Occasional Musings and News About the Business of Being a Photographer
From time to time, we have an opportunity to share with you assignments we've done. Here's one we did with fitness guru Denise Austin recently, for Family Fitness Magazine. Enjoy!
The stock photography industry is in free fall, and the floor seems to be porous, whereby free isn't even the bottom. While photographers who control their rates using services such as PhotoShelter, with pricing models powered by the baseline of fotoQuote, are able to better withstand the demand for lower rates, by simply saying "no" when unreasonable offers are made, those who are at the whim of pricing models set by a conglomerate, are suffering.
It would be smart for organizations, like Getty, Corbis, and others who have the marketshare to allow photographers to use their services more as a portal, or conduit, while permitting those who use the portal to set the rates. A transaction fee similar to that paid to credit card companies who process transactions (2-4%) would suffice.
Betsy Reid has done a remarkable job of analyzing the state of the market, over at the Brittish Journal of Photography, here, and I highly recommend it for a thoughtful read!
Once upon a time, news organizations had robust photo staffs that could cover the news of the day. These staffers were paid well, provided with gear, a retirement, and in turn, were loyal, and ethical, in their work. They also feared being fired for doing something wrong and so, in large part, they didn't. A staffer making $45k a year costs the organization, when all is included, between $250 and $300 a day. The AP, for example, when they pay a staffer $65k a year, and then adding in all their expenses ( office space, computers, cameras, car/mileage, 401k, health insurance, etc) comes to about $320 - $500 or so. It's no wonder they haven't replaced many staffers and are using freelancers when they cost only $200, and they get all the same rights from freelancers, as employees!
Staffers, of course, should do everything they can to discourage management from using freelancers, because, from a cost standpoint alone, the rise of the freelancer equates to the demise of the staffer - it's not like there's less news these days!
I understand that, from time to time, when there's a big news story in a region, temporary needs for freelancers arise. However, when an organization uses multiple freelancers daily, guess what? It's time to staff up! Heck, even union agreements (wherever they still exist) place limits on the frequency of freelance use for the very reason to protect staff positions.
Of course, news organizations, and the AP is just the most recent example, are suffering under the ethically challenged freelancers. Poynter did a good job of reporting on this here, and PDNPulse reported - Another Photo Manipulation Case Raises Question: Is the Penalty High Enough?, and PDN also reported on a Getty freelancer here - Photographer Cut by Getty for Altered Golf Photo Offers Explanation , and the BBC even reported about a freelancer for Reuters (here) who did the same thing.
Yes, there are organizations that need a photographer once a month or twice a year, and freelancers are good for that. Freelancers fit the bill in many instances. However, sending an ethically sound photographer on a plane trip to ensure the images are legitimate serves the long term best interests of news gathering organizations. Hoping you get good sound images from a freelancer you found from an internet search, or a friend of a friend of a friend, is no way to sustain the reputation of your news organization. I know budgets are tight, but with your organizations' reputation on the line as every freelance image moves over the wire, is it worth it?
Oh, those law professors, living in their ivory towers and thinking their reality is the real world. Like Neo, their reality is so far removed from the real world that they know not of which they speak!
Engadget is reporting (here) that 100 or so lawyers have written members of Congress, as Engadget writes "under the bill being advocated for by the RIAA the MPAA, a judge can issue a temporary restraining order that will essentially shutdown a site based only on evidence presented by the government. " And, as such, the lawyers believe that when a site is shut down, even temporarily, it restricts free speech.
Au contrare. It restricts people from profiting from the theft of intellectual property of another.
There are many examples of property being restricted when its use is related to an alleged crime. Take the, ahem, John, who gets busted allegedly soliciting prostitution - in many jurisdictions, the punishment begins with the impounding of his car. It doesn't matter that he had other personal property in the car, the car and it's contents are impounded.
When a house gets raided, say, looking for drugs, things can get damaged, or impounded, during the course of that investigation, and, in some cases, the house may be sealed for a period of time.
Or, take the white collar (alleged) criminal, who may have committed a crime online, or have used his computer(s) to commit the crime. When the government raids his home, they impound his computer to look for evidence, and that evidence isn't often returned until after the trial, yet the accused loses the ability to use the computer, and likely access to all the other documents on it. What if the accused was a small business owner who has Quickbooks on it and couldn't run the business without it?
Of course, Google is opposed to it, because it could be used to shut down, or limit, vast swaths of Google, who, oh, that's right - sells advertising alongside everything, including illegal stuff.
