Freelancers Are Not Journalists?

At a time when staff photographers are becoming extinct and being replaced by freelancers, the definition of journalist is on its' way to being gutted by the Congress, seeking to establish a definition of a journalist as such:

"The term "covered person" means a person who regularly gathers, prepares, collects, photographs, records, writes, edits, reports, or publishes news or information that concerns local, national, or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public...and includes a supervisor, employer, parent, subsidiary, or affiliate of such covered person."

Since your client isn't your supervisor, all the freelance contracts specifically exclude you from being and employee (and thus they are not your employer) you are not going to be defined as a journalist if this law passes with the House language intact.

What does this mean?

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Well, the bill that does this definition is the federal shield bill that allows you to protect your confidential sources, and it could affect your ability to seek press credentials from local, state, or federal organizations. The Senate version of this bill does not have the same language, and is far more broad:

the regular gathering, preparing, collecting, photographing, recording, writing, editing, reporting, or publishing of news or information that concerns local, national, or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public.

The Free Flow of Information Act of 2009 is going to redefine the landscape for freelancers, bloggers, and so on. This is a draconian move that organizations like the National Press Photographers Association, National Writers Union, American Society of Media Photographers, Professional Photographers of America, and, frankly, every other association that has news-gathering members, should be opposing.

Hopefully the various trade groups who will have their memberships impacted will be able to affect the House language before it gets voted on. If not, then hopefully the conference committee will rectify the differences in favor of the Senate language on this particular issue.

More information:

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• House Bill - Free Flow of Information Act of 2009
• Senate Bill - Free Flow of Information Act of 2009
• Citizen Media Law Project - Federal Shield Bills Offer Rival Takes On Who's A Journalist; Bloggers Could Be Left Unprotected
• Reporters Committee for Freedome of the Press - Shield law re-introduced in House

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"Your" Staff-Made Images - What To Do When A Publication Closes?

Over at SportsShooter, there was a lively discussion (Who Owns The Rights 2 The Images When the Paper Closes?? ) on an issue that is affecting more and more photographers as jobs are lost.

In the interest of broadening the reach of my commentary on the subject, I am posting here my message for your review:

The paper owns the copyright, and that includes the right to publish, as well as the right to preclude the publication. That includes the right to the physical material (i.e. film, CF cards, hard drives, and so on). If the paper wishes to place into the trash can, any or all of those assets, that is their absolute right. However, their doing so is the relinquishing of only the physical material, and not the intellectual property that is on them. This can, of course, be litigated in a court, but generally speaking the above statements hold true.

That said, you need to look at the status of the DOP. If the DOP is empowered to sign contracts engaging freelancers, then that person is also likely empowered to license material, or to sell it, in so far as they can legally authorize the dissolution of assets.

Thus, asking the DOP - "hey, can I take with me a copy of the images I made here at the paper", and getting a verbal "yes", while a binding contract, may be subject to misinterpretation, or a lack of recollection, at a later date.

If you are a photographer looking to get your images out, you need this in writing. The document should read something like this:

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This is an Agreement between John Doe, a staff photographer for the Rocky Mountain News, and the Rocky Mountain News, dated February 28, 2009.

John Doe is hereby granted permission to take a copy of any and/or all images made by him during his term of employment, for the following purposes:

___ For personal and portfolio use

___ For personal and portfolio use, as well as the non-exclusive licensing of such works

By signing below I grant this permission, and also stipulate that I am authorized to enter into this agreement.
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Then you both sign at the bottom, and they keep one, and you keep one. On the date that you depart, I would be sure to hand over to the personnel department a copy of that document for your personnel file.

You can write a much more lengthy document, and you can argue that the licensing language is vague and should say things like "for an unlimited period of time in perpetuity" and so on, and those are certainly things that could be added. Also, some states may require the sentence "for good and valuable consideration herein acknowledged as received..." near the beginning, and that consideration could be $1, or it could be many other things.

It is also quite accurate that it was suggested that once the business goes out of business, even if the assets were acquired, and those assets included the photo library, that the likelihood that you would get caught licensing an image a year (or 5) from now is very minimal, you would if it was a major image that garnered a lot of publicity (like the Clinton/Lewinsky hug), but, on principle, you should do what's right even if you can get away with doing what is wrong.

Note - I am not a lawyer, and this should not be construed as legal advice, but as a starting off point to have a discussion with a lawyer in your home town that knows the laws of your state and locality.

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Celebrities As Photographers

This evening, I was perusing my latest copy of American Photo, and there is a photograph of Keifer Sutherland in the oval office set on his series "24", alongside the other photographers, and the article (read it here) revealed that he is an avid photographer, and so on.

That got me to thinking, and thus, here is a partial list of people who I researched and determined were avid photographers based upon answers they have given to questions in interviews, or other biographical information, but who am I missing?

Dennis Hopper	Shari Belafonte	Brad Pitt
Leonard Nimoy	David Bowie	Keifer Sutherland
Richard Gere	Spike Jonze	Roddy McDowell
Vigo Mortenson	Pierce Brosnan	Rosie O'Donnel
Brendan Fraser	Jennifer Aniston	Nikki Sixx
Tipper Gore	Alyssa Milano	Aaron Eckhart
Seal	Jennifer Beals	Helena Christensen
Lacey Chabert	Parvin Dabas	Bryan Adams
Joel Grey	Aston Kutcher	Jason Mraz
Gary Busey	Karl Lagerfeld	Cindy Crawford
Martha Stewart	Drew Carey	Diane Keaton
David Boreanaz	Tabitha Soren	Andy Sommers
Barry Zito	Jamie Lee Curtis

So, who am I missing?

