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Time flies when you’re having fun with photos. It was almost four years ago that Hellman & Friedman acquired Getty Images—the world’s largest distributor of stock photos, video, and other digital content—in a take-private deal valued at $2.4 billion. Since the deal closed in July 2008, Getty Images has expanded its photographer grant program, partnered with Flickr on an imagery collection, launched a site devoted to stock photo rights, and tussled in court with a maker of car air fresheners. The company has also paid out a whopping $875 million in dividends, and now its private equity fund owner is fixin’ to cash out. According to a report in the Financial Times, Hellman & Friedman has retained bankers to examine a possible sale or public offering of Getty Images, with multiple sources valuing a sale or IPO at as much as $4 billion. News of the Getty exit plan comes days after KKR ponied up $150 million for a 50% stake in stock photography manager Fotolia, and Shutterstock filed for an IPO that could raise up to $115 million.

Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.

Dueling bathing beauties: Boo George traveled to Oslo to photograph Norway’s “It” couple, Iselin Steiro and Anders Danielson, for the cover of T: The New York Times Style Magazine. At left, George Hoyningen-Huene’s 1930 photograph “The Divers, Paris.”

• Got Polaroids? The Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography, in connection with MIT and London-based publisher Thames & Hudson, is at work on a major project on Polaroid photography. Slated to open at MIT in late 2015 and then travel internationally, the show will cover Polaroid-related art, science, and technology. “This is a call for submissions,” William A. Ewing, who is curating the art aspects of the project with Barbara Hitchcock, told The Art Newspaper recently. “It demands the best of the best material. This is not a community project, we want the stuff that can hold its own against the art of the period—and it was a long period, from 1950 to 1990.” Deborah Douglas and Gary Van Zante are in charge of the project’s science and technology aspects.

• Five finalists have been selected for the Urban Land Institute‘s Urban Open Space Award, a competition that recognizes “an outstanding example of a well-used public open space that has spurred regeneration and the transformation of its surrounding community.” Two NYC projects—the High Line and Pier 25 at Tribeca Section in Hudson River Park—made the final five, along with Railroad Park (Birmingham, Alabama), RiverWalk Urban Waterfront Calgary, Alberta), and Tanner Springs Park (Portland, Oregon). The winner, to be announced in October, will receive a $10,000 cash prize, and if we know this group, they’ll blow it all on bulbs and shrubs.

• Author and graphic novelist Neil Gaiman delivered the commencement address and picked up an honorary doctorate at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Among his advice for the graduates: make mistakes. “If you’re making mistakes, it means you’re out there doing something,” said Gaiman last Thursday. “And the mistakes in themselves can be useful. I once misspelled Caroline, in a letter, transposing the ‘a’ and the ‘o,’ and I thought, ‘Coraline looks like a real name…’” Watch the full speech (his first-ever university commencement address) here.

• Event designer extraordinaire David Stark has taken to the web in his search for a star intern. He has partnered with Apartment Therapy on its “Design is not Taught” contest. In addition to a three-month internship with David Stark Design and Production, the winner will have the opportunity chance to work with Stark one-on-one to edit and curate his or her portfolio. The intern’s final project? To single-handedly design Apartment Therapy’s holiday party. Click here for details.
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“At the Otsuka Museum of Art in Naruto City, [Japan], a committee of six art historians determined the most important works of art in the Western world. The Otsuka Pharmaceutical Group funded the ambitious project of photographically replicating more than 1,000 works on ceramic board, in the original size, orientation, and installation position. Museum directors, curators, and artists’ descendants authenticated the works as exceptional reproductions. The museum calls attention to the authentic nature of the works with words such as ‘real’ and ‘exact,’ and by making little distinction between copy and original, claiming that the image-replications allow visitors ‘to appreciate the true artistic value of the original works.’ The introductory text reassures guests that, if the original works eventually perish in a natural disaster or expire from conservation problems, the reproductions are guaranteed to keep their ‘shape and color’ for 2,000 years.”

