This Is Fly – photography article
- This topic has 79 replies, 31 voices, and was last updated Oct 8, 2009 at 6:23 pm by
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Hey guys,
I don’t post much either, but I’d like to weigh in here. I feel that Tosh is right on.
Digital has changed the world, and brought many, many more players in. It has increased the sheer number of images available for anything imaginable. And as with many things, volume can drive the price down. But it doesn’t need to.
This topic has been beaten to death in other forums all over the internet, but you wouldn’t go to a new auto shop in your city and ask them to do free work for you because they just opened. Why should it be any different for a photographer? The magazine staff is getting paid. The editors are getting paid. Why shouldn’t you? If you have an image they want, then it’s worth something, and regardless of your experience, it should be worth the same thing as a working pro gets paid. No excuses. Whether you have one or one thousand images in your portfolio, if they want it, the value should not change based on your experience.
Photography may not be my main source of income, but I’m not going to let that affect my pricing model. I use both the ASMP guidelines and Fotoquote to preset current market rates to any client I work with.
As was said before in this thread – often times, when you give work away, you are labeled as the free option. You’ll always be the free option, and they will go somewhere else when they are ready to spend money on images. I’ve seen it enough times with colleagues to know it happens. Get paid for your work. End of story. I’m not going to say there is no place for pro bono work, but those situations need to be evaluated carefully.
It’s becoming an unfortunate reality that charity work is changing the photography model. Until those companies who are using your “free” images are purchasing your camera gear, paying for your gas and car insurance, and helping you make your mortgage payment, why give them anything?
Jacob
I don’t have much experience with selling pictures but read a few topics like this one on dutch photo fora. In those topics there’s a pricing list that always pops up. It’s quite a long and good list of what you can and/or should get payed for ea a newspaper, mag, website or advertising photo. Isn’t there something like that in America?
Olle
With regards to “e-zines”
Any publications ability to purchase copyright material is driven by the ad revenue. While I’m sure they get some, I feel comfortable suggesting it pales in comparison to the rev print mgazines get. So while we as originators bemoan the lack of compensation, Im sure they might do the same. Afterall they probably have as many or more readers and thats not counting return visits. Perhaps in time if/when/as electronic publications become more the norm and print fades away, advertisors will have to pony up, and “e-zines” in turn will be able to better compensate contributors.
Pro vs amateur.
IMO the day you need to start filing tax returns for income is the day you became a Professional writer/photographer.The difference
Sure theres a gluttony of images and photographers willing to sell photos these days. I admit it, I’m one. I’m chasing the dream. The difference is Im *working* at it.The difference between say David A or Ben C and myself?
If Im an AD and I want/need X and Im willing to pay for it, I’m paying David A and not John B for the simple reason with my tight budget I can rely on David A, more than I can John B to deliver. It’s nothing personal, its a *business* decision. If David A is unavailable then I turn to John B because hes more reliable than the people who have shots fall in their laps. One of my greatest accomplishments as yet is nothing more than being named as a “photographer” in a mag as opposed to just credit with each image. Every month rigt under the credits for the publishers/editors theres my name. It earns me didly to most it probably doesnt mean alot, but in reality it means a world of difference.Tons of people can get take publishable images when everything falls into place (light, subject matter, etc.) and some happen by accident.
The people who get repeat busniess are the photographers who can do it anytime/anywhere/under all sorts of conditions and deliver. Not once, not twice consistantly and on demand.When an AD is looking for an image. Whose libraries do you think are checked fist? The photogrpahers whom they know can deliver and for which they have proven track records, or the hundreds of “shooters” to whom its a Hobby w/ Gravy and cross their desk once in a while with a nice photo?
Oh wow, what a great thread, turn my head for a moment…
OK, so I recently got some work in a local mag, I didn’t expect anything for it, the magazine is not well off, they try hard to deliver local content, for the public, but times are tough. They have done stuff for me and, in return I wanted to give them something.
However, in the post a rived a token of their appreciation, just a few Dollars, but better than a kick in the pants.
