The BAPLA Picture Buyers’ Fair today.
A magazine uses a lot of bought-in images, and it was with an intention to broaden our picture library contacts, that we zizzed up to Islington, and to the Business Design Centre to see what were the latest trends in imagery.
There were around 144 stands, and every company vied for our attention, and had creative ways of being remembered when it next came to searching for that elusive feature, news, or abstract image.
There were enough pens to dry out the world’s ink wells, and enough sweets to add a non-too discernible number to the UK’s obese population. Add these to the seemingly endless amounts of branded bags, mouse mats, notebooks and postcards, and the tat mountain was certainly a high one to climb.
We didn’t do too badly, but came way a lot lighter than a lot of the creative types in attendance. Lonely Planet gave us a nice leather bound notebook, while Masterfile let us take catalogues, an extendable rule, a cute fridge magnet that makes a ‘ding-dong’ doorbell noise, and entered us into their competition to win an iPod Shuffle.
Upon leaving, we realised that we had been a regular client, buying more than a handful of images from them every month. If I’d have thought about that earlier, I could have been the owner of one of their bright white and red branded record bags.
I was stupidly pleased with my SuperStock frisbee though, ideal for those long summer picnics in the park.
We thought the best stand was that of the Mary Evans Picture Library, who had kitted theirs out to resemble an old Victorian sweet shop, and is where I picked up a small bag of milk bottles, perfectly weighed out on an equally antique set of scales, next to an old metal cash till.
One thing we did notice too, were the number of libraries specialising in very niche markets. If the need is there for images of cute cats and dogs, food, gardens, mothers and babies, and travel destinations, then it could be filled.
Plenty of times over.
Showcasing over 140 image suppliers, the show also runs tomorrow (10 May). Registration can be made here.
Hi Rich – I was quite impressed with your swag bag of goodies from BAPLA – there were SUCH a lot of giveaways – I started to feel quite awful taking everything – also had to restrict my collection due to weight of the catalogues! Great show though and I hope to use some of the smaller libraries in the future.
Hi Em, welcome to goodrichard.com!
You’re right, there were a lot of giveaways – I think we were quite restrained in what we took. A lot of the catalogues seemed to be available online, so we went for the good stuff!
Did you also think that the Masterfile plastic-looking mints and sweets tasted a bit like dentists’ mouth rinse?