(Your insights, after the Jump)

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Moving Pictures - Covering Barack Obama's Speech

Covering the President's first address to a Joint Session of Congress is a big deal, and the photographers who are tasked with that responsibility are among the very best around.

Photographers Doug Mills of the New York Times, H. Darr Beiser of USA Today, and Pablo Martinez Monsivais of the Associated Presss (as interviewed by AP photographer Evan Vucci) take a few minutes to talk about their coverage after their pictures have moved to their outlets.

(Comments, if any, after the Jump)

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Souza Rounds Out His White House Photo Team

Gathering a team of photographers who you trust is one of the key factors in hiring the people who are working for you, and Pete Souza certainly had his pick of whomever he wanted to round out his team.

In this photograph from our archives, the caption reads:

Lawrence Jackson (left) of the Associated Press, Chuck Kennedy (center) of Knight Ridder Tribune, and Pete Sousa (right) of the Chicago Tribune (right) pass the time in their position across from the Presidential Reviewing Stand on Pennsylvania Avenue during the Presidential Inaugural Parade celebrating the 2004 Inauguration of President George Bush's second term.

Here Souza is with what will become his future team (minus the third photographer - Samantha Appleton, who will primarily cover the First Lady) that he has chosen to help him document history, photographed passing the time in-front of their new office, four years earlier.

I am friends with both Jackson and Kennedy, and know both of them to be great people who will approach the task with the same historical mindset that Souza has laid out for his role there.

Congratulations to Chuck and Lawrence and best wishes in your new endeavor!

(Continued after the Jump)

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Speedlink - Getty Edition

Sometimes, someone elses' blog nails it so hard to the wall that you just want to send your readers there. Often there's a nice list of speedlinks. Today it's a singular suggestion, instead of multiples, where greedy Getty isn't making good on their contractual obligations.

Getty Uses A Nefarious Tactic To Raise Rates
(over at APhotoEditor.com)


This is just one more of the nails in the coffin of Getty. I suggest those of you that are Getty staffers should make your list and check it twice because it wouldn't surprise me in the least that Papa Klein-Grinch would milk you dry of every last one of your bonuses, raises, and so on, before taking a nice billowingly-fat golden parachute out of the company, as you are all shipped off to the unemployment line.

(Comments, if any, after the Jump)

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What Does A Magazine Owe You?

I've been sitting here at my desk looking at a particular magazine. I won't say which one, because it's not relevant. But, I've been calling colleagues I know to get their take on it for awhile now. It's a mainstream magazine, and the photos are shot by a well known photographer, and the photos are horrible. They are poorly composed, the lead photo - a double-page spread - is soft, and other images have nasty color casts that could not ever be construed as an artistic style.

This photographer was on assignment for the magazine. Why didn't they just kill the story? Or, at least, the opener that was soft - the image was of a news event, and I know over a dozen photographers who have a far better image of the same thing happening that is sharp, and better composed. Yet, the magazine published a crappy photo.

Why?

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I called around, and talked to other photographers, and more than one photo editor about this. Sadly, I knew the answer, but these guys reaffirmed it. The photos played because of politics. They had to run these photos, and not get a better image from stock. But, isn't that what a "guarantee against usage" is supposed to be for?

For those of you that don't know, there's a term in the magazine business that is mostly applied to Time, Newsweek, US News, Business Week, and maybe Forbes, People, and a few others. Specifically - if you are assigned a shoot, and you get a $500 assignment fee, plus expenses, that assignment fee is a "guarantee against space". That means that if a magazine normally pays $500 for a 1/2 page, $1,000 for a full page, and $1,500 for a double-page spread, if your image ends up being used just a half-page, you still get the $500, but if you produce a great photo, and they use it as a double-page image, then you get the larger amount - $1,500. If the publication runs two of your photos 1/2 page, you then get $1,000. You get the idea.

In this case, the photographer did a poor job on the assignment, and it showed. Some of the images were lit portraits that no one likely got (and I use the word 'lit' very loosely), so, as bad as they were I understand that they had to run them. However, they could have atleast color-corrected the horrible color casts on them in post, but they did not, and this was not a printing error either. Those you can tell.

Why did the photographer get the play that they did? Yes, I know, politics. But that leaves the readers with a crappy image to contemplate. The magazine felt they owed it to the photographer, but they didn't, not when they had options, and they did. In the end, the obligation is to the readers who in turn patronize the advertisers, and thus, the lights at the magazine stay on, and the editors get paid, and so too, the creatives.

Did the photographer do anything wrong? Yes, a few things. First, I have it on good authority that they used a prosumer lens for the job, and also a prosumer camera with a filesize that could not support a double-page spread. Further, the photographer should have known better than to try to complete a component of an assignment that they have little current experience doing. If you're a boxing photographer, but, well, back in the day, you used to shoot horse races, don't think you can return to your glory days and still make a great image. If you disagree, then don't have your first horse race back be the Kentucky Derby - re-flex your muscle-memory at a few smaller events where everything isn't on the line until you get your sea-legs back.

The best photographers make an assignment look easy. This photographer, generally speaking, makes their assignments look easy, but in this case, bravado got in the way, and the assigning editors didn't have the balls to call shenanigans on the bad photos, and find replacement images, or just kill the story.

In the end, the magazine didn't owe this photographer anything other than the assignment fee and expenses, and they should have done right by their readers and used better images where they were available and this photographer failed.

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