Being at the World Press Photo Awards Days here in Amsterdam where South African photographer, Jodi Bieber, has won the World Press Photo of the Year Award, and where photographers from all over the world are gathering to celebrate that fact, we thought it was a brilliant moment to launch Shutha.

Above: Togo photographer Kokou Tadegnon interacting with children in Lusaka, Zambia, March 2010. PHOTO: David A. Larsen

Shutha, which is a Zulu slang word meaning “to take a photo”, is the fruit of months of really hard work by our team of writers from different parts of the World. We all met in Maputo at the end of January 2011 to conceptualize the resource and now it has finally all come together. It is divided into two major sections – one which helps to educate on what the markets for photography are and what they look for, and the other which focuses on the photographers themselves, their business and marketing skills and their ability to deliver to markets at the standards the market requires.

I believe Shutha is unique. It is not only free, but it is specifically aimed at professional photographers in the Majority World who often face challenges in terms of access to equipment and slow internet connectivity. Because of this we have designed the resource so that it can be available on DVD and not just online. I am also expecting that training events such as out Digital Campus will be enhanced by this resource. We would love to run training events with the Shutha team in different parts of the African continent. Having said that, we would be most thrilled if other training institutions and organisations took up the resource and built curricula around it. We are making it available on a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND) license.

Above: Zimbabwean photographer Davina Jogi captures the press in action in Accra, Ghana, September 2009. PHOTO: David A. Larsen

That it is free does not mean it is cheap. The team that put it together has been really top class.

China-based DJ Clark is a contract multimedia reporter for China Daily, Director of Visual Journalism at the Asia Center for Journalism and Course leader on the MA International Multimedia Journalism at Beijing Foreign Studies University (in collaboration with the University of Bolton, UK).

Peter Krogh is an American professional photographer who has served photographers all over the world by writing what is known today as the foremost resource on Digital Asset Management: The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers. Peter was a Microsoft Icons of Imaging programme participant, and is recognised as a world leader in digital imaging with his courses on digital workflow sought after in many parts of the world.

UK-based Graeme Cookson is a digital imaging expert who trains scanning companies, picture libraries and publishing companies, including sports photography staff at Reuters, staff at The British Library, The British Museum, and The National Library of Ireland, The Royal Horticultural Society, and The Open University. Graeme is a sought-after speaker at major international conventions in the imaging industry such as CEPIC.

My wife, Rosanne Larsen founded Africa Media Online’s picture library in 2000 and has overseen the expansion of the company’s reach into markets in Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, and South America through its network of distributing agencies. A third generation Mozambican and Director of International Sales, Rosanne plays a pivotal roll in Africa Media Online on the interface between photographers who are supplying images and markets who want images, and was instrumental in the design and development of Africa Media Online’s MEMAT 3.1 media management system.

Above: South African photographer Simone Schultz editing work during the Twenty Ten workshop in Accra, Ghana, September 2009. PHOTO: David A. Larsen

Dominique Le Roux is a publishing consultant and Director of Moonshine Media, a Cape Town-based company that manages media projects. A South African by birth, Dominique was involved in the conceptualization of the Twenty Ten project and has spent a number of years engaging with the needs of photographers and journalists in various parts of the Majority World. Dominique has almost 20 years experience in the media world as a writer, magazine editor, book publisher, web content manager, television presenter and photographic agent.

Of course it also includes me a fifth generation African, and a former journalist and photographer by trade. To give you some of my background, I founded Africa Media Online in 2000 with a mission to empower fellow Africans to tell Africa’s story from our own perspective and enabling that perspective compete in local and international markets. In pursuit of this passion we developed a digital trade route connecting African photographers and photographic collections to a world-wide audience. The trade route includes training programmes, digitisation services, photo website systems, as well as representing photographers to local and international markets. Shutha is really a development of a programme we developed in 2008 called the African Photo Entrepreneur Programme (APEP).

Shutha.org is one of the outputs of the Twenty Ten: African media on the road to twenty ten (and beyond) project, a partnership between World Press Photo, Freevoice (now rebranded as Free Press Unlimited), Africa Media Online and lokaalmondiaal and funded by the Dutch Postcode Lottery. The Twenty Ten project trained 128 journalists from 34 countries around Africa who produced media content from an African perspective in the run-up to and during the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The content was used to produce a coffee table book, a travelling exhibition and was distributed to media around the world. A documentary film on the project was also produced by lokaalmondiaal. Africa Media Online has led the Shutha initiative, which has also benefitted from sponsorship of the Drupal-based web platform by the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) who originally developed the platform for its own site and then for their dpBestFlow.org initiative. For more information on the Twenty Ten project, see www.roadto2010.com.