I agree with most of the stuff written here…
Morsie, Aaron and the other pros, if someone asks you for it, and you deliver, then you deserve your remuneration. FULL STOP. You are pros and like everyone else has said, you can’t ask for a freebie at the body shop.For the rest of us, if we submit it, unsolicited, then we cannot expect to be remunerated for it. However, if we then get asked to do more work, then if becomes a business transaction.
My thoughts…
For the rest of us, if we submit it, unsolicited, then we cannot expect to be remunerated for it. However, if we then get asked to do more work, then if becomes a business transaction.
My thoughts…
Mike, I’m afraid I’ll have to disagree with this. When I first got started, no one was asking for my work. I was sending in sleeves of slides “over the transom”. Maybe it works differently in your markets, but in the US that’s traditionally the way it’s done. That’s the way you get noticed. Timely persistence.
If the AD’s ended up using my work, I sent them an invoice. 95% of the time they paid without question. The remaining 5% got crossed off my list. Had I waited around for someone to ask for my work before I requested payment for use, I’d have never gotten very far.
Pro, amateur, hobbyist: it doesn’t matter. If someone uses your work, whether they requested it or not, you need to be paid (promptly and fairly).
If everyone will stand firm on this principle, we can reverse many of the disturbing trends that are beginning to crush the freelance photo business.
Pro, amateur, hobbyist: it doesn’t matter. If someone uses your work, whether they requested it or not, you need to be paid (promptly and fairly).
If everyone will stand firm on this principle, we can reverse many of the disturbing trends that are beginning to crush the freelance photo business.
I agree.
My concern is that photos are, in the digital age, becoming like music and something people expect for nothing.
The problem started before digital really hit the masses though.
Getty images an an example, are pricing out freelance shooters at the printed publications by offering subscriptions where they use what they want for a monthly fee.
Why hire a photographer to shoot a picture when you can get it cheap from Getty ?A while back a guy I know who shoots music stuff here was bragging too me that Getty had sold 50 of his shots around the world in a month.
I asked what that paid and he came back with $560.
He ended up a little disappointed when I told him he should have got around 10 times that even after an agents fee.All’s fair in love & business and you can’t blame Getty for trying to make a profit out of photography.
But – now that the value of an image has come so far down, they’re not really making much money anyway – so what was the point ?To put the price into perspective –
In the last couple years of film and first couple of digital my syndication around the world was worth about 10 times what it is now.
We got paid a fair fee too shoot and then, because we owned copyright on our work, could make more money on future sales.
Now, if you can keep copyright from the publications, it’s not worth anywhere near what it was, so it’s harder to make a living from photography.
The battle over copyright started about 10 years ago when the big companies like Getty and Microsoft (through companies like Corbis) started their battle to corner the image market and made deals with the publishers to gain copyright.The magazines have all stopped making money with the exception of a few special interest titles.
Part of the reason IMHO is that they’ve turned their back on quality one off photography and gone with anything they can get on the cheap.
Now their magazines all look the same and less people buy them, and less money comes in advertising because they all buy their images from the same pool.
While the GFC might be a timely excuse for the bean counters at the big publishers too use now, the business has been going down for a lot longer.Another price perspective –
20 years ago, the Australian version of People paid $500 a day to the photographer, plus all costs including film with a mark-up.
They also paid you as much again if the story ran over a certain number of pages and you got much more if you made a cover, plus, after 3 months the photos were returned to the photographer and we could syndicate them.
It was good money and a system with a lot of incentive to do great work.
The competition was SAVAGE to work for them.
The magazine did very well ad made lots of money.Now, they pay $500 a day + costs, but keep copyright and from what I understand there’s nothing extra for the digital element or extra space in the magazine.
(there are some exceptions)
The magazine is now a crappy rag like all the others and does little quality work and makes little money.
Now, if you could be bothered to take your 100,000 + dollars worth of gear to do a shoot for them, you certainly wouldn’t brag about doing it to the other photographers.Anyone else out there taken a pay CUT from what they earned 20 years ago for the same work??
