You might be thinking that EyeEm, a mobile photo-sharing app, and Getty Images, the international stock agency, have been in the news enough this week. On Sunday EyeEm announced that it is establishing EyeEm Market, a means for its members to sell their mobile photos and today Getty Images unveiled its new embed feature that will make 35 million images free for use in non-commercial contexts. Now, though, they've teamed up to announce that Getty Images will be making EyeEm images available for licensing across its platforms, including iStock by Getty Images and a bespoke Getty collection. For EyeEm, this places their users' images on a huge stage with millions of potential buyers for royalty-free and rights-managed licences. As Florian Meissner, EyeEm's CEO said: '... now because of our partnership with Getty Images and their extensive distribution network, members of our community will have a great opportunity to earn revenue from their creative work.'

From Getty's perspective, Craig Peters, SVP Content, Getty Images says: 'We are seeing increased demand for fresh, original content that reflects the world as consumers see it, so we are pleased to be partnering with EyeEm to open up this collection to our customers and to provide this talented community of photographers with a new revenue stream.'

Whatever anyone might wish to say about the death of professional photography, Getty perceives that there's a need for mobile images and EyeEm is able to fill it. We can't make it go away by ignoring it, so we might as well embrace it.

It's exciting times for Getty, EyeEm, and mobile photographers.