I’ve been hearing that we must band together since I started in the business in 1980. I agree, but ultimately it’s what the market will bear.

Big buyers have clout, they always have had it - always will. Our job: do what we can to educate our profession, and then prove that we are worth what we say we are worth.

Today I was asked to do an editorial job for $850. Not unusual until you read their contract which said they had the right to use the photos for ever, and for whatever. How many of you would have shot for this client?

I didn’t see any mention that photographers were being asked to shoot for free…not that I would be surprised, nor would I be surprised to hear some photographers line up for the chance…remember OnRequest?

If APA wants to impact this concept, forget the magazine design departments…try reaching our photo brothers and sisters to explain the situation on photographer sites. People need to have the tools to defend their rates as appropriate and correct, inline with use.

What the ad agencies, graphic designers, billboard companies or magazines make the business decision to give away is of no concern of ours…as long as they are not also giving away our photo licenses. If photographers have produced images for these enities and signed away rights…then they deserve to have their images used without compensation.

From John Ruskin (19th century): “The is hardly anything in the world that one man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and he who considers price alone is this mans lawful prey.”

From Marshall Field explaining why he was re-opening his downtown department store after the great Chicago fire and the subsequent rush of merchants to the suburbs: “When a man has a choice about where to spend his money he will invariably return to that place where he is intentionally and consistently made to feel special.”

There will always be a section of the marketplace avaiable to us if we approach it with an abundance mentality. When we believe there is not enough (a scarcity mentality), and that “no one” wants quality “any more” we cut quality, prices, each others throats, and then our own. Having spent my first career in another part of the creative enterprise, be assured we as photographers are not alone. The sky is not falling, and (not but) we may have to move away from that particular tree (or client, or client group) to keep from getting hit on the head by the next acorn.

United we stand…

Actually I was on board with boycotting CN back in Feb when PDN did an article on the start up of the magazine. PDN asked where and how photographers should submit images. The editor said something to the effect that they didn’t have a big budget for images so most would be shot by in house photographers while the rest would be gotten as cheaply as possible.

Not an exact quote**

-Ed
http://photobusinesseducation.wordpress.com

When someone tells me that the printer, or the magazine will do the design for them, or they have someone ‘in house’ handling that, I ask them if the would let their general contractor design the interior of their home. Most say no.

Starving is bad, granted, but giving away your ideas will always be worse!!!

Fear is the driving force to this situation. Photographers how feared loosing income accepted weird terms and now Conde Nast can re-sell their work to third parties with no extra income to the creators. Free lance Graphic designers fear of loosing accounts or their employers force them into these situations and don’t have the guts to stay put. It’s fear all over the place.

THis is not new, just more people are doing it visibly.

Jorge Parra