Photo Archive News

Steve Lake - Manager - Impact Photos

The latest Photo Archive News 'brief' interview.
Impact Photos is a long established collection of World wide reportage and travel images.
Subjects include, industry, agriculture, healthcare, economic and social development.

When did you start in the picture library business?
Way back in November 1989 – as a picture librarian at Rex Features.

What were you doing before that?
Working in the surreal world of Foyles bookshop which is where I’d ended up after leaving university.

How many employees do you have?
3

Describe your day.
Varies! Try to split my week between days handling all the emails, admin, problems and queries that come with running a picture library; and days spent concentrating on picture management – database management, captioning, new material etc. But it rarely works out like that – something else always crops up.

How involved are you in every day picture sales decisions?
Very – either directly (I still handle most of the fees negotiations) or by advising research/sales staff. I also chair a weekly sales meeting in which existing and new clients are discussed as well as new material/features.

Is the future totally digital?
Yes in the sense of receiving and working with new material. We still accept trannies but fewer photographers supply them and we make it clear to those that do that it will take longer for their submissions to make it through the system. There are still some advantages to at least maintaining the slide collection – some clients still like to work from hard copy at the research stage and it is sometimes an advantage to be able to offer an original for final reproduction.

Do you have any advice for a new picture library?
Unless you have significant capital – find a niche or speciality not currently well represented (not easy); start fully digital and stay that way; keep overheads as low as possible.

Which picture library web site has caught your eye recently?
Plenty from a negative point of view – messy and overcomplicated. I’ve always liked the Garden Picture Library site but must confess to not having looked at it for a while.

Which papers do you read regularly?
Independent; Guardian to keep an eye on what’s happening in the job market.

What activities do you pursue when you are not at work?
Seem to be at work most of the time these days. What else? Drinking wine. Oh, and writing for ‘Smoke’ - a very fine London magazine available in all good bookshops. Order your copy today!

Which system do you use for your online library?
We use Capture for library management. The website is designed and run by Concrete Media.

Is it web based?
Capture and the website run side by side – they are not fully integrated which is not ideal but I didn’t like the Capture web system when we came to launch our own site. May be better now…

How many pictures do you sell overnight directly through your web site?
Hard to say – we do have clients (Australian and American generally) who download from the website overnight.

What percentage of your outgoings do you spend on marketing the library?
Very little at the moment. We did a big marketing push at the launch of the website but do very little print advertising now (never felt it was that effective). We do PBF but most of our emphasis is on direct client contact – we can’t compete with the big agencies on marketing budget so try to push our personal service.

Where do you live?
Acton – although it’s ‘Chiswick Borders’ should anyone want to put an offer in on our flat.

Family status?
Married – to an art director who has occasionally used Impact pictures and paid over the odds (not that that’s why I married her…)

How are your camera skills?
Zero. I’ve always considered having no personal interest in photography to be a significant advantage in the running of picture libraries.

What’s hot, what’s new?
I’m far too old to know. The last album I bought was by Van Der Graaf Generator. That probably says it all.

Any last thought?
It would be nice if all the picture editors I meet who tell me they’re fed up with Corbis and Getty and want to go back to using small independent libraries would actually do so.
www.ImpactPhotos.com

V&A Images on Alamy

Andrea Stern, Head of V&A Images said "We are excited to be able to work with Alamy, a leader in the representation of specialist collections. V&A Images' expanding coverage through Alamy, offers a great resource for their many design, advertising and editorial clients".