Photo Credit: © George Georgiou

Digital Railroad member Ed Kashi, along with George Georgiou, Dana Popa and Jonathan Torgovnik, will be showing recent work at the upcoming "Moving Walls 14" Group Photography Exhibit in New York City.

Opening Night: Thursday, March 13, 2008, 6:00-8:30 pm

Where: Open Society Institute
400 West 59th Street
(between 9th and 10th Avenues)
New York, NY 10019

RSVP to Yukiko Yamagata at docphoto@sorosny.org

The exhibition is open to the public through October 24, 2008.

Last weekend Digital Railroad staffers Matt Bogosian and Tom Wear were in attendance at NANPA Annual Summit exhibiting, speaking on panels and conducting portfolio reviews.

DRR's Matt Bogosian talks with photographer and new member Cameron Davidson at the DRR booth at the NANPA (North American Nature Photographers Association) conference in Destin, FL, on 1 March 2008.

Betsy Reid of Stock Artists Alliance, Chris Bain of Barnes and Noble, Tom Wear of Digital Railroad, and moderator Cathy Sachs of ASPP participate in a panel on "The Evolution of Licensing Models from Rights Managed to Microstock"

DRR Member and educator Ric Kasnoff, delivered his "From The Camera to Your Paycheck" workshop to rave reviews:

"Thanks so much for the workshop. You presented a lot of great information and were thoughtful enough to give us preprinted copies of your slides, which is a great teaching technique I wish others were thoughtful enough to follow."

Digital Railroad's Tom Wear reviews a portfolio with McNair Evans, Photographer and student from San Francisco at the NANPA conference in Destin, FL, on 29 Feb 2008. Photo © Betsy Reid.

Also of note: DRR Member and ILCP member Florian Schulz was the recipient of this years NANPA Upcoming Photographer of the Year award. Congratulations!

A BIG THANKS to everyone at NANPA, our Members and our Team for making this year's event one to remember!

A young girl awaits the beginning of the procession in the Sicilian town of Assoro.
© Daniel Milnor

Artist's Statement: Daniel Milnor

"Dark, contrasty, grainy.

The first day or two I feel like I’m missing things. It has been a while since I have been in the field and I am a moment behind the images. I SEE the pictures, but not through my viewfinder. The next day, my timing is there, and the mirror briefly obscures the pictures I want. The great moments I can’t see.

Children playing the role of soldiers wait for the procession to begin in the Sicilian town of Barranfranca.
© Daniel Milnor

That night I hear a certain song and it reminds me to look for a certain picture.

Walking, walking and more walking. The sky is drizzling rain, the temperature has dropped and the locals are complaining about the weather. Now the time is becoming right, the ingredients are falling into place, things are just the way they need to be.

The hooded figures of the Mezzajuso procession begin their midnight march. Mezzajuso, a small, mountain town south of Palermo is comprised of a mostly Albanian population.
© Daniel Milnor

I stop and make a few notes, glancing up, from time to time; to make sure I’m not missing anything.

Then I work, and nothing else matters.

Forget about everything else and just be a photographer.

Actors speak to Jesus as he is nailed to the cross during an Easter procession in the Sicilian town of Partanna Mondello.
© Daniel Milnor

The puzzle forms in my mind, vertical, horizontal, transition, layers, light and timing. Sometimes the pieces fit together, and other times I know I have nothing more than a group of parts. Maybe tomorrow will show me what I need?

I make pictures because I feel the overwhelming need to record things. The vast majority of my documentary work is self-produced.

Most of my work revolves around people because there is an intangible aspect of humanity I cannot explain, and this I find very interesting.

I work in a variety of formats, technologies, old and new. I shoot film, digital, Polaroid, and anything else I can get my hands on. I do commercial work in addition to my documentary work, and occasionally I teach. I also collect photo-books and prints."

Daniel Milnor is a documentary fine-art photographer specializing in the photographic essay. His work has taken him to Europe, Asia, Africa as well as Latin America and across the expanse of the United States. Milnor has photographed Sicilian Easter, life in Paradise America and the surf culture of Oahu’s North Shore. He comes from the classic, rangefinder tradition of the “decisive moment,” and believes strongly in the power of the “found” photograph.

He has worked in the newspaper and magazines fields and was a photo-specialist for the Eastman Kodak Company. In addition to completing new work he is also a consultant for Blurb, an independent book publisher based in San Francisco.
Milnor divides his time between Southern California and Northern New Mexico.

See more of Daniel's work in his archive and in Marketplace.

Magic Slim, King Biscuit Blues Festival, Helena, Arkansas
© Gail Mooney

Photographer Gail Mooney's multimedia exhibit - "The Delta Bluesmen" opens next month at the Fullerton Museum in California. The exhibit is a mix of environmental portraits of legendary blues musicians, still images of the Mississippi Delta region and a documentary that captures these men telling their story. The exhibit runs from March 22 - July 6, 2008.

