November 6, 2025 • 39 mins
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What does it really take to build a creative career that lasts—from film backs and FedExed portfolios to AI search and virtual production walls? The Dead Pixels Society sits down with commercial photographer and stock photo library owner Stewart Cohen to trace a candid arc across decades of change, revealing what fades, what scales, and what never stops mattering.
Cohen starts with the old-school apprenticeship: assisting legends, traveling light, and learning how to manage clients when the stakes are high. He explains why he chose commercial work over weddings, the thrill of annual reports that sent him around the world, and how he built trust before online portfolios existed. When digital upended the economics—killing film costs while introducing tech overhead—he didn’t flinch. He rebuilt the business model, focused on relationships, and found leverage in licensing by treating every frame as an asset that can pay again and again.
Cohen then digs into ownership and strategy. He shares why he acquired Superstock, how he invests in metadata and modern search, and where AI currently fits: powering discovery and efficiency rather than chasing loss-leading generative tools. He talks about the market’s swing away from over-retouched perfection toward authenticity, and how video workflows are transforming with virtual production walls, smarter post, and lighter gear. Through it all, one theme anchors the story: deliver on time and on budget, but bring heart to the picture. Tools change; trust and taste don’t.
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Hosted and produced by Gary Pageau
Edited by Olivia Pageau
Announcer: Erin Manning
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Erin Manning (00:01):
Welcome to the Dead Pixels Society Podcast, the
photoimaging industry's leadingnews source.
Here's your host, Gary Pageau.
The Dead Pixels Society Podcastis brought to you by Media
clip, Advertek Printing, andIndependent Photo Imagers.
Gary Pageau (00:17):
Hello again, and welcome to the Dead Pixels
Society Podcast.
I'm your host, Gary Pageau, andtoday we're joined by Stewart
Cohen, who's been running SCPictures out of Dallas, Texas
for a lot of years.
He's a commercial photographer,and he's got a lot of insights
to share.
Hi, Stewart.
How are you today?
Stewart Cohen (00:37):
Gary, thanks for having me.
I'm u kind of excited to behere.
Just our initial conversationsabout the photo biz are
intriguing.
Gary Pageau (00:46):
Yeah, I was gonna say I kind of I kind of wish
we'd started recording about 15minutes ago when we were doing
the preamble for this.
That's usually how it goes,though.
So, Stewart, tell us your storyabout being a commercial
photographer, how you got intothe business, how you've stayed
in the business, as we know.
That has changed dramaticallyover the last 10, 15, 20 years.
Stewart Cohen (01:08):
Indeed.
Indeed, how I got into it is Iloved seeing work that people
were doing, like traveling allover the world, meeting new
people, and just really exoticstuff.
I went down the old path ofcommercial photography where I
went to school and then I workedas a photo assistant for a
couple of years.
I had the good opportunity todo some time working with Arnold
(01:31):
Newman and Helmut Newton.
Okay.
So my photo assisting life wasfantastic.
And then I started out on myown.
And I still have assistants tocome work for me.
And I've, you know, I have thiswhole now uh yearbook of guys
that have had had gone on tohave really great careers.
And I know the old way ofassisting has gone away a lot.
(01:54):
A lot of people think theycould do it without doing it.
Although everybody that comesthrough here says, and this is
what I learned too, is there'sso much you learn from an
established working photographerthat you could never learn from
a YouTube video.
Gary Pageau (02:10):
Well, yeah, of course.
And that is sort of one of thethings that's changed, right?
Is sort of that whole idea ofthe process where you know
you're gonna be the person onthe side schlepping film into
the back into the film backs andhanding them off to the
photographer and keeping thosethings in, you know, labeled for
the lab and all thoseorganizational type things you
(02:30):
need to know.
And that's kind of gone by thewayside.
Stewart Cohen (02:33):
Right.
But at the same time, you werealso, you know, packing to
travel, flying through airports,staying in hotels, learning how
to deal with clients, learninghow to interact, going to client
dinners and learning how to bea human being, you know, as
opposed to like a collegestudent.
Um so there was a lot oflearning, like life learning
that I think that's what's gone.
(02:55):
And and understanding, youknow, like when you'd be on a
huge job, you know, if if I hadcome out of school and somebody
present, nobody would presentyou with a job that's like a
half a million dollars, youknow.
But all of a sudden, you know,you're number two in command on
a project that has a lot ofmoney attached to it.
You learn a lot and you learnfast, and you learn how to take
(03:16):
on that responsibility and howto be comfortable with that
responsibility.
And I think that's what'sreally important.
You know, the the second partof your question is, and it's an
easy one, because and that'swhy I'll just answer it quickly.
Like, how have I stayed in thisbusiness and maintained it?
I mean, maybe because I'm toodumb to change, but um no, I
love it.
(03:36):
I mean, I still love it.
I still like I two weeks ago Iwas in Shanghai, and one of my
old assistants lives there, andwe were out.
I I made him take me around tocertain areas I wanted to see
that he had never been to.
And he's and he's just watchingme shoot and he's like, Man,
you really love this, don't you?
And I'm like, I absolutely do.
He said, I don't love it asmuch as that.
I'm not I'm not doing it likeyou are.
(03:57):
And yeah, and I think that thatprobably pretty much sums it
up.
It's like, you know, I do loveit, and I think that's why you
stick with anything.
Gary Pageau (04:05):
Okay.
Well, that's tough though, tokeep that sort of passion going,
because I had a friend of minewho's a photographer, you know,
kind of did wedding doesweddings in the weekend, that
sort of thing.
And he says, Nothing kills yourlove of photography faster than
having a photography business.
Stewart Cohen (04:22):
Well, I mean, some people could say that or it
or or it fuels it, you know.
Yeah, that's true.
Gary Pageau (04:26):
Yeah.
Stewart Cohen (04:27):
Now, granted, if I had done weddings my whole
career or ever and had to dealwith mothers of the bride, I
don't think I would love iteither.
Gary Pageau (04:36):
Yeah.
Stewart Cohen (04:36):
I mean, I think I listen, I'm a huge admirer of
some of that work that's beingdone these days by some wedding
guys, but they're they havebudgets, like they're, you know,
they're it's like amillion-dollar shoot, you know,
with great styling andeveryone's dressed perfectly and
and the flowers are perfect.
And so it's like they have thisbeautiful set.
Like for us to do a TVcommercial or still shoot that's
(04:57):
dressed so perfectly, that's anexpensive shoot.
Right.
So, aside from if you could getaround the stress of it being
somebody's biggest day and youbetter not mess it up, right?
I mean, I think there's somereally fantastic moments to be
captured.
Sure.
Gary Pageau (05:11):
Now, was that a conscious decision on your part
to not do weddings or that sortof thing?
Because why?
What was that decision?
Because I mean, if you workedwith, you know, Hellman Newton,
you you certainly sawportraiture being done.
Stewart Cohen (05:26):
Sure.
Well, I mean, the weddings wereit was just never on my radar.
Um, you know, I like we weresaying earlier, I think it was
considered a different kind ofphotography, and I always wanted
to do commercial advertisingwork.
And yeah, so I it just neverreally crossed my radar.
You know, I went after uhcorporate, like when I started
out, you know, was still back inthe day of annual reports.
(05:49):
And yeah, but I mean, one of myfirst big jobs was I got to do
the Intel annual report where Iwent around the world.
And luckily I had done thingslike that when I was a photo
assistant, so it didn't totallyfreak me out.
But it was like it you justtraveled and you got to go
places and they'd say shoot coolstuff.
Gary Pageau (06:10):
Right.
Stewart Cohen (06:10):
And it was it was fantastic, you know.
So that that was my entrance,you know, and probably the
first, I don't know, five, 10years, you know, we did a lot of
that stuff, and basically not alot of art direction.
So it wasn't like, you know,subsequently, like when I got
into the ad game, you know,you'd have a layout and you're
shooting for a layout.
And but those early days, weneed a couple pictures from each
(06:33):
office in seven countries.
Go do it.
And it would just be like, wow,okay.
And so, you know, you'd go, itwas it was small crews back
then, you know, there was maybethree or four of you total, and
it would just be like come upwith good stuff, you know, and
you'd be working.
And and those days, that waswith a lot of graph good graphic
(06:53):
designers, so it was a goodtraining too, because these guys
had super great eyes.
If your work wasn't reallygreat, you weren't getting the
next year's job, right?
Gary Pageau (07:03):
So, yeah.
So, so I'm just curious, like,you know, in that era, right?
We're talking about film, we'retalking about all that, you
know, that that era ofcommercial photography.
You know, how do you get thatyour foot in the door on a lot
of those things?
Because there weren't like youknow, online portfolios or
anything like they have now,right?
(07:24):
Or you know, you can't noInstagram feeds.
Stewart Cohen (07:30):
No, it was it was old school portfolios um that
you would have a printedportfolio, or the other thing we
did is we had enlargedtransparencies that we would
mount like on 11 by 14 boards,you know, like prints, and we
had a big portfolio box, andpeople would hold them up to the
light, and you would ship thosearound to people if they called
(07:52):
or you called them, and theywould look at your portfolio and
it would be whatever 20, 25pieces, and they would hire you
off of that.
You know, a lot of word ofmouth went a long way, and I
think it still does, really.
Gary Pageau (08:05):
Yeah, I yeah, I don't think that's changing.
Stewart Cohen (08:07):
Yeah, but but that was it, you know, and so so
if somebody was looking to do aproject, they would call in 10
or 15 portfolios and go throughthem all and probably make some
internal decision and then ofcourse vet it with the client.
We would pay for shipping oneway and that and they would pay
for it the other way.
(08:28):
But we had like, I don't know,10 or 12 copies of this
portfolio.