-Rebekah Modrak, in Reframing Photography: Theory and Practice (Routledge)

As the go-to guide for seven-day snapshots of local arts and events listings, Time Out Chicago boasts service-oriented stories that help urban explorers find the best ways to spend their free time.

And if you’re a freelance photographer, TimeOutChicago.com is wide open for those looking to add to their portfolios. The site gets over 3 million page views a month and features lots of photo galleries that speak to the mag’s cultural core.

“We have the broadest, most in-depth cultural coverage of Chicago of any media outlet and the largest cultural reporting team in the city, so if it’s about Chicago culture, we’d like to hear about it,” said editor-in-chief Frank Sennett. “Our target readership is anybody who actively consumes culture in the city of Chicago, people who are going out and doing things. They tend to be people in the city, but it could be anybody who wants to go out and do something fun.”

For editor contacts and more details on breaking in, read How To Pitch: Time Out Chicago.

This article is one of several mediabistro.com features exclusively available to AvantGuild subscribers. If you’re not a member yet, you can register for as little as $55 a year and get access to these articles, discounts on seminars and workshops, and more.

Impossibly dapper Jim Nelson once again left New York’s Marriott Marquis clutching an elephant—the coveted yet unwieldy Alexander Calder stabile pachyderm that signifies a win in the American Society of Magazine Editors’ National Magazine Awards. The GQ editor-in-chief picked up his publication’s second consecutive Ellie for excellence in magazine design, triumphing over a finalist field that consisted of born-again Bloomberg Businessweek (which nabbed a general excellence award), Fabien Baron-ified Interview, New York, and always-on-its-game Wired. We’ll have to wait until Friday to see if GQ‘s double-header will extend to the Society of Publication Designers’ “Magazine of the Year” award. Meanwhile, back at the Ellies, Vogue was honored for overall excellence in magazine photography, although its spooky Steven Klein-lensed “Lady Be Good” portfolio, singled out as a finalist for best feature photography, was bested by those “Vamps, Crooks, and Killers” at The New York Times Magazine. Harper’s won for news and documentary photography with “Juvenile Injustice,” a photo essay by Richard Ross. Other victories of note: TIME was named magazine of the year, Newell Turner‘s freshened-up House Beautiful took home the Elllie for best lifestyle magazine, and the work of the late Christopher Hitchens earned Vanity Fair the award for columns and commentary.

Juergen Teller, “Pettitoe, Suffolk, 2011,” a photograph from his “Keys to the House” series exhibited earlier this year at New York’s Lehmann Maupin gallery.

“I can achieve something in a very quick moment. But it does get very personal. I think I open up a lot too. I don’t come around as the archetype fashion photographer dude, playing the big guy with the horde of assistants. I let them know I’m also nervous or insecure. Then I let them relax. The way I photograph is quite hypnotizing. I found a way to hide my insecurity—I have two cameras and I photograph like this [mimes cameras in each hand moving hypnotically] and this helps me to figure out what I should do, where they should go…it’s so intense, so psychologically draining, it’s like my brain works on overdrive in those minutes—or hours or days—I’m photographing. That’s why I can’t do it so much because I’m really super-concentrated. Other people think it’s a stupid snapshot—I get that a lot—but it’s very precise. And it has to be very fast because if I’m on a job or something, I can’t just doodle around and days go past and I take a picture. Sometimes there’s a lot of money involved and I have a responsibility to the client to get the fucking thing done. A lot of other people say, “Stand like that, stay like that,” and they do a Polaroid and everyone—all the assistants, the hair and makeup, everyone—stands around looking at the Polaroid or nowadays looking at the screen, then they say, “Let’s do it, shoot,” by which time the model is so tense the Polaroid is better than the end product. I ease that up where they don’t feel necessarily, ‘This is the big decisive moment.’”

