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 I encourage you to exercise extreme caution when being pitched for website design and photo/audio packages. Just last night, I recieved the following e-mail blast:
Present Your Artistic Vision &
Unique Portfolio With Elegance and Style
Petruska Photography just did... Take a peek at their website
[click photo]
It's A Photographer's Dream...
A Professional Website With
A Premium Slideshow Photo Gallery & Music
For Less Than A Cup Of Coffee Per Day!
(Gallery & Hosting Incl)
Psst... Does your website need a design makeover?
Impress your clients with an optional Story Book or a
built in photo ordering form.
Let our elegant designs showcase your services.
We look forward to hearing from you... Call Nerds Software Today!
Now, Pat and Hans have nice photos, and the pages look good. I don't personally prefer the "page turning" style, but I am sure that it appeals to their audience. In addition to the "Copyright" tab at the bottom of their site, which details that their work is protected by copyright, is a nice link to the site designer, as well as three links which begin three well known songs. All three songs are very popular songs, they evoke certain emotions, the first is by Lifehouse, the 2005 hit song "You and Me". The second is Seal's 1994 smash hit "Kiss from a Rose", and the third is the Goo Goo Dolls' somewhat lesser known "I'll Be". All three make you feel differently about the images you are seeing. A second sense - aural - enhances your visual experience. So, I wrote to Nerds, and asked them:
Mark --
How much does it cost to have the audio on the site as well as the design?
Within 15 minutes, I get a response from Robert Pritchard (his colleague), with the subject line: Subject: Music is included followed by a sales pitch email, that reads, in part: Our Design Team would be happy to design a custom website for your use for only $399.00 + a $50.00 per mo. leasing fee. Please note that the first year leasing fee is payable in advance....Our pricing structure is setup to help photographers spread out the cost of a custom website over several years. Typically a custom website for photographers would cost at least several thousand dollars...You will notice that many of our clients have added a Story Book Intro (with 6-8 automated flipping pages) giving them an additional “WOW” feature showcasing their portfolios. (an affordable option at $250.00)...Our clients have been amazed at how fast, how simple & how little they had to do!!! A brand new website is launched in 10-14 days from the day we receive your fine photography & deposit." They then include other sites which showcase their talents, like www.imaginique.net/ImaginiqueWeddings.htm uses the song "Unforgettable" to enhance the experience, www.jpatrickphoto.com/JPPortraits.htm uses Iz's (aka Israel Kamakawiwo'ole) extremely popular "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" recording, and www.stantonsphotography.com/ uses The Corr's top ten hit "Breathless". In addition, all have very defined copyright/IP notices on their sites. None of these photographers are probably aware that, in any way, there is a problem with having these audio tracks on their sites. Just as many of their portrait and wedding clients may well believe that they are not doing anything wrong by taking their prints down to the one-hour photo lab and making copies. Yet, since I know that a Statutory license is not available to either the photographers, or the web design firm, and certainly that fee above for design can't possibly include the licensing for the above mentioned hit songs, while I don't definitively know that they haven't secured advertising rights for the use of those songs for each individual customer, or all their customers, the likelihood is that they have not. When I wrote Robert back, I asked: Robert --
I like the added experience of the music. Some of them have nice instrumentals, others have more well-known/popular music. Can I choose the songs I want from music that I like, and that appeal to my clientele? Robert responded 5 minutes later: John,
The quick answer is yes. He then volunteers that if I would like any additional information, he'd be happy to talk to me. I have music that I use, that I've obtained a license to use, from a company that is affiliated with the Professional Photographer's of America - Broken Joey Records. Joe, the owner, I met while speaking at PPA's ImagingExpo last January. He has a wide variety of copyright cleared music, because either he, or his partners wrote, produced, and performed the music, and grant a limited license to photographers, for a very very reasonable fee. Joe wrote an article here on the subject. There are also other sources for rights-cleared music. Exercise extreme caution, and where vendors of yours are including copyrighted components into the work they produce for you, whether audio, video, or other graphics or still images, make sure that you have proof that your vendor has the right to re-license that material to you. Ultimately, in the end, these photographers will be on the hook for these alledged infringements.
UPDATE: One commenter noted the BMI service http://www.bmi.com/newmedia/entry/C1168 for licensing audio. I went through the process, and BMI's service, for a website (I made selections that are in line with a photographer's website), has a minimum annual charge of $299.00. When I indicated, as I was required to do, "Please indicate your estimated annual revenue:", I chose, first, $60k, which made my actual licensing fee $1,050. When I changed it to $25k, the annual licensing fee was reduced to $437.50.
Please post your comments by clicking the link below. If you've got questions, please pose them in our Photo Business Forum Flickr Group Discussion Threads.
