Watch Your Backgrounds!

One of your responsibilities as a photographer is to ensure that your photo "reads" well. That means no distracting elements in the background. If you're working for a corporate client, you want your client's logo in the background where it won't be cropped out, but not so much that it looks too commercial.

Maybe it's just me, but I wouldn't have wanted this background to have to work with for all the tea in China. I ran across it over at The Wonkette, and did a fair amount of research to try to find the source/date and so on, with no luck. Feel free to share what you know about the details of this event in the comments.

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A Sad Day (In a Way)

Today, I made a big decision, one that is the reverse of the culmination of my goals from 15 years ago.

15 years ago, when all I had was 35mm equipment, I began accruing my medium format equipment. But, it wasn't just any equipment, it was the best -- Hasselblad. No Pentax, no Mamiya for me. I wanted to deliver the best images possible, and the optics that Victor made were the best for that. So, instead of spending 10k for an entire Mamiya kit, I bought, piecemeal, my Hasselblad. A body here, a lens there. As I evolved, I found myself with a full kit, able to serve whatever clients needs were, from fisheye to 300mm, and most everywhere inbetween.

I learned the 'VHPICTURES' decoding scheme (123...0) to determine the age of backs, bodies, and so on. I scoured the camera shows looking for unique items, pre-ebay. I learned about element arrangements, why FLE was better than it's predecessors, why early lenses were silver, and other Hasselblad users thought that using anything other than a WL viewfinder was cheating. I remember loving that I never had to "go vertical", I was a square guy, and proud of it.

Many of my favorite images were made with this equipment, and there is nothing like seeing 120mm transparencies on a lightbox in a dim lab. Sadly, that lab closed 18 months ago, yet I have been unable to bring myself to dispense with my blood-sweat-and-tears earned equipment. They are more than tools to me, they are a representation of achiving "professional" status many many years ago. It was my Hasselblad equipment that allowed me to say "absolutely, we shoot with Hasselblad" when an art director called, and asked "do you have medium format?" It was an immediate differentiator. That always made them happy.

Now, it's no longer necessary. I haven't used the equipment in atleast five years, nor had a request for it. Editors have stopped asking for medium format, and I miss saying "yes" to that question.

Yes yes, I know, many of those lenses can be used on Hasselblad digital bodies/backs. Oh well. I haven't had a client ask for that either - the file sizes we are delivering are frequently too large for clients, and we have to down-rez them so they don't crash their computers.

Motivated by what was essentially a free-listing day on e-bay, I posted up my body with a rare winder, a Customized 500C/M, my Modified 500 EL/M, my body for interiors/architecture, the SWC/M, my "solves a tight space issue" lens, the 30mm fisheye, my favorite portrait lens, the 150mm, my second favorite portrait lens, the 120mm, and my wide angle 50mm, along with a few accessories.

If it all sells at the "Buy It Now" price, I'll generate $10,105, and with free shipping/insurance probably costing me around $100 for all items, I'm left back at $10k, which, in the end, is about 1/3 of what the lot cost me when I first bought it all new. I suppose, that's not bad, a two-thirds depreciation for 15 years or so.

I know they're supposed to be just tools, but to me, they were like family.

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Just Ask And Ye Shall Receive

So, you think that the New York Times organization pays just $250 an assignment? Yes, if you don't ask, and press, and convince them you're worth more.

Check this link - T Style's Cover Shoot for a really interesting behind the scenes look at what more than $250 can get you.

Sometimes, in fact, often, it's necessary to pay for assignments beyond what the masses complain about. I certainly am among those complaining that $250 is not enough for even the most basic assignment. Clearly, some are getting more!

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Speedlinks 05/23/07

Today's Speedlinks are interesting. Once I had someone who wanted to work for me, commuting via train and metro for 90 minutes each way, each day. I talked them out of it because, considering the time, and cost to travel to me and home, their net hourly income was less than minimum wage. Link 2 is all about stock agencies who take public domain images, scan and retouch them, and add metadata, and then claim a copyright registration as a database contribution, or to the metadata. Not a very substantive basis, and built on a house of cards in my opinion.

• Your True Hourly Wage - Do you consider your commute time? Expenses related to work? Keep thinking, and then go check out this site to reveal the truth!


• Tenuous Copyright Claims - The Online Photographer comments on how Getty is claiming copyright to works they can't. (Hint: their contributions are deminimus, and thus not eligible!) Check it out!

Now go! Check 'em out, and come back soon!

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Leave The Flip Flops For The Politicians

We have a strict policy in our office, and it's "no flip flops". We also encourage a business casual environment, yet the importance of maintaining a prepared status in the event a last minute assignment comes up. However, at no time, is it acceptable to wear flip-flops on an assignment (or in the office), even if that assignment is at the beach.