Gary Pageau (08:33):
Yeah, I was gonna say because I'm sure some of
them never made it back.
Stewart Cohen (08:36):
No, they always did, but it would be like there
would be days that you'd begoing to FedEx, you know, at you
know, the last drop-off atFedEx and dropping off seven or
eight portfolios and justkeeping your fingers crossed,
you know.
Gary Pageau (08:49):
Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's crazy.
So now can you talk about anyspecific like campaigns you
worked on that maybe werememorable that you know were
kind of like highlights fromback in that era?
Stewart Cohen (09:04):
Oh, back in that era, uh not really.
Gary Pageau (09:07):
You were doing a job, you were slapping things
around, right?
Stewart Cohen (09:10):
No, there was um, you know, early.
Uh I'm trying to think what itwas.
It was a Bud Light campaign, orI think it was Bud, that we got
to shoot in South Beach, youknow, with a lot of Latin models
and you know, jobs like thatthat will always stay with me
because it was like some of theearly days of getting to hire
talent and great stylists andjust again less layouts, more
(09:34):
like, okay, this is gonna be aparty at the beach.
And it's like, all right, let'sdo it.
And then the next day is okay,now we're doing a party in a
restaurant.
Yeah, you know, so I mean thatthose were really early.
It was like I remember once oneof the early first times I went
to shoot in Miami on a job likethat, and on the rental car bus
(09:54):
heading back, you know, fromthe lot to the airport, thinking
this was the closest I've cometo going to summer camp ever.
This was so much fun, right?
Gary Pageau (10:05):
And then the world changed, right?
The whole world of commercialphotography evolved and changed.
Obviously, you had digitalcoming in, so there are all
kinds of ways that workflowchanged.
And I don't want to get intothe technical side of you know
that sort of world, but how didthat change your business
approach as a commercialphotographer?
(10:26):
Because the the world ofcompetition opened up, right?
I mean, it really opened itreally opened up.
Stewart Cohen (10:33):
I think that was the beginning of the change
because I don't think thecompetition like caught up
immediately, but you know, thinkabout the craft, like what I've
seen, and and I do think aboutthe craft, and and not
shortchanging anybody todayusing automatic cameras, but you
know, I like when I started, weused to have to know how to
(10:54):
focus, you know, and and Iremember backwards and upside
down on a glass plate, right?
Well, no, yeah, yeah.
Well, that was four by five,but even 35.
I remember going in college,like going to the side of a
freeway with a 300 millimeterlens and trying to follow
license plates, right?
You know, because I was able togo shoot football games for for
(11:15):
my college.
So, you know, autofocus was ahuge that was the first thing
that was like, oh my god, thisis amazing.
And that was, I think, in thelate 90s.
And so, you know, I hadn't beendoing it that long, but it was
it was a big change.
And then, of course, um, youknow, digital, I I called the
you know, the digitaltransformation, which to me was
2006, like when the Canon 1DXcame out.
(11:38):
Yeah, um, I called that thefilm killer.
I remember that, you know,there was there was a lot of
trepidation and a lot of peoplesaying, Yeah, digital's great,
or no, it's not, we want to staywith film.
And I was doing a big job backthen for Nokia, and we decided,
you know, somebody had suggestedwe shoot it digitally, and we
(11:58):
decided that we were gonna do atest with their color separator.
So we shot the same subject onI think it was like three
different cameras, like film,two different kinds of film, and
and what was the preeminentdigital camera at the time.
And we sent them off to thesecolor separators, and they made
these giant prints, you know,like a piece of the file.
(12:21):
They made giant prints, andthere was this whole big meeting
called from my studio.
You know, their colorseparators were coming, the
clients were coming, everyonewas coming to see this and make
this decision.
And these guys came in, like, Idon't know, 10 minutes before
the meeting start and laid outthese big strips.
I wish I had kept them, andidentifying what was what.
And to me, it was like, okay,well, the conversation's over.
(12:42):
The digital was already so muchcleaner.
And I never ever shot anotherroll of film.
Like there were 300 rolls offilm in a fridge at the studio
that never got used.
And we finally, we finally westarted selling them like 10
years later, you know, becauseit we're like, um, we're never
gonna use this, let's just sellit.
(13:03):
That was a transformation fromfor us.
Yeah, you know, there was interms of from the photo
perspective, of course, therewas a big dollar change because
we used to charge by the roll offilm.
Gary Pageau (13:15):
Right.
Stewart Cohen (13:16):
Um, like, well, aside from, you know, it was
plus film and processing, andyou know, we would have a budget
for film and processing, butI'm the kind of guy that the our
jobs, we used to shoot 150, 200rolls of film.
Gary Pageau (13:27):
Right.
Stewart Cohen (13:28):
So, regardless of the markup, there was markup.
And that, of course, went outthe door.
Um, you know, then of coursedigital text came in into being,
and and you needed to keep upwith, you know, the digital
technology, just monitors andlaptops and and hard drives.
Gary Pageau (13:44):
Storage devices, yeah.
Stewart Cohen (13:45):
I mean, yeah, exactly.
And and you know, and you doburn through those, whatever you
think.
We use them hard and they gottorn up.
But again, it was just like,how do you re-jigger your
company to make it work for thecurrent economy?
And that's what we learned howto do.
And it was like, like it ornot, this is the way it's going.
And then I think shortlythereafter, that all of a sudden
(14:07):
there were some guys cominginto the industry that really
didn't understand kind of thecraft that we all had to learn.
And you can't really blame themfor it, it's just because
technology made things easier,and and that became, you know,
the the field started to getmore crowded, I'll just say.
Gary Pageau (14:24):
Yeah, and you've had people who may not have gone
through the apprenticeships orlike that, right?
Because they've got directfrom, you know, spanning we and
we've seen that in the portraitmarket too, right?
Where you had traditionalportrait photographers who maybe
went the PPA route and they gotthe medals and the
certifications and all that.
Yeah, you know, the weekendshooter with a you know, with a
(14:45):
Canon Rebel GSLR, you know, andthey're kind of competing.
And right, oh yeah, you can seethe difference, but is the
difference worth it, right?
Stewart Cohen (14:54):
You're absolutely right.
And you know what, but I willsay, and and I'm because I'm not
gonna I'm not gonna vote oneway or another on it, because
can you see the difference?
Yeah, whatever.
But I'm just gonna say that Ireally, really enjoyed the whole
opportunity to work with peoplethat were my legends, right?
And there would have been noother opportunity to do that,
(15:16):
you know.
Um, so anyway, yeah.
Gary Pageau (15:19):
So when you do that transition, right, when you see
that, so uh what how did youposition yourself in the
marketplace with that crowdedcompetition, right?
I mean, you you had a morecrowded competition than you
had, you know, maybe who wassomebody you're competing
against for a job who's maybemore styled than substance, if
you will.
Stewart Cohen (15:38):
Sure, absolutely.
And look, I think you got tojust understand that you're
competing, it's it's a biglandscape, and we were already
competing, you know,predominantly nationally.
I mean, some jobs wereinternationally, but you're
predominantly nationally.
So we were already in thatplaying field, and then all of a
sudden these new names startedto seep into that, you know,
(15:59):
that group of people that you'dalways bid against.
And it just became, you know,that's just part of it.
And so I tried to stay ahead.
You know, we definitelyadvertise to the trade a lot.
And I would really try tonurture relationships that we
did have and actively look for,you know, new relationships.
(16:20):
Yeah.
And I just think it's just oneof those things.
You just gotta, instead ofdriving on a country road,
you're getting onto a six-laneroad.
You just gotta focus on on yourpath and and and you know,
hopefully you continue.
Gary Pageau (16:34):
It seems like a lot of people, like I said, you you
know, you get into the businessbecause you love photography,
but there's the whole businesspiece of it that is not really
photography, right?
It's just customer relations,it's new business development,
it's sales, it's rightacquisitions, it's doing a bunch
of different things.
Where did you learn that kindof stuff?
Stewart Cohen (16:58):
I think some of that, because I didn't go to
business school and right,that's why I asked.
Yeah.
I I think some of that luckilywas like I I had an innate sense
that I knew you couldn't spendmore than you made.
That's where it started.
And and I do love the business.
Uh I love the business of it.
(17:19):
Um, I'm very comfortable withthe negotiations and and so on
and so forth.
And I still I I always watchedthe bottom line in in a
responsible way, not not to afault, you know, but just you
know, and and would takecalculated risks based on cash
and stuff like that.
It was trial and error.
(17:39):
And luckily I I had hired somepeople along the way that were
really, you know, we saw eye toeye in terms of managing the
money, and and it kind of set meon a good path.
Gary Pageau (17:50):
Because that's always one of the things I hear,
especially in the portraitsegment of the market, right?
Is they're great artists, butnot the greatest business
people.
Stewart Cohen (17:58):
Well, well, the one thing I always say, and and
I've always heard, and I heardthis way back, is there were
people that are great businesspeople that aren't great
photographers and they couldhave fantastic careers.
And then there are people thatare great photographers and who
didn't have a lot of greatbusiness acumen and they
struggled, you know, and a lotof them ended up leaving the
(18:18):
field or doing something else.
I think I'm lucky in that I hada pretty good split of left
brain, right brain, and knewwhen I could turn on the, you
know, like when we were talkingabout roles of film, just say,
for instance, like I knew whenwe hit the budget and I wasn't
going over that budget, youknow.
Right.
So, you know, stuff like that.
Very, very cognizant of thedollars going out.
(18:39):
And I could do that in the backof my head while still playing
the creative game.
Gary Pageau (18:44):
Now, is your company set up so that you're
doing the most of the work?
I mean, obviously it's SCPictures and you're the SC of
that, but do you have otherpeople who are like on in your
stable who meet with clients anddo the work?
