Colin Hawkins/Getty Images

Well, what does make a picture? We talk about trends, boomers, the explosion of the Hispanic market in the US, what colors are hot for spring or fall and the list goes on and on…And that’s all great, but isn’t there more to it? What happens when you dig deeper? What happens when you really try to get into the consumer psyche around how they respond to imagery based on what’s happening in their lives? Can we make better pictures as a result?

In 2006, we, the Creative Research team, started a new journey and we called it the MAP Report: what Makes a Picture. We spent 4 months looking at 50,000 photo requests, spoke to 500 customers, and visually analyzed over 2,000 print and TV campaigns from around the globe. We further analyzed customer behavior on our website, search terms, buying patterns, concepts and subjects and visual analysis of our own pictures, etc. Last, but certainly not least, we studied consumer behavior in London, Paris, Munich, NYC, LA, Sydney, Tokyo, Beijing and Sao Paulo. The result was the first MAP report we called One Life (whew).

One Life is about the trends resulting from consumers on overload - a need for grounding, to trust someone who’s real, a need to simplify our lives. It’s a reflection on the influence of women in the work force and a whole lot more.

We hope the report gives insight into our visual language and the way we visually communicate with one another, today and tomorrow, about the things we have in common and the things we don’t. We’re still using it to influence the pictures we’re creating today. These trends don’t disappear like next year’s new black, they tend to evolve and take on new shape. Consequently Guru Joe, Monotasking, the Confessional Consumer and the rest of the gang continue to provide us fertile ground for debate and brainstorming.

Take a look at the excerpts, I would love to hear your thoughts. We’ve got a new MAP launching here in the next month, it’s called AspEn. And that’s all I’m sayin’ - today anyway…

Betsie Van der Meer/Getty Images

All right, I have a confession…I have a HUGE crush on a man I’ve never met. Typical. His name is Dr. John Medina and he’s a molecular biologist. Not so typical.

You wouldn’t think a molecular biologist and a creative researcher would have a lot in common - ohhhhhh how wrong I was! I was lucky enough to get a sneak peak of his new book (due out in March) called “Brain Rules.”

So Dr. John, as I affectionately call him now, states that vision is our most dominant sense AND that our brain uses 50% of its total capacity processing everything we see. He uses all of these studies, a particularly interesting one using wine, to prove his case. I was blown away by this…and also feel vindicated on some level. It’s so great to have a science geek do a study that proves a creative geek had it right all along.

Friends, our brains are wired the right way. We are wired to tell stories, show truths, change perceptions and influence change. We are also wired to sell products, through our chosen profession. Two words - whoo hoo! Gosh, I sound like Pollyanna, I must be in love. Be sure to check out “Brain Rules” by Dr. John Medina. He’s hot and he has a lot of cool things to say.

Let me know what you think.

Daniel Day/Getty Images

“Hansel…he’s hot.”

So says Will Ferrell as Mogatoo in Zoolander, one of my favorite movies of all time. I bring it up, a) because it makes me laugh and b)because most industries from fashion, technology, fine art and food to name a few, are all trying to discover what’s hot, who’s in, who’s out and what’s next. It’s no different at Getty Images.

I head up this great team of people called Creative Research. Our job is to figure out “what’s hot” for pictures. We do this by studying how consumer trends and behavior affect the imagery our art directors, photo editors and photographers create.

In the past months I’ve spent a lot of time with the gang in sales and a lot of time with our customers. I wanted to find out the truth. Are we are bringing the right pictures to our customers?

So, we just completed this enormous study, we looked at over 2,000 print and TV campaigns from the US, Japan, England, France, Brazil, China, Australia and Germany. We looked at photo requests from our customers, we talked to customers, we looked at consumer behavior in each of these studies. Here’s an excerpt that you can now see for yourself.

What do you think? Talk to me people.

Ryan McVay/Getty Images

Have you ever wondered how a photographer captured that second in time, or how a filmmaker managed to secure that footage?

Check out our behind the scenes video of how one Getty Images photographer and one filmmaker came together to capture images of over 200 people.