 I was passing through a drive-through during my trek through the Northwest these past few days, and there I found an interesting insight. "Jack", of Jack-In-The-Box fame, was cited as the source for the phrase: "Whoever said 'a penny for your thoughts' was a cheapskate." Who knew this wisdom was a tangential byproduct of fast food? (For the 'Straight Dope' on the initial phrase, click here.) It's so appropo to creatives. People continue to devalue what your mind dreams up, and what your mind sees. With technology making exposure and focus so much less of a hurdle to a usable image, the value of what's in your mind's eye becomes far more valuable. What you see. How you see it. How you frame it. When you trigger the shutter closed. At some point, we evolve, as "paid people" to a cap for what we are worth as a physically producing worker. Attorneys, doctors, and consultants, are paid hundreds and thousands of dollars an hour for their extensive knowledge-bases, for their talents, unrelated to how long or how physical their work is. So too, are we, as creatives, best valued for our thoughts - how creative we are, and how we can best solve creative challenges when we're presented with them. Remember, you set the price for your thoughts, and what your bring to the table. Don't let others dictate to you what you're worth - they will, almost without exception, undervalue (either intentionally, or unintentionally) your contributions.
Please post your comments by clicking the link below. If you've got questions, please pose them in our Photo Business Forum Flickr Group Discussion Threads.
 I see, to a degree, that you're multiplying "one" employee, and thus, it makes sense that it's a photoshop job on this one, composting multiple images of the same subject. But I have to ask - who styles these ads! Everyone that I asked about this came away with the quizical "what were they thinking?" question on their minds! Gizmodo did a piece on it, (you can see the full ad here) and now, apparently, a Vice President has been sent out to be the recipient of slings and arrows. Her statement on the subject: Intel's intent of our ad titled "Multiply Computing Performance and Maximize the Power of Your Employees" was to convey the performance capabilities of our processors through the visual metaphor of a sprinter. We have used the visual of sprinters in the past successfully.
Unfortunately, our execution did not deliver our intended message and in fact proved to be insensitive and insulting. Upon recognizing this, we attempted to pull the ad from all publications but, unfortunately, we failed on one last media placement.
We are sorry and are working hard to make sure this doesn't happen again.
~ Nancy Bhagat Vice President, Director of Integrated Marketing While I find it hard to believe that, AFTER the media placements had been sent out, they failed to catch only one. This could have been done better if the employees had been older white men, and the "boss" the same race, hispanic. There were other ways to execute this than the way it was. As the photographer on the campaign, it would be your responsibility to obtain client approval on the final image before calling a wrap. Further, when you're involved in the casting, you should be sensitive to these issues - you are a part of a team concepting and dealing with the details on an ad. In the end, however, if the assignment was, say, $10,000 to produce for all your fees and expenses, and you seperately had a line item for two dozen insertions in various trade magazines over the course of a year, that rights package could be worth another $20,000 in licensing fees. However, if the client kills the campaign, unless your paperwork is written correctly, you may loose almost all of that additional revenue. Further, at that ad agency, you'll get little or no more work because you'll likely be known as the photographer that produced an ad that was critisized as being insensitive at best, and racist at worst, so you'll loose additional assignments from that firm down the road.
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 I'm off to cover the Presidential debate in Chicago today, so here are today's Speedlinks. - PopPhoto's Blog - Has an update on the NYC "true crime of photography" issue, and, in general, they're a good resource for you to bookmark.
- American Journalism Review - There's an interesting take on the use of Photoshop in the news/editorial business, and digital forensics.
- A thread over at lightsalkers - This thread is suggesting, based upon a comment by Editorial Photographers UK that those on lightstalkers are somehow trust fund photographers (oh, please!)
- Dan Heller's blog - Titles his latest post as an homage to Admiral Stockdale, and gives me about as much of an acknowledgement as I am due -- to wit: "even a clock that doesn't run is right twice a day". He goes on to set the record straight about what he does (and does not) do, and it's worth a read.
Now go! Check 'em out, and come back soon!
