There seems to be an expectation currently that because everyone takes photo's that they are worthless. I have been the victim of this myself, but it is an experience that one of my friends has had recently that has led me to write this post.
Photographers spend years honing their skills, and are often their own worst critics, meaning that they do tend to be quite sensitive soles. So there is generally 2 ways to use the images of a photographer, 1) Pay for them or 2) give us credit for them.
So imagine if you will one of the worlds biggest companies asking to use an image without paying for it, or without giving credit to the artist. I'm talking about a company that thinks nothing about spending over £22,000,000 per Premier league game it shows just for the screening rights. But they don't have a budget to pay a small Business for a photo, and can't even extend them the courtesy of giving a photo credit, when the image is going to be seen by thousands of potential clients. Simply crazy!
Its bad enough when you take photo's at an event, then see them plastered all over facebook without any credit given, and often cropped and edited beyond recognition of the original image.
I've tried to not rant too much but had to say something in support of my fellow photographer.
So on to today's image, it depicts the 2 ways of recognising the photographer.
The first is simply a photo credit, in this case from the very well written blog by James Dixon (http://thegeordiegeek.wordpress.com) who used some of my images from the recent Team GB hockey camp. The second was a paid gig for Gateshead Youth Council, who are a charity organisation, who couldn't pay me much but did insist on paying me.
The message of today is if in doubt then please, please just ask. The worst that can happen is that we say no. And don't be offended if we ask for something in return, we are people too, and our time and our skill is worth money, or at least recognition.
Back to a photo tomorrow..... maybe
Paul
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