Free Online Resource Enabling Photographers to Access Markets

I was in Maputo, Mozambique last week together with DJ Clark, Graeme Cookson, Peter Krogh, Dominique Le Roux and my wife Rosanne Larsen. Together we were working on putting together a free online resource to enable photographers from Africa and other parts of the Majority World to understand photography markets, place themselves correctly in the markets, sell to markets, deliver the right quality of imagery to the markets and build a long-term archive that grows in value in the eyes of the markets over time.
It was a privilege to spend time with members of the Associação Moçambicana de Fotografia in Maputo who gave incredibly valuable insight into the conditions under which photographers are working and were a significant sounding board for whether the material being developed was appropriate for the professional photographers we intend to serve. Thank you particularly to Tomas Cumbana, Rui Assubuji, Hugo Costa and Mauro Pinto for your time and wisdom.

Known as Shutha, the Zulu slang word for “take a photo”, the creation of the resource is an outcome of the Twenty Ten project which is a partnership between World Press Photo, Freevoice, Africa Media Online and lokaalmondiaal with funding from the Dutch Postcode Lottery. Coordinated by ourselves at Africa Media Online, the resource builds not only on the work done in the Twenty Ten project, but also on our own African Photo Entrepreneur Programme which we ran in 2008 with funding from the European Union through Gijima KZN.
Shutha will have modules giving photographers insight into the stock, books, prints, assignments and multimedia markets as well as courses on business, digital imaging, digital workflow and multimedia production.
Shutha will be available online for free under a Creative Commons license and photographers and training institutions will also be able to order a DVD of the resource.