Bob Sutton, author of The No Asshole Rule, has on his blog (left column–not directly linkable but just look over there on the main page) a list of 15 things he believes. It’s a damn fine list. I must say that I’m in agreement with him–especially numbers 6 though 10, 13 and 14. 

I noticed that several of the comments on my post about standardizing usage prices asked questions about enforcement. Issues of penalties for those who don’t use the system (whatever it ended up being) seem to be important to some of you. I, however, think that is wasted energy. There is no way to enforce and there is no need to anyway–people will follow if it makes sense, and if they choose not to, that’s up to them. So what?

I think people are afraid that if the system says that Usage X = $X some photographer will price it at $X-20% and thus get the gig, but I think that will be a rare occurrence. If we work with buyers (adv., corporate, whatever) to develop the system (like PLUS did for the usage language), then they will understand how it works and they will know that those who underprice like that are not ethical photographers and thus untrustworthy. Would you hire someone (plumber, designer, whatever) who you knew was underpricing just to get the gig? I wouldn’t. And I don’t think clients would either–especially when they need to know that whomever they use will get the images they need, and that requires trust.

When you have a systematic pricing system in place, then the choices become not about the money anymore. It opens buyers up to being able to choose photographers based on other issues like creative vision/style, production values and abilities, and a host of intangibles–all of which are better reasons to use a photographer than her/his price.