I mean, what how big is yourcompany?
Stewart Cohen (19:00):
Um, it the company has ebbed and flowed
over the years.
Right.
I am the only person thatshoots.
I tried to scale the businessmultiple times and I and I call
it you know, years running intowalls.
Gary Pageau (19:13):
Right.
Stewart Cohen (19:14):
And I realized that it wasn't in my best
interest because then you'remanaging other people's careers.
So I've kept it that I um I wasthe only one that's shooting,
and I have a relatively, youknow, I've had a relatively
large support staff on and offover the years.
You know, I have a full-timeproducer in Digitech, and you
know, we also leveraged a lot ofuh the work that the previously
(19:37):
shot work, or I shoot a lotwithout clients, you know, just
for licensing reasons.
And I was pretty lucky early inmy career when the whole
licensing world was exploding tobe an early contributor to
Getty Images and you know itspredecessor, and that taught me
how to really try to leverageevery frame that you shoot.
Gary Pageau (20:01):
Yeah, so let's talk a little bit about the
licensing piece of the businessbecause you own a stock
organization, right?
And you've made someacquisitions over the years.
What kind of steered youtowards that?
Is it because you kind of hadthe idea that you know
intellectual property wasimportant?
Stewart Cohen (20:15):
Actually, one of the guys I worked for who I'm
going to his 80th birthday in acouple of weeks, um, and he was
a big influence on me.
He exposed me to the world oflicensing because people would
call him to reuse something, noteven through a stock agency.
This is back.
And I would see it's like, wow,he shot that two years ago and
he just got paid, you know, Xamount of dollars for it.
(20:37):
That sounds good.
Gary Pageau (20:39):
Should have once monetized multiple times.
Sounds like a really bottle.
Stewart Cohen (20:43):
So so early on, like right when I started on my
own, I started going lookingfor, and this is early stock
agencies, looking for somebodyto represent my work.
And I found uh somebody, and atthe time they were called Tony
Stone Images, and they were thepredecessor of Getty.
Gary Pageau (21:01):
I remember that name.
Stewart Cohen (21:02):
Yeah, and and they had a very tight editing
process, and they figured theydidn't need to show a lot of
work to people, they just neededto show the right work, and I
started getting checks everymonth.
I'm like, hmm, this works.
And and then they floated, butit had always been stuff that
(21:23):
was thought like ancillary to ajob, right?
But then they they floated theidea of you should shoot just
for licensing.
Gary Pageau (21:32):
Right.
Stewart Cohen (21:32):
And so I started trying to do that, and it
actually worked back then.
And to the to the extent thatthey would say, Hey, Stewart
like we want to do this job.
We we we feel like there's aneed for this work in Cuba.
Here's an example.
And then we're going back tothe turn of the century, like
around 2000.
And they said they would sendan art director and some ideas,
(21:55):
but it's all on me financially.
And they said they think that Icould probably make the money
back in a year or two years fromlicensing.
So we went down to Cuba thereillegally.
No, I was Canadian, I amCanadian.
Um, and we shot and spent, youknow, I think I remember
actually exactly how much.
(22:16):
We spent around $40,000.
When I tell you that I probablymade a couple million dollars
off of that shoot, I'm probablynot, I'm not lying.
You know, my my whistle waswet, so so to speak.
So I really went head into it.
Like when we weren't shootingjobs, we were shooting other
things that we were trying tolicense.
And we had some really, reallygreat years doing that.
You know, obviously, as youknow, that industry has has had
(22:39):
some some really downward pricepressure as well and a lot of
competition.
But yeah, so I did a lot of it.
And then when when Getty boughttheir first footage collection,
was a company called FabulousFootage.
They called me because theyknew I shot film too.
And I flew to LA and we talkedabout it, and I started shooting
(22:59):
some of their earlierproductions that were shot
solely for licensing, and that'spretty much how I started with
it.
Yeah.
Gary Pageau (23:07):
So I mean, you've you've acquired companies along
the way.
Was that just because werethere opportunistic where people
just said, hey, I want togather business, here's my
library, or were there segmentsthat you felt you know would
like bolster your catalog, ifyou will?
You were trying to fill gaps inyour catalog?
Stewart Cohen (23:27):
No, I would call it a moment of weakness.
So these guys that I knew wereputting together a crew to buy
Superstock, and Superstock hadbeen around since the 1970s.
It was a New York uh agency,and it it its predecessor was
four by five.
(23:48):
These were early, early stockagencies, and it was falling on
hard times.
This is the early 2000s, andthey asked if I wanted to be a
part of it, and I said,absolutely not.
And then they said, Well, wouldyou invest some money to help
us buy it?
And guarantee you we're gonnamake you money, you know.
And and back in the day then, Ihad some cash, some liquid
(24:09):
cash.
So I threw some cash at themand it didn't really go
anywhere.
And and I'll just fast forward,there's a big story behind it.
But years later, um, thecompany was down on its heels,
and I volunteered to step in tosee if I could help steer it and
threw some pretty bad decisionson my part.
Um, but but I really loved thecollection.
(24:32):
Like they owned, they ownedsome vintage collection, vintage
archives that I thought werereally valuable.
And I'm a big collector ofphotography as well.
And so I saw the value in that.
So I pretty much stepped up andbought all my partners out and
invested in it and continue toinvest in it and to make sure
that the technology was up tosnuff and so on and so forth.
(24:56):
And um, so yeah, that's the thenet net is here we are now in
2025, and I've owned it for sixyears and and have invested in
it heavily in the tech side,which makes me interested in
podcasts like yours because youstart to listen to all these
guys in the tech world aboutdigital marketing and about
digital development.
And I've become now that's partof my spiel, also.
(25:19):
I start to understand that.
And um, I think it's still ahard space, but I do still love
the pictures.
I love the we manage now 27million assets, digital assets,
video and stills.
It's another adventure.
Gary Pageau (25:34):
So, in the last couple of years, you've had this
whole generative AI thinghappen and where people are
trying to you know createcontent using prompts and
things.
And I've heard, you know,there's a bunch of different you
know approaches to that wherepeople are either wildly for it
because it, like you saidearlier, democratizes, you know,
that there's other peopleagainst it because it's not
(25:55):
real, you know.
And I as we were talkingearlier, it's just a tool, it's
just gonna happen.
Um, where is the place for acompany like yours in that
space?
Because, you know, I've seenwhat Getty's announced and some
of the other people wherethey're like, we're gonna also
offer generative stuff too.
I think, and I think they'redoing that to kind of you know
(26:17):
seem hipping with it until theyfigure out what's gonna happen.
Stewart Cohen (26:21):
Well, they are.
I think I think uh Getty,Shutterstock, Adobe, they're all
doing that, they're alloffering it.
We have a subscription to theservice that the same service
they use.
We haven't really implementedit in terms of creating
generative fill yet, because welook at their annual their
public companies, we look attheir annual reports and they're
not making any money on it.
Gary Pageau (26:42):
Right.
Stewart Cohen (26:43):
And it's expensive.
But we have implemented a bunchof AI for search and for um, so
for finding similars and forkeyword search, and so we're
using AI in every way, shape, orform.
You know, we're we're engagingall the tools.
Uh, we just have not rolled outa customer-facing generative
(27:06):
fill uh option yet, because wehaven't seen, I mean, we still
do need to pay the bills, youknow.
And right now, I mean, if youlook at you look at Getty's
balance sheet, I mean, they'rethey're you know, they might
they might be grossing a billiondollars a year, but they're
spending a billion and one, youknow.
Right.
Gary Pageau (27:23):
Yeah, and that's one of the challenges I think
where people who aren't in thebusiness don't realize, you
know, every time you're hittingthat server to generate an
image, you're that that there'sa cost structure to that.
And exactly, you know, ifsomebody's just playing on your
website, it may seem like you'redoing what you used to do,
which was go to a light tablewith some slides and with it
with an eyepiece and look at allthe various options that are
(27:45):
there, then you pick the one.
Well, generative may feel likethe same thing, right?
Hey, I'm gonna, but every timeyou're doing that, you're you're
paying for that slide, if youwill.
You're right, exactly.
Yeah, you're being dinged forit.
Exactly.
Stewart Cohen (27:57):
So depending on who's paying for it.
But listen, I think as a as Iwe're obviously in the middle of
a revolution.
Sure.
So, you know, I'm not gonnatake a stand one way or another.
I think it's a pretty valuabletool.
I think how it's gonna net outis still a big question mark to
all of us, but I do think it'sgetting exciting and it's you
know, interesting landscape.
Gary Pageau (28:18):
Well, it is one of those things where you know a
lot of the legal side hasn'teven been worked out, right?
Because when you generate animage, who owns that, right?
No one technically owns it,right?
So if you're licensing it, youknow, who really owns that?
I don't know if that's beenactually determined yet.
And I mean, except they'redetermined that an AI can't
create anything, so thereforethere's no copyright.
(28:40):
But if you're using it forcommercial use, and that's just
oh my gosh.
And then you have the issuewith, you know, who did you have
the original license to evenlook at the images to build your
models from?
Stewart Cohen (28:51):
Right, right.
And I think there's somelawsuits that are kind of in
play currently on all that.
But listen, we we do take someAI generated, we do license some
AI generated content onSuperstock.
And there have been somepictures that I see, you know, I
have this live feed that showsme everything that gets
licensed.
And I saw a picture, and Imean, before I I mean, I figured
(29:14):
out in a second that it was AI,but it was great.
I mean, it was really, reallygreat.
It was like somebody pouring adrink with you know steam coming
off it or something.
And I I commented to one of ourguys, I'm like, oh my God, we
sold this digital picture.
And I said, I think thepicture's great.
I couldn't have shot it for forthat.
And and you know, he said, Ofcourse you could have shot it.
