stupidity

On your marks

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Earlier today, I received an e-mail that read:

Good morning!

I am looking for a photographer that has the equipment to remove watermarks from a school proof photo. I have a letter from lifetouch giving me permission to do so.
Is this something that your studio is able to do?
If not, are you able to refer me elsewhere?

With sincere appreciation,

(name redacted)

A school portrait business like Lifetouch or for that matter, any other type of photography business would not give permission to remove a watermark. It doesn’t make any sense.

This is like asking, “Can you shoplift a jacket for me? I have a letter from the store giving me permission to do so.”

As all professional photographers should know, it’s illegal (and here) to remove, alter, or hide, a watermark or copyright notice from a picture of which you don’t own the copyright.

As every consumer should know, the easiest way to remove a watermark from a photo is to pay for it.

 

Professional Value

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Two days ago, the Victoria News, in British Columbia, published this:

The page was taken down the next day, just minutes after news radio station CKNW asked the newspaper for comment.

It’s bad enough to lay off news photographers, which many newspapers are doing these days. In fact, the Victoria News laid off its very experienced staff photographer last year. But it’s sheer stupidity when a large, international, for-profit company asks people to work for free.
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Cheap Stock Pictures Fail Yet Again

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The National Post this week pointed out that the cheap stock pictures used by the Department of Canadian Heritage are from a foreign-owned picture agency and were shot by foreign photographers.

Why does this federal agency use foreign photos to promote Canadian culture? It suggested that Canadian photographers are too expensive.

This National Post article is years behind the times. The federal government’s practice of using stock pictures from foreign photographers has been going on for a long time. The Canadian government avoids Canadian photographers and buys cheaper work from abroad.
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Avoid This Toronto Photo Contest

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The city of Toronto, the same city that bans parents from taking pictures of their kids taking part in any activity at a recreational centre or arena, has launched another of its photo rights grabs. By simply entering this contest, you’re giving the city all rights to your pictures for all eternity.

Rule 14 includes:

Entering the contest constitutes an agreement by the contestant to give a royalty-free, world-wide, perpetual, non-exclusive license to the City, and anyone it authorizes, to display, distribute, modify, crop reproduce, and create derivative works of the entries, in whole or in part, in any media now existing or subsequently developed including the Internet, for any City purpose including, but not limited to, advertising and promotion.

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Recycling The Trash

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It’s the early days of an Ontario provincial election and the three political parties are on the campaign trail.

This post could’ve been about Conservatives not having a portrait of its leader. Many of its candidates also don’t have headshots. No portrait = invisible.

This post could’ve been about the NDP which cut-and-pasted its candidate headshots onto a high-school-blue background. The party couldn’t figure out how to organize consistent portraits.

[Edit May 13: The NDP’s first attempt at cut-and-pasting was so bad that it did the cut-and-pasting all over again.]

Instead, I’m going to write about the Ontario NDP recycling its policy book from three years ago and the NDP’s love of being cheap. And yes, I’m going to recycle a blog post :-)
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Close Enough

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If you made products for digital cameras, what kind of camera would you show on your web site to help market your products?

If you’re Eye-Fi, which makes WiFi-enabled memory cards, you would use an old film camera from last century. [Sorry, the link has gone dead. Screengrab below]. And to make it worse, you would state “The power of WiFi for the camera you love.”


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More or Less

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Two photographers were talking shop. The first photographer said that he recently charged $7,000 to produce 14 portraits for a company’s annual report. The second photographer replied, “They should’ve called me. I would’ve done it for $2,000.”

And there’s the problem.

The second photographer said he would’ve been happy to do the same work for less money. If this photographer was smart, he should’ve asked, “What did you do to earn that fee?”

Of course, the better goal is to figure out how to be paid more. What would a photographer have to add in order to earn more?

Some photographers forget that it’s not supposed to be a race to the bottom. Photographers compete mostly with themselves. It’s not about charging less than another photographer but rather it’s about figuring out how to deliver more to the customer.

When the choice is between (a) doing the same work and getting paid more, or (b) doing the same work and getting paid less, it’s surprising how many photographers will choose less.

 

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