Why Photographers Cannot Work for Free

As photographers, we receive requests for free images on a regular basis. In a perfect world, each of us would love to be able to respond in a positive manner and assist, especially with projects or efforts related to areas such as education, social issues, and conservation of natural resources. It is fair to say that in many cases, we wish we had the time and resources to do more to assist than just send photographs.

Unfortunately, such are the practicalities of life that we are often unable to respond, or that when we do, our replies are brief and do not convey an adequate sense of the reasons underlying our response.

Circumstances vary for each situation, but we have found that there are a number of recurring themes, which we have set out below with the objective of communicating more clearly with you, and hopefully avoiding misunderstandings or unintentional ill will.

Please take the following points in the constructive manner in which they are intended.

Photographs Are Our Livelihood Creating compelling images is the way we some of us make our living. If we give away our images for free, or spend too much time responding to requests for free images, we cannot make a living.

We Do Support Worthy Causes With Images Most of us do contribute photographs, sometimes more, to support certain causes. In many cases, we may have participated directly in projects that we support with images, or we may have a pre-existing personal relationship with key people involved with the efforts concerned. In other words, each of us can and does provide images without compensation on a selective basis. Help Portrait is a prime example.

We Have Time Constraints Making a leap from such selective support to responding positively to every request we get for free photographs, however, is impractical, if for no other reason than the substantial amount of time required to respond to requests, exchange correspondence, prepare and send files, and then follow-up to find out how our images were used and what objectives, if any, were achieved. It takes a lot of time to respond to requests, and time is always in short supply.

Pleas of  “We Have No Money” Are Often Difficult to Fathom The primary rationale provided in nearly all requests for free photographs is budgetary constraint, meaning that the requestor pleads a lack of funds.

Such requests frequently originate from organisations with a lot of cash on hand, whether they be publicly listed companies, government or quasi-government agencies, or even NGOs. Often, it is a simple matter of taking a look at a public filing or other similar disclosure document to see that the entity concerned has access to significant funding, certainly more than enough to pay photographers a reasonable fee should they choose to do so.

To make matters worse, it is apparent that all too often, of all the parties involved in a project or particular effort, photographers are the only ones being asked to work for free. Everyone else gets paid.

Given considerations like this, you can perhaps understand why we frequently feel slighted when we are told that: “We have no money.” Such claims can come across as a cynical ploy intended to take advantage of gullible individuals.

We Have Real Budget Constraints With some exceptions, photography is not a highly remunerative profession. We have chosen this path in large part due to the passion we have for visual communication, visual art, and the subject matters in which we specialise.

The substantial increase in photographs available via the internet in recent years, coupled with reduced budgets of many photo buyers, means that our already meager incomes have come under additional strain.

Moreover, being a professional photographer involves significant monetary investment.

Our profession is by nature equipment-intensive. We need to buy cameras, lenses, computers, software, storage devices, and more on a regular basis. Things break and need to be repaired. We need back-ups of all our data, as one ill-placed cup of coffee could literally erase years of work. For all of us, investment in essential hardware and software entails thousands of dollars a year, as we need to stay current with new technology and best practices.

In addition, travel is a big part of many of our businesses. We must spend a lot of money on transportation, lodging and other travel-related costs.

And of course, perhaps most importantly, there is a substantial sum associated with the time and experience we have invested to become proficient at what we do, as well as the personal risks we often take. Taking snapshots may only involve pressing the camera shutter release, but creating images requires skill, experience and judgement.

So the bottom line is that although we certainly understand and can sympathise with budget constraints, from a practical point of view, we simply cannot afford to subsidise everyone who asks.

Getting “Credit” Doesn’t Mean Much Part and parcel with requests for free images premised on budgetary constraints is often the promise of providing “credit” and “exposure”, in the form or a watermark, link, or perhaps even a specific mention, as a form of compensation in lieu of commercial remuneration.

There are two major problems with this.

First, getting credit isn’t compensation. We did, after all, create the images concerned, so credit is automatic. It is not something that we hope a third party will be kind enough to grant us.

Second, credit doesn’t pay bills. As we hopefully made clear above, we work hard to make the money required to reinvest in our photographic equipment and to cover related business expenses. On top of that, we need to make enough to pay for basic necessities like food, housing, transportation, etc.

In short, receiving credit for an image we created is a given, not compensation, and credit is not a substitute for payment.

“You Are The Only Photographer Being Unreasonable” When we do have time to engage in correspondence with people and entities who request free photos, the dialogue sometimes degenerates into an agitated statement directed toward us, asserting in essence that all other photographers the person or entity has contacted are more than delighted to provide photos for free, and that somehow, we are “the only photographer being unreasonable”.

