I’m sitting in a five star hotel in New Delhi writing this and two tables away are two freelancers talking about the death of the newspaper industry, just amazing. Since October things in the business have gotten a bit dicey for all of us. Many friends of mine have been laid off by papers in the States. A few good dailies, including the Rocky (one of my favorites) have gone the way of the Dodo. Its a very frightening time in the news business.

One of the reasons I started this blog was to share my photographic experiences with other photographers. A major part of that experience is the business side of photography and in times like these how we, as photographers, as freelancers, as journalists deal with our clients is the of the utmost importance. Placing a value on our time, or vision, our creativity is getting harder and harder to do with magazines cutting budgets and work drying up.

Recently, an editor from a magazine (who shall remain nameless) contacted me for a job. A travel piece on Mumbai. I’ve shot it 10 times already. No problem. I know it inside and out. 48 hours in Mumbai. I ask for the locations they would like photographed and a budget. From experience I know this is a two day job with two long day charges. Up before dawn shoot till 8, breakfast, shoot indoor locations, lunch, nap, evening light shooting, night shots, home, rinse and repeat.

The editor emails:

The text for the story will be in on Thursday the 26th and it would be great to have the images in the following Thursday 2nd. My budget for this piece is $500 SGD

500 SGD is around 325 dollars. That is not enough money for a job like this. I politely turned down the work not only because the money was much too low but also because I was booked with other jobs until well after the deadline. I did however make sure that I explained that the money was much too low saying:

My lowest day rate (8 hours) for a travel magazine assignment is $500.00 USD plus expenses including digital transfer, transportation and meals for the day. I’m happy to work with you but I can’t do it for less than that.

Now I understand that times are tough but as photographers, as communicators we need to place a value on that work. It is important to get paid for the work that we do. Not excessively, but reasonably. We have to pay our rent, we have to eat, we have equipment to purchase and maintain, we have to live. People pay for the plane tickets that the airline sells. They buy the products that are advertised in the magazine and they read the stories while they are going to far off cities and stay in expensive hotels.

The editor responded:

That is a shame. I understand the fee isn’t as high as you would like but please understand that this is for a low budget airline that is only seen within India – which unfortunately for us, means our budget is low. We are based in Asia which reflects our budget and we pay in SGD.

It is a relatively new magazine and I have found if hard to get hold of good photographers based in India. ____________________ our London office recommended you to me and I was hoping we would be able to build a working relationship. I could draw some budget from a different article and up the fee to $600 SGD , can you work with this?

She also said in a subsequent email:

I would really like to work with you on this, as is would be great to get your work in our magazine.

The editor literally offered another 50 dollars. But more than that the editor said something very, very important. She said that I have found if hard to get hold of good photographers based in India. She values my work. She likes my work. She wants it more than other photographers that she works with. On a side note I have to say that there are a number of incredibly talented photographers in India. There is no dearth of talent here. I could name 25 photographers in Mumbai and New Delhi that could do a fantastic job on this story. But back to the real issue here. This editor wants me to shoot these pictures because she values my work, unfortunately that value does not transfer into monetary compensation. In addition she wants to start a long working relationship based on an initial sub standard pay rate.

Not a good way to start a working relationship. When I start working with someone I want it to be based on mutual admiration AND mutual compensation. I do not like to be taken advantage of whether it is intentional or not. I’ve been thinking about this issue lately so I hacked out a response:

I agree, my work would be great for your magazine. I’m not saying that because I have an absurd opinion of myself, but instead because I have the ability to photograph a good story with well composed, thoughtful images that people enjoy seeing. Getting my work to the point where my images look this way took a lot of time, training and sacrifice. Look at it this way because it is exactly the same thing; I love the way a 5 series BMW drives. I love the way it looks and the way it feels. It is a fantastic car. I could go into a dealership and tell them that I want to give them 25k for the car and they would say no. Not only because it costs 60k but because it is WORTH 60k. My work is worth much more than 500 dollars a day plus expenses. That is my lowest rate for small magazines and it is only there because sometimes I will take assignments that interest me for less than I normally charge. It is not negotiable.

That said, I do want to work with you on future projects so if you can find the space in your budget to hire me I think we could make some great pictures. I’m CCing this email to my agent so you can contact them directly for assignments. I’m often unreachable for weeks at a time while traveling and working in extremely remote areas. Laura knows my schedule and can book me accordingly.

The editor should be getting into the office in a few hours. We’ll see what she says. I don’t think the budget will move to a place where I’m happy with it and it really doesn’t matter for this job because I’m booked solid until well after the deadline. My hope is that she will begin to understand that if you want good work from experienced people you need to pay rates that reflect the product.

What do you all think? What would you have done? Questions? Comments?

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