Why no flip flops? Set aside decorum, look at that heavy steel equipment? Rolling cart, heavy tripod, and off camera are heavy equipment cases. In a moment, those toes could be in severe pain. It's just risky. In addition, you can't climb well in those -- literally, you are a scant short distance from being bare foot.

Considering decorum, there are a number of stories that go along with this, try Flip Flop Scandal at the White House, or
Wearing Flip-Flops A No-No?, and to see the large photo of these ladies with The President from 2005, click here. We are in a professional office environment here. We're amongt people in suits, or dressed business casual, not "beach casual".

The photo above? An oversight on my part. I make a point of being detail oriented, scanning everything I can (to include my usual scan of my assistant's attire, save for this oversight), ensuring a professional presentation. I have, on occasion, denied an intern or assistant an assignment opportunity, leaving them in the office, and instead, taking someone from my staff who is appropriately attired. Sometimes it's not having your attire at the ready when a last minute assignment comes about, sometimes it's being too casual when we should be dressed up.

Leave the flip flops for the politicians, they're sure to satisfy on that front, and dress for success.

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Megadeth and Sam Donaldson

So, a couple of days ago I found myself in a somewhat unusual place (for me), in a studio listening to a Megadeth concert and interview. I was somewhat familiar with Dave Mustane, and was duly impressed with his business accumen.

He made a remarkable statement, when he said "the music business used to be one thing - the music business. Then, it became two things, Music and Business, and then the business people thought they had the music gene, and it became business and music."

Remarkable and insightful.

(Continue Reading at Black Star Rising)

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Speedlinks 05/20/07

Today's Speedlinks cover some interesting topics aboutthings such as how do we mentally calculate what's a justifiable expense or how to we internally characterize various expense types, to copyright and why it's possession is enjoyed for a limited period of time.

• Mental Accounting - "People carry around different running tabs in their heads. You have, for example, an "entertainment account." Losing a movie ticket and having to buy a second one takes $20 out of your entertainment account when you planned to take only $10. Lost cash, on the other hand, is not charged to the entertainment account -- which is why most people don't hesitate to buy a movie ticket after they lose some cash.
  
  However, compartmentalizing income and spending into different mental accounts violates one of the basic rules of economics -- that money is fungible, or interchangeable. The $10 movie ticket is supposed to be worth exactly the same as $10 in cash. Supposed to be, of course, is the operative phrase. This is not the way human beings actually think, which is why economic models of human behavior often turn out to be wrong.
  
  "The source of the money affects how it is spent," said Suzanne Fogel, who heads the marketing department at DePaul University in Chicago."
  (Continue reading at The Washington Post)


• A Great Idea Lives Forever. Shouldn’t Its Copyright? - WHAT if, after you had paid the taxes on earnings with which you built a house, sales taxes on the materials, real estate taxes during your life, and inheritance taxes at your death, the government would eventually commandeer it entirely? This does not happen in our society ... to houses. Or to businesses. Were you to have ushered through the many gates of taxation a flour mill, travel agency or newspaper, they would not suffer total confiscation...unless you own a copyright...Absent the government’s decree, copyright holders would have no exclusivity of right at all. Does not then the government’s giveth support its taketh? By that logic, should other classes of property not subject to total confiscation therefore be denied the protection of regulatory agencies, courts, police and the law itself lest they be subject to expropriation as payment for the considerable and necessary protections they too enjoy? Should automobile manufacturers be nationalized after 70 years because they depend on publicly financed roads? Should Goldman Sachs be impounded because of the existence of the Securities and Exchange Commission?
  
  (Continue Reading at the New York Times)

Now go! Check 'em out, and come back soon!

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Copyright Alliance

We see ourselves as the good guys, the Rebel Alliance if you will. In the beginning, as with Lucas' fictional rag-tag group who "realized the Empire had absolutely no regard to the rights, or even the lives, of its citizens...", and to Peter Jackson's interpretation of a petite and unwilling leader who fought against "dark forces gathering to the west...", both legions, in the end, won.

Enter The Copyright Alliance, a better organized and financed group of organizations with the single aim of resisting the attempts to overthrow the constitutionally endowed rights for creators to possess, for a limited period of time, a monopoly of their creations. Those dark forces are the populus who runs fast and loose with people's rights.