(29:35):
I'm like, yeah, I could haveshot it, but it would have been
expensive and there would havebeen a lot of retouching.
And the fact that we manage therights to that picture for
whatever and and we licensed it,it was great.
And to your point, yes, peoplecan make them themselves, but at
the same time, if you're an artdirector and you just need a
(29:56):
picture of X, Y, Z and you justsee it as like I don't I don't
need to spend 45 minutesprompting stuff, you know.
Right.
Let me just license it.
You know, clients are payingfor it anyway.
Gary Pageau (30:07):
So Yeah.
And you know, time time ismoney in those cases because,
you know, if you spend any timeat all on these, on these models
and doing these things, youknow, you can start and then two
hours later you're stilldorking around with it.
Stewart Cohen (30:19):
Oh, it is it is a time suck.
It's kind of like early days ofPhotoshop or even thinking time
in the dark room.
It all it's all equivalent.
I mean, you know, you could godown a dark hole and it's really
fun, but it just next time youlook at your watch, you're like,
oh my God, you know.
Gary Pageau (30:34):
So one of the things that that's happening is
I think it always actuallyraises the bar of of what's
possible and the qualitythereof.
Because, like you said, thatimage that was created was
pretty darn good.
And right, so if you're so ifyou're if you're really shooting
that that type of image, right,a cup with steam coming off of
(30:56):
it or whatever, that's whatyou're competing against.
Stewart Cohen (30:59):
But no, no, so here's something this is of
interest.
So for a minute, I think,especially ad agencies were
over-retouching pictures,absolutely.
Like photoshopping them todeath, you know.
So even something that I thinkwould have been great, as is it
got like, oh, I want to changethis, I want to move this, I
want to change this, you know,nearly to death.
(31:20):
Now, what we're seeing with AIis you could just create that
right out of the bag.
I think what we're seeing is aswing back to show me something
that makes me believe that itwas really shot.
Gary Pageau (31:31):
Right.
Stewart Cohen (31:32):
And I think we're gonna see that trend.
I think we're gonna see thattrend.
Gary Pageau (31:35):
Well, yeah, so I mean we're definitely seeing it
in in the capture side of thebusiness with the growth of
film, right?
Where there's like people aresaying, hey, look, you know,
this is really an authenticpicture.
Now, you know, again, I'm I'mlike you, I haven't shot a lot
of film because in the last 20years, because there's a digital
thing, but there's certainlyyou know that approach that
(31:56):
right and and and and I thinkthat's something that people
gotta remember in this businessbecause you know, that
authenticity piece is what'simportant, right?
That is what I think you canascribe an actual higher value
to as opposed to an AI-generatedimage, right?
Stewart Cohen (32:14):
Or something that's just r over retouched to
perfection, that it's like yeah,it's obviously not real.
So, anyway, I think that's areally interesting, interesting
trend that we're gonna see thatthat I'm enjoying.
Those of us that areprofessionals, I mean, your eyes
are pretty finely tuned anyway,right?
And and and the pictures are90% of the way there anyway, to
(32:35):
begin with, unless you're doingsome crazy compositing.
Gary Pageau (32:39):
And on the video side, with video assets, I think
that's actually gonna have abigger impact, I think, in a lot
of ways, because you know, theentertainment industry is gonna
be impacted a lot by thisbecause you know, I know a lot
of stock images are you knowused in film, right?
Or stock footage that's in thebackground of us.
Now a lot of that stuff can begenerated.
Stewart Cohen (33:01):
That's correct.
I I think that's gonna that'sgonna be huge.
And I think, you know, evenwhat we've seen is you know,
like rotoscoping, like when youknow the the the difference, say
we were doing a campaign wherewe were doing the TV and the
stills, and we knew somethinghad to be retouched.
It was not a big deal.
It's like, yeah, yeah, we'lljust do that in post.
(33:21):
On the footage, though, it wassomething because we're gonna
have to get it rotoscoped and itwas expensive.
You know, now we've seen someof our editors, you know, being
able to use some of the toolsout there and just remove things
or change things.
Gary Pageau (33:34):
Right.
Stewart Cohen (33:34):
And it's gotten good.
Um, you know, but the wholelive action production, we're
gonna see some crazy changes.
And you know, think about itwith volume walls now.
I mean, the stuff that thatwe're being able to do is
pretty, pretty amazing.
Gary Pageau (33:50):
Now, what do you mean by a volume wall for the
people who don't know what thatis?
Stewart Cohen (33:54):
Well, you know, they have, and I guess the one
thing that everybody knew islike they how they shot the
Mandalorian, right?
Because that was, I think, thefirst show to ever use it.
So think about a 270-degreevideo wall that's moving,
including the ceiling.
And you see it in a lot of carcampaigns too.
Yeah.
So the environment is real, andit's not like just you're
(34:16):
shooting in front of a picturebecause it's a video background.
Right.
So as the camera moves, itmoves just like your eye would
do it.
But you're doing it in thestudio, you know.
So what you see is likesometimes you see these car ads
today that it's like they'redriving through the desert, you
know.
And but the truth is the onlything, the only desert that's
(34:37):
there is, you know, your artdepartment has built the floor
with a bunch of rocks and theyelevate the car so the wheels
are spinning, but then the wholebackground is just moving, you
know, and you have hydraulicjacks to make the cars move.
So I think what that's doingis, you know, granted, I'm a guy
that that started out reallyloving to go on location.
(34:57):
Right.
And that's why I got into itand I wanted to travel and go on
location.
Unfortunately, a lot of whatwe're gonna see going forward is
you're gonna be able to producesome really stellar work in a
studio, right?
Gary Pageau (35:10):
I've seen some behind behind the scenes stuff
on some of the movies that areout there.
Like, I didn't really evenrealize this, but like there was
that uh Batman movie from acouple years ago that was almost
all shot inside a studio, eventhe car chases and everything.
There were no actual movingvehicles, and you can't tell.
Stewart Cohen (35:30):
No, you can't tell.
And pretty much any TV show yousee with like people having a
conversation in a moving car, Imean, it's not real.
Gary Pageau (35:38):
Well, it never used to be that way before, but you
could tell, right?
I mean, you could they wouldhave like a the screen behind
them jiggling, yeah, yeah, likeI'm doing like Andy Griffith's
show or something like that.
Stewart Cohen (35:48):
Exactly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um, but I think it's gonna opena lot of doors to some really
amazing creativity.
Sure.
Gary Pageau (35:55):
Sure.
And and it's and it's gonnaimpact a lot of people, right?
I mean, like you were saying uhbefore we started, you know,
there's gonna be some fallout,there's gonna be some attrition
in the industry.
Uh right, it's gonna happen.
Stewart Cohen (36:08):
But I think I think some jobs will go and then
some new jobs will come, right?
You know, yeah, and they'll bedifferent.
I mean, and who knows whatthey'll be, but you're already
seeing it.
You know, there's like, youknow, might be tech jobs, but
yeah, I I don't know if it'lltotally balance out what we lose
to what we gain, but I thinkpart of that also, if you talk
about gear, you know, how gearhas become so much, I'll just
(36:32):
say lighter, smaller.
Oh, sure.
Gary Pageau (36:34):
You know, you you don't need as many guys on a lot
of or as many people um, youknow, on your grip and electric
departments anymore because youdon't need as much light or you
get multiple cameras fromdifferent angles at the same
time because you got to putGoPros or Insta360s or yeah, or
drones all in the same shotcapturing different angles is
(36:55):
something that's true.
Stewart Cohen (36:56):
And even if you're using bigger cameras, you
know, compared to when we weredoing film, you know, your ISOs
are higher, so you don't need asmuch light.
And um, yeah, so it's madeproduction, I think it's
probably brought down the costof production, it's probably had
a net loss of some jobs interms of the you know, on the
(37:17):
group, yeah, those guys, but Ithink it's made it exciting.
I mean, you know, because youcould think of doing some really
interesting things with withoutneeding to spend a fortune.
Gary Pageau (37:29):
And yeah, I was just read something the other
day about how you know whenApple produced their race car
movie recently, you know, theyactually be because they could,
they they they they took theguts of an iPhone and put it
inside the the rear view mirroror something on one of the cars,
just so they could say theyused an iPhone in the
(37:49):
production.
And it was just really cool,right?
It was just something becauseof that small camera, they could
do that.
Stewart Cohen (37:55):
Yeah, and I I gotta tell you, like when you
see the ads, you know, for thenew iPhone 17, and right, I
mean, the camera technology isit's kind of nuts, you know.
Gary Pageau (38:05):
But what it's never gonna stop though is the
personal side of it, right?
I mean, like I like you said,you know, that piece of the
business, as much as changeyou've seen over the years,
right?
The ability to, yeah, you canhave all this great technology
and all these workflow processesand all this AI stuff, but if
you can deliver the job on timeon budget for the client, right.
Stewart Cohen (38:27):
And it has to have some soul, right?
You know, how many bad TV showsor movies have you seen that
just were soulless, you know,because they're leaning on on
these whiz-bang technologicalgags.
But you if you could put someheart in it and some soul in it,
I think that's what uh to yourpoint, I think that's what's
gonna continue forever.
(38:47):
And storytelling, juststorytelling.
Gary Pageau (38:50):
Speaking of continuing forever, where can
people go for more informationabout what you do and your
various companies?
Stewart Cohen (38:58):
Well, I would love you.
You know, you're all welcome tovisit the website, which is
scpictures.com, which is ourproduction website.
If you're looking to licenseany content or you want to be a
contributor to license content,it's superstock.com.
And of course, I'm on LinkedInand Stewart Cohen and Instagram
SCPictures.
(39:18):
And yeah, we'd love to have aconversation.
Gary Pageau (39:21):
Awesome.
