I appreciate all of this, but keep in mind that I am not a commercial photographer, but more of a photojournalist. I am not going in with lights, assistants, etc.
Photojournalists go in with lights all the time. Have you shot basketball yet? Football? I know all the newspaper pjs in my community and they all take Quantums and lights when they go to shoot portraits for the paper. It's standard in the profession.
I don't think photojournalists really make that kind of money,
It's not a matter of what they routinely make. They're routinely underpaid. But one thing is for certain, if they are on staff they get bennies, and if they're freelance they have to pay for those bennies out of what they get freelancing. So there's no comparison between a staffer and a freelancer.
That's why you have to value yourself in line with your actual cost of doing business. Know your actual cost of doing business and price yourself accordingly.
In fact, I
know many a freelance photojournalist that actually pay their expenses and hope
someone buys their photos afterwards.
Yes, we all do. And we know quite a large number of them that either do something else for a day job, have a working spouse or get a job as quickly as they can. Shooting stock on speculation is the route to being very poor unless you command an appropriate fee.
Another thing to keep in mind is that
they are thinking of paying my way and all expenses to Egypt and I get $200/day
for one-time rights.
As long as it's one-time North American that sounds marginally OK, but watch for all the other rights they may want - web rights, international edition rights, reprint rights, advertising rights. And keep in mind that you're going to a very dangerous place and someone has to pay for your shots, your passport, your medical care if you get shot at, to get you out of some middle eastern prison if some cop doesn't like what you're doing, your translator and your bribes. Did you see in Photo District News this month that Ron Haviv said the most important thing he takes when he goes to places like that is $100 bills? About $5000 of them? To pay the bribes and get himself out of trouble if he gets into it. Do you recall about two months ago a Canadian of Iranian descent, a 54 year old female phojo was arrested in Iran and beaten to a coma by the police? She was photographing a prison. They didn't ask any questions, just grabbed her and took her away and beat her up. She died three days later and they buried her before he son had a chance to bring her back to Canada and have her autopsied.
Look, in the last 6 years the business of editorial has been usurped by Corbis and Getty and they can wipe you off the map, even at $200 a day. Get yourself on the EP forum and start asking about this stuff there and see the whole picture. You're not worth any less because you're not an experienced phojo. You're only worth less if you're a hack, and lots of them make it because they're savvy business people.
Stock is coming apart also due to Corbis and Getty. They hire people right out of school for $135 a day and all copyright forfeit, and put out royalty free with the results. These kids are smart, contemporary, have attitude, ambitious and well trained at Brooks and similar schools. They have all kinds of dreams. But they're giving their work away in exchange for a day rate and they get nothing but the cash. No security and no portfolio.
Read EP, the Stockphoto list and subscribe to Photo District News.
There are crocodiles all over out there and they'll take everything they can get as figure out how to get more and not pay for it.
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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