At their announcement of the formalization, Thursday May 17th, James Gibson, University of Richmond Law Professor, cited the example of the many of us who exceed the speed limit. When we do, we break the law, and as with that, when we are caught, we pay the price, he posited. Many infringers, like speeders, see only the infringement as risky if caught, and then, without registration, there is no true punishment, as the recoverable is almost always severely limited, and so, speeders and infringers prevail. So much so, that people seen driving only the speed limit are looked at as antiquated - the grannies of the road - caught in a time warp of reality, where speeding, and, analagously, infringing, is just de rigueur.

Most people who have driven through Georgia, for example, know that you drive 55mph, not 56. Those Georgia troopers enforce the speed limit to the letter. In New York City, everyone knows, "don't block the box", and drive long enough in your own community, you know where the speed traps are. So too, should potential infringers respect the laws - and rights - of those who are the creators.

The Copyright Alliance is working to ensure creators rights are protected. But the Dark Forces to the West are growing, establishing a front, and seeking organizations to chip away at the methodoligies used to protect the artist's right to restrict uses of their works. They have sought to push forward broad-reaching Orphan Works legislation. Many agree that some well thought out version of Orphan Works will be the solution to the critical preservation needs of archivists looking to save images and movies that are being lost to the degradation that occurs over time. That photos that are found in a shoebox at a garage sale might have limited commercial value or intention to commercially be exploited. Yet, blanket protections afforded across the board are what's on the table, and that's just not fair.

Consider that copyright is afforded the citizenry in the first 1,600 words of the Constitution. Consider then, that issues like gun rights, slavery, and equal rights for women were things that were missing and needed to be fixed. The framers considered copyright so important that it was integral to the initial document, yet other important issues were forgotten. Try, instead, dismissing copyright as irrelevant, suggesting that slavery or equal rights for women, are irrelevant. Those dismissals, as with copyright, also are offensive to me.

Among those penning articles about the group are Variety, CNET, Reuters, and Broadcasting & Cable.

You must fight for your rights as a creative. Stand up and be counted. Engage in the dialog and debate. Recognize too, that, where you're reading this not as a US citizen, but rather, around the world, that the world is watching. How we treat copyright can become cracks in the copyright of your own countries.

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Don't Delete!

Honestly, ask yourself - how long do you think it would take for you to review assignment images, and delete outtakes? Assume, for a moment, you are shooting RAW, on a Canon 1Ds Mark II, and you are generating 19MB files. That's 53 images. How long would it take for you to do the delete? A few minutes? With 300GB drives costing around $150 or so, that's about $0.50 per GB, or $1 per GB, properly redundant. It's cheaper to not delete the files, and simply give them a ZERO star rating in your archives. The time involved in either paying someone, or the loss of your own time doing so, just is not worth it. Someday, you may be, for whatever reason, wanting those files. If your camera is generating smaller RAW files, then it will take even longer.

Chase Jarvis has an interesting take on this, and he cites Avedon, who's seminal work from the Southwest would have likely never been done had it not been for an outtake that he took in Italy in 1947 that someone else noticed.

Simply put, don't delete your files. Save them. You never know when a piece of a file might be necessary. An overexposed image might give you detail in the shadows of a scene you need for an image that could use a higher dynamic range. Perhaps, an image could be re-tooled into something interesting. That image of the delete key I shot with my point and shoot, and it captured every bit of dust on the keyboard - a total deleter! However, applying some creative filters made it an interesting file, something that shouldn't be deleted!

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Proof Positive

Over at The Consumerist, they have an interesting article titled "Make Debt Collectors Prove They Own What They Say You Owe", which includes, in part:

We've mentioned how if you're being pursued by a debt collector, you need to make them prove that you owe the debt...you need to make them prove that it is they they actually own the debt, what is called having "standing."...When we defend clients in court on these types of cases...the debt buyer refuses to produce at trial the alleged "purchase agreement" where they supposedly bought the debt...

So, what does this mean?

Consider that you are that debt collector, and the debtor is the person for whom you provided services to, or to whom you've delivered prints, or a CD. I know far far too many photographers who do not require the client sign an estimate or other document prior to the beginning of work being performed.

What if the person hiring you gets fired? Quits? Dies? Or, what if they remember you agreed to terms or fees that you didn't, because it's not in writing, signed? What if you spent a lot of money on an assignment (airfare, hotels, assistants, and so on) and they either thought all expenses were included in the fee, or don't approve expenses like yours? A signed agreement would give you "standing" with this person, or if they are no longer with the company, for whatever reason, with their boss, legal department, or accounting department.

You must have a signed document from your client outlining terms and conditions, fees and expenses, and rights granted, and you must have your signature on the document as well. Not doing so, is like playing with fire, and you will get burned.

Oh, and one more thing - save and archive these documents, meticulously and methodically!

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