Well, thank you, Stewart.
This has been fun.
Like I said, it was been it'sfun to trace the path of
somebody who kind of started inthe analog days and made the
transition to digital, didn'tlook back, and is now looking
forward.
Stewart Cohen (39:33):
So well, Gary, I I didn't I didn't think we were
gonna be going back that far,but it was a fun, fun walk down
memory lane there.
So thank you.
Gary Pageau (39:41):
Thanks so much, Stewart.
Take care.
Hope to talk to you again soon.
You too.
Erin Manning (39:45):
Thank you for listening to the Dead Pixel
Society podcast.
Read more great stories andsign up for the newsletter at
www.theadpixels society.com.
Welcome to the Dead Pixels Society Podcast, the
photoimaging industry's leadingnews source.
Here's your host, Gary Pageau.
The Dead Pixels Society Podcastis brought to you by Media
clip, Advertek Printing, andIndependent Photo Imagers.
Gary Pageau (00:17):
Hello again, and welcome to the Dead Pixels
Society Podcast.
I'm your host, Gary Pageau, andtoday we're joined by Stewart
Cohen, who's been running SCPictures out of Dallas, Texas
for a lot of years.
He's a commercial photographer,and he's got a lot of insights
to share.
Hi, Stewart.
How are you today?
Stewart Cohen (00:37):
Gary, thanks for having me.
I'm u kind of excited to behere.
Just our initial conversationsabout the photo biz are
intriguing.
Gary Pageau (00:46):
Yeah, I was gonna say I kind of I kind of wish
we'd started recording about 15minutes ago when we were doing
the preamble for this.
That's usually how it goes,though.
So, Stewart, tell us your storyabout being a commercial
photographer, how you got intothe business, how you've stayed
in the business, as we know.
That has changed dramaticallyover the last 10, 15, 20 years.
Stewart Cohen (01:08):
Indeed.
Indeed, how I got into it is Iloved seeing work that people
were doing, like traveling allover the world, meeting new
people, and just really exoticstuff.
I went down the old path ofcommercial photography where I
went to school and then I workedas a photo assistant for a
couple of years.
I had the good opportunity todo some time working with Arnold
(01:31):
Newman and Helmut Newton.
Okay.
So my photo assisting life wasfantastic.
And then I started out on myown.
And I still have assistants tocome work for me.
And I've, you know, I have thiswhole now uh yearbook of guys
that have had had gone on tohave really great careers.
And I know the old way ofassisting has gone away a lot.
(01:54):
A lot of people think theycould do it without doing it.
Although everybody that comesthrough here says, and this is
what I learned too, is there'sso much you learn from an
established working photographerthat you could never learn from
a YouTube video.
Gary Pageau (02:10):
Well, yeah, of course.
And that is sort of one of thethings that's changed, right?
Is sort of that whole idea ofthe process where you know
you're gonna be the person onthe side schlepping film into
the back into the film backs andhanding them off to the
photographer and keeping thosethings in, you know, labeled for
the lab and all thoseorganizational type things you
(02:30):
need to know.
And that's kind of gone by thewayside.
Stewart Cohen (02:33):
Right.
But at the same time, you werealso, you know, packing to
travel, flying through airports,staying in hotels, learning how
to deal with clients, learninghow to interact, going to client
dinners and learning how to bea human being, you know, as
opposed to like a collegestudent.
Um so there was a lot oflearning, like life learning
that I think that's what's gone.
(02:55):
And and understanding, youknow, like when you'd be on a
huge job, you know, if if I hadcome out of school and somebody
present, nobody would presentyou with a job that's like a
half a million dollars, youknow.
But all of a sudden, you know,you're number two in command on
a project that has a lot ofmoney attached to it.
You learn a lot and you learnfast, and you learn how to take
(03:16):
on that responsibility and howto be comfortable with that
responsibility.
And I think that's what'sreally important.
You know, the the second partof your question is, and it's an
easy one, because and that'swhy I'll just answer it quickly.
Like, how have I stayed in thisbusiness and maintained it?
I mean, maybe because I'm toodumb to change, but um no, I
love it.
(03:36):
I mean, I still love it.
I still like I two weeks ago Iwas in Shanghai, and one of my
old assistants lives there, andwe were out.
I I made him take me around tocertain areas I wanted to see
that he had never been to.
And he's and he's just watchingme shoot and he's like, Man,
you really love this, don't you?
And I'm like, I absolutely do.
He said, I don't love it asmuch as that.
I'm not I'm not doing it likeyou are.
(03:57):
And yeah, and I think that thatprobably pretty much sums it
up.
It's like, you know, I do loveit, and I think that's why you
stick with anything.
Gary Pageau (04:05):
Okay.
Well, that's tough though, tokeep that sort of passion going,
because I had a friend of minewho's a photographer, you know,
kind of did wedding doesweddings in the weekend, that
sort of thing.
And he says, Nothing kills yourlove of photography faster than
having a photography business.
Stewart Cohen (04:22):
Well, I mean, some people could say that or it
or or it fuels it, you know.
Yeah, that's true.
Gary Pageau (04:26):
Yeah.
Stewart Cohen (04:27):
Now, granted, if I had done weddings my whole
career or ever and had to dealwith mothers of the bride, I
don't think I would love iteither.
Gary Pageau (04:36):
Yeah.
Stewart Cohen (04:36):
I mean, I think I listen, I'm a huge admirer of
some of that work that's beingdone these days by some wedding
guys, but they're they havebudgets, like they're, you know,
they're it's like amillion-dollar shoot, you know,
with great styling andeveryone's dressed perfectly and
and the flowers are perfect.
And so it's like they have thisbeautiful set.
Like for us to do a TVcommercial or still shoot that's
(04:57):
dressed so perfectly, that's anexpensive shoot.
Right.
So, aside from if you could getaround the stress of it being
somebody's biggest day and youbetter not mess it up, right?
I mean, I think there's somereally fantastic moments to be
captured.
Sure.
Gary Pageau (05:11):
Now, was that a conscious decision on your part
to not do weddings or that sortof thing?
Because why?
What was that decision?
Because I mean, if you workedwith, you know, Hellman Newton,
you you certainly sawportraiture being done.
Stewart Cohen (05:26):
Sure.
Well, I mean, the weddings wereit was just never on my radar.
Um, you know, I like we weresaying earlier, I think it was
considered a different kind ofphotography, and I always wanted
to do commercial advertisingwork.
And yeah, so I it just neverreally crossed my radar.
You know, I went after uhcorporate, like when I started
out, you know, was still back inthe day of annual reports.
(05:49):
And yeah, but I mean, one of myfirst big jobs was I got to do
the Intel annual report where Iwent around the world.
And luckily I had done thingslike that when I was a photo
assistant, so it didn't totallyfreak me out.
But it was like it you justtraveled and you got to go
places and they'd say shoot coolstuff.
Gary Pageau (06:10):
Right.
Stewart Cohen (06:10):
And it was it was fantastic, you know.
So that that was my entrance,you know, and probably the
first, I don't know, five, 10years, you know, we did a lot of
that stuff, and basically not alot of art direction.
So it wasn't like, you know,subsequently, like when I got
into the ad game, you know,you'd have a layout and you're
shooting for a layout.
And but those early days, weneed a couple pictures from each
(06:33):
office in seven countries.
Go do it.
And it would just be like, wow,okay.
And so, you know, you'd go, itwas it was small crews back
then, you know, there was maybethree or four of you total, and
it would just be like come upwith good stuff, you know, and
you'd be working.
And and those days, that waswith a lot of graph good graphic
(06:53):
designers, so it was a goodtraining too, because these guys
had super great eyes.
If your work wasn't reallygreat, you weren't getting the
next year's job, right?
Gary Pageau (07:03):
So, yeah.
So, so I'm just curious, like,you know, in that era, right?
We're talking about film, we'retalking about all that, you
know, that that era ofcommercial photography.
You know, how do you get thatyour foot in the door on a lot
of those things?
Because there weren't like youknow, online portfolios or
anything like they have now,right?
(07:24):
Or you know, you can't noInstagram feeds.
Stewart Cohen (07:30):
No, it was it was old school portfolios um that
you would have a printedportfolio, or the other thing we
did is we had enlargedtransparencies that we would
mount like on 11 by 14 boards,you know, like prints, and we
had a big portfolio box, andpeople would hold them up to the
light, and you would ship thosearound to people if they called
(07:52):
or you called them, and theywould look at your portfolio and
it would be whatever 20, 25pieces, and they would hire you
off of that.
You know, a lot of word ofmouth went a long way, and I
think it still does, really.
Gary Pageau (08:05):
Yeah, I yeah, I don't think that's changing.
Stewart Cohen (08:07):
Yeah, but but that was it, you know, and so so
if somebody was looking to do aproject, they would call in 10
or 15 portfolios and go throughthem all and probably make some
internal decision and then ofcourse vet it with the client.
We would pay for shipping oneway and that and they would pay
for it the other way.
(08:28):
But we had like, I don't know,10 or 12 copies of this
portfolio.
Gary Pageau (08:33):
Yeah, I was gonna say because I'm sure some of
them never made it back.
Stewart Cohen (08:36):
No, they always did, but it would be like there
would be days that you'd begoing to FedEx, you know, at you
know, the last drop-off atFedEx and dropping off seven or
eight portfolios and justkeeping your fingers crossed,
you know.
Gary Pageau (08:49):
Right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's crazy.
So now can you talk about anyspecific like campaigns you
worked on that maybe werememorable that you know were
kind of like highlights fromback in that era?
Stewart Cohen (09:04):
Oh, back in that era, uh not really.
Gary Pageau (09:07):
You were doing a job, you were slapping things
around, right?
Stewart Cohen (09:10):
No, there was um, you know, early.
