Invision’s goal is to take on the dominant player in the celebrity photo business: Getty Images, which has owned entertainment agency Wireimage since 2007.

“I’ve heard from a lot of people I’ve worked with that they weren’t happy with one choice. They wanted another option,” says Invision managing director Dan Becker.

Becker, who was formerly director of commercial content and services for AP Images, says Invision will operate as a separate company from AP. The wire service is the majority owner, and will provide distribution for Invision.

So far, Invision has just one staff photographer–Chris Pizzello. Other contractors and freelancers include Matt Sayles, Evan Agostini, Jordan Strauss, Todd Williamson, John Shearer, Jon Furniss and Casey Rodgers.

Becker says there will be opportunities for other photographers, too. “We will use AP’s freelance network, but we intend to recruit other photographers and grow our own freelance network,” he says. “It’s a big part of our mission.”

Becker says he relies primarily on word-of-mouth recommendations from photographers he’s currently working with to identify new talent. “We will try people out with entry level assignments,” he says.

Both the cool-looking canes and the dancing, leaping, bounding Weimeraner shown in Wegman’s photo library are intended to encourage people to move more.

The company fills a void in the market, supplying products for an aging population that doesn’t want to sacrifice style for functionality. Maybe Omhu can make a nice looking case for my reading glasses.

You can view the photo library on the Omhu web site, and the video can also be viewed on Vimeo.

©Chicago Tribune/Brian Cassella

The Chicago Tribune has posted a dramatic series of photographs showing a clash between police and protesters outside the NATO summit meeting in Chicago on May 20. The images were shot by Tribune photographer Brian Cassella, who explains on his blog how he got the photos. The last image of the series shows a police officer cocking his fist to punch a protester. By itself, it’s easily read as (another) act of police brutality against citizens exercising their constitutional rights. But context is everything, as the rest of Cassella’s images illustrate: The police officer is throwing the punch to stop a protester from swinging a heavy stick (for the second time) at the head of another police officer who had lost his helmet. That helmet-less officer had already been struck once in the head by another protester swinging a lighter stick, which Cassella captured as it broke over the officer’s head. It’s a complicated story about two wrongs that don’t make a right, and Cassella tells it with clarity in nine frames. To see the series, visit the Chicago Tribune’s web site. (Cassella also talks about the photographs in this Chicago Tribune video.)