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 Recently, I posted an article about shorting Getty's stock as the only good short-sighted idea I could find. I was quickly criticized by Dan Heller both on my comments, and in a lengthy blog post. Interestingly enough, it was his Getty commentaries (in general) that got him hired as a stock analyst. Previously, Heller said he didn't see a downside and that the stock would stay the course. While I have never been hired as a stock analyst before, and wouldn't know where to begin if I was, perhaps they called the wrong guy? Heller's 8/2 blog entry is missing something - an acknowledgement that, either by luck or by learn-ed observation, I got it right. Getty's stock plummeted almost 20% this past week, and over this weekend, sits at $34.59. With more than one fund having millions invested in Getty, those folks still holding GYI are have taken a huge hit and are probably pretty upset. Could it have cut the other way? Sure. Could it drop again at the next quarterly report when the new website is finally launched? Quite probably, given that, in the final stretch, they fired the person incharge of that process, as Daryl Lang, over at PDN, reported in this interesting article that's a must read, along with previous related posts worth reading for further insight. Silly decision on Getty's part. For those analysts trolling for insights - here's one, for free: When your profits are based upon ad clients and rights-managed image licensing, with an average license of around $200 or so, and you are seeing a decline in that model because you also now are the proud owner of iStockPhoto, where the license is about $1, and that model is growing while the rights-managed model is shrinking, take a hint - Jupiter Images stock ( JUPM) just sunk below the $7 mark - you should be lucky that GYI is where it is right now. One of the problems is, I wasn't actually saying you should short the stock when I posted it. It was an analysis of the stock's past performance more than anything else, and it was a critical commentary on the contract conditions under which freelancers produce work for Getty. I was suggesting that working for Getty is a short-sighted idea, that is bad, and that, shorting their stock was about the only short-sighted idea I could find. It was a funny play on words to make the point about how bad GYI is for the field of photography that they rely on. I hadn't shorted it before, and I didn't short it this past week. As they always post as a disclaimer "past performance is not an indicator of the future...". Getty has given validation to the istockphoto company, and more importantly, it's model, and is further encouraging other companies to buy up other microstock competitors. In addition, while high end clients may have gone to Getty for imagery before, and avoided the cheaper options, now those RM clients are far far more comfortable avoiding paying the "front of house white tablecloth prices" for a meal, and instead, going around back to the alley entrance to get the same meal on a paperplate for a fraction of the price. Try this - Go to the Getty Images site, and, say, you are looking for a photo of The White House. Under "news editorial", not a single photo on the front page, with a search return (as of today) for 'the white house' - 46495 images found, is of the actual White House. It's all photos of the President. Changing to "all editorial" instead of "news", yields 51614 images found, but again, no photo of the actual building I am searching for. Finally, when searching the "creative" division, I get 127 images found. Really? Only 127? The first page of about fifty images yields only 30 images that fit the bill, and there are mis-identified images as well, including one of the Capitol, and one of a field of Cactus with a white building (house?) at the top of the frame. Go to istockphoto, and the first three images from the home page search are what is being sought, including this one - The White House on iStockPhoto. This image on istockphoto, submitted by DHuss, looks remarkably like this one submitted as a part of the National Geographic Society's collection, photographed by Richard Nowitz. This one, on the Getty Images site shows the White House at dusk. So does this one, on iStockPhoto. Interestingly enough, the iStockphoto site yielded more to choose from (182), and the right results, first. A search for "golden gate bridge" on Getty yields 555 images. An Istockphoto search? 870. Both front pages yield perfectly usable photos, sharp, clear, all angles, and so forth. I could go on, there are countless examples, you get the point. While Getty isn't revealing how much of their RM clients are turning to the IStockPhoto solutions, clearly, the content is there for the picking, and, based upon the White House example above, iStockPhoto is actually a better resource. I've been criticized by others for suggesting that what people are doing, and the microstock model in general, is bad for the field of professional photographers. That doesn't make what I am saying false, people just are choosing to bury their heads in the sand. Consider this - when a paper or lumber company plants seedlings as they cut down 100-year-old trees, they will never see that benefit themselves, not in their, nor their grandchildren's lifetimes, but it is "priming the pump" for future forestry opportunities. This is a long-term good idea. Getty's (and they are, by no means, alone) way of paying photographers diminishes the creative stock, and they are depleating it faster than they are replentishing it. There is no reforestation. Getty is the big dog in town, and has a responsibility to "reforest" the creative population, and protect their current assets. They are not doing this to support long-term growth, they are doing this to appeal to Wall Street demands. Next up? Well, let's see - when a stock tanks from a high of over 90, to below 40, with no signs of a resurgence, and only a hope of stopping the blood-letting, there needs to be more of a transfusion than the dumping of the website leadership, a wholesale new CEO is needed. Jonathan Klein needs to head to the unemployment line - perhaps the next 1.5 million dollar glitch needs to be related to his salary ( Andy Goetze over at Stock Photo Talk has a 2004 article giving you some ideas as to his past compensation.) Forbes reported what happened at GYI. An AP article notes "Baird analyst Steven Ashley cut his price target...He also noted that demand is shifting toward less expensive images....", and then went on to say GYI was still attractive "...since most of its images are owned by independent photographers and are created at their expense." Right. The indpendents still own their own work, and can sever ties with Getty under their contract terms. That means that Getty could have a lot of empty hard drive space and idle servers, which is why they are working very hard to secure wholey-owned content which can't walk on a whim. Thanks to Stanley Rowin for writing here about Heller's blaming "human behavior", and noting that perhaps, I got it right. Rowin points out "...it’s the stupid humans that make up the market force that determine how photography is priced, no longer the photographers." Right Stan - the bean counters cannot possibly know what goes into being a photographer, the costs, and thus, when properly schooled in their own self worth and costs-of-being-in-business, a photographer can properly value their own work. There's one exception I know of - John. He's an accountant in Baltimore who is also a professional photographer - he gets the right brain and the left brain stuff!
