rant

What’s in a name?

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The Associated Press (AP) is launching its new entertainment picture agency. 

Just what the world needs, another picture agency cranking out more of the same, commodity, entertainment photos and producing even more celebrity worship. (Yes, I sometimes shoot the same entertainment pictures and I plead guilty as charged.)

The advantage of taking pictures of the famous is that they get published.

– US Photographer Elliott Erwitt

But that’s not the fun part.

AP is using the name “Invision Agency”.

Dictionaries define invision as: want of vision, without the power of seeing, lack of vision. It’s also a synonym for blindness. The word invision is related to the word invisible but it’s obsolete in the English language.

Did AP really mean to use the word envision?

 

Searching in all the wrong places

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After searching through twenty-four Toronto photographers’ web sites yesterday, trying to help a customer find a suitable photographer, I gave up. The customer needed some fashion-style photography which I don’t do.

One photographer’s web site stated, “I specialize in fashion, beauty, weddings, portraits, children, maternity, glamour, food, product, catalog, commercial, editorial, landscape and pet photography.” Whew! Everything but the proverbial kitchen sink.

Another photographer said he was “based in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, London, Paris, Rome and Sydney.” Jeez, talk about covering all your bases!

The slideshows on one site contained 89, 112 and 172 pictures. Who has the time to click through that many photos?

One site required the viewer to click through four splash screens before getting to the actual content. A few Flash-based sites barely functioned. One site popped open a new window for every photo. Several sites had unreadable text. And yes, a couple of sites had music playing.

One photographer wrote, “I am a very busy photographer but I have decided to accept bookings for 2012.” Gee, how considerate of that photographer!

From time to time, photographers should pretend to be a customer searching for a professional photographer. See what customers have to put up with while tediously searching through endless photographer web sites. Then apply this information to improve their own site.

 

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.

 

Professional Passport

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While renewing my passport, I noticed a few odd things on the application form:

• The federal government doesn’t recognize self-employed or unemployed people. The two choices are: having an employer or being a student. Two other permitted answers are “retired” and “homemaker.” Didn’t the term “homemaker” go out of style 20 years ago?

• Why are someone’s marital status and weight required for getting a passport?

• Why is mother’s maiden name a requirement? For some folks, this information is not known. Maybe this should be like when you sign up for an online service and you have to choose your “secret question” for identification purposes (e.g. name of first pet, name of high school, favourite food, etc.).

• The passport picture not only has to be in focus but it also has to be clear and sharp. Does clear mean transparent? Does sharp mean I have to look sharp? Should I wear a freshly ironed, see-thru shirt for my photo?

• Most important: no smiling allowed in your passport photo. If it looks like you’re having fun, the government will reject your picture. Some countries, like Canada and the UK, ban passport smiles under the slightly misguided belief that a smile will hinder facial recognition software.

• The Canadian government commands that only a “commercial photographer” is allowed to shoot passport photos. That’s right, no amateurs allowed! Only a professional photographer can shoot $8.95 passport pictures. Professional photographers own the lucrative passport picture business! We’re saved!

 

Annoying pop-ups

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Attention photographers. This is why you never use those silly, big flash brackets while standing in front of other photographers:

I’m standing in the second row – on a 20-inch riser – at a Toronto entertainment event. I’m shooting overtop a front row of standing photographers. 

Notice that you can’t see the front row of standing photographers nor can you see their cameras or flashes. Except . . .

Except that one guy, in the front row, using one those big flash brackets. In the front row. In every single picture.

The musicians are standing 17 feet away and they’re fully lit by two large front lights and two hair lights, all supplied by the event. These four large lights were specifically colour-balanced to match the existing eight overhead lights, (ISO 1000, f5.6 at 1/160). Why even use a flash?

News and entertainment events are not weddings. In these situations, big flash brackets serve no purpose other than to block other photographers.

 

Cost Of Progress

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Between 2001 and 2010, I bought six Nikon SLR digital cameras: two D1X’s, two D2X’s, one D3 and one D700. Total cost for these cameras was about $30,300 plus about $3,000 for memory cards, $480 for card readers and many thousands more ($21,000 to $26,000) for computers and software.

For comparison, from 1991 to 2000, I bought six Nikon SLR film cameras: two F4E’s, one F90X, two F5’s and one F100. Total cost for these was about $14,000 and no memory cards, no card readers, no computers and no software.

Yes, digital cameras are fantastic and the technical quality of digital photography is far better than that of film.

Although the equipment cost of running a photo business is at least triple that from ten years ago, (not to mention all the other expenses), fees paid by editorial publications have gone down and the rights-grabbing has gone up.

Interesting blog article by Paul Melcher on this topic.

 

What photographers need you to know

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Many clients may already know these things but here’s some information that photographers need you to know (in no particular order):

• When a photographer doesn’t answer the phone right away or doesn’t respond immediately to your e-mail, it usually means they’re busy on a job. The photographer is not ignoring you. Some photography can run all day or longer. We devote 100% of our attention to the client and job at hand. Please leave a message. Your call really is important to us.

• Depending on your proposed photo project, it might take from 30 minutes to several days to produce a full and proper photo estimate. Photographers cannot give an off-the-cuff or ballpark price because it’s meaningless. We have to figure out every step of the proposed work before completing the estimate. This benefits you. We put everything in writing. This benefits you.
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