Opening reception will be held Saturday, March 22, 2008, 6:00-9:00 PM at The Fullerton Museum Center, 301 N. Pomona Ave., Fullerton, CA. Gail's 25 minute documentary will be shown. For more info contact: gail@kellymooney.com

On March 18th, in partnership with ASMP's Chicago MidWest Chapter, Digital Railroad organized an industry round table panel-- including some of Chicago’s top photo buyers in Advertising, Corporate and Publishing-- to ask the question "What's Up With Stock?"

© 2008 REP3 = Robert E Potter III

The panel included Doug Brooks, Publications International; Mark Grudzinski, BCD Meetings & Incentives; Susan Cartland, Element79 and Julie Orr, Pearson. Moderated by DRR's Mid-West Sales Manager Chris Beauchamp.

The verdict?: The big takeaways from the buyer perspective was that the industry is healthy and more vibrant than ever. During over 2 hours of discussion followed by Q&A, buyers confirmed that they enjoy more choice in images, providers, license types and price points than ever before. They also offered photographers lots of great advice -- as well as techniques to avoid-- to get your images in front of them for consideration.

© 2008 REP3 = Robert E Potter III

Follow the link below for a summary of the responses we captured. A BIG THANK YOU to all of the speakers for their thoughtful commentary; ASMP for inviting local photographers and industry pros; Calumet of Chicago for providing a wonderful space, and all who attended for making this an informative and fun gathering of industry professionals. Thanks also to Digital Railroad member Robert Potter for capturing some terrific images of the event.

For students enrolled in the Professional Photography Program at the New England School of Photography, Alison Geehan, Vice President—Business Operations, explains how NESOP chose to use DRR to showcase student work:

"I first heard about Digital Railroad through New England School of
Photography’s (NESOP’s) photojournalism instructor, Glen Cooper. Interested
in the idea of this photographer’s community Marketplace, I met with Tom
Tinervin, Digital Railroad’s Senior Director of Platform Sales and Support,
at the 2007 PhotoPlus Expo in NYC. An experienced businessman and
photographer, Tom was able to speak to all the facets of Digital Railroad
with clarity and enthusiasm.

After careful consideration, NESOP decided to contract with Digital Railroad
and now has one collective school archive and has provided its students in
the final year of its Professional Photography Program with individual
archives on this site. This is an outstanding opportunity for our students
and our program. It provides them with a point of redundancy for storing
their images, is an excellent marketing tool, and acts as a marketplace and
storefront for their images and a delivery tool for their work.

Tom Tinervin recently came to New England School of Photography (NESOP) to
discuss Digital Railroad, its uses and functionality with NESOP’s faculty,
staff and students. His presentation was clear and informative and sparked
great conversation and action among the audience present. Tom laid out the
many tools Digital Railroad currently provides for its members and discussed
the additional tools that will be added to the site in the near future.
This was not a hard-core sales presentation—we were already sold on the idea
and had already contracted with Digital Railroad. This was an informative
seminar given as a courtesy to NESOP and its community to inform and excite
them, and it was a great success.

During the presentation, Tom discussed the (photography) industry today, its
opportunities and challenges. He discussed the importance of how a
photographer presents himself/herself and the overall idea of branding
oneself in the market, and of course he discussed how Digital Railroad was
able to assist photographers in accomplishing global distribution. In the
industry today, it is all about personal identity, providing added value to
the client and bringing value to one’s images. The best way to start
bringing value to one’s images is to get them seen, and Digital Railroad is
an amazing tool for this. Members can use Digital Railroad as a stand-alone
archive, or even contact the company and point their individual domain name
directly to their archive. NESOP students are using their archives to
market their images and link to their websites, but also as a delivery tool.
With this tool, they can send images directly from their archive to a server
or via FTP. With Digital Railroad’s extensive research network, NESOP
members are already receiving e-mails daily from alerting them to images
that are being sought for purchase, and they then have the option of
submitting them to buyers.

Digital Railroad is not simply a stock site—to refer to it as such would be
doing it a disservice. The photographer can control not only the images
that are seen, but who sees them, whether they are sold and their pricing.
Digital Railroad also maintains a commission/fee structure highly favorable
to the photographer. While e-commerce is already built into the site,
Digital Railroad will be adding invoicing and print fulfillment to make the
photographer’s job even easier and more efficient.

© NESOP Images

Needless to say, NESOP faculty and students are excited about the working
with Digital Railroad. It is a remarkable tool for our students—getting
them exposure and concrete experience in the business of photography, while
making it a simple and seamless process for them. Our faculty, who are all
working, accomplished, professional photographers are excited about the site
because it addresses where the industry is moving and is just one more place
to market themselves as fine art and commercial artists. It has been a
pleasure working with Tom and Digital Railroad."