An interesting read concerning rates

[Justin Haugen]

I was going to reply in the magazine rate discussion with this link but figured I'd start a new post alltogether as it brings up some good points for discussion.

http://www.asmp.org/publications/whitepaper1.php

[John Thawley]

While it is definitely an interesting read, if I may play devil's advocate, the article wreaks of unrealistic whining. The author talks as if publishers are the devil and photographers are poor unsuspecitng children being taken advantage of.

Let's face it, any overpopulate industry could make the same argument. Go talk to people who own small "quick" print shops. The margins are extremely small and now are squeezed even greater by online resources and digital printing.

Pretty much anyone can go out and buy paint, overalls and some rollers and call themselves house painters. And... pretty much anyone can go and buy a digital camera and call themselves a photographer. Go to school for 12-18 months and you can become a licensed cosmotologist.

As a cosmotologist you can work at LA Clips and charge $12 per cut or end up at Jonathan's in Beverly Hills charging $450 for a cut and color.

My point is... you can't focus on "the market"... you have to foucs on "your mraket."

That article is nearly 8 years old. If he thinks there were problems then, he's really in for a rude awaking. The big threat to editorial print photographers is John Q. Public with his cell phone and handy cam.

Consider when Kennedy was shot and the Zapruder movie footage was sold to the news. That was 40 years ago and it was a fluke that an average citizen would be filming the motorcade with a home movie camera.

Now fast forward to 2007. How many images and video tapes would that same motorcade generate? Heck the media would have it's choice of angles. There would be no second shooter theories or grassy knoll conspiricies as they'd have it covered from every angle possible.

Now... fast forward another 10 years and factor in the technology. I think I recently saw a 3 megapixel camera in a cell phone... my first Canon DSLR was only 3.2 -

So... ultimately the media is going to pay nothing. They'll have realtime footage being thrown at them by the public at large. And they won't care about quality... after all, we are all well aware that compelling content will always override the quality if the story is important enough. And I'm not so sure the quality will be all that bad anyway.

So, while the article makes a point, I think it fails to recognize the swing of the pendulum and the need to step up your individual game .... and game plan. But you can't blame publishers for maximizing their bottom line by exploiting the weakness of our industry.

Humble opinion of course. :)

JT

[John Thawley]

Just as an FYI... give a read to this article about the Zapruder film's travels through history. It's 354 frames and 19 seconds uninterrupted. It is referred to as capturing the most dramatic and horrific single event of the century.

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/organ2.htm