"Emily L. Ferguson" <elf@cape.com> wrote/replied to:
This approach sounds like a sure way to kill the entire deal.
Yup. That's the core problem with consolidating publishing right now. Murdoch and the Associated Press, Getty, and Bill Gates, who wholly owns Corbis, all get rich while the people who create the intellectual property they get rich on don't have health insurance and forfeit their future.
It seems to me there's such a glut of images of all kinds on the market right now that any photog except one who's already made a name could be happy to get any work, and maybe just maybe make a few extra bucks from images after the shoot. I'd take 200 bucks for a few hours shooting, hopefully make more on prints, and keep the rights any day.
Of course, there are no prints in the offing here. This is editorial - the magazine needs the shots to accompany an article, presumably. So the right to market the shots further, after a suitably short period of exclusivity to the original commissioner, needs to remain with the creator.
Your points are well taken and should be kept in mind, but for the beginners, let's just try not to scare off any customers but keep the rights to our images, and make _some profit_.
Well, if the original query came from a beginner she must be a pretty accomplished beginner. Magazines rarely take chances on those who look like beginners. Usually they know that the person they're thinking of working with has the style and skills they expect to do the work. If she has those in order, she is worth a lot more than $200 an 8-hour day, and shooting a story for a magazine is hardly ever only a day's work. Capable shooters don't go into gigs like this without research and some scouting, if it's portraits they bring assistants and rented lighting equipment, a complete studio, along with them. If it's on location there's a lot of homework to be done before the shoot.
Think of all the hours you spend trying to capture a bird like a kingfisher, Jim, and then think about whether you're worth only $25/hr for your accumulated skills and knowledge of locations and willingness to sit in water, specialized equipment etc. etc.
And keep in mind that those stock libraries have lots of generic images, but generic images are hardly ever useful for specific magazine articles.
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Emily L. Ferguson
mailto:elf@cape.com 508-563-6822
New England landscapes, wooden boats and races, press photography http://www.vsu.cape.com/~elf
