Getty Images, Inc. recently acquired Eastman Kodak’s The Image Bank, EyeWire, Inc., an entirely digital business with a successful
e-commerce brand, and Online USA, a leading web-based provider of celebrity news and event photography.

The Image Bank purchase, valued at $183 million, gives Getty singificant archival photography and film footage and an extensive
international network consisting of 10 wholly owned and 62 franchise offices spanning 40 countries.

With customers such as People, Cosmopolitan and Vanity Fair, Online USA’s 30,000 already-digitized celebrity and news images will fuel Getty’s effort to become a totally digital business.

The EyeWire purchase also accelerates Seattle-based Getty’s business strategy. EyeWire will be integrated into Getty’s recently formed Creative Professional division and will help build the foundation for Getty’s Business User division.

Earlier this year, Getty acquired Chicago-based Art.com, marking an expansion into the consumer art market. Art.com is the leading provider of framed and unframed art and art-related products on the Internet. Its images include works by famous artists and photographers, including Herb Ritts and Robert Mapplethorpe.

Well-known photographs are selling for unexpectedly high prices as interest in the auction market continues to grow.

Christie’s recently inaugurated their new space at Rockefeller Center in New York with an auction that set records for the works of famous photographers. For example, "Moonrise," a favorite Ansel Adams image, sold for $35,650, more than double the estimated $10,000 to $15,000 the photograph was expected to bring. Likewise, a 13-photograph collection by Eugene Atget brought $850,000, far outstripping the estimate of $195,000 to $270,000.

Seattle FilmWorks, a leading Internet-based photofinisher, has joined with VStream and RealNetworks to bring audio commentary to email-delivered photographs.

Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist David Turnley joins Corbis Sygma, the leading provider of photography and fine art on the Internet, to help redefine photojournalism in the 21st century.

Seattle-based Corbis picked Turnley to serve as international executive producer for Corbis Sygma. Turnley, a leading force in photojournalism today, will help Corbis Sygma’s team of photographers.

Seattle-based Definitive Stock Inc. has been acquired by Visual Communications Group (VCG).

The London-based VCG will use Definitive Stock’s location as a base for its West Coast U.S. operations.

VCG and Definitive Stock focus exclusively on the business-to-business graphics-professional community.

The American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) has developed a white paper that outlines the failure of publishers to boost rates and the hardships this causes photographers.

In other news, ASMP is moving from its leased space in Princeton Junction, N.J., to a newly purchased office building in downtown Philadelphia. The building, which cost $319,500, will house the main operations of ASMP’s national office.