Can you believe this???

"We all are free to do as we wish with our own work."

hey bill, if i did IT work well, but as a hobby, and gave it to your employer for free, resulting in your layoff, would you still maintain that i'm free to do what i did with my work? and would you still bear affection for my engaging self?

on topic: basically Yuri's looking for the equivalent of a free user endorsement, and in a polite and complimentary manner, unless you find asking for something free to be rude or galling. and i think rich refused equally politely. no harm, no foul.
 
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Reply to Rich 815

Reply to Rich 815

At first I dismissed your pompous ranting about not being paid. But then I looked through your flickr pages, esp. flickr River. You were not being unreasonable at all in expecting to be paid. Truly admirable work.

Woodrow
 
bmattock said:
If I give away a photo to someone who asks, I am not taking food off your table.
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I give photos away all the time- to friends who want them for their walls, and to non-profit groups I support who want images for their promotions.

But when hobbyists give away images to groups who would otherwise be paying customers, they ARE taking food off of people's tables. Know what you are talking about, and understand the points before you post.
 
The colossal nerve! On behalf of all flickr users who license their works for a living, I'm outraged. Madness!
 
Also:
bmattock said:
I am an IT worker. And I already face that - people who do what I do are off-shored all the time, their jobs replaced by those who will work for less.
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This is not the same thing. Workers in all fields face competition from others who will do the same job for less money. But what we are talking about here is facing competition from non-professionals (folks who don't do X for a living) and who will do it for free.

bmattock said:
But let's look at it the other way around. When my company cut my pay recently, did you send me a check? If not, then you have no responsibility for my income - and I have no responsibility for yours.
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Of course we have no responsibility for each other's income. However, we all do have a responsibility to be mindful of and respectful to each other. Competition is one thing- and I'm all for it. But when you allow clients to utterly devalue some else's work by placing no value on your own it's quite another.
 
Amen.

Last year, the liquor conglomerate that owns Jameson spotted 1 of my bar/nightlife photos on flickr, too & asked to use it in ads & displays @ point of sales locations (probably airport duty-free stores) around the world.

Their offered payment? A bottle of Jameson.

I politely declined.

rich815 said:
I must be jaded as the warm fuzzy feeling left me for things like this long ago. I once sent a photo to an owner of a bar in Korea who sent me a really respectful and polite email and said he wanted to put my photo on the wall behind the bar because he really liked it and asked for a print. He said he could likely not pay what it's worth but told me I'd get a night of free drinks should I ever make it to his town and bar in Korea. That was the closest any for-profit business asked me for a free print. Others have asked to trade prints and I'm fine with that too. But a warm fuzzy feeling because some company making big bucks asks to use my photo for free? Ha. No way.
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furcafe said:
Amen.

Last year, the liquor conglomerate that owns Jameson spotted 1 of my bar/nightlife photos on flickr, too & asked to use it in ads & displays @ point of sales locations (probably airport duty-free stores) around the world.

Their offered payment? A bottle of Jameson.

I politely declined.
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I was at a bar on St. Paddy's Day once and a stranger walked up to me and asked me what my favorite whisky was. I told him Jameson and I got a free drink and a hat! Obviously he was a Jameson rep!
This was before large corporations stole photos from us.
 
Unfortunately, competition from amateurs is still competition. I think it's just the current state of the photography market that barriers to entry are very low. There's always been a surplus of photographers relative to the amount of paying work, but technology has made things worse for pros because it's easier & easier for anyone, even those w/minimal or nonexistent photo knowledge/skills, to take an OK (i.e., properly exposed, focused, & minimally composed) photo & a good chunk of businesses/clients always needed only OK, not outstanding, images--back in the days of film, they overpaid, in today's terms, because barriers to entry (e.g., complex manual cameras) were higher.

It may be unfair, but IMHO, a professional who can't consistently offer something of tangible value over what an amateur offers for free (or much less than pro rates) probably needs to rethink their line of work.

FWIW, we just had a debate over some of these issues in a local photography discussion group & 1 of the participants posted a link to this Mike Johnston article (& comments) that covers much of the same territory:

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2010/01/frugality.html

drewbarb said:
Also:

This is not the same thing. Workers in all fields face competition from others who will do the same job for less money. But what we are talking about here is facing competition from non-professionals (folks who don't do X for a living) and who will do it for free.


Of course we have no responsibility for each other's income. However, we all do have a responsibility to be mindful of and respectful to each other. Competition is one thing- and I'm all for it. But when you allow clients to utterly devalue some else's work by placing no value on your own it's quite another.
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I've said in print before that my day rate is +/- £1000/day.

If I REALLY don't want to do it, it's £1000/day (probably more, nowadays, especially for arseholes).