-Juergen Teller interviewed by Tim Blanks in the fall 2012 issue of Style.com/Print

Enhance your resume and your vacation photos with the mediabistro.com mothership’s online course in Adobe Photoshop, back by popular demand. In four short weeks (May 3-May 31) you can get up and running on the program of programs—the subject of many an ethical debate—under the guidance of images whiz Rob Tannenbaum, a photo editor who has worked for The Martha Stewart Show and wields a master’s degree in newsroom graphics management. Learn more here.

A photography-themed merger is afoot: Hasselblad USA, the U.S. distributor of Hasselblad professional camera systems, has agreed to join forces (among other things) with Bron Imaging Group, which distributes professional photographic gear. The combined company will be known as Hasselblad Bron, a name that conjures an exotic, camera-wielding James Bond villain. The merger agreement follows a two-year courtship marketing relationship, through which the two New Jersey-based companies worked closely to develop their brands in the professional photography market. Michael Hejtmanek, current president of Bron Imaging Group, will lead the new company as president and chief operating officer of Hasselblad Bron, which will relocate to a single facility this summer.

In the immortal words of Homer Simpson, “Mmm. Donuts.” Splurge on L.A.’s finest (we’re partial to the sprinklebombs from Blinkie’s Donut Emporium) this weekend as ForYourArt opens its new activity space at 6020 Wilshire Blvd. with “Around the Clock: 24 Hour Donut City,” a tasty celebration that runs simultaneously with LACMA‘s 24-hour screening of “The Clock” by Christian Marclay. ForYourArt promises “a curated selection” of (free!) donuts beginning at noon on Saturday. Look sharp for the chocolate custard puff, as the selection will change every two hours. We hear that more enduring donuts will also be on offer, in the form of 1,000 pins made from Kenny Scharf’s donut paintings. The artist’s zippy donutmobile will be parked outside ForYourArt all weekend.

Meanwhile, here in New York, we suggest hitting up the Maison du Macaron en route to Saturday’s SVA/BBC Design Film Festival, a slate of groundbreaking BBC films that have never been screened in the United States. Curated by the all-seeing Steven Heller along with D-Crit faculty member Adam Harrison Levy, the festival includes films on topics such as the history of the Barcelona chair, the future of the book, and the real life stories that inspired Mad Men (yes, George Lois will be there). The $15 run-of-the-festival tickets are going fast, so grab one here.

Once you’ve recovered from the weekend’s dessert-themed cinematic adventures, head over to Steelcase’s New York HQ, which on Wednesday, March 28, plays host to the State of Design, an annual fundraising event organized by our friends at Metropolis and the Education Legacy Fund. The evening of “open, constructive dialogue about what shapes twenty-first century design and how designers respond to our evolving culture” will feature a conversation with health policy guru Ruth Finkelstein (New York Academy of Medicine) and Quest to Learn founder Katie Salen (DePaul University) moderated by Metropolis editor-in-chief Susan Szenasy. Learn more and register here.
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Ed Ruscha has a way with words and a sharp eye for typefaces (the sleek and squared-off sans-serif that appears frequently in his paintings is “Boy Scout Utility Modern,” his own creation). He delivers thoughtful insights in a distinguished voice that shimmers with the broken short vowels and gentle cadence of his Oklahoma upbringing. Turns out he also makes a great fashion model. That’s Ruscha in the spring-summer 2012 lookbook for Band of Outsiders, Scott Sternberg‘s beloved Los Angeles-based label. The photos, shot on vintage Polaroid film, show the artist hanging around his L.A. studio: he juggles paintbrushes in a chambray shirt, studies a copy of Acrylic Painting for Dummies, dons a cherry-red anorak to attack a Sudoku puzzle, samples the contents of a ramshackle refrigerator, and points westward, to the future, where there will be a dog and a motorcycle for everyone. It’s enough to make us want to string together Ruscha’s exotic textual feats into a song that tells the world how much we want to hang out with him. Oh, wait, someone already did that. Hit it, Richard Bell and David G.A. Stephenson: