A New Kid on the Block
Photolibrary may not be a name as familiar in the stills and footage agency world as the more well known names like Getty and Corbis but as James Kearney demonstrates, it is making its presence felt with distinctive imagery
Many footage and archive researchers to whom I’ve spoken have little idea of who Photolibrary Group is or what it does, so I’m hoping here to set the record straight and to give people a solid grasp why it’s worth contacting us.
Photolibrary Group was founded in 1967 in the northern suburbs of Sydney Australia and over the years has increased its presence with additional offices now in London (where I am), New York, Melbourne,
Singapore, Mumbai, Bangkok, Malaysia, The Philippines, New Zealand and Dubai.
As well as a growth in offices there has been a significant expansion in content; with over 2000 hours of footage and over four million images in a variety of genres.
Photolibrary is known for its strong offering of generalist collections and when coupled with its recent acquisitions such as Garden Picture Library, Oxford Scientific (OSF) FreshFoodImages and Monsoon Images, the group can truly satisfy the visual demands of a wide range of clients.
Oxford Scientific Films was the first acquisition in 2004 which was also the group’s major foray into the footage market until the relaunch of the Photolibrary site in November 2007. Oxford Scientific (OSF) was founded in the early 1960's and is revered worldwide for being the natural world specialist for both stock footage and images. Oxford Scientific's (OSF) stock image collection presents in-depth coverage of flora, fauna, mammals, science and the environment, while our stock footage offers over 2000 hours of footage specialising in the same subject matter and including treatments such as special effects, time-lapse, slow-motion, macro and micro cinematography.
As well as being available on the OSF website (osffootage.com); all of this content was additionally integrated in to the search function on the Photolibrary website (photolibrary.com), giving footage clients a new service on a par and in some instances exceeding what was already available by other stock footage providers.
Over time, the footage offering at Photolibrary has just kept getting bigger and bigger. As well as the ever growing Oxford Scientific (OSF) collection (which includes footage shot by the likes of Michael Herzog, Skyworks, and Simon King), we’ve signed representative agreements with some of the major players in the footage world. They include Blacklight who we represent worldwide. The collection is 35mm originated and consists of more than 10,000 clips with content ranging from stunning locations to contemporary lifestyle. With its superb combination of specialist time lapse and macro work, it is a collection which beautifully compliments Oxford Scientific’s (OSF) classic style, as well as offering an impressive catalogue of general stock shots, enabling us to offer our customers even greater variety. Photolibrary’s collaboration with Blacklight strengthens the overall content offering available to a further field besides the UK visual community.
We also have representation agreements with Corbis Motion, the Archive Films and Imagebank brands via Getty and also Framepool.
On the stills side, we took on the Garden Picture Library, which provides customers with the opportunity to view and purchase superb specialist imagery that cannot be purchased elsewhere. The library contains in excess of 400,000 images accessible at gardenpicture.co.uk and covers all garden and flower related subjects; from plant portraits and garden design details to garden views, floral graphics and practical gardening.
We then acquired Monsoon Images, with its incredible collection of contemporary p
hotographic fine art and highly stylised imagery from a variety of unique photographers. Whilst some of the content is extremely unconventional, other images are universal in theme. Monsoon offers fantastic artistic imagery that jumps off the page (or webpage for that matter!) and succeeds in embedding itself in the mind of the viewer.
The group also includes New York-based Index Stock Imagery, which is a leading source of photographs, illustrations, and digital images. It represents over 1,600 professional photographers and 80 independent still image providers and was the first stock agency to begin storing and distributing images electronically. It started scanning its collection in 1992 and launched its first e-commerce site in 1994. It can now boast more than one million images. We’ve also recently launched Index Open on the UK market (indexopen.co.uk), a stock photo subscription service that has been running for over two years worldwide with great success. For a single price, you get access to over 200,000 High Resolution Royalty Free photos. You can download them as you need them.
And finally (after all this writing, I’m hungry), FreshFoodImages (formerly The Anthony Blake Photo Library or ABPL) is a leading specialist in food and drink images. From fast food to haute cuisine, from paddy fields to supermarkets; whatever you're seeking out in the world of food, you will find it here. The FreshFoodImages collection of over 200,000 images (that’s over 567 years worth of dinners to the famished stills researcher) includes the work of over a hundred of the best talents in food and drink photography such as Tim Hill. Additionally, the FreshFoodImages collection houses the Anthony Blake Food Library (ABPL) – a pre-eminent collection from the UK. Combined, this makes FreshFoodImages the “go to” collection to sate the desires of even the fussiest appetites in stills research. Looking through the collection for the first time made me unhappy that I was heading home for a ready made Shepherd’s pie, rather than hottailing it to a restaurant for Pondicherry stuffed lamb noisettes!
In recent years the Bill Gates adage ‘content is king’ has been overplayed a little, as ease of access to content seems equally important. Well we don’t fall down on that side either. Last November, we launched a new website which proved as good as an early Christmas present to both new customers and clients who regularly access the website. Featuring clearer navigation, more focused content and a cleaner user interface for enhanced usability (to the uninitiated that means it ‘works better’), the entire site was built in direct response to Photolibrary’s research into what their customers really want.
With access this easy, a cornucopia of footage and stills from some of the most well known brands plus unique content, we think that it won’t be long before more people are talking about us!
