Get the picture?

Home Office Computing, Jan, 1998 by Charles Pappas

THE IDEA MACHINE

NAME: Olivier Massot, designer COMPANY: Olivier Massot, accessories design LOCATION: Brooklyn, NY REVENUES: $20,000 DIGITAL CAMERA: Casio QV-300 SMOOTH BEGINNINGS: Massot, who learned from his father how to cut, finish, and print designs on silk, started his own business making elegant silk accessories at age 25. Considering that silk manufacturing and trade is an ancient art going back to at least 3000 B.C., why would Massot even need a Kodak Brownie, much less a Casio QV-300? COMPUTER-GENERATED CREATIVITY: "The camera lets me treat every finished design, whether it's a scarf or other accessory, as if it's raw and new," enthuses Massot, who began using it in December 1996. Manipulating the camera's images of his works with software packages Corel Photo-Paint, Adobe Photo Deluxe, and MetaCreations Painter, Massot says, "I can play with the images, change colors and shapes as much as I like -- and it doesn't cost me a cent. That's a priority right now, when I have to cut comers as much as I can." HIGH-TECH HAUTE COUTURE: He may not have to cut corners for long. The elaborately designed scarves, more and more the result of endless tinkering with his photographs, are rapidly disappearing from the Geoffrey Beene boutique on New York's Fifth Avenue, with some selling for more than $200. And deals with other couture designers and upscale department stores are in the works, according to Massot. "The camera," he explains, "develops pictures -- and me as an artist."

HIGHWAY TO THE PAST

NAME: Kathy Kamnikar, president COMPANY: Antique Networking LOCATION: Dublin, OH REVENUES: $250,000 (1997 projected) DIGITAL CAMERA: Epson PhotoPC 500 SITE FOR THE CYBER COLLECTOR: Whether it's a carved tobacco box made of animal horn, a brass chandelier, or a block of carved limestone, chances are you'll find a digital photo of it on Kamnikar's Antique Networking Web site (www.antiqnet.com). AN ANTIQUATED SYSTEM: Starting with a simple Web page in May 1995, Kamnikar got the idea for the business while she was working in a law firm and rushing out at noon to go antique shopping. "Wouldn't it be neat," she asked a coworker, "to just tap into a computer and find the antique you want?" Placing the dealers' items up on the Web was no easy task, says Kamnikar. "Some dealers sent us photos that we would then scan, but it was slow and haphazard. So we decided to do it for them. In August 1996 we bought an early version of the Epson digital camera and took pictures of the antiques while the dealers wrote out the descriptions." DIGITAL DOLLARS: With a treasure trove of nearly 7,000 antiques, the Web site receives more than 500,000 hits per month. The 250 American, Canadian, English, and French dealers now on Antique Networking pay a onetime start-up fee plus monthly dues. In exchange, they're selling a combined total of about 50,000 to $75,000 worth of antiques each month. Kamnikar's 13-person business now provides software so that dealers everywhere can digitally photograph their collectibles and transmit them to the site. "Without digital photography, there'd be no Antique Networking," says Kamnikar. "The cost of having the film developed and scanned would make it pointless. That old way of doing things -- that's the real antique."