About this time last year my online photo library derekmorrison.co.nz – a curated collection of 1000s of images made over years and years of my career – evaporated as my Tassie-based server expired without warning. I was using an enterprise drive hosted in Tasmania with one of Australia's best services, but literally overnight all my images were rendered invisible online. I'd estimate that this was around $30,000 worth of time and effort that had gone into that website and uploading those images.
Local ripper, Danny Carse, who now lives in Sydney, even sweated over the detail of the library during our last push to get it live way back before Box of Light even existed. And that was a great moment – seeing the site go live and the images being searched constantly by clients and image buyers throughout the world. Then, bang. Nothing. A pitiful message on a black screen saying the website didn't exist. I was gutted. Faced with months and months to rebuild the giant.
Then an epiphany and realisation that there really is a silver lining to every dark cloud (not just the preserve of optimists either). Rob Lile, who runs New Zealand's biggest online photo library, One Shot (formerly Photo New Zealand), gave me the idea to move my library completely into his hands. He is at the forefront of the image business, has a great team and even better clients. You can see my work on One Shot here.
Around the same time ImageBrief – a new US-based photo library with a cool new way of connecting images to its clients started to gain traction. And so I now have One Shot and ImageBrief in the engine room of my photo library and I'm continually growing my collections.
As for my old friend derekmorrison.co.nz, well, that has now become my portfolio and client website.
Got all that? Quiz next week. Seriously though, you should take Friday off work – pull a sickie – the surf's going to be cooking.
See you at the beach ... Derek
PS We have some new artwork in the gallery with the first few images from our Perpetuity Series. Come and visit us at 1 Dowling Street, Dunedin, New Zealand. Or check out your favourites right here. We have some great ready-to-frame prints for Xmas starting from $49.
Proudly supported by:
