Founder Focus
Comment by Robert Harding
Having recently acquired Specialist Stock, one of the world's foremost environmental image and footage collections, Robert Harding talks about his new specialism and the launch into footage.
What is Specialist Stock? Specialist Stock is a unique collection of environmental stills and video clips specialising in nature, wildlife and renewable energy as well as documentary photography and aid projects in the developing world.
How was it formed? It was set up by environmental photographer and cameraman Tom Walmsley, who formed a collection of underwater material called Splashdown Direct. He later decided to expand it into a more complete archive around the theme of the environment, and Specialist Stock was born. He wanted to add different collections so he got agencies and archives around the world to contribute to it.
What set it apart from other agencies? Its speciality - it specialises in the environment through science, society and the natural world and it is one of the world leaders on green content. It gets a lot of requests from clients like NGOs and the UN.
What was your motivation for acquiring Specialist Stock? Two reasons really.
We think that the environment is a very important issue and this was the perfect opportunity to acquire a strong base of material on the subject that we can develop further.
The other aspect was that it had a substantial collection of footage. We wanted to go into video and it was the perfect opportunity to kick start our footage collection. We're now adapting our website to handle video and eventually we'll merge the two sites.
What we're doing now is integration - we've already added about 40,000 stills to our main site from Specialist Stock and we're starting to work on our video clips. When we get it all integrated there will be an area of our website dedicated solely to environmental themes.
How many images and clips are in the collection? Counting all the agency material, over a million, plus there are around 40,000 video clips. There are about 250 photographers working for Specialist Stock.
What are the strengths of the collection and your personal favourites? The wildlife element is very strong and they have supplied clips for very big BBC series like Frozen Planet. The underwater material is very special - I particularly love the footage of killer whales hunting sea lions in Patagonia and huge manta rays off the coast of Mexico.
How do you hope to expand and develop the collection?
We hope to become the prime supplier of environmental imagery in the world. We'll carry on developing this collection and getting material on any green items that are in the news.
We will also promote this material through our network of international agents, meaning it will be distributed via 80 other sources throughout the world.
Obviously global warming and environmental issues will continue to be in the forefront of peoples' minds as we go into the future, so we feel that this collection should become increasingly important.
How can we find out more about specialist stock? Search the Specialist Stock website, see our latest environment photo-gallery or talk to us at Robert Harding World Imagery (tel: +44 (0)20 7478 4000).
What is Specialist Stock? Specialist Stock is a unique collection of environmental stills and video clips specialising in nature, wildlife and renewable energy as well as documentary photography and aid projects in the developing world.
How was it formed? It was set up by environmental photographer and cameraman Tom Walmsley, who formed a collection of underwater material called Splashdown Direct. He later decided to expand it into a more complete archive around the theme of the environment, and Specialist Stock was born. He wanted to add different collections so he got agencies and archives around the world to contribute to it.
What set it apart from other agencies? Its speciality - it specialises in the environment through science, society and the natural world and it is one of the world leaders on green content. It gets a lot of requests from clients like NGOs and the UN.
What was your motivation for acquiring Specialist Stock? Two reasons really.
We think that the environment is a very important issue and this was the perfect opportunity to acquire a strong base of material on the subject that we can develop further.
The other aspect was that it had a substantial collection of footage. We wanted to go into video and it was the perfect opportunity to kick start our footage collection. We're now adapting our website to handle video and eventually we'll merge the two sites.
What we're doing now is integration - we've already added about 40,000 stills to our main site from Specialist Stock and we're starting to work on our video clips. When we get it all integrated there will be an area of our website dedicated solely to environmental themes.
How many images and clips are in the collection? Counting all the agency material, over a million, plus there are around 40,000 video clips. There are about 250 photographers working for Specialist Stock.
What are the strengths of the collection and your personal favourites? The wildlife element is very strong and they have supplied clips for very big BBC series like Frozen Planet. The underwater material is very special - I particularly love the footage of killer whales hunting sea lions in Patagonia and huge manta rays off the coast of Mexico.
How do you hope to expand and develop the collection?
We hope to become the prime supplier of environmental imagery in the world. We'll carry on developing this collection and getting material on any green items that are in the news.
We will also promote this material through our network of international agents, meaning it will be distributed via 80 other sources throughout the world.
Obviously global warming and environmental issues will continue to be in the forefront of peoples' minds as we go into the future, so we feel that this collection should become increasingly important.
How can we find out more about specialist stock? Search the Specialist Stock website, see our latest environment photo-gallery or talk to us at Robert Harding World Imagery (tel: +44 (0)20 7478 4000).
