- Sleeping With The Enemy
In this months issue of The Digital Journalist Mark Loundy writes about a very serious issue in our industry; the lack of decent paying gigs for photographers. The media companies are laughing at us. Our craft seems to have been reduced to a commodity. Unfortunately we’re only making their job easier.
Photographers who accept jobs for little or no pay, sign Work For Hire contracts and fail to abide by shrewd business practices are sleeping with the enemy. The belief that the slave wage paid to them now will expand into a career later is ludicrous.
Magazines are now instituting a take it or leave it policy. No negotiation. Period. Some are paying $50 for a cover shot. We’ve even seen a few soliciting photographers for unpaid gigs with the “possibility of paying jobs” in the future and the use of said photos in the photographer’s portfolio.
Refresh my memory, why should we need permission to put an image we shot in our portfolio?
Having a camera phone in your pocket 24 hours a day does not a photographer make. The media knows this, but as long as we keep rolling over, they are going to keep juicing us. Take a stand and insist on being paid what your worth, or the Getty’s of the world are going to grind us out of existence. Let’s not pay for the bullet that will shoot us all in the foot.
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