The land of the free

To add further emphasis to ducks post below (mediastorm/steber) on ‘free’ and thinking smarter………………..

I’ve spoken recently with a few younger photographers and a couple of folks from NGO’s and charities and the conversations might be of some value to others picking their way through the thorny thicket that is professional photography. None of the following stuff is anything new, but it doesn’t hurt to keep it in mind.

1) The ‘we want to interview you for an article’ ploy. I got a call from a well-known UK photographic mag (I have actually had several of these). They said “We are doing a specialist piece on outdoors photography in difficult conditions, and we’ve seen your work in various places online and in magazines, and several people have recommended you. I need an hour of your time to interview you and get some tips and maybe a few pics to illustrate the piece.” What do you pay? I ask. “Er um we don’t pay for these articles” What is your job title? I ask. “Features Editor” she replies. Do you get paid? I enquire. “Whats that got to do with it?” she says. ………….I wont bore you with the rest but it ended with her playing her trump card – “You are making a mistake saying no, this could be really good exposure for you”. My response was – good exposure for me? Are you kidding me? YOU contacted me, YOU found me, my profile is obviously high enough already. And I didn’t get that by working for free. So if you don’t pay me the only loser here is your magazine. At which point she abruptly said “Oh well lets not bother then.” and put her phone down. Moral: if they sought you out, you’re obviously worth finding and therefore well worth paying for.

2) The ‘we might give you more work later’ ploy. Got a call from a well-known UK photography mag, very much the same as above, looking for free stuff. When I said no the trump card played was “Well we sometimes give featured photographers a commission subsequently, which we will pay for, maybe a couple of pages with pics”. AH! I say, ok I’ll draw up the contract and then we can do the interview. “Contract?” says the man “What contract?”. So I explain – the contract that states that in return for my free stuff that your mag will guarantee me a paid two-page spread commission, that’ll probably be £250 per page I expect, so £500 should about cover it. I’ll send two copies, you sign and send one back and retain one for yourself. Then just decide what you’d like me to write and when and I’ll get it to you asap. There was a short silence then “But er um I can’t do that.” Hang on you just said that in return for a free piece you’d give me a paid two-page spread. “Well I didn’t, I er um suggested that er um, that sometimes, er, well maybe, occasionally we might THINK about it but er um er….” Ok so you were NOT telling the truth then – you wont be giving me a two page spread then? That’s a we bit cheeky eh? “Well er I’m sorry to have bothered you and that your attitude is like this” And he put the phone down. Moral: if they ‘promise’ it, get it in writing. Otherwise consider saying no.

What 1) and 2) teach you is to be confident about your worth. And you may still decide to do the interview and supply the work free, which is fine, I’ve certainly done it when I’ve wanted to, but it’s a judgment only you can make and it will depend on a lot of other factors to do with perceived value of the exposure you get etc. Sometimes it is well worth doing, but other times it’s just a rip off. But the bottom line is that going into such negotiations with a degree of confidence and a clear sense of your own worth, and the value of your work, can only be a good thing in my opinion.

3) Free stuff has value. And it is good to do free sometimes. I do work for free, and supply images for no cost, and have done this quite a few times over the decades, mainly for small charities and other organisations with little or no budgets. However, some organisations (or certain key individuals within them) will often place no value on your work, free is free. And once they’ve got it in their mitts, it’s still free and they’ll treat it as such, which might mean reusing it in other ways or even passing it on to others for them to use. For free. So it is a good idea to invoice for your time/expertise/value of work. Work out exactly what it costs you to produce the work and send a proper invoice with 100% discount. If you don’t put a value on your work why should anybody else? But what this invoice should also carry are the use restrictions so they know exactly what they may/may not do with your work. Bear in mind that this is also a contract, and acceptance of the images for use implies acceptance of the terms, and if they breach that contract by either passing on the work to others or using it in ways not stated in your T&C’s they can be held to account. And the value of the invoice is a very good starting point for compensation. It works, and I’ve pulled folks up several times for misuse of ‘free’ stuff and been paid. Just because my work was free does not mean I consider it worthless.

But there is a further value that such an invoice has for charities and the like – if they are in receipt of a lot of ‘free’ stuff there is a hidden cost to running their organisation that they may not realise, and may not be taking advantage of. If you invoice them (with 100% discount) there is an audit trail that will clearly show how much their publicity images should cost them. Where that becomes useful is when they are applying for funding support – your invoices can be used to show an ‘invisible’ cost that may be able to be covered with grant funding. Now what that might mean is that in subsequent years they ARE able to pay you – they get more good work, you get real money, or if you are still committed to the work of the organisation and can still give free stuff, they may actually be able to use those surplus funds to underpin delivery of services to their client group which attracted you to them in the first place. Everyone wins. And remember also that although the people you deal with in these organisations may be image consumers they may have no idea at all about the time, costs and expense of image production so you are in fact educating them. Thats something that is well worth doing.

Free is not free. Free has a cost. If you don’t place your value on your work, don’t expect anyone else to. And at the end of the day being a bit smarter about ‘free’ can see real and tangible benefits for you and others you work with.

But the real bottom line? Just expect to be paid. Paid just like the editors, the picture researchers, the ad execs, the web designers, the office cleaners…………………..and make your feelings clear to those who wont honour your skills and expertise with a just and proper reward. Fact is that 99% of all the users who want your work for free earn a wage from it, directly or indirectly. Just remember that little detail.

This message was brought to you by duckrabbit. But it’s not free. If you think it’s useful, and you heed some of it, and as a result you benefit from it, next time you see someone down on their luck, buy them a decent sandwich, and tell them that sometimes, for some people, there is such a thing as a free lunch. It all just depends on how you think about it.