Uh I'm trying to think what itwas.
It was a Bud Light campaign, orI think it was Bud, that we got
to shoot in South Beach, youknow, with a lot of Latin models
and you know, jobs like thatthat will always stay with me
because it was like some of theearly days of getting to hire
talent and great stylists andjust again less layouts, more
(09:34):
like, okay, this is gonna be aparty at the beach.
And it's like, all right, let'sdo it.
And then the next day is okay,now we're doing a party in a
restaurant.
Yeah, you know, so I mean thatthose were really early.
It was like I remember once oneof the early first times I went
to shoot in Miami on a job likethat, and on the rental car bus
(09:54):
heading back, you know, fromthe lot to the airport, thinking
this was the closest I've cometo going to summer camp ever.
This was so much fun, right?
Gary Pageau (10:05):
And then the world changed, right?
The whole world of commercialphotography evolved and changed.
Obviously, you had digitalcoming in, so there are all
kinds of ways that workflowchanged.
And I don't want to get intothe technical side of you know
that sort of world, but how didthat change your business
approach as a commercialphotographer?
(10:26):
Because the the world ofcompetition opened up, right?
I mean, it really opened itreally opened up.
Stewart Cohen (10:33):
I think that was the beginning of the change
because I don't think thecompetition like caught up
immediately, but you know, thinkabout the craft, like what I've
seen, and and I do think aboutthe craft, and and not
shortchanging anybody todayusing automatic cameras, but you
know, I like when I started, weused to have to know how to
(10:54):
focus, you know, and and Iremember backwards and upside
down on a glass plate, right?
Well, no, yeah, yeah.
Well, that was four by five,but even 35.
I remember going in college,like going to the side of a
freeway with a 300 millimeterlens and trying to follow
license plates, right?
You know, because I was able togo shoot football games for for
(11:15):
my college.
So, you know, autofocus was ahuge that was the first thing
that was like, oh my god, thisis amazing.
And that was, I think, in thelate 90s.
And so, you know, I hadn't beendoing it that long, but it was
it was a big change.
And then, of course, um, youknow, digital, I I called the
you know, the digitaltransformation, which to me was
2006, like when the Canon 1DXcame out.
(11:38):
Yeah, um, I called that thefilm killer.
I remember that, you know,there was there was a lot of
trepidation and a lot of peoplesaying, Yeah, digital's great,
or no, it's not, we want to staywith film.
And I was doing a big job backthen for Nokia, and we decided,
you know, somebody had suggestedwe shoot it digitally, and we
(11:58):
decided that we were gonna do atest with their color separator.
So we shot the same subject onI think it was like three
different cameras, like film,two different kinds of film, and
and what was the preeminentdigital camera at the time.
And we sent them off to thesecolor separators, and they made
these giant prints, you know,like a piece of the file.
(12:21):
They made giant prints, andthere was this whole big meeting
called from my studio.
You know, their colorseparators were coming, the
clients were coming, everyonewas coming to see this and make
this decision.
And these guys came in, like, Idon't know, 10 minutes before
the meeting start and laid outthese big strips.
I wish I had kept them, andidentifying what was what.
And to me, it was like, okay,well, the conversation's over.
(12:42):
The digital was already so muchcleaner.
And I never ever shot anotherroll of film.
Like there were 300 rolls offilm in a fridge at the studio
that never got used.
And we finally, we finally westarted selling them like 10
years later, you know, becauseit we're like, um, we're never
gonna use this, let's just sellit.
(13:03):
That was a transformation fromfor us.
Yeah, you know, there was interms of from the photo
perspective, of course, therewas a big dollar change because
we used to charge by the roll offilm.
Gary Pageau (13:15):
Right.
Stewart Cohen (13:16):
Um, like, well, aside from, you know, it was
plus film and processing, andyou know, we would have a budget
for film and processing, butI'm the kind of guy that the our
jobs, we used to shoot 150, 200rolls of film.
Gary Pageau (13:27):
Right.
Stewart Cohen (13:28):
So, regardless of the markup, there was markup.
And that, of course, went outthe door.
Um, you know, then of coursedigital text came in into being,
and and you needed to keep upwith, you know, the digital
technology, just monitors andlaptops and and hard drives.
Gary Pageau (13:44):
Storage devices, yeah.
Stewart Cohen (13:45):
I mean, yeah, exactly.
And and you know, and you doburn through those, whatever you
think.
We use them hard and they gottorn up.
But again, it was just like,how do you re-jigger your
company to make it work for thecurrent economy?
And that's what we learned howto do.
And it was like, like it ornot, this is the way it's going.
And then I think shortlythereafter, that all of a sudden
(14:07):
there were some guys cominginto the industry that really
didn't understand kind of thecraft that we all had to learn.
And you can't really blame themfor it, it's just because
technology made things easier,and and that became, you know,
the the field started to getmore crowded, I'll just say.
Gary Pageau (14:24):
Yeah, and you've had people who may not have gone
through the apprenticeships orlike that, right?
Because they've got directfrom, you know, spanning we and
we've seen that in the portraitmarket too, right?
Where you had traditionalportrait photographers who maybe
went the PPA route and they gotthe medals and the
certifications and all that.
Yeah, you know, the weekendshooter with a you know, with a
(14:45):
Canon Rebel GSLR, you know, andthey're kind of competing.
And right, oh yeah, you can seethe difference, but is the
difference worth it, right?
Stewart Cohen (14:54):
You're absolutely right.
And you know what, but I willsay, and and I'm because I'm not
gonna I'm not gonna vote oneway or another on it, because
can you see the difference?
Yeah, whatever.
But I'm just gonna say that Ireally, really enjoyed the whole
opportunity to work with peoplethat were my legends, right?
And there would have been noother opportunity to do that,
(15:16):
you know.
Um, so anyway, yeah.
Gary Pageau (15:19):
So when you do that transition, right, when you see
that, so uh what how did youposition yourself in the
marketplace with that crowdedcompetition, right?
I mean, you you had a morecrowded competition than you
had, you know, maybe who wassomebody you're competing
against for a job who's maybemore styled than substance, if
you will.
Stewart Cohen (15:38):
Sure, absolutely.
And look, I think you got tojust understand that you're
competing, it's it's a biglandscape, and we were already
competing, you know,predominantly nationally.
I mean, some jobs wereinternationally, but you're
predominantly nationally.
So we were already in thatplaying field, and then all of a
sudden these new names startedto seep into that, you know,
(15:59):
that group of people that you'dalways bid against.
And it just became, you know,that's just part of it.
And so I tried to stay ahead.
You know, we definitelyadvertise to the trade a lot.
And I would really try tonurture relationships that we
did have and actively look for,you know, new relationships.
(16:20):
Yeah.
And I just think it's just oneof those things.
You just gotta, instead ofdriving on a country road,
you're getting onto a six-laneroad.
You just gotta focus on on yourpath and and and you know,
hopefully you continue.
Gary Pageau (16:34):
It seems like a lot of people, like I said, you you
know, you get into the businessbecause you love photography,
but there's the whole businesspiece of it that is not really
photography, right?
It's just customer relations,it's new business development,
it's sales, it's rightacquisitions, it's doing a bunch
of different things.
Where did you learn that kindof stuff?
Stewart Cohen (16:58):
I think some of that, because I didn't go to
business school and right,that's why I asked.
Yeah.
I I think some of that luckilywas like I I had an innate sense
that I knew you couldn't spendmore than you made.
That's where it started.
And and I do love the business.
Uh I love the business of it.
(17:19):
Um, I'm very comfortable withthe negotiations and and so on
and so forth.
And I still I I always watchedthe bottom line in in a
responsible way, not not to afault, you know, but just you
know, and and would takecalculated risks based on cash
and stuff like that.
It was trial and error.
(17:39):
And luckily I I had hired somepeople along the way that were
really, you know, we saw eye toeye in terms of managing the
money, and and it kind of set meon a good path.
Gary Pageau (17:50):
Because that's always one of the things I hear,
especially in the portraitsegment of the market, right?
Is they're great artists, butnot the greatest business
people.
Stewart Cohen (17:58):
Well, well, the one thing I always say, and and
I've always heard, and I heardthis way back, is there were
people that are great businesspeople that aren't great
photographers and they couldhave fantastic careers.
And then there are people thatare great photographers and who
didn't have a lot of greatbusiness acumen and they
struggled, you know, and a lotof them ended up leaving the
(18:18):
field or doing something else.
I think I'm lucky in that I hada pretty good split of left
brain, right brain, and knewwhen I could turn on the, you
know, like when we were talkingabout roles of film, just say,
for instance, like I knew whenwe hit the budget and I wasn't
going over that budget, youknow.
Right.
So, you know, stuff like that.
Very, very cognizant of thedollars going out.
(18:39):
And I could do that in the backof my head while still playing
the creative game.
Gary Pageau (18:44):
Now, is your company set up so that you're
doing the most of the work?
I mean, obviously it's SCPictures and you're the SC of
that, but do you have otherpeople who are like on in your
stable who meet with clients anddo the work?
I mean, what how big is yourcompany?
Stewart Cohen (19:00):
Um, it the company has ebbed and flowed
over the years.
Right.
I am the only person thatshoots.
I tried to scale the businessmultiple times and I and I call
it you know, years running intowalls.
Gary Pageau (19:13):
Right.
Stewart Cohen (19:14):
And I realized that it wasn't in my best
interest because then you'remanaging other people's careers.
So I've kept it that I um I wasthe only one that's shooting,
and I have a relatively, youknow, I've had a relatively
large support staff on and offover the years.
You know, I have a full-timeproducer in Digitech, and you
know, we also leveraged a lot ofuh the work that the previously
(19:37):
shot work, or I shoot a lotwithout clients, you know, just
for licensing reasons.
