John: Lanny, I understand you as one of the founders of Blend Images. Now you're CEO of SuperStock. Is it possible to share with us a little of your background and the method that you had become SuperStock's CEO?Lanny: Well, it's sort of a kidnapped-by-aliens story. I picked up my first camera when I was about 8 or 9 and pretty much had one in my hand all the way through senior high school. I was the photo editor of my senior high school yearbook and determined to go to Art Center, but I kept considering pictures taken by guys like Irving Penn, Richard Avedon and David Bailey. The more I looked, the more I thought my very own pictures were total crap and could not progress. So, I sold my enlarger and my Nikon F, gave up all hope of ever meeting Jean Shrimpton, and visited UCLA where I eventually got an MBA.After B-school I had a whole lot jobs of including working at MTV right after it launched. Eventually, I went to just work at a TV station in LA because the program director. Here's the part where in fact the aliens kidnap me and I spend 7 years working at PricewaterhouseCoopers in global consulting projects for energy companies and long-distance carriers. Fast forward to 2002: IBM buys the consulting business of PricewaterhouseCoopers. I was either pushed or I jumped (based on who you think) and before hitting the bottom I decided that I needed to show back the clock to the summer I graduated from high school.I couldn't do much about all my gray hair but I decided to pursue a career in photography. Looking back, it looks like a completely insane notion. However, something very odd happened. A pal producing short programs for a cable network, Fine Living, hired me to shoot stills and we used Avid editing software to animate the stills in a Ken Burns type of way. I bought a fresh Canon D60 rather than looked back. It wasn't a long time before I met Lawrence Manning, a very talented stock photographer. We partnered on a bunch of stock shoots and pretty soon royalty checks started arriving in the mail.Long story short, I went with Lawrence and Beautiful Betty (Mallorca) to just a little meeting of about 30 stock shooters in NEVADA. Blend was created at that meeting and Rick Becker-Leckrone asked me to help with the forming of the company. I spent another four . 5 years dealing with Rick to understand his vision. Then we started to wonder, "What do we do next?" A small band of us started kicking ideas around at the NY PACA meeting and Gustavo Baez tossed out the idea, why not buy Superstock?Why not, indeed. Alan Bailey (from Rubberball) and I flew right down to Jacksonville. We woke up from the dream walking out of Federal bankruptcy court having out bid Steve Pigeon for Superstock. In a bloodless ceremony I was anointed Superstock's new CEO. It had been all a bit unreal. In the finest tradition of the stock business we all went out to dinner that night with Steve, drank a great deal of wine, and decided to distribute each other's content. Is this an excellent industry or what?John: SuperStock was purchased in Bankruptcy court. Is   How Branding Your Business   to fill us in on the effects of what SuperStock has experienced and how that may affect it's photographers and clients?Lanny: Superstock has experienced a trauma. The employees are an incredible bunch and, despite what they have been through, they continue to believe in the company. Just about any photographer, client, image partner and distributor made a decision to keep employing Superstock.Ownership of the business is back in the hands of photographers and and Morgan Stanley and the financiers are gone. Superstock is once again a place that's about the photographic image and the ones who create those images and those who use those images to communicate.John: What do you think will be the strengths of SuperStock?Lanny: Superstock has three essential strengths. First, a huge selection of contributing photographers around the globe who supply images to us. It has produced an extraordinary collection of fine art, vintage, travel and scenic, and contemporary imagery. Second, a large base of loyal clients in publishing and advertising. Third, a very talented staff that works each day to bring photographers and clients together.John: What exactly are SuperStock's regions of vulnerability?Lanny: I could tell you but then I'd need to kill you.John: What's your vision for where you intend to take SuperStock?Our plan for Superstock is pretty straightforward. We are stabilizing the business so we keep carefully the content, clients and staff that make Superstock an excellent agency. We've virtually completed this phase. Now we're optimizing the company's image assets and relationships.It's no secret that the Superstock had not been very well led within the last few years and there's a lot we are doing to get more images to advertise and ensure it is easier for clients to find the images they need. We will compete by continuing to offer clients a unique assortment of fine art, vintage, travel, and contemporary imagery along with a deep understanding of how those images are employed.John: Are you experiencing any plans to include Micro stock into your mix?Lanny: We're considering many choices but I don't believe Micro could be the first thing we do.John: Can you see potential in expanding stock sales beyond the original buyers of stock?Lanny: Individuals are the Holy