For Photographers

Photographically Speaking

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From A to Z, here are some lesser-known photography phrases:

Aggressive pixels – A picture shot extremely tight. For example: when all others are using a 70-200mm lens, the photographer using a 400mm lens is said to be shooting aggressive pixels.

American Idol Effect – A reference to photo sites like Flickr.

Autotard – A photographer who always uses their camera on the “Auto” setting.

Available darkness – Shooting in a dark location without flash.

Baby zoomer – A wide-angle zoom lens.

Bacon assignment – A job that pays much more than it’s worth.

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Work Only Half A Day Per Year

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A year ago, I wrote a post about a Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) survey which showed that Canada’s top CEOs earned the equivalent of the average annual Canadian income by 2:30 PM on January 3rd, (based on 2009 numbers).

The CCPA released this year’s survey results (based on 2010 numbers). Canada’s top CEOs now earn the equivalent of the average annual Canadian income even sooner.

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ annual look at CEO compensation reveals that by 12:00 noon on January 3rd, the first official working day of the year, Canada’s Elite 100 CEOs (the 100 highest paid CEOs of companies listed in the TSX Index) will have already pocketed $44,366. It takes the Average Joe an entire year, working full-time, to earn that same amount.

This represents a 27% pay increase from the previous year. The average Canadian received a 1.1% increase.

The CCPA has a depressing pay clock here.

 

Christmas Wish List

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Dear Santa,

Here’s my list for this Christmas. Please read it carefully so you don’t mix it up like you did last year:

• Less stress and more success.
• More spare time and less spare tire.
• Less grey hair and more grey matter.
• Big bank account and small credit card bills.
• Pay rates go up and camera prices go down.
• Large photo budgets and small copyright demands.
• Faster computer and slower deadlines.

I’ll be leaving some gluten-free, sugar-free, fat-free, nut-free, taste-free cookies on the front table along with a glass of soy milk. If things go well this year, I’m sure we’ll see the return of the frosted, double fudge, chocolate chip brownies and the grande caffé mocha with extra whipped cream next year.

 

Title Role

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Look through LinkedIn and notice how self-employed people describe themselves.

Corporate employees are often given a title by their company but a self-employed person can create any title they want.

It’s a safe bet that anyone who declares themselves to be an expert, evangelist, guru, life coach, influencer, disrupter, ambassador, thought leader, ninja or even a rockstar, probably isn’t.

What exactly do the titles “innovator” and “visionary” mean? One might wonder if “self-employed” is somehow related to “self-important.”
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Picture This

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On this blog, I’ve repeatedly mentioned that a company should never use stock pictures for its business image or marketing. This applies to running a photography business as well.

There’s a commercial photographer here in Toronto whose web site uses cheap, stock pictures taken from other web sites. In a slideshow to showcase his “talent”, none of the pictures were shot by this photographer. None whatsoever. Through the magic of the Web, stock pictures are easily traceable back to their sources.

If a photographer has to use someone else’s pictures, what does that say about their own work?

Not only does this make the photographer look bad, but one might wonder if this is legal. Ontario’s Consumer Protection Act (14(2) s.3, 8, 14) seems to suggest it isn’t.

Using stock pictures in place of real corporate photography or other custom business photography always costs too much. It can harm a company’s reputation and even land the business on the wrong side of consumer laws.

“We used stock pictures to save a few dollars,” is not a legal defense.

 

Does Creative Mean Dishonest?

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Last week, an interesting psychology paper was published, titled “The Dark Side of Creativity: Original Thinkers Can Be More Dishonest”. Written by Francesca Gino of Harvard University and Dan Ariely of Duke University, the paper’s abstract includes:

Creativity is a common aspiration for individuals, organizations, and societies. Here, however, we test whether creativity increases dishonesty. We propose that a creative personality and a creative mindset promote individuals’ ability to justify their behavior, which, in turn, leads to unethical behavior.

In 5 studies, we show that participants with creative personalities tended to cheat more than less creative individuals and that dispositional creativity is a better predictor of unethical behavior than intelligence (…)

The results provide evidence for an association between creativity and dishonesty, thus highlighting a dark side of creativity.

The full, 47-page study can be downloaded from Harvard [PDF file] but I doubt you’d want to do that. It’s a long and technical read.

Harvard Business School has a short review of the paper that’s much easier to read.

 

Ten signs you’ve got a bad customer

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High-maintenance customers can be difficult to deal with. They can also damage a photographer’s business with their time-consuming and stress-inducing behaviour. You know you’re dealing with a bad customer when:

10. An abundance of e-mails pour in and each one is marked URGENT!!!

9. They expect the photographer to work for free in exchange for a credit line and they want unlimited use of all the photos.

8. They talk down to the photographer: “Can we work faster?”, “Are we sure that’s the best camera angle?”, “Did we check to make sure everyone’s in focus?” and they demand to see the LCD review of every picture.

7. At a publicity event, they expect the photographer to help set up the product displays, hand out brochures, and wear a t-shirt and baseball hat emblazoned with their company logo.

6. After a company party, they scold the photographer for not getting a picture of the CEO’s wife’s sister’s family who were sitting somewhere in the ballroom.

5. They expect everyone in the photos to look like magazine cover models. Otherwise it’s the photographer’s fault and they shouldn’t have to pay.

4. After being promised free, next-day, rush delivery, they still call two hours later demanding to know why the photos are so late.

3. They change their mind every day: “We want a photo of our factory” . . . “We’ve decided on a group shot of our sales department” . . . “It’s a photo of our sales department in front of the factory and make it look like a Vanity Fair cover.”

2. They try to negotiate a lower price after the job is done.

1. They’re late to pay.

 

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