Above: Shutha is part of the Twenty Ten project, a joint initiative of World Press Photo, FreeVoice, Africa Media Online and lokaalmondiaal which was funded by the Dutch Postcode Lottery. Above are pro photographers who participated in a training workshop run in Accra, Ghana in September 2009 – Back Row left to right: Greg Marinovich (trainer, South Africa), Julius Mwelu (Kenya), Carlos Litulo (Mozambique), Davina Jogi (South Africa), Nikki Rixon (South Africa), Chris De Bode (trainer, Holland); Second Row left to right: Alexia Webster (South Africa), Amos Gumulira (Malawi), Simone Scholtz (South Africa), Akintunde Akinyele (Nigeria), Samantha Reinders (South Africa); Front Row left to right: Michael Tsegaye (Ethiopia), Andrew Esiebo (Nigeria), Adolphus Opara (Nigeria). PHOTO: David A. Larsen

We have put our report online with links to published work from the project including galleries of all images that were published as well as a gallery of all images that were published more than once. View it here at Twenty Ten online report.

Read John Edwin Mason on Oupa Nkosi

View Oupa Nkosi’s “Black Diamonds” (Click the link “View in CoolIris” to view a slide show)

Above: Thando Pato from True Love Magazine drinks a glass of exclusive Dom Perigon Champagne during a feature launch in Hyde Park in Johannesburg, South Africa on November 8, 2007. PHOTO: ©Oupa Nkosi/Twenty Ten/Africa Media Online
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Last night I was at the launch of the 2010 World Press Photo exhibition at Fortalezza, the old Portuguese fort in Maputo, Mozambique. A crowd of about 100 including photographers, press and embassy staff enjoyed the exhibition and cocktail party coordinated by Merritt Becker of Shanti Shalom and Femke van der Valk from World Press Photo. The last time I was at Fortalezza was in 2002 for the Foto Festa when Cedric Nunn, Peter McKenzie and I spent a wonderful few days imbibing the festive atmosphere of Maputo’s photographic community. Rui Assubuji was chairperson of the Associação Moçambicana de Fotografia at that time and we got to meet the great Ricardo Rangel when we visited the Centro Documentação e Formação Fotográfica (CDFF). Mr Rangel has passed on since then but I got to meet Mrs Rangel earlier today at the CDFF, which was just as much a privilege. She has been carrying on the work her husband started with great determination.

Above: The launch of the 2010 World Press Photo exhibition in Maputo, Mozambique. Here visitors to the launch contemplate Joan Bardeletti’s image of a family at the beach in Maputo. It was the only image in the exhibition that has Mozambique as its subject matter and as such it gained special attention.

On Tuesday I ran a workshop at the Associação Moçambicana de Fotografia hosted by them and funded by Henny Matos, Director of Kulungwana in association with Merritt Becker of Shanti Shalom. It formed part of the events that surround the launch of the exhibition in Mozambique. The workshop went well. We did some portfolio reviews, spoke about markets for photography including mulitmedia and I demonstrated the digital workflow that I use. My presentation on markets can be found here: Understanding Photographic Markets. It was a lot to accomplish in one day especially since I was having to work through a translator. All seemed to thoroughly enjoy it and we only finished up at 7:30 pm. It was great being with the likes of Tomas Cumbana, the chair of the Associação, and Funcho (João Costa). Even Kok Nam made an appearance at the workshop. I look forward to future collaboration with the Associação!

Above: Participants at a workshop hosted by the Associação Moçambicana de Fotografia in Maputo, Mozambique and sponsored by Henny Matos, Director of Kulungwana in association with Merritt Becker of Shanti Shalom.

Above: Tomas Cumbana, chairperson of the Associação Moçambicana de Fotografia at the launch of the 2010 World Press Photo exhibition in Maputo, Mozambique.

By the way, Merritt Becker organised for Femke and I to be put up in the Southern Sun Hotel here in Maputo. What a pleasure between sea views, pool and parma ham and melon for breakfast it could hardly have been better! It was a sponsorship from the hotel so I am grateful.

Above: The Maputo kite surfing championship was being held on in front of the Southern Sun on Sunday.

The Avenida Da Marginal on weekends is extraordinary. Maputo’s young and restless come down to the beach and party late into the night along the Marginal. See what I saw on my Photostream.

Ten years of evolving solutions have resulted in another release of MEMAT, Africa Media Online’s professional collections management system. Conforming very closely to the requirements of the Open Archival Information System (OAIS), the ISO standard for long term archiving of digital media, MEMAT is used by media organisations and media professionals to manage and present digital media collections. As a professional system, it is suitable for use by independent media professionals as well as large institutions needing to manage media files in multiple locations. The latest release, MEMAT 3.1 has added key features such as the ability to handle audio and multimedia or footage files as well as photographs.

MEMAT 3 includes the following basic features:

Digital Asset Management: You can store, manage metadata, organise, display and retrieve digital images, audio files and footage or multimedia files using IPTC and XMP standards. High res media files can be uploaded from anywhere in the world.

Customer relationship management: Integrated with a professional user management program – SugarCRM for managing visitors to your site. Users also have their own account page to track their activity on the site.

Security: Permission based interfaces allow you decide on the levels of access you give others to view, license and download your media.

