Update from Garnet Media

I have been very busy doing photography and writing work, and while I have done some picture research work and sold some stock images too in the last few months, I am enjoying focusing on my personal work a bit.

Read my blog here to see more of my work and what I have been up to, and why this Garnet Media blog has been rather quiet for a while.

On the stock photography side, my news is: People do still pay for images.

If you have images people need that are of good quality and are of subjects not found on every microstock site out there, or on free stock imagery sites, AND they know how to contact you, you can still sell images.

The last few images I sold are of specific places, here are two examples: the one to the left is of the Castle of Good Hope in Cape Town (for an in-flight mag) and the picture above is of a church in Swellendam, sold for use in a coffee table book.....

Maryann Shaw

Boundless Southern Africa expedition Tembe Elephant Park to Ponta Mamoli Mozambique section 27 - 31 May 2009

Nature, Culture, Community, the tagline of Boundless Southern Africa, certainly sums up my experiene of the five days tagging along with the Expedition Kingsley Holgate is leading until late August 2009, which crosses 9 countries and 7 Transfrontier Conservaton areas.

Maryann Shaw joined in Tembe Elephant Park in Northern Zululand, home of the Tembe people, and went on to Ponta Mamoli in Mozambique...

"I have done this quick collage of a few images since returning late Sunday , as it will take a while before I have a full set of images and story on this extraordinary trip. The community event in which a soccer pitch and container library were given to a rural school opposite the Tembe Elephant Park,was a highlight."

"Many thanks to hosts Ernest, Tom, Thandi and Slinky at Tembe, and Sandra, Rose,Frank, Sheldon, Mike and Kim at Ponta Mamoli. Thank you Johan Louw for the invitation and Leonore Beukes, Marketing Manager of Boundless Southern Africa for taking me with her. To Kingsley for his constant informing and outpouring of energy when any other person would be lying exhausted in a heap - thank you."

Africa Imagery and Old Canvas Expeditions

(above) Shashe Limpopo, The Shashe River near the confluence with the Limpopo River. Northern Tuli Game Reserve.,Botswana. by Roger de la Harpe
(right) Male lion, Umlani Bushcamp, Timbivati Game Reserve, South Africa. by Maryann Shaw

Africa Imagery stock image library was launched in January 2000 with an initial collection of some 70 000 carefully selected photographs of Africa's people, wildlife, scenery and tourism.

Over the years a number of other award winning photographers like Nigel and Wendy Dennis, Fiona Ayerst, Phillip and Ingrid van den Berg, Gerard Dreyer, Vanessa Burger, Lanz von Horsten and Ariadne van Zandbergen (amongst others) have become contributors to Africa Imagery.

Situated in Howick in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands, on the eastern side of South Africa, the library provides a personalized service to those needing world-class imagery for use in brochures, billboards, calendars, magazines, advertisements, newspapers, web pages and books.

Roger and Pat de la Harpe also run Old Canvas Expeditions, a special interest tour operator. With partner Gerald Allen, they have sourced experts to run workshops at various lodges throughout Southern Africa, and Roger himself runs photographic workshops.

see www.africaimagery.com and www.oldcanvasexpeditions.com

Garnet Media launches in Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa May 2009

The stock image industry has been through a complete transformation in the last ten years, moving from purely analogue storage of slides and negatives in filing cabinets, to massive online databases with millions of images searchable at the touch of a button, and now social networking tools spreading words and images within seconds, from flickr to twitter to blogging and Facebook, anyone can sell an image by just getting it out there to be seen.

Garnet Media represents a select group of photographers, providing a range of services to assist working in this digital environment. Acting as their agent, Garnet Media channels photographers' images to income generating sources in the news, magazine, book publishing and commercial arenas, as well as offering help with marketing and finding commissioned work. Most importantly Garnet Media finds pictures that people need...from Nelson Mandela and the apartheid era to Hip Hop musicians, soccer supporters and everyday South Africans.

We specialize in being able to get you exactly what you need because many of our photographers can shoot images at short notice to add to their stock collections, thereby making the pictures available to clients as stock imagery....a dripping tap, a person drawing money from an ATM, a child with their hand raised in a classroom...the less obvious images needed for books, magazines and projects that not many photographers have taken, but so many publications need.


Garnet Media represents photojournalist Karin Retief whose photo essays and features cover travel and people as well as important social issues in Southern Africa.

Johannesburg based photographer Thabo Moloto's focus on the music scene and all things happening in Jozi, Garnet Media is able to supply clients with strong images covering the Gauteng region.

Andrew Ingram is a news photojournalist based in Cape Town, but his interest in multi media and has taken him into the world of High Definition Video. After his day job picture editing he can often be seen rushing about with a video camera, mic, lights and lots of other bulky stuff - for fun!

He is also making panoramic photographs, the bigger the better, which are digitally stitched and printed on canvases.

Owner and Manager of Garnet Media, Maryann Shaw has 14 years experience in the media industry. After a Fine Art degree in Photography and Journalism at Rhodes University, she first worked in a Photo Library environment in 1995 in London at the Julian Cotton Photo library, and was exposed to the idea of an image being sold again and again if it served the right purpose: a picture of a contributing photographer’s two year old playing in the bath with bubbles was sold for billboards, magazine and newspaper adverts because an advertising agency needed to illustrate this concept for a baby friendly bath product.

Since then, she has set up or managed photo libraries for Struik Publishers (1997), Alain Proust and Cape Photo Library (1997-2000), Eric Miller and iAfrika Photos (1998-2000) Garnet Images (2003-2005) Media 24 and IMAGES24 (2005-2008) and Africa Media Online (2008-2009).