We know that is not true.

We also know that no reasonable and competent photographer would agree to unreasonable conditions. We do allow for the fact that some inexperienced photographers or people who happen to own cameras may indeed agree to work for free, but as the folk wisdom goes: “You get what you pay for.”

Please Follow-Up One other experience we have in common is that when we do provide photographs for free, we often do not receive updates, feedback or any other form of follow-up letting us know how the event or project unfolded, what goals (if any) were achieved, and what good (if any) our photos did.

All too often, we don’t even get responses to emails we send to follow-up, until, of course, the next time that someone wants free photographs.

In instances where we do agree to work for free, we'd like to have the courtesy to follow-up to let us know how things went. A little consideration will go a long way in making us photographers feel more inclined to take time to provide additional images in the future.

Wrap Up We hope that the above points help elucidate why photographers prefer not to work for free most of the time. All of us are dedicated professionals, and we would be happy to work with you to move forward in a mutually beneficial manner.

Three (3) Stupidly Simple Reasons Why Most People’s Photography Don't Improve

I’m guessing that this article will not apply to most of us… but after three (3) different conversations which revealed the same photography problems in three (3) different people – I thought I’d make mention of this here. 1. You don’t Take Your Camera With You If you don’t practice using your camera you’re unlikely to ever grow in your understanding of and skill in photography and if you rarely have it with you – you’ll not get that practice. Does that mean you need to lug your DSLR and all your cumbersome gear around with you all the time? Maybe – I have friends who are never without their main camera – but if that’s just not practical, at least make sure you have a smaller point and shoot or even a decent camera phone with you at all times. While the quality of the images you take might not be as great with these cameras – at least you’ll be practicing your composition, thinking about light, color and other aspects of photography.

2. You’re Going too Fast Many of us lead life at such a fast pace that we rarely stop to see the opportunities right before us to take wonderful images. You can carry your camera around with you 24/7 for the rest of your life but unless you learn to slow down and to look at the world a little differently you may never actually use it. As a result – I guess one of the tips I find myself giving to some that I talk to is to find ways to slow down – or at least slow down temporarily to set aside time to be a bit more intentional about photography. It might start by taking a walk with the main objective of doing some photography but could also be something bigger like a weekend away with your camera or even taking a photography class or tour. For me its about building photography into your daily rhythm and in time it starts to become a more natural thing as you get in the habit of seeing life a little differently.

3. You are Worried what Others Will Think I’ve come across quite a few people lately who suffer from ‘framing paralysis’. They take their camera with them and they even slow down enough to see the photographic opportunities around them – but there’s just something that stops them lifting their camera up to frame the shot. When I dig a little I’ve found in most of these instances the person is simply worried about what others around the will think if they use their camera. Will they look stupid? Will people think that they’re photographing them? Its a feeling I’ll admit to having myself in the past and it’s quite common. I guess the key to moving through framing paralysis is to grow your confidence as a photographer. For me the more photos I took and the more I began to exercise the discipline of taking images the easier it got. Another friend of mine got over his paralysis by finding a photography buddy to go out with – two of them taking shots somehow seemed less confronting than him doing it alone.

Here are a few random shots I took on a recent photowalk, nothing splendid but just an example of picking up your camera.

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Give it a try, you'll be surprised at the results.

Composing Portraits

During my morning browse around the web. I came across this little video on Adorama. Every now and again I get people asking me what is the correct way to take good portraits. So take a peek at Mark Wallace's view.

Problem solved for 'CF Cards & iPad owners'

The tech gurus finally found a fix for you iPad owners out there wanting to import photos from your Compact Flash cards onto your iPads. So a Hong Kong based company has developed a CF Reader that can be connected directly to your iPad and allows you to import photos directly from your CF cards (up to 400x speed cards) right into your iPad.

Just letting you know I use SD Cards so I've not tried these devices myself. However based on an article I read by Terry White, he seems to be quite happy with the performance. It was used to import RAW (.NEF) files with no problems.

The M.I.C CF Reader can be ordered here. Apparently they are currently on backorder.

Check out the You Tube video below:-

What's the best Camera to get?

Just because everyone else is buying it, doesn't mean it's the right camera for you 

A recent Bloomberg report indicated that Canon held 44.5 percent of the camera market, with Nikon increasing its share to 29.7 percent. Based on what I see on a regular basis the majority of cameras I see in the field tend to be Nikon. Is this true or is it just that I use a Nikon and seem to pay more attention to them. I recently came across a poll.

As you can see, the results of were remarkably similar to the initial report. Canon still held the lead, but by a slightly smaller percentage.

So what does this mean if anything at all?