One last example, and it’s my favorite.
Before digital and the big agencies, a freelancer could go shoot something like a film premiere or big concert and expect to make $500 – $1500 dollars if you got great shots and made a good sale at a magazine – again, it was VERY competitive.
On the odd occasion, you made much more if you got something a bit exclusive or made a good sale overseas.
This work was almost all done by freelance photographers and it’s still some of the hardest shooting I’ve ever had to do – very fast and unforgiving.Now it’s a different story, there’s fewer freelance photographers at a red carpet and always a cluster of Getty or other big agency shooters, they tend to have crappy gear, and seemingly little of the killer ambition that you needed in my day to get the great shots.
The reason is they’re paid very little, and their work is just thrown into a pile that gets thrown around to subscribes and generally printed with no photo credit.
They also don’t get any (some exceptions) syndication and have no chance of ever making a living IMHO.Being near the end of my career as opposed to the beginning I have been able to work around all this crap by targeting clients that don’t do the Getty thing and that still value the image – it’s harder than it used to be, but still a living.
But –
God help anyone looking to get started as a full-time freelance photographer and make career of it.
((sorry for the rant. ;)))
www.dsaphoto.com
A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
A good and timely rant Dave.
No matter how anyone wants to dress it up and sugar coat it, cheaper inevitably ends up as nastier.
Morsie
((sorry for the rant. ;)))
Don’t be sorry, be careful… lol
It seems that Digital are considered “free” photo’s, you can just shoot till you get a good one. But I just found out that each one of these HIGH priced DSLR has a limited shutter life, and it’s nowhere near what it used to be.
I got +/- 20 000 shutter triggers left on mine, then got to buy a new one. Here I am firing away trying to learn, and using up my camera.
Forget about lenses and software, and the big one… TIME
The price of gear is another interesting aspect of this, in the film years a top of the line SLR was around $5000 here, now, the same body with
www.dsaphoto.com
A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
Well guys, as long as we’re on this subject, there’s another issue that should probably be addressed.
Last year at the FFR show in Denver, a young guide whom I’d never met walked up and said “Dude, I love your shots–did you see mine in the new ________ (reel) catalog?”
Of course he had a copy, so he flipped it open and showed it to me. It was small, maybe a 1/4 page, but it was a nice shot. “Good job,” I told him, I hope you got a decent pay for it.”
“Nah, they didn’t offer any money but I got some killer schwag, (pointed at his hat) and my name in the catalog.”
At that time, I was hoofing it to an appointment and I didn’t have time to explain my Circle of Insolvency theory to him. For anyone interested, here it is:
Suppose the Reel Company sells it’s product for $500. In simplified terms, they’re probably offering 40% to most retailers ($200). Let’s divide the remaining 60% equally between cost and profit – again, this is a simplified model.
Now let’s say that in today’s world I would charge them $750 for that small shot in their catalog. They won’t pay me cash, but instead they offer one of their reels. At first glance this seems like a good deal. What fish-shooter wouldn’t want a shiny new reel, right? Well here’s where it all falls apart.
If I really wanted that reel, but they paid me cash instead of barter, I could take that cash down to my local fly shop and buy the reel. I’m still making a few dollars ($750 license fee less the $500 reel cost). The fly shop has just pocketed their $200 cut, and the Reel Company just got another reel order from the fly shop. Cash, in this case, made the world go ‘round.
Had I accepted the barter deal, the Circle of Insolvency comes into play. I would have left $600 on the table (My normal license fee of $750 less their $150 cost in the reel). My fly shop lost a sale and is still sitting on a shiny $500 reel. So in the end, the reel company made out like a bandit; but me and my fly shop are now one step closer to the soup line.
Barter used to work when products were priced in terms of donkeys and guinea hens, but that all went away when coin arrived on the scene. Even if Reel Company offers you 3 reels for one of your photos, the cash flow still stops before it gets to the fly shop, and then Ebay gets to make money when you have to hock the two extra reels to pay your light bill.
