Down under the land of the free @statravelAU

Coincidental to my post yesterday about free stuff I was intrigued by this ad for an “amazing opportunity” to shoot for STA Travel. They describe it as an opportunity to “get a career-boosting experience and professional portfolio to start your professional journey with, but also two weeks free travel around Australia!”

I was even more intrigued by the STA spokesman’s response to questions on Flickr which strike me as being somewhat contradictory. And despite this individual’s self-proclaimed “years of experience” he seems to believe that “the brochures produce zero revenue for us.”

It’s an incredible opportunity to show you can meet the demands of a professionally briefed shoot, with executions that will be visible online and in our brochures distributed throughout our network of 75 stores Australia-wide.

Disclaimer: I am the Marketing Comms guy for STA – this is legit. Yes, rights to images will assign to us if you get the gig (see the small print/T&Cs at the click-through) but you’ll be getting an all expenses paid trip, exposure, swag ofr cracking images for your folio, credit etc. Great opportunity!

First, not my idea: this comes from a different department to mine. Frankly, I’d happily do the job myself – am already on the payroll, have experience at this type of shoot and if the company *really* wanted to do it with minimum cost as the priority, they could just send me.

Are we going to pay them like a pro? No – they don’t have that experience (even if they can *probably* deliver similar or equal quality) and we’re assuming all the risk in covering the costs and not really knowing what we’re going to get from it (a folio can show you image standards and styles, but not how a person will *conduct* themselves in fulfilling a brief etc, during post production, as a communicator before and after being ‘on the road’).

Further – as a semi-pro myself – I’d ordinarily be against this sort of thing, as I believe *personally* that you pay for good work (and not just in the form of a trip etc, and those who’ve commented, you are absolutely mistaken about the costs!) I never shoot for free, but then I bring nearly 20 years experience to the table.

The fact is, most of the pros or semi-pros annoyed about this are doing so not because of some valiant desire to protect young players from a ‘content grab’ (although that may sincerely be a small, community-centred and honest part of it, which I applaud) but because of their own ineligibility for such a job, and the perceived ‘dilution of the profession’ at drawing in a ‘beginner’.

Of course, what they conveniently overlook to vindicate their umbrage is my own many years photo editing experience (I know the difference between a good and bad travel photo, and wouldn’t choose someone not up to the task in a technical sense – we won’t run images in our brochures just because they’re ‘all we have’.

Experience in lieu of payment is a common way for an ‘apprentice’ to graduate to the ranks of the ‘professional’. Showing they could handle a commission of this scale and responsibility will speak volumes of the photographer, and go a long way toward securing them future gigs that *will* make them money – they’ll have ‘paid their dues’ in a real-world situation.

Others can be as galled as they want by the way we have pitched this. Everyone wants ROI and, frankly, if the successful applicant can mount a laudable argument for why their images merit any further payment than a thousands of $$ trip etc given the brochures produce zero revenue for us, I’d be keen to hear it.

Well, personally, having digested the above, if the brochures really don’t play any role in generating revenue I’m at a loss to understand why they produce them, and if I were the successful applicant my suggestion would be, save the money (and the trees) by NOT printing the brochures and give the dosh to me instead. And I’ll make sure that the images get out and work and earn money for me, and generate some fantastic publicity for you.

Or am I missing something?

Respondent ‘Mugley’ apparently isn’t and his response adds an illuminating perspective:

I’d go for it if I qualified. Hell, I’ve been known to go on holidays and bust a gut doing a metric shedload of photos, and not get anything financial for it in return. Come to think of it, I pay for the travel as well. And usually let other people use the photos without payment. But then, as an amateur, the prospect of the pro photography market going down the toilet is really of no concern.

Opportunity or not? Only you can decide.