One Hundred Million: Part 1

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One hundred million – 100 million – 100,000,000. No matter how you say it, that is a lot of images. These images are searchable on www.pacasearch.com. The number is not what makes searching on the site unique. There are probably as many pictures accessible on Google Images. What’s amazing is the fact that all the images are available for licensing because trademark, copyright and release issues have been addressed and sales models have been created.

PACA has brought together over sixty of its major archives to create this formidable collection, including the recognizable standards such as Getty Images and Alamy. The still imagery available includes editorial, commercial, historic, fine art, travel, news, and just about every other important category that any image researcher could need.

Innovative Search
PACASEARCH is the search system sponsored by PACA, The Picture Archive Council of America. The search aggregates results onto one interface, providing buyers with a convenient single point of access. PACA is the professional trade organization in North America, representing the important interests of many of the best commercial image collections in the world. Fostering good business standards and ethical practices, the organization takes an active role in industry legal developments, and offers copyright education, legal forms, and industry news & events.

The technology is brilliant. It is very easy to use, extremely fast, and comprehensive in offering results. Image buyers are instantly exposed to the greatest variety of member collections, allowing them access to globally diverse imagery that is direct from the source. Buyers enjoy one stop shopping without having to log onto many different sites. And, the search is free. Researchers enjoy the opportunity to easily locate image collections that might otherwise be buried or hard to find.

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So, what’s unique about the search? To begin with it’s pretty standard. The buyer submits a keyword or term in the search box to locate the best choice of image libraries to meet the need. The really cool feature is the two columns of results, offering a list of agency libraries ranked by descending order for the total number of images found. Then, there is a column of libraries ranked by the relative percentage of images in relation to the total collection, implying that these archives offer specialty content.

There is an excellent concise and descriptive “how to” video on the site which describes some successful searches of rare content. One example is a photo researcher looking for an “ox sarcophagus,” a mummified animal. Another person needed a howitzer gun crew. Neither subject matter constitutes your average search, and both yielded instant and licensable results.

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According to Sheri Blaney-Nogg, of SBN Research Photos & Footage, “I found the PACA site helpful, not only for cutting down research time, but in finding new source options, and discovering some of the agencies’ newest collections. When researching a lesser known Uruguayan actress, China Zorilla, I was unable to find her on any of the celebrity sites. However, via PACASEARCH, Alamy turned up 26 images of the actress. Would I have thought to go to Alamy for a lesser known celebrity? Probably not.”

Watch MacTribe.com for Part 2

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Pat Hunt is a writer and workshop leader for the stock photo industry, and Managing Director of Huntstock.com in Boston, in partnership with Mark Hunt, Creative Director.

Image Credits:
Photo 1: Image Source / Cultura
Photo 2: Image Source / Cultura
Photo 3: Image Source / Sean Murphy

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