And I was pretty lucky early inmy career when the whole
licensing world was exploding tobe an early contributor to
Getty Images and you know itspredecessor, and that taught me
how to really try to leverageevery frame that you shoot.
Gary Pageau (20:01):
Yeah, so let's talk a little bit about the
licensing piece of the businessbecause you own a stock
organization, right?
And you've made someacquisitions over the years.
What kind of steered youtowards that?
Is it because you kind of hadthe idea that you know
intellectual property wasimportant?
Stewart Cohen (20:15):
Actually, one of the guys I worked for who I'm
going to his 80th birthday in acouple of weeks, um, and he was
a big influence on me.
He exposed me to the world oflicensing because people would
call him to reuse something, noteven through a stock agency.
This is back.
And I would see it's like, wow,he shot that two years ago and
he just got paid, you know, Xamount of dollars for it.
(20:37):
That sounds good.
Gary Pageau (20:39):
Should have once monetized multiple times.
Sounds like a really bottle.
Stewart Cohen (20:43):
So so early on, like right when I started on my
own, I started going lookingfor, and this is early stock
agencies, looking for somebodyto represent my work.
And I found uh somebody, and atthe time they were called Tony
Stone Images, and they were thepredecessor of Getty.
Gary Pageau (21:01):
I remember that name.
Stewart Cohen (21:02):
Yeah, and and they had a very tight editing
process, and they figured theydidn't need to show a lot of
work to people, they just neededto show the right work, and I
started getting checks everymonth.
I'm like, hmm, this works.
And and then they floated, butit had always been stuff that
(21:23):
was thought like ancillary to ajob, right?
But then they they floated theidea of you should shoot just
for licensing.
Gary Pageau (21:32):
Right.
Stewart Cohen (21:32):
And so I started trying to do that, and it
actually worked back then.
And to the to the extent thatthey would say, Hey, Stewart
like we want to do this job.
We we we feel like there's aneed for this work in Cuba.
Here's an example.
And then we're going back tothe turn of the century, like
around 2000.
And they said they would sendan art director and some ideas,
(21:55):
but it's all on me financially.
And they said they think that Icould probably make the money
back in a year or two years fromlicensing.
So we went down to Cuba thereillegally.
No, I was Canadian, I amCanadian.
Um, and we shot and spent, youknow, I think I remember
actually exactly how much.
(22:16):
We spent around $40,000.
When I tell you that I probablymade a couple million dollars
off of that shoot, I'm probablynot, I'm not lying.
You know, my my whistle waswet, so so to speak.
So I really went head into it.
Like when we weren't shootingjobs, we were shooting other
things that we were trying tolicense.
And we had some really, reallygreat years doing that.
You know, obviously, as youknow, that industry has has had
(22:39):
some some really downward pricepressure as well and a lot of
competition.
But yeah, so I did a lot of it.
And then when when Getty boughttheir first footage collection,
was a company called FabulousFootage.
They called me because theyknew I shot film too.
And I flew to LA and we talkedabout it, and I started shooting
(22:59):
some of their earlierproductions that were shot
solely for licensing, and that'spretty much how I started with
it.
Yeah.
Gary Pageau (23:07):
So I mean, you've you've acquired companies along
the way.
Was that just because werethere opportunistic where people
just said, hey, I want togather business, here's my
library, or were there segmentsthat you felt you know would
like bolster your catalog, ifyou will?
You were trying to fill gaps inyour catalog?
Stewart Cohen (23:27):
No, I would call it a moment of weakness.
So these guys that I knew wereputting together a crew to buy
Superstock, and Superstock hadbeen around since the 1970s.
It was a New York uh agency,and it it its predecessor was
four by five.
(23:48):
These were early, early stockagencies, and it was falling on
hard times.
This is the early 2000s, andthey asked if I wanted to be a
part of it, and I said,absolutely not.
And then they said, Well, wouldyou invest some money to help
us buy it?
And guarantee you we're gonnamake you money, you know.
And and back in the day then, Ihad some cash, some liquid
(24:09):
cash.
So I threw some cash at themand it didn't really go
anywhere.
And and I'll just fast forward,there's a big story behind it.
But years later, um, thecompany was down on its heels,
and I volunteered to step in tosee if I could help steer it and
threw some pretty bad decisionson my part.
Um, but but I really loved thecollection.
(24:32):
Like they owned, they ownedsome vintage collection, vintage
archives that I thought werereally valuable.
And I'm a big collector ofphotography as well.
And so I saw the value in that.
So I pretty much stepped up andbought all my partners out and
invested in it and continue toinvest in it and to make sure
that the technology was up tosnuff and so on and so forth.
(24:56):
And um, so yeah, that's the thenet net is here we are now in
2025, and I've owned it for sixyears and and have invested in
it heavily in the tech side,which makes me interested in
podcasts like yours because youstart to listen to all these
guys in the tech world aboutdigital marketing and about
digital development.
And I've become now that's partof my spiel, also.
(25:19):
I start to understand that.
And um, I think it's still ahard space, but I do still love
the pictures.
I love the we manage now 27million assets, digital assets,
video and stills.
It's another adventure.
Gary Pageau (25:34):
So, in the last couple of years, you've had this
whole generative AI thinghappen and where people are
trying to you know createcontent using prompts and
things.
And I've heard, you know,there's a bunch of different you
know approaches to that wherepeople are either wildly for it
because it, like you saidearlier, democratizes, you know,
that there's other peopleagainst it because it's not
(25:55):
real, you know.
And I as we were talkingearlier, it's just a tool, it's
just gonna happen.
Um, where is the place for acompany like yours in that
space?
Because, you know, I've seenwhat Getty's announced and some
of the other people wherethey're like, we're gonna also
offer generative stuff too.
I think, and I think they'redoing that to kind of you know
(26:17):
seem hipping with it until theyfigure out what's gonna happen.
Stewart Cohen (26:21):
Well, they are.
I think I think uh Getty,Shutterstock, Adobe, they're all
doing that, they're alloffering it.
We have a subscription to theservice that the same service
they use.
We haven't really implementedit in terms of creating
generative fill yet, because welook at their annual their
public companies, we look attheir annual reports and they're
not making any money on it.
Gary Pageau (26:42):
Right.
Stewart Cohen (26:43):
And it's expensive.
But we have implemented a bunchof AI for search and for um, so
for finding similars and forkeyword search, and so we're
using AI in every way, shape, orform.
You know, we're we're engagingall the tools.
Uh, we just have not rolled outa customer-facing generative
(27:06):
fill uh option yet, because wehaven't seen, I mean, we still
do need to pay the bills, youknow.
And right now, I mean, if youlook at you look at Getty's
balance sheet, I mean, they'rethey're you know, they might
they might be grossing a billiondollars a year, but they're
spending a billion and one, youknow.
Right.
Gary Pageau (27:23):
Yeah, and that's one of the challenges I think
where people who aren't in thebusiness don't realize, you
know, every time you're hittingthat server to generate an
image, you're that that there'sa cost structure to that.
And exactly, you know, ifsomebody's just playing on your
website, it may seem like you'redoing what you used to do,
which was go to a light tablewith some slides and with it
with an eyepiece and look at allthe various options that are
(27:45):
there, then you pick the one.
Well, generative may feel likethe same thing, right?
Hey, I'm gonna, but every timeyou're doing that, you're you're
paying for that slide, if youwill.
You're right, exactly.
Yeah, you're being dinged forit.
Exactly.
Stewart Cohen (27:57):
So depending on who's paying for it.
But listen, I think as a as Iwe're obviously in the middle of
a revolution.
Sure.
So, you know, I'm not gonnatake a stand one way or another.
I think it's a pretty valuabletool.
I think how it's gonna net outis still a big question mark to
all of us, but I do think it'sgetting exciting and it's you
know, interesting landscape.
Gary Pageau (28:18):
Well, it is one of those things where you know a
lot of the legal side hasn'teven been worked out, right?
Because when you generate animage, who owns that, right?
No one technically owns it,right?
So if you're licensing it, youknow, who really owns that?
I don't know if that's beenactually determined yet.
And I mean, except they'redetermined that an AI can't
create anything, so thereforethere's no copyright.
(28:40):
But if you're using it forcommercial use, and that's just
oh my gosh.
And then you have the issuewith, you know, who did you have
the original license to evenlook at the images to build your
models from?
Stewart Cohen (28:51):
Right, right.
And I think there's somelawsuits that are kind of in
play currently on all that.
But listen, we we do take someAI generated, we do license some
AI generated content onSuperstock.
And there have been somepictures that I see, you know, I
have this live feed that showsme everything that gets
licensed.
And I saw a picture, and Imean, before I I mean, I figured
(29:14):
out in a second that it was AI,but it was great.
I mean, it was really, reallygreat.
It was like somebody pouring adrink with you know steam coming
off it or something.
And I I commented to one of ourguys, I'm like, oh my God, we
sold this digital picture.
And I said, I think thepicture's great.
I couldn't have shot it for forthat.
And and you know, he said, Ofcourse you could have shot it.
(29:35):
I'm like, yeah, I could haveshot it, but it would have been
expensive and there would havebeen a lot of retouching.
And the fact that we manage therights to that picture for
whatever and and we licensed it,it was great.
And to your point, yes, peoplecan make them themselves, but at
the same time, if you're an artdirector and you just need a
(29:56):
picture of X, Y, Z and you justsee it as like I don't I don't
need to spend 45 minutesprompting stuff, you know.
Right.
Let me just license it.
You know, clients are payingfor it anyway.
Gary Pageau (30:07):
So Yeah.
And you know, time time ismoney in those cases because,
you know, if you spend any timeat all on these, on these models
and doing these things, youknow, you can start and then two
hours later you're stilldorking around with it.
