Fireworks from Seattle's Space Needle, New Years Eve 2008
© Ric Kasnoff/ecophoto/drr.net

Wishing you and yours a healthy and prosperous 2008.

-- The Team at Digital Railroad

“We are very excited to be working with Digital Railroad, they are a company that not only understands new technology but they also 'get' photography, which are both very important to us here at moodboard. I believe that this relationship offers us both the ability to move quickly, innovate and adapt to the ever changing marketplace.” says Mike Watson, CEO of moodboard and founder of Digital Vision.

Click here to see Moodboard in the Marketplace.

© Chris Fitzgerald/Candidatephotos.com/drr.net

All eyes will be on this week's caucus in Iowa and New Hampshire. Digital Railroad members Chris Fitzgerald of candidatephotos.com, J. Alex Cooney, and Marianne Armshaw are covering the candidates from all angles.

See more candidate coverage in Marketplace.

© George de Blonsky/drr.net

© George de Blonsky/drr.net
Needing images for a feature article in the current issue of VSD, Alain Billen, Photo Editor, used Research Network to source new images. "Digital Railroad is a very spontaneous and practical system to use and the Marketplace has a great diversity of reportage images which are very easy to obtain."

Digital Railroad member, George de Blonsky, upon learning that his images were selected writes, "As an unaffiliated photographer I needed a solution that would not necessitate my presence behind a desk or by a phone to be able to sell and market my images. I'm a photographer and of late it has felt as if I'm a digital editor, marketeer, telephone salesman.. etc..etc.. who sometimes finds the time to shoot a story and make a few photos.. an unacceptable situation that I don't find myself alone in; as many of my friends will testify!"

Want to stay up to date in real-time with buyer requests as soon they are added to Research Network? Download the Research Network RSS Feed.

Kimberly Cleary, Media Editor for Encyclopedia Britannica, licensed the images above as a result of a request she submitted to Digital Railroad's Research Network.

"Working on a current events book, I needed photos of contemporary authors for the Literature section. I submitted requests for Russian Literature, Spanish, German, and various other languages. I received responses for all of my requests and was very impressed with the quality of the images.

"The Research Network was really a lifesaver for me. It saved me many hours of research, and it was very easy to use. Photographers responded quickly to my requests, and I was pleased with the selection and quality of the images. The selection and quality of images was excellent. The interface was easy to use. I have recommended the site to my colleagues."

Credits:
Bernardo Carvalho, © Andersen/Solo/drr.net
Niccolò Ammaniti, © marco ghidelli/aliseipress/drr.net
Banana Yoshimoto, © Riccardo De Luca/drr.net
Mahmoud Darwich, © Andersen/Solo/drr.net
Andrei Dmitriev, © Andersen/Solo/drr.net

Cover Photo © Matt Shonfeld/drr.net

Illustrating a feature story on FARC, a self proclaimed communist revolutionary guerrilla organization in Colombia, Courier International selected eight images from photographer Matt Shonfeld, Digital Railroad staffer and archive member. Matt spent several weeks in Colombia in 2004 and 2006 and actually stayed with the rebels in their secure jungle camp. His FARC pictures were also featured in Lespresso Magazine in Italy last year.

See additional images selected for this article here.

Actors Heather Ledger & Jake Gyllenhall in "Brokeback Mountain"
© FilmStills/drr.net

The New York Times has reported that actor Heath Ledger was found dead in his New York City apartment. Pictured here in a scene from his breakout performance in "Brokeback Mountain" with co-star Jake Gyllenhall. More images of Ledger are in Marketplace.

© Dow Jones & Company

To illustrate a cover story on "The New Gentry", The Wall Street Journal published images from Digital Railroad members and Marketplace contributors Kim Karpeles, Dan Lamont and Jim Pickerell.

Thanks to the photo editors at WSJ and congratulations to our members!

© billwisserphoto.com / drr.net

Member Bill Wisser just added these arresting new images to Marketplace and shared these comments:

"I wanted to let you know about the beautiful, eye-catching, charming, historic -- and very usable -- vintage postcards from the 1930s, '40s, '50s and '60s I've been collecting, photographing (or scanning), key-wording and posting to Marketplace this week.

In many cases, especially with the classic "Greetings From Florida" cards that featured state maps illuminated with little drawings of tourist attractions and activities, I've zoomed in and captured the details at five or more times life-size, so they look like Pop-Art, Roy Lichtenstein comic book masterpieces, with visible half-tone dots, like this detail from a stylish, linen-finish, 1938 card:

© billwisserphoto.com / drr.net

By the way, I've researched the copyright question very thoroughly for all the cards. And the bottom line is basically all cards produced before the 1978 revision of the copyright law are in the public domain if they lacked a proper copyright notice on the card -- which is the case on all the cards I'm using.

I've also consulted with the archivists at the Boston Public Library and the Lake County Discovery Museum -- the official repositories for the Tichnor Brothers and Curt Teich & Co. archives respectively (those were two major postcard companies) and confirmed the public domain status of my cards.

I also got some handy information on how to date the Curt Teich cards -- and I've done some historical research to add a bit of extra interest to my captions.

© billwisserphoto.com / drr.net

My new photographs and/or scans of the cards are, of course, copyrightable, especially considering that I do a lot of Photoshop retouching to clean up the sometimes grimy or worn cards (while leaving some wear visible to keep the antique feeling). Also, for my macro close-ups of the little detail drawings on the map cards, I often retouched out surrounding details to isolate the drawings -- this involved cloning in a lot of half-tone dots!

So, while my underlying original cards are in the public domain, my new interpretations and modifications of the cards I've collected are considered derivative works that are perfectly copyrightable.

© billwisserphoto.com / drr.net

Many of the cards have a lot of charm and some are pretty funny, too."

See these and all of Bill's images in Marketplace.