First, I think it's important to point out that both brands are equally capable in the right hands. Photographer are using iPhones these days to make wonderful photos. Go figure....

Ultimately, this type of healthy competition is in the best interest of the consumer as each company works to gain market share through price cuts and added features. The result is a wide array of professional quality DSLRs with reasonable sticker prices. As this trend continues, the line between the super high-end and prosumer bodies will become increasingly blurred.

Consider these questions when asking which camera.

1 ) What subject(s) will you photograph most often? Weddings, portraits, wildlife, sports, landscapes, still lifes, food, fashion, etc. 2 ) What gear (if any) do you now own? 3 ) If you had to choose between ease of use and power, which would you select? 4 ) Do you want a compact pocket-sized camera (point and shoot) or a DSLR? 5 ) On a scale of 1-10 (10 being a working pro and 1 being someone who usually shoots with a disposable camera) how would you rate your skill? 6 ) What is the MOST money you’d be willing to spend on a camera? 7 ) How long do you think you might keep the camera? 8 ) What do your friends use? 9 ) Do you have a local camera store that can offer you support?

Considering this ongoing tug-o-war, it can be difficult to pinpoint which camera is right for you. Besides Canon and Nikon, there are excellent Pentax models, Sony, Olympus, Fuji, and more. Before deciding on one, I recommend looking into their entire line of dedicated lenses and flashes. Remember, you're not just buying into a camera body, but rather an entire system of products.

 

 

Memory Cards – 15 Essential Tips for Photographers

[gallery] If you use a digital camera you use memory cards. Whether SD or CF or anything else, there are certain things you should know about your memory cards if you want to get the best experience possible.

1. Format your cards in the camera – not on the computer. This helps to ensure that no unwanted or unneeded files make their way onto the card from the computer.

2. When ejecting your memory card from the computer, safely eject by dragging it to the trash or select “Safely Remove” on a Windows machine or Command + E on a Mac. Then wait at least five seconds before pulling the card out of the reader slot. Could save you a few dollars in the long run.

3. Never format or erase a card until you know it’s been backed up in at least two places. Also, don’t erase or format until you’ve verified the backup.

4. To avoid confusion when using multiple cards, mark cards with your name and a sequential number. This makes it easy to determine your cards from cards used by other photographers in your studio or on your workshop. The sequential number is also helpful in making sure you know which card you are dealing with.

5. Don’t buy generic memory cards. While it’s true that there are only two or three principal manufacturers of the components used in memory cards, these manufacturers build to different quality standards depending on who they OEM for. When they make generic cards, the quality control as well as the quality of components is usually not up to par with the same issued by the big names.

6. Note that not all cards work the same in all cameras. Some cards are optimized for individual brands. You can read about these optimizations in the manufacture literature or check various online forums for tests. In general, it’s best to ask if your camera can produce the advertised results before you buy.

7. Carry cards on your person not in your camera bag. If you can’t access your card you can’t make photographs. Too many photographers have shared stories of setting down their camera bag or leaving gear in their car, only to go on a hike, find a great spot and then run out of memory because the cards aren’t where the camera is.

8. To help you keep track of which cards have been used and which are empty, place the cards you’ve filled in your memory card wallet upside down or reverse them so you can see which ones are ready.

9. Don’t edit files on the card as if it were a hard drive. The memory card is designed to get data from the camera to the computer. It’s not designed for editing.

10. Don’t delete images on the card from the camera. Cards are cheap. Buy enough to do the job. If you delete images on the back of the camera you may easily make a mistake. It’s better to delete in your post editor like Aperture or Lightroom.

11. If you accidentally delete an image on a card stop using it and obtain a data recovery program to try to restore the images. If you keep shooting after the deletion you may mess up the chance to recover the lost photo(s).

12. Recognize that some of the ultra high-end cards may have a small impact on your battery life, draining the battery at a faster pace than normal. It’s not a big deal, but if you are in a critical shooting situation and need to have all the battery life you can get, remember the high speed cards might take a few shots off the end of the battery’s life.

13. Don’t share cards with friends, or put them into other people’s cameras or computers. This can cause a crash since the other camera or computer may attempt to write a system, desktop or file of unknown format to the card.

14. Avoid the largest, newest cards until they’ve been on the market for a while. As we get into 128 GB cards and beyond, we are stretching the boundaries of technology. It only makes sense to let the marketplace test these bleeding edge technologies to make sure they are reliable.

15. Turn your camera off before inserting or removing a memory card. Most camera manuals advise this but most photographers don’t read the manual. This eliminates “voltage shock.” Modern cameras are often less prone to this but why take the chance?

Since the memory card is in many ways the most important photo accessory you will ever own, try these tips to ensure that your cards last their longest and work at their best.