Stewart Cohen (30:19):
Oh, it is it is a time suck.
It's kind of like early days ofPhotoshop or even thinking time
in the dark room.
It all it's all equivalent.
I mean, you know, you could godown a dark hole and it's really
fun, but it just next time youlook at your watch, you're like,
oh my God, you know.
Gary Pageau (30:34):
So one of the things that that's happening is
I think it always actuallyraises the bar of of what's
possible and the qualitythereof.
Because, like you said, thatimage that was created was
pretty darn good.
And right, so if you're so ifyou're if you're really shooting
that that type of image, right,a cup with steam coming off of
(30:56):
it or whatever, that's whatyou're competing against.
Stewart Cohen (30:59):
But no, no, so here's something this is of
interest.
So for a minute, I think,especially ad agencies were
over-retouching pictures,absolutely.
Like photoshopping them todeath, you know.
So even something that I thinkwould have been great, as is it
got like, oh, I want to changethis, I want to move this, I
want to change this, you know,nearly to death.
(31:20):
Now, what we're seeing with AIis you could just create that
right out of the bag.
I think what we're seeing is aswing back to show me something
that makes me believe that itwas really shot.
Gary Pageau (31:31):
Right.
Stewart Cohen (31:32):
And I think we're gonna see that trend.
I think we're gonna see thattrend.
Gary Pageau (31:35):
Well, yeah, so I mean we're definitely seeing it
in in the capture side of thebusiness with the growth of
film, right?
Where there's like people aresaying, hey, look, you know,
this is really an authenticpicture.
Now, you know, again, I'm I'mlike you, I haven't shot a lot
of film because in the last 20years, because there's a digital
thing, but there's certainlyyou know that approach that
(31:56):
right and and and and I thinkthat's something that people
gotta remember in this businessbecause you know, that
authenticity piece is what'simportant, right?
That is what I think you canascribe an actual higher value
to as opposed to an AI-generatedimage, right?
Stewart Cohen (32:14):
Or something that's just r over retouched to
perfection, that it's like yeah,it's obviously not real.
So, anyway, I think that's areally interesting, interesting
trend that we're gonna see thatthat I'm enjoying.
Those of us that areprofessionals, I mean, your eyes
are pretty finely tuned anyway,right?
And and and the pictures are90% of the way there anyway, to
(32:35):
begin with, unless you're doingsome crazy compositing.
Gary Pageau (32:39):
And on the video side, with video assets, I think
that's actually gonna have abigger impact, I think, in a lot
of ways, because you know, theentertainment industry is gonna
be impacted a lot by thisbecause you know, I know a lot
of stock images are you knowused in film, right?
Or stock footage that's in thebackground of us.
Now a lot of that stuff can begenerated.
Stewart Cohen (33:01):
That's correct.
I I think that's gonna that'sgonna be huge.
And I think, you know, evenwhat we've seen is you know,
like rotoscoping, like when youknow the the the difference, say
we were doing a campaign wherewe were doing the TV and the
stills, and we knew somethinghad to be retouched.
It was not a big deal.
It's like, yeah, yeah, we'lljust do that in post.
(33:21):
On the footage, though, it wassomething because we're gonna
have to get it rotoscoped and itwas expensive.
You know, now we've seen someof our editors, you know, being
able to use some of the toolsout there and just remove things
or change things.
Gary Pageau (33:34):
Right.
Stewart Cohen (33:34):
And it's gotten good.
Um, you know, but the wholelive action production, we're
gonna see some crazy changes.
And you know, think about itwith volume walls now.
I mean, the stuff that thatwe're being able to do is
pretty, pretty amazing.
Gary Pageau (33:50):
Now, what do you mean by a volume wall for the
people who don't know what thatis?
Stewart Cohen (33:54):
Well, you know, they have, and I guess the one
thing that everybody knew islike they how they shot the
Mandalorian, right?
Because that was, I think, thefirst show to ever use it.
So think about a 270-degreevideo wall that's moving,
including the ceiling.
And you see it in a lot of carcampaigns too.
Yeah.
So the environment is real, andit's not like just you're
(34:16):
shooting in front of a picturebecause it's a video background.
Right.
So as the camera moves, itmoves just like your eye would
do it.
But you're doing it in thestudio, you know.
So what you see is likesometimes you see these car ads
today that it's like they'redriving through the desert, you
know.
And but the truth is the onlything, the only desert that's
(34:37):
there is, you know, your artdepartment has built the floor
with a bunch of rocks and theyelevate the car so the wheels
are spinning, but then the wholebackground is just moving, you
know, and you have hydraulicjacks to make the cars move.
So I think what that's doingis, you know, granted, I'm a guy
that that started out reallyloving to go on location.
(34:57):
Right.
And that's why I got into itand I wanted to travel and go on
location.
Unfortunately, a lot of whatwe're gonna see going forward is
you're gonna be able to producesome really stellar work in a
studio, right?
Gary Pageau (35:10):
I've seen some behind behind the scenes stuff
on some of the movies that areout there.
Like, I didn't really evenrealize this, but like there was
that uh Batman movie from acouple years ago that was almost
all shot inside a studio, eventhe car chases and everything.
There were no actual movingvehicles, and you can't tell.
Stewart Cohen (35:30):
No, you can't tell.
And pretty much any TV show yousee with like people having a
conversation in a moving car, Imean, it's not real.
Gary Pageau (35:38):
Well, it never used to be that way before, but you
could tell, right?
I mean, you could they wouldhave like a the screen behind
them jiggling, yeah, yeah, likeI'm doing like Andy Griffith's
show or something like that.
Stewart Cohen (35:48):
Exactly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um, but I think it's gonna opena lot of doors to some really
amazing creativity.
Sure.
Gary Pageau (35:55):
Sure.
And and it's and it's gonnaimpact a lot of people, right?
I mean, like you were saying uhbefore we started, you know,
there's gonna be some fallout,there's gonna be some attrition
in the industry.
Uh right, it's gonna happen.
Stewart Cohen (36:08):
But I think I think some jobs will go and then
some new jobs will come, right?
You know, yeah, and they'll bedifferent.
I mean, and who knows whatthey'll be, but you're already
seeing it.
You know, there's like, youknow, might be tech jobs, but
yeah, I I don't know if it'lltotally balance out what we lose
to what we gain, but I thinkpart of that also, if you talk
about gear, you know, how gearhas become so much, I'll just
(36:32):
say lighter, smaller.
Oh, sure.
Gary Pageau (36:34):
You know, you you don't need as many guys on a lot
of or as many people um, youknow, on your grip and electric
departments anymore because youdon't need as much light or you
get multiple cameras fromdifferent angles at the same
time because you got to putGoPros or Insta360s or yeah, or
drones all in the same shotcapturing different angles is
(36:55):
something that's true.
Stewart Cohen (36:56):
And even if you're using bigger cameras, you
know, compared to when we weredoing film, you know, your ISOs
are higher, so you don't need asmuch light.
And um, yeah, so it's madeproduction, I think it's
probably brought down the costof production, it's probably had
a net loss of some jobs interms of the you know, on the
(37:17):
group, yeah, those guys, but Ithink it's made it exciting.
I mean, you know, because youcould think of doing some really
interesting things with withoutneeding to spend a fortune.
Gary Pageau (37:29):
And yeah, I was just read something the other
day about how you know whenApple produced their race car
movie recently, you know, theyactually be because they could,
they they they they took theguts of an iPhone and put it
inside the the rear view mirroror something on one of the cars,
just so they could say theyused an iPhone in the
(37:49):
production.
And it was just really cool,right?
It was just something becauseof that small camera, they could
do that.
Stewart Cohen (37:55):
Yeah, and I I gotta tell you, like when you
see the ads, you know, for thenew iPhone 17, and right, I
mean, the camera technology isit's kind of nuts, you know.
Gary Pageau (38:05):
But what it's never gonna stop though is the
personal side of it, right?
I mean, like I like you said,you know, that piece of the
business, as much as changeyou've seen over the years,
right?
The ability to, yeah, you canhave all this great technology
and all these workflow processesand all this AI stuff, but if
you can deliver the job on timeon budget for the client, right.
Stewart Cohen (38:27):
And it has to have some soul, right?
You know, how many bad TV showsor movies have you seen that
just were soulless, you know,because they're leaning on on
these whiz-bang technologicalgags.
But you if you could put someheart in it and some soul in it,
I think that's what uh to yourpoint, I think that's what's
gonna continue forever.
(38:47):
And storytelling, juststorytelling.
Gary Pageau (38:50):
Speaking of continuing forever, where can
people go for more informationabout what you do and your
various companies?
Stewart Cohen (38:58):
Well, I would love you.
You know, you're all welcome tovisit the website, which is
scpictures.com, which is ourproduction website.
If you're looking to licenseany content or you want to be a
contributor to license content,it's superstock.com.
And of course, I'm on LinkedInand Stewart Cohen and Instagram
SCPictures.
(39:18):
And yeah, we'd love to have aconversation.
Gary Pageau (39:21):
Awesome.
Well, thank you, Stewart.
This has been fun.
Like I said, it was been it'sfun to trace the path of
somebody who kind of started inthe analog days and made the
transition to digital, didn'tlook back, and is now looking
forward.
Stewart Cohen (39:33):
So well, Gary, I I didn't I didn't think we were
gonna be going back that far,but it was a fun, fun walk down
memory lane there.
So thank you.
Gary Pageau (39:41):
Thanks so much, Stewart.
Take care.
Hope to talk to you again soon.
You too.
Erin Manning (39:45):
Thank you for listening to the Dead Pixel
Society podcast.
Read more great stories andsign up for the newsletter at
www.theadpixels society.com.
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