Advanced lightbox features: Site users can create, edit and view lightboxes and then email lightbox links and watermarked comps, as well as share, copy and move media files between lightboxes and lightbox users.

MEMAT History

The first version of MEMAT was launched in 2001. In 2005 the entire system was upgraded to MEMAT 2 using Open Source technologies, building on lessons learned in the first version. MEMAT 3.0 was another revision to make use of the latest Open Source technologies and was launched in 2009. Improvements in MEMAT 3 have resulted in the latest release of MEMAT 3.1

Africa Media Online has created a product based on its own experiences at the heart of the heritage and media industries with years of experience in developing and using photographic websites and running an extensive media library. We are also experts in large volume digitisation and digital work flow and MEMAT forms a crucial part of this work flow.

MEMAT 3.1 Improvements over MEMAT 3.0:

• Ecommerce is now available with a flexible pricing calculator
• You can select to give users access to downloading either high, medium, low or web res images.
• User download information is stored in “My downloads” in the new “Account” section.
• Extra functionality in the lightboxes
• SugarCRM – MEMAT 3.1 is integration with a professional CRM tool
• The option to have various media types – images, audio and footage

Official MEMAT 3 Website

MEMAT 3 Website Examples

Download the MEMAT 3 order form for details of pricing or to place an order for a MEMAT site.

MEMAT 3.1 Features

MEMAT 3.1 System Architecture

Looking back on the project, Dave Larsen, Director of Africa Media Online, outlines some of the successes achieved:

• We did get the Twenty Ten material under the noses of editors of a significant number of leading publication in Africa and all over the World
• We gained significant profile in leading industry publications
• We built distribution systems that worked extremely effectively distributing content to all corners of the globe in short periods of time
• We gave profile to numbers of African media professionals
• We put the issue of Africans telling Africa’s story on the media agenda in the media industry
• We made a lot of content accessible to a lot of people in Africa and around the world, primarily through trade exchanges
• We sold some content that brought some initial revenue to the participating journalists
• We will continue to sell content over the years ahead and to provide one platform for journalists to be commissioned

“In view of this our perspective as Africa Media Online is that this has been a worthwhile project. We attempted a very great thing and while we did not obtain everything we would have wished for, collectively we accomplished something significant.”

As part of the Twenty Ten project, World Press Photo hosted two multimedia workshops in 2010, one in Johannesburg, South Africa, and one in Lusaka, Zambia. These were the first two multimedia workshops run by World Press Photo in its 55 year history, reflecting the shift taking place in photojournalism globally with the growing influence of new media platforms. The Zambia workshop was hosted by Panos Southern Africa who not only provided both excellent logistical support, but also provided much needed input in terms of fixing and story opportunities. As Managing Director of Africa Media Online I was there as part of our involvement as a partner in the Twenty Ten project and put together this multimedia production in an attempt to capture both something of the value of the training provided by DJ Clark and Jonathan Torgovnik and something of what multimedia journalism is.

The Twenty Ten project is funded by the Dutch Postcode Lottery and is a partnership between World Press Photo, FreeVoice, Africa Media Online and lokaalmondiaal training over 120 African journalists ahead of the 2010 FIFA World Cup to tell Africa’s story from an African perspective at a time when the world’s attention is focused on Africa’s first World Cup.

Twenty Ten Multimedia Workshop in Zambia from Africa Media Online on Vimeo.

Click here to view the best of the multimedia productions that have emerged out of the Johannesburg and Lusaka Workshops. Use rights to these and other productions that will be produced over the period of the lead up to and during the 2010 FIFA World Cup can be purchased from Africa Media Online.

Mark Namanya is based in Uganda where he is the sports editor for the Daily Monitor. In November we posted an article about Mark’s impressions of South Africa and the impact of Western media on his preconceptions of the country. Mark has written one article so far for the Twenty Ten Project’s Africa Media Online. The article focuses on the 100 year rivalry between two soccer clubs based in Cairo, Al-Alhy and Zamalek. He gives an account of how this soccer made capital becomes “football crazy” on the day of this yearly soccer match.

Crazy fans enjoy life in the slow lane

Mark Namanya/Daily Monitor/Twentyten

Location: Cairo, Egypt

Take an iconic city, quadruple its population, add a few million foreign visitors, throw in the mother of all traffic jams for good measure and then stage one of the most passionate sporting occasions imaginable and what do you end up with?
“Madness,” most people would call it.
In Africa, they have another word for it: “Cairo”.
You certainly have to be crazy – and football crazy in particular – to venture out into the streets of the Egyptian capital on the day of the Al Ahly-Zamalek derby.
Few sporting occasions around the world can match its intensity. The two clubs have a rivalry which can be traced back almost 100 years and which has dominated Egyptian football for as long as most people can remember.
When the two sides meet – or, indeed, when Egypt take…

FOR THE FULL STORY OF 860 WORDS CONTACT pictures@africamediaonline.com

The Dream Team will be producing content all the way through the end of the World Cup and beyond. If you are intersted in purchasing some of our content or commissioning a specific piece please feel free to contact us.