Concert Photographers Asked To Transfer Copyright To Jane’s Addiction

Filed under WTF? I’m told some photographers are asked to sign this document and some are not. “…I hereby grant, transfer, convey and assign to you all right, title and interest throughout the universe in perpetuity, including, without limitation, the copyright…”

Seriously, you need the copyright!? What’s the point of coming to your stupid effing show and taking your picture then?

Guess times are tough in the music biz.


JA-Photo-Release –

Selling Stock Independently

I think for many photographers the ability to license their images as stock without paying a huge commission to some middle man is the ultimate dream. And, to be honest I don’t think it matters a bit to buyers whether they get the image from Corbis/Getty or directly from the photographer as long as the transaction is fairly seamless (e.g. prices are fixed, high res download available, images are captioned). Photoshelter has a solution with a new feature that allows photographers to form virtual agencies. Art Wolfe, David Doubilet, and Thomas Mangelsen formed a new agency called Wild (here). Art thinks the big agency model is dead and you can read more on that in a story he wrote for Outdoor Photographer (here).

The big hurdle of course is figuring out how to get your material in front of buyers if you’re not 3 of the most famous wildlife photographers in the world. PS has a Q&A with photographer Randy Santos, who now makes a living independently licensing his images as stock (here). He uses SEO and direct marketing to reach potential buyers. Here’s his tips from the piece on how to sell stock independently:

  • Listen. Talk with your potential customers, listen for the void, and then fill it.
  • Show the client you understand their perspective. Art buyers certainly care about quality images – but their favorite photographers also provide assurance and convenience.
  • Specialize and build a full collection. My work may not be groundbreaking, revolutionary, or even the best photography in the world. But, there is value in that this is well-defined, well-organized, searchable collection of images.
  • Differentiate yourself. Set yourself apart from the masses. Clients need to remember you for something special.
  • Learn and practice good business. Professionalism is essential in every aspect of the how you conduct business.
  • Work really hard on your website and SEO. Sure, you want to be creative and get personal fulfillment, but you need to get your work out there in a way that buyers will find it.

When I worked as a photo editor I competed with other publications for advertising and readers. I always needed to run the best unpublished stock photography I could find. That usually amounted to calling photographers directly and cajoling them into sending me outtakes from a shoot I found on their portfolio. I see no reason why solutions like this can’t be the future of high quality stock.

Flashes Of Hope

Photographer Kevin Brusie sent me a link to this amazing organization (he started the Maine chapter last year):

“Flashes of Hope is a non-profit organization dedicated to creating powerful, uplifting portraits of children fighting cancer and other life-threatening illnesses.”

It’s all staffed by volunteer professional photographers and a donation (here) goes towards processing and framing of the portraits for the family. What a wonderful gift.

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The Making of Dan Winters’ Periodical Photographs Book

Over on Grids Scott Dadich talks about the process of concepting, designing and editing Dan’s book (here).

“Dan and I didn’t want a photograph on the cover, but Aperture wasn’t seeing the wisdom in that (I wonder why!). They wanted a celebrity portrait cover.”

bookstore
Thx, Mark.

Brent Humphreys’ Tour de France Project

I’m so used to flying wherever to shoot whoever and I say stand wherever for however long etc. This has been a huge growth experience for me as a shooter. My grip has become too damn tight in many ways and the tour makes me go “velvet glove”.

More on WTJ?
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Bravo TV Casting Call For Contemporary Artists

If you’re an emerging or mid-career artist with a unique, powerful voice that demands a bigger stage – well. . . Here. It. Is.

We want contemporary artists. Your medium could be one of many (or several of many) – painting, sculpture, installation, video, photography, mixed-media – we want voices that believe in their art and want the world to know.

Attend one of our four regional casting calls around the country and we will consider you for participation in this groundbreaking show.

via Casting – Bravo TV Official Site.

thx Jay

Americansuburb X: Interview with Brett Weston (1991)

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“I would rather have 10 people who understand and appreciate my work, than ten thousand who get excited because they’re told it’s the thing to do. I love appreciation, we all do. But, I don’t photograph for anybody but myself.”

“I don’t think of it in terms of money. Once the work is completed that’s a different thing. I might make a portfolio to sell, but I don’t have that thought in mind when I go out to make a photograph. I do it just for the love and excitement.”

Read the full interview (here).

NYTimes Magazine Pulls Photo Essay After Questions Of Digital Alteration Are Raised

The New York Times commissioned Portuguese photographer Edgar Martins to travel around the United States and take photographs of abandoned construction projects left in the wake of the housing and securities market collapse. They pulled the online piece (here) after questions were raised over on Metafilter (here). Initially everyone was happily debating the economy and then suddenly someone commented “I call bullshit on this not being photoshopped” and everyone suddenly started debating the veracity of the images.

The NY Times policy on digital alteration was recently discussed by Michele McNally in their Talk To The Newsroom column (here). Their ethical guidelines state that “Images in our pages, in the paper or on the Web, that purport to depict reality must be genuine in every way” anything that’s altered must be labeled a photo-illustration except of course “this does not apply to portraits or still-lifes.”

So, the Metafilter crowd started taking the Edgar Martins pictures and mirroring one side of them to show that he had simply done that and then added anomalies in so it’s not a perfect match (here and here). In an interview on Art Most Fierce (here) Edgar states “When I photograph I don’t do any post production to the images, either in the darkroom or digitally, because it erodes the process. So I respect the essence of these spaces.”

original-house

flipped-house

I’m going to speculate that he wasn’t liking the pictures he made on assignment and that the mirror images are not that far off from the real thing so he decided to create something a little more pleasing to his eye. Only Edgar knows the truth, but people who build houses can tell you this kind of symmetry is highly improbable.

Thanks for the tip Mason.

Thanks to technology, we may be entering a golden age of journalism

I am not sure that a young man beginning in journalism in 1938 would find opportunity in as great a mood of welcome as one who began about the turn of the century. About 1925 and after, advertising, which once fed the printed word alone, began to divide with the spoken word, the radio. The number of periodicals and newspapers began to contract. The little town of West Chester, when I started there in 1892, had three daily papers; by the 1920s it had but one.

via Jack Shafer – Slate Magazine.