The business side of photography
This week’s “winner” of falling victim to cheap, online stock photography is the United States Postal Service (USPS). In early December 2010, the USPS began to issue three billion new postage stamps bearing a close-up photo of the face and crown of the Statue of Liberty. The photo was bought from an online stock agency.
One small problem, though. It wasn’t the Statue of Liberty in the photo. But rather, it was a picture of a fiberglass and styrofoam replica statue.
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There are several e-mail scams aimed at photographers. Most start with the sender of the e-mail saying that they came upon the photographer’s web site and they love the pictures. The person will have some sort of urgent photo assignment in the photographer’s area and wants to hire the photographer right away. The person will offer to pay in full in advance.
If the photographer falls for this, the scammer will send a payment cheque for far too much money. When the honest photographer points out this “mistake,” the scammer will apologize and ask the photographer to refund the excess money as quickly as possible. The trusting photographer will be told to wire the money asap. The scammer’s original cheque will later bounce and the photographer will lose whatever money they sent to the scammer.
Another version of this scam is that after the scammer has sent a (fake) cheque, they will say the event has been cancelled and they need the money wired back to them as quickly as possible.
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A few days ago, I was watching a commercial photographer do his thing before the start of a company’s annual meeting. The photographer was shooting a group picture of the chairman, the CEO, the president and the entire board of directors.
The photographer had one camera, one lens, one tripod, one flash, one light stand, one sync cord and one power cord for the flash. Since the group photo was to take only a few minutes, why bring backup equipment? What could possibly go wrong?
Let’s see:
• His power cord failed. The cord was frayed and worked intermittently. It didn’t help that the cord was left loose to zig-zag across the hotel conference room floor where everyone was stepping on it. Hotel staff had to run and find another cord.
• His lens failed. Something apparently went wrong with the focusing. He borrowed a lens from me since I use the same brand of equipment.
• His sync cord malfunctioned. So with one hand, the photographer fired his camera (on a tripod) using a slow shutter speed and then, with his other hand, quickly reached over to manually pop the flash during the exposure.
His two-handed performance was certainly entertaining to watch.
Today, I received a “Dear Photographer” e-mail which proclaimed that I’m being considered for “free” inclusion in the next edition of a prestigious “Who’s Who” book. Supposedly, I’m one of the top, most distinguished photographers in North America. Being included in this book will mark my high level of achievement.
Yeah, right.
For fun, I visited this company’s web site:
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A well-known saying from an unknown source:
“We lose money on every sale but we make up for it with volume!”
There are several web sites which sell discount vouchers to groups of online shoppers. A business will publish a discount offer on such a site and as long as a certain minimum number of folks buy it, the discount vouchers are e-mailed to the buyers. If there aren’t enough buyers, the discount is cancelled and no one’s credit card is charged.
This volume discount voucher system can work well for a company that sells “widgets”, meaning anything where the marginal cost is very low. It can also be good for a business such as a sports, theatrical or other event that needs to unload unsold tickets. Unloading leftover or end-or-line product at a discount can help reduce a loss.
But…
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Canadian company Communitech today launched its Communitech Hub in Kitchener, Ontario. From its press release:
The Hub . . . is now home to start-up companies, small-medium enterprises, and global multi-nationals all aiming to accelerate the pace of development of new ideas and products in the digital media sector.
…leading-edge facility…
…will help launch more made-in-Ontario companies…
…state-of-the-art facility for digital innovation…
…the commercialization of innovation in Waterloo Region…
…dedicated to establishing Canada as a world leader in Digital Media…
Sounds good so far.
So how does this company promote the opening of its new, multi-multi-million dollar, state-of-the-art facility dedicated to Canadian innovation in digital media?
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There are many staff jobs available for editors and writers but none for photographers.
Well, almost none.
The only photo jobs are those for department store portrait studios, baby photographers and school photographers. These three are always looking for photographers which tends to indicate the quality of these jobs.
• There’s a new business magazine about to start up in Toronto. It has full-time paid job opportunities for editors, writers, designers and web people. What’s missing? Photographers.
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