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My raison d'etre in doing blog entries on the subject of business practices is to be helpful to those who may need just a nudge in the right direction of information, need a little push, or need a full-contact shove. The degree of effort made is tempered by the degree of need, and some people may not like the counsel, but that doesn't invalidate the benefit. Recently, a reader commented to me - "...some of us aren't into it for the money or as a profession. We're into it for fun or as a creative outlet of expression and art. Therefore, the business side is just a PITA and potentially something that just gets in the way..." Here's the problem - if you are not looking to be a photographer by trade, then don't collect money. Feel free, by all means, to make beautiful nature images, photograph protests in your home town, or do a nice portrait of a family friend. However, if you have any respect for other creatives, and to tangentially ensuring their longevity - your actions of taking $50 for an assignment that should have been $500, or giving away for free your photographs for access to the limited locations that are credential positions, what you are doing is detrimental to your fellow creatives, and those who's work you admire.
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 The granddaddy of the royalty-free (aka RF) world is Photodisc, who's owners have passed her around as some cheap trick to serve a shifting master. Jim Pickerell writes over at BlackStar rising about their latest woes: When PhotoDisc, Inc. started back in the early 1990s, the owners went to...Weststock [who] had a large stable of photographers who had been offering their images to customers on a RM basis. The owners...went to their photographers, told them about this new opportunity to sell images on disk, and asked if they would let some of their images be used in this way. Some photographers said they didn't want any part of this business model, but a number agreed to produce images that Weststock could supply to Photodisc. By contract, Photodisc would pay Weststock a royalty on each disc sold, and Weststock would pay the photographers a percentage of what they received...Many photographers say they have not received any payments from Photodisc for more than two years. Their images are still on Gettyimages.com and on CDs that Getty is marketing...the royalty share that photographers agreed to way back in the 1990s was very low and helped establish the precedent for the 20 percent share of RF sales that is the industry standard today. Part of the argument back then was that Photodisc had huge production and marketing costs, and thus could not afford to pay the traditional 50 percent to the image creators...over the years, the cost argument changed quite a bit when the RF people started selling images online, much of the hard goods cost was eliminated...Online search and delivery became the overwhelmingly preferred way for customers to buy RF images. Nevertheless, the standard share to the image creator remained the same. Am I supposed to feel sorry for the photographers who provided the content that validated Photodisc, and started the slide towards RF? If Weststock had turned away Photodisc, Photodisc might have decided that they couldn't source the material and thus not delve into their new venture. Or perhaps, had the idiots at Weststock been more forward thinking, they would have become some form of partner, allowing for lower percentages at the initial stages, and then higher ones as physical costs diminished or marketshare grew. Royalty-free has elements of a drug habit you can't kick, and of (initially voluntary) slavery (calling it indentured servitude misses some of those elements.) As a client, it's a drug that kills budgets, freezing them so low that they never will see the light of day again, and then precluding a budget that will sustain assigning a photographer that can produce fresh, client specific needs, and thus, the designers quality of content suffers. I know many a designer who's firm, and then their clients, got their fix early, and now can't ween themselves from the teet, and the designers themselves see their work product - and own portfolio pieces, suffering. As a photographer, early income streams may have existed for some, but these were short-term gains, and once the product hit the market, people had no need to pay for more, since the CD's were "all you can eat". Calls for more work were filled, despite reservations to the contrary, and then photographers were enslaved by their own actions, no longer generating sales of their images at one-off rates, as these same images were a part of the buffett, nearly free for the taking. Further, these short-term gains canibalized the market, as Jim stated, setting the bar so low that it was not sustainable for professionals in the long term. These photographers did not save any of their ill-gotten gains for a rainy day, so they could afford attorneys to defend their rights - especially early on. Thus, they are continuing the cycle - first, sell their work for less than pennies on the dollar in a manner that promotes the "you buy it you own it" mentality that encourages and teaches re-use without additional payments, which the translates to an overall lack of respect for copyright. Then, they re-inforce the "it's ok to steal from photographers, they won't sue us" mentality, waiting two years to collect and further, not maintaining knowledge of the whereabouts of all of the channels their images are being sold through. So, until these photographers pursue this to the hilt, with a take-no-prisoners attitude, I can't see them making up for their many past indescretions, and thus, deserving of little in the way of sympathy from those left to do business in the tattered landscape of RF/RM markets. It's kind of like trying to feel sorry for the inventors of the nuclear bomb, who came down with cancer during the course of their career pursuing nuclear technology, and are now suffering.
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