Substantial growth of age fotostock and THP Photo Services portfolio of images in 2008

Barcelona (SPAIN), 15 JANUARY 2009 - age fotostock, the well known stock photo agency based in Barcelona, with sales offices in Madrid, New York, and Paris, has announced that it has closed 2008 with 8.6 million images in its portfolio, all of which are available through age fotostock's website, www.agefotostock.com, and to all the members of the THP Photo Services hosting platform.

"A lot has been discussed on how much is too much content, but at age fotostock, we believe that substantial quantities of images are key today in order to have a prevalent presence in the market. Clients are short of time and they need to search quickly and efficiently, with many options to choose from, and we are confident that we meet their expectations," said Teresa Alonso, International Sales Director of age fotostock.

In 2008, age fotostock has signed representation agreements with hundreds of new providers of images, both photographers and agencies from around the world. Through this effort, the company has added a total of 2.612.089 million new images to the portfolio from 334 different collections. This represents a 67.66% increase of the quantity of images compared with 2007 figures. age fotostock's efforts have focused conscientiously on adding content in identified areas of high demand, such as images of travel, food, ethnicity, lifestyle, and specialized historical collections, to serve the needs of a very diverse customer base.

Alexa Plourde, Content Manager at age fotostock, comments: "We are working hard to enrich the age fotostock images portfolio in order to position ourselves as one of the most varied and complete collections of images in the market. In 2008, we decided to focus on new content that would cover a very diverse range of topics; consequently, the diversity and uniqueness of the images that we represent has been key in setting us apart from the competition and shielding us from the cyclical convulsions of the market. Furthermore, even 2009 seems to be in a growth spurt, with over 175.000 new images uploaded so far from quite unique collections."

However, age fotostock efforts are not only focused on distributing collections from other stock agencies. The agency is also working diligently to enrich its own Rights Managed (RM) age fotostock and Royalty Free (RF) Pixtal collections. In addition to the large number of photographic productions the agency has done during 2008 with a number of different photographers, the volume of pictures the company received to be selected by contributing photographers reached a peak of 1,078,072 images, representing 19.42% more images than those received in 2007. However, after the strict edition process, only 11.87% (127.730 images) were finally accepted.

Alfonso Gutiérrez, CEO of age fotostock, and the person that for 36 years has been editing every image that the company receives from photographers, said, "...editing images is a way of life, you need to be alert on how the society is evolving, and what kind of subjects and approaches are becoming important in order to make sure that those demands are covered by what the photographers are submitting. Editing is both relaxing and enticing, especially since I'm still a very active digital photographer. However I can't forget to add that Anna Judy and Jennifer Paul help me by suggesting in a first review which images we can't miss." This editing and persistency has ended 2008 with a total of 775,942 images in the age fotostock RM and RF collection combined, making it one of the biggest, professionally edited, single collection in the world.

All images added during 2008, and many more, are available through age fotostock Spain and the large majority of them are also available through age fotostock America and age fotostock France. Moreover, all members of the THP Photo Services that distribute images using the technological platform are automatically benefiting from all the new content.

Source: CEPIC