At 06:58 AM 11/13/2005, lookaround360@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
Amateurs and students can ruin the price structure of a market for the
professionals by working for free or cut-rate. Everybody looses
I don't see how amateurs and students are responsible for maintaining
a price structure for professionals. People selling work or taking
paying jobs in photography are responsible for creating the value in
what they do and should never be dependent on what some other group
is doing. If I can't find a way to make my photographs worth money,
that's my problem, not the guy down the street giving them away.
I lose far more from the outright ripping off of my photos on the
web. I have a photo I sold for web use which is now the most ripped
off photo of professional kickboxing you can find on web sites. This
is what puts me in a bad situation, not the free prints I usually
give to boxers I've photographed, and which result in their gyms and
trainers giving me paying business. It's particularly difficult
because I have to explain to the client that I can't control what
people do, although I do email the thieves when I find them and have
succeeded in getting them taking off or paid for. But if someone
else gives away a similar photo, I just have to have a better photo,
or a reason for mine to be worth purchasing. As a photographer, I
have to take responsibility for myself.
Jeff Spirer
Photos: http://www.spirer.com
One People: http://www.onepeople.com/
Surfaces and Marks: http://www.withoutgrass.com
