The American Society of Picture Professionals (ASPP) has done a great service to all serious photographers by, 1) Turning their email newsletter into the ASPP eNews blog, and 2) Making this blog available to all — for free, no sign in required. Very, very cool.
Check it out, and if you like what you see, add it to you feeds or sign up for email alerts.
What’s ASPP?
ASPP is a unique photography industry association in that it includes photographers and picture agencies and picture researchers and end users, a.k.a. publishers. This means that when you are part of ASPP, you are not just dealing with your colleague-competitors, but also networking with your colleague-potential-clients.
ASPP is a close-knit, supportive community (I know; I am a former board member), and as a photographer ASPP gives you the opportunity to befriend supportive professionals at picture agencies you might want to work with (to license your images) as well as researchers (who might want to license your images).
ASPP’s $125 membership fee might seem steep, but it’s a small price to pay for access to this unique community. So definitely consider joining ASPP.
The Old ASPP News
Until recently ASPP sent out a massive monthly email newsletter to members that was stuffed with industry and member updates. Two problems:
• Way, way too much to digest, check out, sift through, enjoy.
• You couldn’t get at it if you were not a member.
The Super Cool New ASPP eNews Blog
It’s the same content, but on steroids: with images, links, embedded videos.
Some content, like the monthly “President’s Corner,” is clearly geared for members. However, you can ignore this content or, better yet, give it a peek as a kind of “trial run” of ASPP membership.
Some content is from members who are industry experts, like Jim Pickerell, who offers these image licensing insights.
Then there is news related to the industry, like “Update on the Senate Hearing about Intellectual Property” and info about contests, like the “Focus Project 2011.
ASPP agency members are dishing up news about their collections, like the “Lebrecht on Self-Portraits.”
And then you have photographer members sharing their latest efforts, like Wolfgang Kaehler’s “Run with the Wolfies.”
And this was all in the past two weeks!