About a year ago, I called Rob Haggart, a former colleague at Wenner Media, and we were casually discussing what topics I could potentially cover for him on his blog. I was inclined to write about geeky subjects – like digital asset management and copyright issues – but a few days later he called me, and mentioned the popularity of his photographer reps’ list, but bemoaned its outdatedness and brevity.
I took on the task of sprucing up the reps list, thinking it would be a great way for me to look at a lot of work and retrain my eye after ingesting so much celebrity. I’m an obsessive researcher and soon discovered that there were hundreds more agencies to add. Then it occurred to us: what if we created the definitive list, with every agent shop worldwide and then tagged/curated/located their talent? Rob threw me on his WordPress platform, and I scoured the globe looking through every website to categorize, add locations and social media links.
What you see now is our beta product, which we are calling phase one. It is free for agents to join, and they are able to log on, claim their tiles, and therefore keep the information very up to date. Our plans for the next two phases are to offer enhanced tile features to agents (monetization!), an aggregator for creatives to create a customized feed from agency blogs, and a Pinterest-like board feature to organize artists and share lists. We hope to be an indispensable part of the daily life of photo editors/buyers and other creatives.
