What do you do for a living?
Or are you saying that no-one should take pictures or write for reward?
I agree. He's just let others get rich off his talents while he gets nothing but worthless pats on the back. I can't do that. I've seen my son cry because we had no food in the past. I know from hard experience that we cannot live on air alone, and no one gives me free food. I have to pay for things I want and need, and if others want or need my work, they pay so my family can live.
Now, if someone wants to help a charity or their church or some other cause they believe in, that's totally alright. To give work to profitable businesses is just plain dumb. I have spent enough time with editors and graphic designers and business leaders to know how they look on guys like the OP. They laugh at them and call them fools, idiots, and chumps. They do NOT appreciate the 'kindness' you think you're doing.
I think this is somewhat blown out of proportion. I
never said you shouldn't take pictures or write for reward, and I
certainly did not intend to advocate anything of the sort.
(For the record: at the moment I build web sites for a living; in the past I've worked as a journalist (taking pictures, too!), and I'm now getting back into journalism.)
Chris, I'm a big fan of your work and I can relate to your point of view; but I think you misunderstood me here, which is my fault, as I should have been clearer.
These were just a bunch of pictures of bands that I like that I took for fun. The pictures have little, or no, commercial value; Sonic Youth must've done >1000 shows and there are zillions of pictures online. This is just one of them, and not a particularly special one at that.
(As for undermining photojournalism: I've worked with some of the people who shoot gigs for a living in Sweden. Their pictures appear in the papers the day after, and no later than that. My pictures are completely irrelevant in that context.)
Giving free stuff to for-profit enterprises was not my intention, but if you give stuff to Wikipedia, it needs to be
free (as in speech, not beer, as they say) - which includes no restrictions on commercial use. Which has the side effect that commercial entitites might use your pictures. Whether this is unfortunate or not is a matter of opinion, but in this case I feel the good outweighs the "bad" either way.
(Also note that I've never explicitly "given" anything directly to, or been in contact with, any business regarding these pictures: they have just taken them straight from Wikipedia, knowing that it's OK.)
Again, I'm not saying, and never said, that
everything should be free. This is not a binary question; it's not either/or. Had it been more personal pictures, or a story I was trying to sell, I would obviously have done differently.
I also didn't do it to help the bands/artists in question; I just wanted to improve Wikipedia a tiny bit, a site that for a long time has provided me with an invaluable amount of knowledge. That's really all there's to it.
🙂
(Edit: I just realized that the wording of the thread title might be at fault here; perhaps a better one would be "Voluntarily letting everyone use
some of your picture(s)"
🙂)
