Should I be charging for my photos?

Fenster

I know it seems an obvious question with an obvious answer, but bear with me on this one. I release the bulk of my photos under a Creative Commons attribution license, which is to say that you're free to use my photos so long as you credit me in full, and it's actually worked, I've been published in several small (and one not so small) German, French and Swiss magazines in the past six months.

I release my photos for several reasons, mostly principled - I'm an ex-Linux dork and I've a tremendous amount of respect for the open source community, and I also believe that it's wrong to keep media behind restrictive software and legal locks. On a more practical level, I know and really despise several stock photographers as they're full of themselves, and I've no wish to follow in their footsteps (how better to ruin someone than give my product away?), I think it's extremely effective advertising to freely release my photos. Finally, I'm lazy, why fight people who will inetivably use my photos when I can co-opt them?

But should I start charging for certain uses, or just leave matters as they are and charge for events/physical prints, should I ever decide to start doing such?

magicbastarder

a point of principle - are other people making money from your work? if they are, are you comfortable with that?
do you check to ensure that the aims and agendas of the people who use your work are acceptable to you?

Fenster

No I don't query their goals, so long as the creative commons is being observed - that I'm getting my credit. I upload photos with the licence and in fairness I can't retroactively revoke a picture "because I don't like you."

I do plan to make a business out of my work someday, but not in the sense that I police every use of a picture that I've made available.

Oh for sure, if I'm ever working on someone's time, it's their business then, but if it's my own work on my own time, I'm happy to let it go.

shepthedog

I would say definitely charge for them, I understand your idea of building reputation etc by letting go free but perhaps come up with a system of charging now that you are getting published. Out of interest where have the mags been picking up your pics from??

PS. The link to your blog doesnt seem to work for me..

Fajitas!

Charge for them tbh...

If someone else is making money for your efforts, then why not charge? You have to buy more gear at the end of the day, and if you want to start a business...then why not charge...

paudie

You should definitely be charging for your shots.
A few points.

The first doesn't seem to bother you too much but I think it's fairly important, there are a lot of people who depend photography for their income and by giving away your shots for free you are taking away business from them. i know you talk about the a*holes you know but there are a lot of decent photogs out there who could be hurt by your actions.

The second is that if you build up a reputation as giving your shots away for free then it will become much harder to start charging people for them when you decide to make a living from it. You can't by food with a photo credit

The publications that are using your shots are almost definitely making money from them, basically taking all your work and turning it into hard cash for themselves.

I know it seems hard at the start to demand good money for your photos especially if your name isn't known, but stick with it and you'll be treated as a professional in the long run, and you won't incur the wrath of other photogs

Hope this helps.

Fenster

paudie wrote:

The first doesn't seem to bother you too much but I think it's fairly important, there are a lot of people who depend photography for their income and by giving away your shots for free you are taking away business from them. i know you talk about the a*holes you know but there are a lot of decent photogs out there who could be hurt by your actions.

Adapt or perish, TBH. You make fair points on the rest, but charging "because we all do it!" doesn't ring true to me.

All said, I've sent a note to the crowd who've contacted me, about renumeration.

paudie

Well you can take that attitude about more competition etc. but how can you compete with free?

It's not "do it because we do" it's more "do it to make a living"?

CraggyIslander

I remember reading a rant on this a while back on my favourite IT-site of all places: theregister.co.uk

And some reader responses here:

My personal view is to have some shots available for free and make the rest available thru something like alamy.com (cant find the thread, but read it with great interest).

From what I heard Alamy is hard to get accepted into (I havent even tried yet as my portfolio simply isn't big enough), but the pennystock alternatives just aren't worth it imho

just my 2cents

Fenster

paudie wrote:

Well you can take that attitude about more competition etc. but how can you compete with free?

It's not "do it because we do" it's more "do it to make a living"?

No matter how you look at things, the commercial photography market has changed. I don't nessessarily think the bar has been lowered or raised so far as standards go, but the more people you have taking photos, the more people you will have producing amazing works. You could always blame Canon: the 300D, 350D and 400D have been amazingly successful in introducing the unwashed masses to high-end photography, and blame P2P for bringing professional editing software to the masses.

But I really can't see you suing the Pirate Bay because some boyo who pirated Photoshop last month put out some photos that were bought by a newspaper over yours.

Adapt or perish, once again.

I read the Register article and again it has some points, but for me it boils down to being anti-CC FUD. The author assumes incorrectly that the Creative Commons is about removing copyright entirely, but in truth I retain full copyright on my photos while at the same time setting out expressly how you can and can't use my photos.

For sure, there are people who dwell at each extreme of copyright, those who are either in favour of draconian measures or a complete abolition of it. I see myself in the middle - I'm perfectly fine with it so long as people at either extreme don't do anything silly, and silly things they do unfortunately.

I'd rather read the writing on the wall and go into the business knowing that there's a growing amount of people out there who will be competing with me in different ways than griping that these newbies are going to put me out on the street starving.

paudie

As I said I'm all up for competition, but how do you compete with free photos?

Fenster

Make yours free and sell services, it's a model that has been proven time and time again.

Fajitas!

But why not sell your photos and services?

I might sound greedy, but hey, I do plan to make money with my life.

Fenster

Nah, 'tis true.