Ask for cash (demand cash) for every photo transaction. The fly fishing photo business is turning into a back-alley swap meet, and unfortunately it’s mainly due to guides and casual shooters with DSLR’s that don’t understand the value of an image. If you see it happening, try and explain the ramifications to the shooters. We’ve lost a lot of paying companies in the past 2-3 years, but maybe we can get them back if we stand firm on the cashola equation.
TB
Amazing thread – the input shared from real experienced seasoned pros is much appreciated.
I’m curious how you see
Will –
In this market there are very few fly fishing AD’s that are actually looking to buy a quality image. They don’t have to because they have a lot of options for getting free/cheap ones.
There’s a big misconception out there that guys like me are paying all our bills through paid fly-fishing assignments, and copious stock image sales to magazines and gear companies. Up until 2005, that was the case for me. Since then my business has dropped over 70%.
That said, I think you have to be a generalist and have a little coverage in a lot of areas. I’m constantly looking for that niche where I can become the expert shooter that no one can touch, but to date I haven’t found a niche that this shrinking market will support. Suppose you became the primo underwater trout photographer: it doesn’t matter how many great shots you can produce because you’ll still go hungry if the market–across the board–only pays for 12 underwater trout shots per year.
The challenge, these days, is not creating great work because the market is hugely overstocked with great work. What we need right now are buyers, and they won’t come back until all of the free/cheap product filters out of the system.
Not trying to be the prophet of doom, guys. But I feel like everyone needs to get a realistic grasp of what needs to be done to rebuild the freelance photo business. In all honesty, I think the only shooters that will have a chance to break in and earn an actual living are the ones with serious fine art photography backgrounds. Tibor Nemeth and Paolo Marchesi are good examples. However, they’re getting hired to do the big jobs, across a lot of markets. They’re not relying on fly fishing because they understand the true depth of this diminishing cash pile.
If you enjoy shooting pics, then by all means keep after it. Learn the biz, price your work accordingly, and make a few extra bucks. You do, however, need to be realistic about the potential of ever being able to earn a living from it. That’s why I started this little publishing gig. I had to do something to diversify and stay afloat.
TB
Hey guys –
I have avoided stating my baldfaced opinion about this because I have a lot of respect for everyone here and I know some of you won’t care to hear it. But I think Tosh is getting there, so here it is:
This is a simple problem of supply and demand. In 2000, the supply of quality images was small (due to the technical curve and expense of film photography), and the demand was high (due to flush stock markets, and the over-saturation of the outdoor media market thanks to rich dudes buying or creating new fishing, hunting, and outdoor magazines). If you came up as a professional photographer in 1990-1995, by 2000 you would have been in the catbird seat as far as revenue streams go.
Today the reverse is true. The media markets have crashed with the stock markets. Multiple magazines have gone out of business (Wild on the Fly, Warmwater Fly Fishing, Saltwater Fly Fishing), while others are too closely tied to newspaper holdings and are facing bankruptcy. Two of the remaining major three fly fishing magazines have dropped their independent audits in the last two years. In other words, the market has rapidly and catastrophically contracted, limiting demand.
Meanwhile, digital photography has cut the expense of being a photographer by up to 80%, while educating amateurs who can put thousands of rounds through their cameras at no cost. I have taken over 100,000 exposures since purchasing my first DSLR about 5 years ago. That would have been impossible with film unless I was a millionaire. Unless you’re mentally subnormal, you can’t help but learn something about how to use a camera with that much opportunity to experiment. Consequently, the number of photographers able to supply a fair number of publishable images has rapidly increased, inflating supply.
Are my photos as good as Tosh’s or David Anderson’s? Hell no. Moreover, my consistency is terrible compared to them. But the average article only runs with three or four images. And I can certainly produce three or four publishable images to accompany any given story.
Put simply: magazines have shrunk, shrinking demand, while photography has grown, increasing supply. This is basic Adam Smith economics: the price you pay for a photo has dwindled almost to nothing.
