E-Photo
Issue #29  4/28/2001
 
Major Site Changes Made On I Photo Central

By Alex Novak

Over the next few months I Photo Central will be changing and expanding.

We have just moved servers for the web site (although not URL addresses, so your favorites or bookmarks of our home page at least, www.iphotocentral.com, should still work). The entire database of images for sale has been updated and well over a $1 million in new inventory has just been added--everything from a Steichen multiple exposure of the Empire State Building (and lots of other Between-the-Wars work) to rare and early salt and albumen prints, stereos and daguerreotypes (including a whole-plate image of a brigadier general) to new contemporary work by Caramella diCarlo, Paul Cava, Ted Jones and Robert Asman. We will be adding about 30 new Photo-Session photogravures, which have come from NY's Museum of Modern Art, plus several original Clarence White nudes and a Stieglitz Poplars.

Extensive search capabilities have also been added for I Photo Central's growing photography gallery (now over 2,100 images), and a photo bookstore will be set up over the next quarter. The navigation within the search pages of the photo gallery is also greatly improved, so that you can find where you left off with more ease and return to the home page or a section of your search with only one click of the mouse. Prices are now also on the initial thumbnails and those thumbnail images were made slightly bigger, while still giving you the ability to increase the size of the image when clicking through. In about a month you will be able to order securely on line with our new Portfolio Manager system, if the dealer has credit card facilities. All these were ideas from many of our customers.

The E-Photo Newsletter (still free of charge) archive and a subscription page have been totally redesigned/revamped. All relevant newsletters and articles have been reedited, added and brought up to date; and better, simpler search capabilities have been added here as well.

We have totally redesigned and improved the search of the International Calendar of Photo Events and brought this area totally up to date with hundreds of listings. Now you can search by type of event, city, state or even country. Going to New York City or to Paris? Just search by city or by country. This calendar is now the most extensive such calendar in the world and now we will be able to keep it completely up-to-date.

Galleries, Institutions/Museums, Auctions and Show Managers please make sure that we are on your mailing (we prefer emailing at anovak@comcat.com ) list for event details. You can also now advertise further details on upcoming exhibits in this Calendar of Events. Basic listings will still be free, but the addition of pop-up information or a logo link to your own website allows you to bring real excitement to your listing, including images. Please contact us for details on the Links program and advertising.

We will be adding even more links to other sites. We will be happy to work with museums and other non-profit institutions in developing a joint "links" program. Please contact us for details.

I Photo Central is also greatly expanding the content aimed at helping the photography collector, curator and dealer. Besides the newsletter archives with its key word search, there is now a special section called "Collecting Issues and Resources." The first article in this section is on Insurance and Risk Management. You can view it at: http://www.iphotocentral.com/collecting/collecting.php.

New content will be added to this area of the web site month by month. Some of the other upcoming articles in the section will include: conservation, appraisals, tax considerations, buying and selling, framing and matting, the issue of vintage prints, etc. We will also have related marketing opportunities for service providers, such as insurers for photo collections, appraisers, conservators, auctions, etc. If you are such a service provider, please contact us for details, or go to: http://www.iphotocentral.com/advertise/advertise.php.

Newsletter readers will get the inside track on our progress. There will be extensive additions over the next few months, so bear with us. The site may be unavailable for short periods as these additions are made.

The site will now change over to a major multi-photo dealer web portal adding to what is already the largest photographic inventory currently on the Internet. After a frustrating several months, we can finally add other photography and book dealers as we originally intended. If you are a photo dealer/gallery, photo book dealer or photographer, and are interesting in joining us on the only web site designed to facilitate actual buying and selling rather than just expensive public relations, please contact me at: anovak@comcat.com or at 215-822-5662, or, better yet, go to: http://www.iphotocentral.com/advertise/advertise.php for all the details and agreement forms.

The price for getting your own site, independent yet also fully integrated into the database of iphotocentral, an international web portal, is extremely reasonable. There is also a very good incentive program for dealers who join the program early. If you already have a site, it is easy to integrate it and your inventory into our database design so that you can take advantage of the tens of thousands of collectors, curators and dealers that come through the I Photo Central web portal to view the gallery. The database design will allow you to make sure that the information on your inventory is completely up-to-date without having to reprogram any thing. Changes and additions can be made quickly and easily right on line, and at no addition cost.

If you are a collector or curator, I Photo Central will undoubtedly become your first stop on the web. Why not just make it your home page? To do so, go here for instructions: http://www.iphotocentral.com/faq/faq.php?jmp=4&ref=index.php or if that string is too long, go to http://www.iphotocentral.com/faq/faq.php and click on question #4.

Novak has over 48 years experience in the photography-collecting arena. He is a long-time member and formerly board member of the Daguerreian Society, and, when it was still functioning, he was a member of the American Photographic Historical Society (APHS). He organized the 2016 19th-century Photography Show and Conference for the Daguerreian Society. He is also a long-time member of the Association of International Photography Art Dealers, or AIPAD. Novak has been a member of the board of the nonprofit Photo Review, which publishes both the Photo Review and the Photograph Collector, and is currently on the Photo Review's advisory board. He was a founding member of the Getty Museum Photography Council. He is author of French 19th-Century Master Photographers: Life into Art.

Novak has had photography articles and columns published in several newspapers, the American Photographic Historical Society newsletter, the Photograph Collector and the Daguerreian Society newsletter. He writes and publishes the E-Photo Newsletter, the largest circulation newsletter in the field. Novak is also president and owner of Contemporary Works/Vintage Works, a private photography dealer, which sells by appointment and has sold at exhibit shows, such as AIPAD New York and Miami, Art Chicago, Classic Photography LA, Photo LA, Paris Photo, The 19th-century Photography Show, Art Miami, etc.