| Apparently, 1$ for a photo is was way too much now for a multi-millions dollar company like Time Magazine. Now, they want them for free. | Semble-t-il qu’un petit dollar pour une photo, c’est maintenant trop cher pour une compagnie valant plusieurs millions tel que Time Magazine. Un gros zéro, c’est le montant qu’ils semblent maintenant prêt à payer. |
| While tracking a photographer who was undercutting the market, John Arrington got more than he bargained for. Copyright infringement? Check! Misrepresentation? Check! | Alors qu’il cherchait à en connaitre un peu plus sur un photographe qui “undercut-ait” (vendre sous le prix normal du marché), John Arrington a trouvé beaucoup plus. Vol de propriété intellectuel? Check! Représentation frauduleuse? Check! |
John Arrington’s answer to David Hobby’s Four Reasons to Consider Working for Free, is an must read for any photographer; pro, hobbyist or a pro wannabe.
Arrington his not on a mission against the very popular Mr. Strobist. As he put it himself:
“I commented to him “yeah, you cite valid examples where it might work (more on that later), but almost all your readers will think that you’ve painted with a broad brush and won’t comprehend the discretion and the distinctions you’ve drawn. They’ll just hear ‘we can’t pay you to shoot that concert, but we can get you a credential and will give you a photo credit…’ and they will think you encouraged that ‘for portfolio purposes’, when that’s not what you meant.”
The third part where is answers comments is particularly enlightening. If you ever worked or considered working for free, your argument for doing so is sure to be answered.
Regarding the Jill Greenberg controversy…
What other photo editors think of this stunt? “Jill Greenberg officially took herself off everyone’s list with that little stunt. (…) Even if some Photo Editor wanted to hire her now they wouldn’t get her past the editor let alone the publicist.”, says the Photo editor blog
Jeffrey Goldberg, writer for the story on McCain that Greenberg took photos of: “I don’t know Greenberg (I count this as a blessing) and I can add nothing to what James Bennet told the Post except to say that Greenberg is quite obviously an indecent person who should not be working in magazine journalism”
As a photojournalist, I photographed every political leader, both on the federal and provincial scenes. 4 parties in Canada, 4 in Quebec, that mean 6 of them where not my guy/girl. But each time, I did my job the best I could, putting aside my political view.
Apparently, not everyone do the same. Jill Greenberg is a top photographer, working with major US publication. How many of us can say they had 15 minutes with US presidential candidate John McCain?
On assignment for Atlantic magazine, she was on assignment for the cover. Interviewed in PDN magazine, Greenberg tells how she feels about McCain and how she duped him.
Greenberg asked McCain to “please come over here” for one more set-up before the 15-minute shoot was over. There, she had a beauty dish with a modeling light set up. “That’s what he thought he was being lit by,” Greenberg says. “But that wasn’t firing.”
What was firing was a strobe positioned below him, which cast the horror movie shadows across his face and on the wall right behind him. “He had no idea he was being lit from below,” Greenberg says. And his handlers didn’t seem to notice it either. “I guess they’re not very sophisticated,” she adds.
And she added insult to injury by putting amongst others those pictures in rotation as a splash screen of her website.
Now, tell me how someone will trust her to take a photo of them? And which magazine will trust her for a job?
I think she somewhat sums it up:
so maybe it was somewhat irresponsible for them [The Atlantic] to hire me.
Agence France-Presse has issued a correction, saying that the image of four missiles was “apparently digitally altered” by Iranian state media. The fourth missile “has apparently been added in digital retouch to cover a grounded missile that may have failed during the test,” the agency said.
Excerpt:
The images themselves, quite frankly, are boring snapshots.Yet, a lot of people are up in arms saying they are insulted by these images. I found it fascinating that images can become insulting not by what they depict but rather by what they do not show
(…)
We say that an image is worth a thousand words. Well, it this case, an images needs a thousand more words.
So, do I have a problem with this? I sure do. To me, it is misleading. The newly toned picture looks flashed or looks like it was shot outside during a night football game. Not inside a well-lit dome it was shot in. The background is blackened out. And frankly, this new dramatic lighting changes the entire mood of the picture. The reader walks away with a different feeling.
But the paranoia over photography has truly gotten out of hand. Carrying a camera in today’s America invokes nothing but suspicion and fear. People only assume the worst
