Of late, a few more requests than usual have come in asking me if a foto of mine can be used for a publication, and as much as these requests delight me, the only snag is this:

“For one reason or another, we can’t pay for for usage and you sign away on reprints, but we offer a printed credit of my name or (sometimes) website for exposure and portfolio building.”

Now, to be sure, this is a oft-discussed topic in the photo world, and there are levels to each argument as valid as they are absurd. I think most would agree this is also something that is weaved tightly into photography’s history from day one (the easily copied aspect of fotos making the lost ‘limited/one-off’ factor reflected into value), and as the digital thunder into our cameras continues as it is, the paycheck numbers are indeed getting smaller, if there at all.

Just as before for us foto-jockeys, when you start off as a ‘professional’ photographer (you not only live and die by the captured moment but seriously dedicate your working life towards it), the fotographer starting off in business can’t just blindly say no, as the offer of exposure can be gold in those starving early days.

Being in the earlier stages of my foto career (the trade-off of a 5 year vinyl/music addiction, oh well…), these offers of printing without paying are something I struggled with, and to make sense of it let me offer the two recent situations I went through:

• Request#1: A group of 3 writers with a small “taking a humorous look at travel” book of fotos and essays request a foto for their book. While they cannot pay, they are happy to offer a printed credit at the back ‘Photos by:’ credit section. Included shortly afterward is a release for publishing.
• Reply: I write back and accept (being a smaller, non-corporate project they easily qualify), and after a couple of emails requesting details on placing and usage (cover foto, half-page inset?) and requiring copyright clearance/payment for future reprints, was ignored and I presume dropped for print.

• Request#2: After seeing a foto from my Egypt collection on flickr, I get an offer for print from a media hot/not video website +paid+ service that prints 6 magazines yearly for clients. “Unfortunately we have no budget for photos” they say. It should also be noted that they charge 1000€ yearly for their services, and in balance point out those clients are in media so the exposure is certainly worth a thought.
• Reply: While this one was somewhat tricky (you don’t have money for fotos… for a media trade mag???), I was certainly interested in exposure to further my work, and therefore offered this: Free use, but in exchange clear credit for the foto (see below), a six-month pass to their site’s content (as I presume they’re seeing my work value, it’s a similar service/product share/give) as I’m studying video more, and a copy of the magazine. I put this in a polite email, it was never answered, nor the call I made to their UK office politely asking for a reply, for which I’m still awaiting…

Foremost, what shocked me about these times was the general apathy and lack of professional courtesy in communication and reply. It was pitiful to put it politely, and I’m still sort of in shock about that aspect. Even if you’re not interested, take a moment to say so. Rude.

After that, what I noticed in these cases was this: As long as I said yes, I was in the good books. If I raised an issue to assert that the freebie was within a (I thought) reasonable limit, I was dumped without so much as a thanks.

What’s going on? Am I that rude or naive in my “(I thought)” polite-and-businesslike emails? Is it the tide of fotos that Joe&Jane Public are giving out that’s breeding these habits? Are the issues I raise that out to lunch???

At the end of the day, I humbly say that I in fact feel quite secure in my decisions. Why? While I certainly am happy to help myself and others out by giving a ‘freebie’ (I am certainly somewhat Socialist), what I hope I did that may have shut me out was protect the interests of my works, as well as hold it to a relative value based on my time and costs. Things may be changing in fundamental ways in Fotoworld, but blindly asking me (for I don’t know you, stranger) for one of my hard-earned fotos for gratis, and without much detail saying how I’ll get all sorts of exposure out of it.

Cameras cost money. Lenses cost (a lot) of money. Travel costs, computers/programs for editing, my rent, the time I put towards my fotos instead of other work… It all costs m-o-n-e-y…. And while I feel for you on tight budgets for fotos (more than you’ll ever know), please keep in mind that I have bills to pay and that you contributing *as you can* is how I get out to take those shots.

A parting word from Harlan Ellison on the matter, even if it is a loud one…

…And the irony of course being that I’m not paying him for this…[/lang_en]