Thing is many are VERY good photographers with some of the best equipment. It just isn't their occupation, but its not right to take advantage of them either. In my opinion it is even worse because their employees, and frankly the company as a whole treats their people VERY well. They could get a great deal of good will and gain FAR more by paying people that already work for them the going pro rate with a hardy thank you to go with it. Yes it would cost them a few bucks, but the end result would make the few bucks seem like chicken feed.
No I don't participate. Now when the wife needs a photo of something for her work, she gets the premium treatment. All married men know the two words that are necessary to stay a happily married man. Yes dear. lol
The RF CD's were not a good business model. How many of them do you still see being sold? Frankly the bottom has fallen below them and left them high an dry. It is much easier to get photos off the net (legal or otherwise) than to use them. The sneaky is the right word for the contest model because they don't usually come right out an say it. The terms are usually in small print buried in the rules.
Change is a given and these days with so many more images available, sifting through lots of poor quality is almost a given. One thing I wonder though, and maybe someone here knows. Someone with a little camera phone managed to capture a tragic image right after the mid air over the Hudson river. As a former instructor, this was tough to see and over the years I lost on the average of one friend a year for many years in airplane accidents. I hope the networks at least paid the woman well that happened to capture the image of the airplane still in the air with the wing off and a helicopter with no rotor blades. My guess is she didn't make anything and don't get me started on using photos of people about to die to sell a news organization.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: The Nature Conservancy's Digital Photography Contest
From: lookaround360@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Wed, August 12, 2009 6:46 pm
To: List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students
<photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
It seems to get tougher continually for professional photographers. I'd
like to see examples of rights grabber's catalogs. Who are they? Can
anyone point to a specific instance where they lost business to them?
Or is it just part of the general malaise - photographers feeling picked
upon by a better (sneaky-er!?) business plan, royalty-free CD's,
idiot-proof digital cameras, and on and on? I recall the same screams of
unfair, unfair at the purveyors of royalty-free CD albums way back when.
Recently I mentioned my difficulty finding decent images on Getty and
Corbis. The commercial illustration shots are with few exceptions
laughably awful, unworthy of a $19.98 CD. If the rights grabbers are
"stealing" good stuff and it's no better than the other collections I
don't really care. The better commercial workers get big bucks and
deservedly so. I doubt that they worry about loosing jobs to the stock
houses.
AZ
LOOKAROUND - Since 1978
Build a 120/35mm Lookaround!
The Lookaround E-Book 5ed.
http://www.panoramacamera.us
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: [SPAM] Re: The Nature Conservancy's Digital Photography
> Contest
> From: Tina Manley <images@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: Wed, August 12, 2009 9:55 am
> To: List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students
> <photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> At 09:46 AM 8/12/2009, you wrote:
> >Tina,
> >Yea, but it is non-exclusive rights and I would think having something
> >accepted would be quite a publicity coup for most people. Besides it's
> >not a bad outfit to support is it?
> >
> >AZ
> They should not be grabbing rights and building a library of all
> submitted photos to use Royalty Free any way they want. Read about
> rights grabbing contests and how they affect photographers:
> http://www.pro-imaging.org/content/view/135/155/
> The publicity would not be worth it.
> Tina
> Tina Manley
> www.tinamanley.com
