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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
A tangent from that "interesting thread" thread
Philip Bowen, Photographer
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Kampala | UG | Uganda | Posted: 5:58 PM on 10.20.09 |
->> John Germ turned down a job because the client would not pay for usage, even though the paycheck would have been more than he had ever received for two hours of sports work. He wrote "...it was my belief accepting those terms would undermine the industry."
I want to get more opinions about that statement.
Do you really think that accepting such a job undermines the industry? Or maybe more accurately, do you think that by NOT accepting that job you can change the industry for the better or maintain it as it once was? Isn't it probable that for every principled photog that takes the high ground there are 50? 500? 5,000? that accept the offer? Can turning down a job stop that? I think that the flood of cheap, high-quality cameras and the ability for art buyers to instantly search millions of photos online undermines the industry, not the behavior of working photographers.
Please know that this isn't directed at John. I thought his post in that thread was really well-written and thought out.
I have a friend who is a bookbinder. Like, high-end, hand-stitched, embossed-leather cover, hand-made marble endpapers kind of books. We commissioned our wedding album from her and paid many times the amount over similar mass-produced books.
(begin conjecture)
Back in the day all books were made this way. Then technology "improved" and books became more cheaply available and now all books are made in this new manner and for this low price. During the transition, there were probably bookmakers that had to start making books for less or else their customers would go to the new cheaper books.
Do you think that if all the bookbinders had gotten together and agreed to continue charging their standard rates, that we would still be paying those original prices? I think that they would have just lost all their business more quickly than they probably did.
Technology creates too much supply. Demand drops. Isn't there a law or something about those two things? :)
OK, this has gotten too long. But I think you see the point I am trying to make. Like I said, I'm interested to hear opinions.
-Phil |
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Chuck Steenburgh, Photographer
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Lexington | VA | USA | Posted: 8:29 AM on 10.21.09 |
->> My thoughts exactly, every time someone blames cheap photographers for the downfall of the profession. They just don't get it.
You adapt to the new paradigm. You can't control it. That's not to say throw in the towel. But no amount of hand-wringing, kum-ba-yah singing, union activism, will turn back the clock. |
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Eric Canha, Photographer
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Brockton | MA | United States | Posted: 9:35 AM on 10.21.09 |
->> In John's case what they were offering for an hourly rate in exchange for full rights was just plain wrong. John wasn't saving the industry, he was saving himself from being labeled just another cheap 'tog.
We can't save 'the industry', all we can do is establish our place in it. It's no different in ANY professional service industry. A $100/hr lawyer isn't ruining the industry for the the rest of the lawyers charging $150 or $250 and there is business and demand for lawyers from the "spec" ambulance chaser to the $2500/hr corporate litigators. Ditto in just about every other service industry. So at the end of the day what John and others who turn down offers are doing is establishing their position on the dial. |
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