Merrion

Charge for prints, requests and RAW or very high quality JPG files and give the standard quality jpgs away under a CC license through flickr.

CraggyIslander

I did call it a rant, not an article The responses to the article are fairly condemning of his 'stance' and the adapt or perish principle applies.

It's the effects of 'globalisation' in its broadest meaning, you see it happening with every zz-list celeb being on them socalled reality shows..... everyone is in to claim their 15mins of 'fame'..... and that includes the photographer profession, everyone thinks they can be one (no experience required anyone or that one series where they had charlie bird shooting 'wild life').

The photography business justdoesnt work anymore like it did in the old days...... unless you're a true artist like Ansel Adams.... but even then times are different and the proliferation of digital cameras everywhere has changed the business forever. Adapt or Perish...... its the evolution of a business and artform.

/end Fred's rant

Shiny

Charge for them.
If someone wants one of your photos badly enough they will
pay for it.

Never transfer copyright for an image to anyone.

I would sell a service but I dont have any to sell. I submit my
photos to Alamy and have never sold any. Maybe I never will
but it gives me motivation and a direction with my photos.

CraggyIslander

Shiny,

how long did it take to get into Alamy? One of the few things I couldnt find on their site is how many shots you'd need to send in initially. The filesize thingy/dead pixel criteria shouldnt be to much of an issue for me as I do very little post processing anyway. How many would I need to get started with them, 10, 20, 50?

Zillah

Quick thought: If you don't charge for your photos does that mean they're likely to not think of you as a professional? I'd imagine they'd have more respect for you if you charge the industry standard.

Borderfox

Fred C. Dobbs wrote:

Shiny,

how long did it take to get into Alamy? One of the few things I couldnt find on their site is how many shots you'd need to send in initially. The filesize thingy/dead pixel criteria shouldnt be to much of an issue for me as I do very little post processing anyway. How many would I need to get started with them, 10, 20, 50?

I heard it was 80 per disk?
Heres a good link to a thread
http://www.dpchallenge.com/forum.php?action=read&FORUM_THREAD_ID=196883&page=3

Diarmuid

Shiny wrote:

Charge for them.
If someone wants one of your photos badly enough they will
pay for it.

But that's just that it. What if the guys using your photos are partly using them because they don't have to pay for them? It's a tough call.

CraggyIslander

Borderfox wrote:

I heard it was 80 per disk?
Heres a good link to a thread
http://www.dpchallenge.com/forum.php?action=read&FORUM_THREAD_ID=196883&page=3

Cheers, that's the thread I'd been reading, fond this post interesting:

"Well Done! Can I presume from your profile that 12 out of the original 15 were accepted?

Actually I found that 15 wouldn't fit onto a CD, so I only sent them those 12 - they all passed.

That's the only trouble with them demanding 48Mb files; in the future I'll send them DVDs instead, or I'll have to start buying CDs in bulk :-)"

The set of 15 was enough in 2005 and 80 is a full DVD worth of 48Mb files, so maybe half a DVD would do? I mean to get thru their initial QC and get recognised by them, after that I'd aim to send a DVD every 2-3 months and build a collection with them

Shiny

Just 10.
That is all.

After that it is up to you.

Shiny

Diarmuid wrote:

But that's just that it. What if the guys using your photos are partly using them because they don't have to pay for them? It's a tough call.

If you give your photos away for free people will always expect
them for free now matter how much exposure 1 photo gets.

CraggyIslander

10? excellent, even I should be able to manage that I'll start looking at the upsizing programs as my next computer project Getting in with them might just be the kick up the proverbial arse that I need to really get stuck in again

Just think someday one of my pics could be used on a giant billboard on 5th avenue.... and I'd been paid a few bob for it too. Billboard won't happen, but can dream

magicbastarder

maybe the democratisation (if that's the right word) of photography and distribution of photographs is killing off a lot of the old school, but history is littered with examples of technology making professions obsolete. i'm just too lazy to think of any examples now.

Shiny

yep, 10 that is all.
They just have to be "technically" perfect and you are in.
ie
in focus, no spots, dirt etc...
not too similar
no logos (or at least in your face anyway)
48megs uncompressed (ie tiff 8 bit)

with my 30D I usually upsize by 145% in CS3.
I used Genuine Fractals for like a day and then found
that photoshop upsized just as well so I use that all
the time now.
Also created photoshop actions to do anything that I
have to repeat more than once every photograph.

Composing correctly is key to this as you dont want to crop
a photo by 50% and then have to upsize it by 200% to
compensate!!!

After reading the Alamy thread and many many other threads
the unwritten trend seems to be if you have 1000+ images on
Alamy (etc), then expect to sell between 1-3 images a month.

Often images that sell seem to be very simple .
Images that are on "want lists" are sometimes bloody specific like a
middle age black man, holding a white baby on a street.ffs :rolleyes:.

CraggyIslander

Thanks Shiny, think my old fashioned film approach might help give me a shot. Usually only crop to 90-95% of the original, litterally just taking off the edges

Wouldnt expect to sell anything, maybe hope for a sale every 6months or so (being cautiously optimistic) but if it happens you'll know who is using it and what for. It's first and foremost a hobby to me and Alamy (etc) might just keep me on my toes enough to keep chipping away

For a living I'd like to take over from that fellow that does all the exclusive formula 1 shots Anyone have Bernie Ecclestone's no?