they entered requests for images before leaving the show floor.

© drr.net
UK Member Support Manager James Jones demos Digital Railroad archives to Angela Murphy.

Of course, no BAPLA fair would be complete without "tipping a few jars" with editors and picture buyers at Cantina, an annual tradition. As usual, the place was packed with revelers spilling out on to the sidewalk to enjoy laughs among friends and colleagues.

London's photo community gathers at Cantina Augustus Pub post-BAPLA, May 7, 2008
© drr.net

See more images from this years event and mark you calendar for next year!

© Angela Drury / drr.net

Digital Railroad was a sponsor of the recent Lightroom Adventure Tasmania. The photographers are back from the trip, rested and hard at work uploading their amazing photos to Digital Railroad. Over the next few weeks we'll be featuring the great images of these hardy adventurers, demonstrating their unique, diverse points of view and expanding our Marketplace catalog.

Award winning photographer Angela Drury was one of the brave souls on the trip and has uploaded a number of her photos into Marketplace. According to our Directory of Photography, Tom Wear, some of her photos have already been used in response to a Research Network request!

We hope you enjoy Angela's work and you'll come back to see the amazing photos of the rest of the photographer's over the coming weeks.

This month's ad from the ongoing "Believe Your Eyes" campaign for photo buyers, includes a portrait of blues musician Macavine Hayes image produced by Digital Railroad member Jimmy Williams during a long term project to document blues guitarists located in the rural south. Creative Review is the UK's top creative advertising trade publication. Look for Jimmy's wonderful image in the May issue's inside front cover.

© Thomas Koehler/Photothek.net/drr.net

For a story about low sales and job cuts at chip manufacturer AMD, Business Week published this image from Digital Railroad member Thomas Koehler/Photothek.

© Image Source/drr.net
Just in time for the Beijing Olympics, our friends from Image Source has just added to Marketplace some terrific new images featuring Olympic themed images. All model released, all the time.

Traveling and photographing on assignment throughout the United States and Europe for several decades, Jessie Walker has uniquely captured design statements in thousands of homes as well as formal and informal gardens and an outstanding variety of holiday and studio set-ups featuring collections of antiques.

© Jessie Walker/drr.net

Magazine Credits include: American Style, Architectural Digest, Better Homes & Gardens, Cottages & Bungalows, Country Living, Country Living Gardener,Country Sampler, Home Magazine, House Beautiful Decorating Ideas, Midwest Home Chicago, Old House Interiors, Romantic Homes, Woman's Day and more.

Honored for the photography of interiors by The Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago. Jessie Walker continues with a stream of new assignments capturing innovative likenesses while continually adding fresh images to her stock library. ASMP (American Society of Media Photographers) Member. SAA (Stock Artists Alliance) Member.

See more of Jessie's images in Marketplace

High end travel tour operator Abercrombie & Kent feature multiple images from Digital Railroad Marketplace in a new catalog promoting exclusive private tours of "Africa: Desert Kingdoms and Natural Splendors."

Photo Credits: Jardin Majorelle in the Ville Nouvelle of Marrakech, © John Warburton-Lee/Danita Delimont/drr.net; Tower of Spices, © Sam Bloomberg-Rissman/drr.net

Photo Credit: Priest with Cross, Ethiopia, © Wolfgang Kaelher/drr.net

Photo Credit: © Bowater/Mira/drr.net

Look for this image of The Palais Royal by member Bowater/MIRA in the May issue of ELLE Brasil.

Do you know of other killer photos of Paris in the Marketplace? If so, cut and paste the image link from Marketplace into the "comments" of this post and let the rest of us see your editing chops.

Here's one of my personal favs by Galen Rowell also from the Mira collection.

Merci!

Check out the cool interactive feature in the online edition of POP Photo. Mouse-over the images of McCain, Obama and Clinton to see what the future holds for each of the presidential hopefuls.

Web page © Hachette Fillipacchi

The article features images POP Photo selected from Marketplace members Archie Carpenter, Ron Sachs, Remi Ochlik, Kevin Dietsch and David Paul Morris.

Got a "before" and "after" image you'd like to share from Digital Railroad Marketplace? Post the links in the "Comments" below.

When photographing a person on a white or plain background (or even on location if the background is simple), the choice of cropping can often help, but also sometimes hurt, the sales potential of an image.

A tight, dramatic crop like this one can be great, giving impact and tension to an image.

© Blend Images/Andersen Ross/drr.net

However it's still very common for a buyer to request an image where the subject can be clipped out, which means that in order to look right the person can't have pieces cropped off of his or her head, elbows, etc. Just missing a little bit of the subject off one side of the frame doesn't make the composition any stronger and it can definitely lose a potential sale if the buyer needs to clip out the subject.

© Blend Images/Andersen Ross/drr.net

Of course unless you're shooting completely full figure there has to a somewhat of a crop, but it should be confined to just the bottom of the frame so that the rest of the subject is clean. Like this:

© Blend Images/Andersen Ross/drr.net

So a good rule of thumb is either crop powerfully or not at all.

Finally, if the image is composed to allow for clipping, be sure your keywords make it easy to find. "Cutout" is the most common term, and "white background" or "plain background" are also useful.