CEPIC Congress, Warsaw, 2015.
This year’s CEPIC Congress was held in Warsaw, Poland at the Sofitel Warsaw Victoria. Warsaw’s varied architecture reflects the city’s long history- from Gothic churches and neoclassical palaces to modern skyscrapers. As Poland’s cultural hub, Warsaw was the perfect base for this event.
The Congress was attended by over 400 people from 32 countries representing all aspects of the picture industry: stock and press agencies, cultural heritage, video vendors and producers as well as crowdsourcing and microstock companies, not to mention commercial photographers/ videographers, IT industry suppliers, and business professionals from various fields. For three days, Warsaw was the center of the photography business.
In recent years, the image industry has rapidly evolved. Due to the widespread reach of technology and social media, imagery is more important than ever.
Freelance technology blogger, Tom Cross, explains,”The increased sophistication of the smartphone and the rise in the normality of social media use means that we now use smartphones as a transmitter of our every mood and emotion. The result is that we are now becoming participants in a new form of communication. As spontaneity has been encouraged, a culture of now has emerged as we learn to consume and share a flurry of information and imagery with a seemingly unquenchable thirst.
The bigger question is how the image market itself will change. Do “social stock” companies have the opportunity to source stock content from a broader community? Can photography sites like Instagram turn their community into sellers? Do buyers want more “authentic” imagery that can be better sourced/ localized/ personalized from the crowd than professional photographers? Can social stock expand the stock photo market, or does it merely steal market share? Will video continue to make an impact in the photography world? These are just a few of the questions being asked by image industry professionals.
This is an exciting industry and we are so honored for the opportunity to help photographers and image companies alike grow and scale their global business by making assess to their photography earnings easier than ever. We had the pleasure of meeting some really cool companies, including PicScout – who won our photographer’s backpack raffle, and Come Alive Images, a company creating an online library of gif images which they believe is the next big thing in, as they like to call it, “non-stock photography.” Check out my very own gif image!
On Thursday afternoon Payoneer had the privilege of participating in the “Pitch Presentation” series at the Congress. We presented Payoneer’s global payout solutions and fielded questions from interested attendees. CEPIC was an amazing event and we want to thank Carlos and the whole CEPIC team for making us feel so welcome. We look forward to the next one!