I asked a friend who is in charge of picking photos for a manufacturer’s catalog to review this thread. His comment was “I don’t need to pay a professional photographer when so many of our pro staffers can take capable images. They have an incentive to help us sell product.” In essence, he has a team of house photographers who do not get paid by the image.
This is where you’re probably going to get mad at me. I think the party’s over. I wish it wasn’t, but I am just saying what I see. Trying to hold the line by demanding more money for your images is just going to get your story killed completely. Many catalogs don’t need to pay professionals, and those that do, like Cabelas or Orvis, can use house photographers who do not get paid by the image. The problem of free images out there isn’t going to work itself out; it’s going to get worse. Photo-industry standards for pricing are self-serving and are frankly laughable in the face of the market. Most photographers have no idea how much trouble their magazine clients are in. The money just isn’t there.
I do not believe it is possible to become a professional outdoor photographer alone, not any more. People like the afore-mentioned Tibor Nemeth can stay afloat because they are genuine artists using genuine artists’ tools (thousands upon thousands of dollar cameras, film, with paid staffs). Listen to Tosh; he was as established as anyone could get.
All good points, Zach, but I’m not quite ready to declare it a dead business. Is the “party over”? Yes, I think it definitely is, because for me the party was 1998 through 2005.
That said, I do think the new shooters that make a commitment to the photography business might see a little success once the dust clears. Full-time success? No, but if they’ll learn the business and price their work correctly, they’ll make a few sales.
On the other hand, I think that the people that are taking the more casual approach, the ones that are undercutting the business they’re trying to get into, will eventually get frustrated and move on.
You mentioned the simplicity of supply and demand but there are a lot of other factors at play. I know a number of editors that are tossing around the term “search fatigue”. They’re tired of looking through jillions of flickr pages and CD images to find one decent shot.
My guess is that a lot of the new shooters that have come along with the digital era will eventually get frustrated and bail once they figure out how little cash is available. Their websites will go away, and they’ll quit mailing CD’s and the guides that are shooting product shots in exchange for schwag will lose interest and move on. What’s to keep them plugged in? A free hat and their name in a catalog?
A big percentage of the glut will eventually filter through, and at that point the photographers that played their cards right will see an increase in sales. Will we ever see 2005 prices again? Absolutely not. But I do think there will always be a little money to be made by the savvy shooters.
So I guess, in simple terms, I’m taking a stance somewhere between Chicken Little and Gene Krantz, the NASA Appolo 13 Flight Commander that said “with all due respect sir, I think this will be our finest hour.
While I haven’t had a paid fly fishing assignment in 3 years, I had a decent one last month on the hunting side. I just finished a massive website rebuild and my plan is to keep shooting and keep selling (for cash). When the dust clears, I’ll hopefully be one of the ones still standing. Hopefully a couple of you guys will be there too.
Rock-n-roll
TB
What about your book work? How is the market for the nice photo books you’ve done with the Collector’s Covey? They have been one of my “go to” gifts for sporting friends.
Those books have done well (thanks for the biz!), but obviously sales were down this past Christmas when everyone was flat on their back. Coffee-table books are fickle and you don’t want to release one while the DOW is dumping 200 points per day.
I think there will always be a need for great imagery in the book publishing market. That’s part of the reason why I’m hedging my bets in that direction.
And for the record: at some point Departure Publishing will have a need for photos that I don’t have in stock, and we WILL be paying CASH! So, if any of you have an an idea for a big audience coffee-table book, shoot me a proposal via email.
Part of the problem is that we’re becoming conditioned to mediocrity and worse – “everyman’s” level of quality; news footage shot on cell phones is a good place to start so everyone is now a news reporter. That’s progress they tell me.
But as several doors slam shut because of the technology, others are opening for the same reason. Print on demand books and the reach of Amazon are a case in point.
Visiting the fly fishing trade show in Denver last year was a real eye-opener. It is a very small industry that’s populated by a lot of very passionate people. Its a credit to it that it has produced and sustained in part so much great photography and some really fine photographers for so many years. But as others have suggested its time to look ahead for what new opportunities are opening up through the same technology that’s killed it.
Morsie
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