"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."

Free is 'spensive

2009-07-06T10:53:00.002-07:00

Here's a great post about a statement Mark Cuban made about the cost of staying atop a "free" business model.

It's more about Facebook-like Web services, but it has a clear application in this line of work as well.

Dear Sen. Hatch

2009-06-11T13:38:00.002-07:00

Dear Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah,

I am writing you today with a simple question: "Why?"

You stand squarely behind an orphan works initiative that will make it more difficult financially and in practice for myself and other photographers to preserve our copyrights.

Your bill leads the third party to believe that if he can't immediately identify the owner of, say, a photograph, that it is his to use as he sees fit.

Further, your bill would essentially necessitate the formation of third-party entities to serve as the registrar for works; thus requiring photographers to pay yet another entity to register and protect a copyright that is inherently granted at the moment the work is created, albeit with lesser tools for enforcement without formal registration.

The danger in all this is increased confusion, abuse and, to throw around another loaded technology word, piracy.

And in the same spirit that you seemingly want to increase the burdens on photographers and other artists, you rail against Canada for their high rates of intellectual property abuses.

In one stroke, you make my work more difficult, while fighting voraciously for the rights of Hollywood and the recording industry. How can that be so?

With all due respect, Sen. Hatch, whose side are you on?

My near-daily fight to protect my intellectual property rights against unscrupulous and more so unaware infringers will become mired in another layer of bureaucracy, fees and confusion at the hands of your proposed orphan works measure.

And yet you make a vocal stand on behalf of other progenitors of intellectual property.

In your quest to level the playing field for intellectual property owners in the digital age, why are you leaving the tens of thousands of photographers holding the short end of the stick?

Respectfully,

William Seberger
Photojournalist
Tucson, AZ

Think Cost on Equipment Upgrades

2009-06-10T12:36:00.003-07:00

Convergence.

Everyone, is falling in love with the notion of being able to capture HD video as well as high-resolution stills from a single capture device (the artist formerly known as "camera").

Don't get me wrong, I'm excited too. I've seen a lot of change in the technology side of the business. But there are some pitfalls to beware of; in a poor economy or a great one.

My earliest experiences professionally and personally were with still film cameras. My workhorses used to be Nikon F4s bodies, with a mix of autofocus and manual focus lenses. I have a Nikon FG (circa 1984) that hasn't had a roll through it in about six years, but still works. I recently acquired a Rolleiflex Automat from 1951 that still works perfectly. In fact, an Olympus point-and-shoot my mom got me as an 8th grade graduation present still works.

While I don't use 35mm really at all anymore, I still use 120 pretty frequently in bodies both a few years and several decades old. To make my point, $10,000 of equipment as a 10-15 year investment wasn't a bad deal at all.

Fast forward to the digital era. Since about 2002, it seems that I have been stuck in an almost endless upgrade cycle. Where I could do my job previously with some downright ancient hardware (by today's standards, at least), when the expectation became the speed of digital, I had to move quickly.

I had a couple of D1 bodies that I dumped as soon as something visually better came along, and proceeded along that very expensive path over three or four bodies until the release of the D2X; about the same time that all the brands hit 10-15MP in their top-end models.

Now we're talking about tens of thousands of dollars invested in hardware that may only last a few years.

I keep using those D2X bodies today because the quality is there, the reliability is there and they meet the technical requirements of nearly all of my clients. They'll need to be replaced at some point, but they'll be replaced when they no longer work.

And here again today, I am faced with what could be the beginning of another big upgrade cycle as video capture becomes a more-expected tool to be used and manufacturers are edging towards dual-functionality bodies.

What have I learned from the film to digital progression that I can apply to the digital to the still/video progression?

It's really easy to hemorrhage money and shoot your business in the foot if you're not careful.

That bleeding can cause you to either raise rates (if you have clients in this economy who will tolerate it) or take less home.

True enough, you have to spend money to make money. A mechanic needs his tools, a painter needs his brushes and a photographer needs her cameras.

But think about the sustainability of the tools before you whip out the AMEX.

I just read a certain "professional photography" magazine while at the doctor's office, and was blown away by the glut of hardware available for 'converting' the new Canon 5D Mk. II into a shoulder-fired missile launcher cum video camera.

Pretty cool that you can do it, but at what cost?

