Eric yves mahe, president, software & solutions kodak (singapore) pte ltd
Eric yves mahe, president, software & solutions kodak (singapore) pte ltd.
How does Kodakit stand in relation to what Kodak is doing as a business?
Kodak is photography. If there’s one company in the world that has owned that space, it’s definitely Kodak. We’ve been involved in the photography world for a long time, and till today, we’re still involved. We produce film both for photographers and for motion pictures. So it’s completely core to our values and core to our business.
To us, Kodakit is an evolution and a new avenue. It’s an evolution in the sense that we’re using the new technologies that are becoming available, but it’s also a new avenue in the sense that we’re changing the way people are using photography, and how they’re looking for photographers.
What are you hoping to achieve with the Kodakit application?
A lot of business (laughs)! We want to change the way people work with photographers. We want to change the way people perceive the opportunity to take photos, and we want to provide photographers additional opportunities to shoot. We want this to be an easy, simple and seamless way to hire photographers for both consumers and businesses.
So everything goes through you?Who owns the copyright to the photography then?
We’ve simplified that. The copyright issue is very complicated in the photography world right? The way Kodakit works is that the copyright belongs to the people who hire the photographers. It’s a bit different from the current model, but what we have found from talking to consumers and businesses is that they are looking for simplification, and photographers are willing to give up their copyrights for this simplified model that brings them more clients.
What do you think makes a “professional” photographer these days?
Now that’s a complicated question! Because I don’t know what “professional” means.
Exactly! It’s not very clear these days.
It’s not very clear. But as I said, we had round tables with photographers around the world. Some of them were positioning themselves as “professionals” because it was the only thing they were doing, but what we also found out was that there are a lot of excellent photographers out there who are part-time photographers. They have either a night job, or a day job; they do other things, but they are so passionate and really want to take good pictures. So it depends. Do you want to look at the quality? Or do you want to look at if it’s a full time job? But what we have found is a lot of very professional pictures out there, and that’s what we want to bring to consumers and businesses – good, quality professional pictures.
For me, that’s the most important. I think a lot of photographers, the quality is there but they don’t have a platform to show what their work is about. And that’s where Kodakit comes in. Opening the world to photographers, and giving them an opportunity to show how good they are.
Everybody has a camera these days.Why still hire a photographer?
What we have seen is that people love to take pictures. For example: young mothers. They love to have pictures with their newborn, but the biggest problem is that they are never in the picture. But unless you do this funny selfie that maybe once in a while works, it will be much nicer to have a photographer take the picture. So there are many occasions when you would prefer to have a photographer around.
Then on the business side, we know that good pictures sell. So giving opportunities for businesses to fi nd good photographers at a very cost effective way is very important to them.