Grail, Perhaps. Consumers seem to have a never-ending fascination with celebrities, so there will undoubtedly be new ways to download shots of Miley, Madonna, Rihanna, and next week's it girl. I'm also able to envision consumers who enjoy considering images of fine art, distant locations, and historical events. That's where we'll be well positioned to serve that market.John: There exists a large amount of buzz in the photographic community concerning the insufficient concern large agencies have for the individual photographer. May be the economic viability of the average person photographer important to SuperStock? Should it make a difference to agencies?Lanny: I can't speak for other agencies, but Superstock places great value on the average person photographer. After all, the owners of Superstock are photographers. It's inside our DNA. Blend has certainly proven an agency can succeed by caring about the success of photographers. We can not succeed unless our photographers succeed. So we're creating a very close relationship between our sales representatives who talk to picture buyers each day and our editors who speak to photographers so they will know the subjects that will sell.John: Agencies like Getty are constantly reducing the human interaction with photographers and also clients. Is that a thing that is inevitable and necessary, even for SuperStock?Lanny: We think a whole lot about how to improve the interaction between our editors and our photographers.John: One of SuperStock's offerings is subscription. Can the subscription model work with photographers along with agencies?Lanny: Different clients have various ways they like to buy pictures. Some haven't any problem paying $20,000 for the perfect image to go on a can of beans among others need to download 100 images a day to put in a blog for butterfly collectors. Photographers and agencies have to find ways to make money from either kind of client.John: I am beneath the impression that the market for stock images is moving away from print and more into the internet as the print world shrinks and the internet increases. Is my impression accurate? If that's the case, does this present a problem in the low prices charged for internet use?Lanny: True, there exists a shift from paper to pixels. I think it is too early to precisely predict the future shape of the internet market for images. At this time internet audiences are pretty fragmented but as they become more concentrated there can be a chance to charge more for compelling images.However, the nature of print and the internet are different. A robust image is probably the key thing to attract a customer to get a magazine or to stop and appearance at an ad on a full page. But internet browsing is ironically less visual and more text driven than print so images may not have quite the magnetic power (or economic value) they do on the net.John: Along those lines, do you think the pricing structure of RF stock images, and Perhaps Micro, needs to change? Do you think it will change?Lanny: Pricing is alchemy. Get it right and you turn lead into gold. Get it wrong and you also turn gold into lead. Nominal RF prices might look like they are rising, but there's a lot of evidence that overall RF prices are falling (dare I say the words "Premium Access"?). As well prices are rising in the micro space. Macro and micro look like converging but prices won't meet. Certainly, the 1 to 100-price ratio of 2 yrs ago will continue steadily to shrink.John: Does the increasing usage of video threaten the marketplace for still Images?Lanny: Video will grow, that's inevitable. But there is nothing that has the energy of a still image. My generation was shaped by TV, but every major event in our lifetime is defined by a still image. When people think of the Vietnam War they think about the image of the person being shot in the top by the guy in the short sleeve shirt or the napalm-scarred girl running down the road.When we think of the student revolution on Tiananmen Square it is the image of the guy with the plastic shopping bags in front of the tank. I believe it was actually shot in video but we remember it as an individual frame. And the defining image of Barack Obama is that stolen shot used in the "Hope" poster. I don't believe anything will ever replace the way a still image we can do what life denies us: stop time.John: Can you see SuperStock offering video?Lanny: Yes.John: Some are predicting a radically different world of stock images in less than five years. Can you see any big changes coming?Lanny: One thing is for sure: search fails very well for anybody so search for innovations in how agencies enable clients to find images. I'd also expect a convergence between stills and footage, perhaps packages for integrated campaigns.John: Do you have any advice for the veteran stock shooter?Lanny: Talk to individuals who buy pictures, find out what they want, go and shoot it.John: Do you have any advice for photographers that are just entering the field of stock photography?Lanny: As William Goldman said concerning the movie business, "nobody knows nothing". Learn everything you can about photography and advertising and journalism and publishing and let it all go and listen to your instincts.Visit John's website for unique and interesting concept stock photos: Lifestyle Ethnic PeopleVisit John Lund's Photography Blog: Stock Photo Guy