In my experience, there has always been a lot more equipment necessary for video capture than still capture. And that's true whether it's a combo DSLR or an IMAX camera. It's a high-cost proposition from the get-go.

Add into that the amount of equipment necessary to turn your digital body into a more fully-featured video camera (off-camera finder screen, audio inputs, rails systems, focusing tools, etc.), and you're talking about a pretty hefty investment. The question isn't whether or not to purchase the tools to do the job, it's how to do so wisely.

Now more than ever, it is critical to pick the tools that have some staying power in your kit: The kinds of things that will let you squeeze every last dollar out of them before they fail or become unacceptable to your clients.

If an all-in-one capture device suits your needs practically and financially, by all means, shop away. But do so bearing in mind that all the bolt-ons for a certain body may or may not work with the next generation body a year or three down the road.

When buying new hardware or accessories, keep an eye towards standards. Buy bodies that accept standard microphone inputs so that you can preserve the audio capture hardware over a few body upgrades. Having standards-compliant hardware also makes a lot more sense if you find yourself renting "extras" often.

Maybe consider a standalone HD video camera that you can use with or instead of your still rig. It might be an extra piece of equipment to lug (and get used to lugging LOTS if you're into video), but it can extend your flexibility quite a bit, and if you kill one on a job, you're not out both.

If you buy an audio recorder, make sure that it can handle the microphone rig you bought for your video camera or dual-function body.

And perhaps most importantly, if you don't use a piece of hardware frequently, rent it. Rental shouldn't really change your books too much, since you should be charging clients a price that reflects your equipment overhead costs anyway - whether you rent or own the hardware.

As an aside, I know a lot of photographers who are quite successful (and much smarter than I) and keep an absolutely basic amount of equipment; or even none at all. They rent what they need when they need it to avoid the upgrade cycle and to simplify their books.

There's a lot of good stuff out there now, and undoubtedly better and more exciting stuff around the corner.

Make sure you have the tools for the job today and the means to make the money to keep you in business tomorrow.

Spraying money around on frequent and poorly planned "upgrades" and one-off doodads will only harm your bottom line and put you on the fast-track to a cubicle job to pay off the credit card.

Thanks, Poynter

2009-06-01T17:15:00.004-07:00

In the same stream of electrons that delivered to me a story about journalists trying to stay positive in spite of the dismal state of affairs in the industry, a very disappointing ad came along.

Next to a Romenesko post over on Poynter.org, I saw an add for shutterstock.com; advertising their catalog of royalty-free editorial content.

Despite the thousands of dollars it costs to buy an all-you-can-eat subscription, photographers get paid a whopping $0.25 per download. The site even advertises that photographers can bring in up to $500 per month.

Way to whore yourself out for ad dollars to a company that hurts professional photojournalists.

I wonder why I don't see ads for pennies-on-the-dollar overseas copy editing services on your site.

Thanks a lot, Poynter.

Pulling the Plug?

2009-05-04T11:25:00.003-07:00

Maybe I'm playing devil's advocate, or maybe I'm not.

Newspapers are struggling because they're not selling ads. True, the amount a company is willing to pay for an ad is largely dependent on how many readers the newspaper reaches, but that is becoming less of a major component of the equation.

Someone has to pick up the cost. If advertisers aren't footing the bill anymore, readers (or some other party) must.

People just aren't going to buy papers en masse for a myriad of reasons; the largest being that what's available in print is available on the Web for free. What's more, a lot of what's in the paper is available for free ON OTHER SITES. Think of all those wire stories that carry across just about every organization's site/paper...

So for those publications hoping to make it on subscription/newsstand fees, it might be time to turn off the Web server; if not completely, then for everyone but subscribers. The Internet was a noble effort for papers who, over the last 20 years STILL haven't figured out how it works. It used to be a loss leader funded by fat ad books.

The days of fat ad books are gone (economy aside) and so too is the day of throwing stuff online because at some point someone might figure out how to make money doing so.

A wise man once told me, "Never give away what you're trying to sell."

Maybe, just maybe, it's time to pull the plug.

Do it for a week or two. Watch the blogs whither and dry up. Watch the evening news anchors go back to holding up printed copies of the paper on-air. More importantly, figure out who is buying papers at the stand.

"Waiting out the problem" isn't going to work.