Amen, Jeff!
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeff Spirer" <jeff@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: "List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students"
<photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Sunday, November 13, 2005 9:46 AM
Subject: RE: Would you give away a print to a prospective client?
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