If I do -- for example, for the Tibetan Government in Exile -- I'll spend my own money if I've got it. I've never actually spent £1000/day, except valuing my time pro rata by the hour, but for the right person, it's not just free after I've shot it: it's free even when it's commissioned.

Cheers,

R.
 
MCTuomey said:
"We all are free to do as we wish with our own work."

hey bill, if i did IT work well, but as a hobby, and gave it to your employer for free, resulting in your layoff, would you still maintain that i'm free to do what i did with my work? and would you still bear affection for my engaging self?
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But I'm not proposing to come to a photographer's client and offer my work to him for free, which is what you're stating. If you work on your friend's PC or write a program and give it to someone who admires it for free, then you'd be doing what I do - giving a photograph to someone who asks for it. I don't go out looking for work to deprive working photographers of.

If I'm wrong, suggest the alternative to my statement that you quoted above. Am I NOT free to do what I wish with my own photograph? Do I owe you something?

on topic: basically Yuri's looking for the equivalent of a free user endorsement, and in a polite and complimentary manner, unless you find asking for something free to be rude or galling. and i think rich refused equally politely. no harm, no foul.
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I agree - there is no 'can you believe the gall' moment here. Just a polite request and an equally-polite refusal. No harm, no foul.
 
drewbarb said:
I give photos away all the time- to friends who want them for their walls, and to non-profit groups I support who want images for their promotions.

But when hobbyists give away images to groups who would otherwise be paying customers, they ARE taking food off of people's tables. Know what you are talking about, and understand the points before you post.
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That's a one-sided argument. "Working photographers" have a right to not be harmed by my giving away my own property? What do they offer me in return? They seem to understand the principle of equitable exchange - they want to sell their photographs and not give them away. So what am I offered in return for performing a service (withholding my free photographs) for them?

Sorry, they do not do one-sided arrangements, and neither do I. I am taking no food off of anyone's table, and they don't owe me anything. They are free to compete and I am free to give away whatever I own as I wish.
 
ItsReallyDarren said:
Its flickrcity, everyones out there shaking it around town giving it away for free...photos that is.
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Perhaps, but I've gotten at least 4 inquiries in the last year that became real paying gigs from people who found my photos on Flickr.
 
drewbarb said:
This is not the same thing. Workers in all fields face competition from others who will do the same job for less money. But what we are talking about here is facing competition from non-professionals (folks who don't do X for a living) and who will do it for free.
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In my case, I don't take commissions for free, so I hardly compete with working professionals who shoot portraits, weddings, events, or etc. If I take a photograph for my own pleasure and someone else likes it and asks if they can use it and I agree, what's that to another photographer?

Of course we have no responsibility for each other's income. However, we all do have a responsibility to be mindful of and respectful to each other.
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My respect does not extend to behaving in ways that benefit another financially without recompense. Your professional photographer's complaint is that I'm taking food of his table and he wants me to refrain from doing it. He clearly understands quid pro quo, since he won't give his work away. So he demands a quid from me, where is his quo?

Competition is one thing- and I'm all for it. But when you allow clients to utterly devalue some else's work by placing no value on your own it's quite another.
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I disagree. It's my property and I can do as I wish with it. If you want me to protect something of value to you, then you must offer me something in return. You're asking for a one-way arrangement - I look out for working photographers, and they do jack for me.

I'm sorry, that's a scam. I'm supposed to look out for working photographers and behave as they prefer. They offer me nothing in return. Yet they are the businesspeople, they understand that services cost money. So I'm performing a service - where's my money?
 
Hey Rich815, do you realise that right now you are promoting this company (or their products like "Toy Camera"). I have checked your Iphone photos and they are amazing, it makes me want to buy this "Toy Camera" app....:)

Anyway, I agree with your refusal to give them your photos for free......
 
bmattock said:
So I'm performing a service - where's my money?
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You don't always get paid for doing the morally decent thing for your fellow man, but you actually do benefit by not destroying the livelihoods of others. If someone cannot earn a living, they get welfare, which YOU get to pay for whether you like it or not. Its really that simple. Every person in the USA has to eat every day. They can be allowed to earn a living or those who do have incomes can be forced to feed those who do not. For that reason, I try to buy American made things whenever possible. This costs me a lot more money than buying stuff made in China, Mexico, etc. I am relatively poor, so this is a burden on me, but I think it is worth it because, unlike you, I am conscious of the fact that a nation is a community whose members must work together to survive. Keep in mind also that not only do you get to pay for those who cannot earn a living through welfare programs, but the fewer people in this country who make a living, the less money is available to pay your wages at whatever job you do....which gives an incentive to your employer to ship your IT job to one of those smart, hardworking, young people in Bangalore.
 
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