Scientific report shows how commissioned photography gives you more bang for your buck

Danish scientist Dr Jakob Nielsen, who has been applying eye tracking technology to improve web usability, has made a startling discovery about the way images are viewed online – “Some types of pictures are completely ignored. Other types of pictures are treated as important content and scrutinized. Photos of products and real people (as opposed to stock photos of models) often fall into this category.”

Dr Nielsen goes on to explain “It’s long been a guideline for presenting a company’s image online to include portraits of the executive team so that users associate real people with an otherwise faceless corporation” but adds the caution “The key point is that these are real people who actually work at the company. In contrast, users ignore stock photos of generic people“

This may sound familiar to anyone who has discussed the merits of commissioned photography versus stock images with a commercial photographer so it is interesting that Dr Nielsen’s research concurs with the advice imaging professionals have been giving their clients. Using eye-tracking infrared emitters placed around a computer monitor it has been possible to map the way web pages are browsed. The possibilities include a track of the viewer’s journey around a page as well as a hot-spot map which shows where the gaze has rested for longest. The image below is a clickable link to Dr Nielsen’s fascinating research, I would strongly recommend it as “must read” material for anyone using images online.

SS Nomadic restoration

Great to see so much progress on the Nomadic over the last few weeks and I have been really lucky with the weather for shooting on the ship. This pic is the first piece of above deck structure being craned into place and the same week I shot the hot riveting process from start to finish. Unlike 100 years ago, when young boys diced with death and hot coal burners, the rivets are inductively heated now and the hammering is done by air.

Belfast Sculpture

Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue checking the reach of their appliance, having realised that its only a matter of time before they have to remove someone from Belfast’s new super-sculpture. One fireman commented that whether it’s as simple as local kids figuring out how to climb it or as unpleasant as a suicide taking place on the structure, they will be called to gain access to the incident.

Why Professional Photographers Cannot Work for Free

I found this excellent answer to requests for free work at http://photoprofessionals.wordpress.com/ where it is available in several languages.

Dear potential photo buyer,

If you have been directed to this page, it is likely that you have requested the use of an image or images for free or minimal compensation.

As professional photographers, we receive requests for free images on a regular basis. In a perfect world, each of us would love to be able to respond in a positive manner and assist, especially with projects or efforts related to areas such as education, social issues, and conservation of natural resources. It is fair to say that in many cases, we wish we had the time and resources to do more to assist than just send photographs.

Unfortunately, such are the practicalities of life that we are often unable to respond, or that when we do, our replies are brief and do not convey an adequate sense of the reasons underlying our response.

Circumstances vary for each situation, but we have found that there are a number of recurring themes, which we have set out below with the objective of communicating more clearly with you, and hopefully avoiding misunderstandings or unintentionally engendering ill will.

Please take the following points in the constructive manner in which they are intended. We certainly hope that after you have had a chance to read this, we will be able to talk again and establish a mutually beneficial working relationship.

Photographs Are Our Livelihood
Creating compelling images is the way we make our living. If we give away our images for free, or spend too much time responding to requests for free images, we cannot make a living.

We Do Support Worthy Causes With Images
Most of us do contribute photographs, sometimes more, to support certain causes. In many cases, we may have participated directly in projects that we support with images, or we may have a pre-existing personal relationship with key people involved with the efforts concerned. In other words, each of us can and does provide images without compensation on a selective basis.

We Have Time Constraints
Making a leap from such selective support to responding positively to every request we get for free photographs, however, is impractical, if for no other reason than the substantial amount of time required to respond to requests, exchange correspondence, prepare and send files, and then follow-up to find out how our images were used and what objectives, if any, were achieved. It takes a lot of time to respond to requests, and time is always in short supply.

Pleas of “We Have No Money” Are Often Difficult to Fathom
The primary rationale provided in nearly all requests for free photographs is budgetary constraint, meaning that the requestor pleads a lack of funds.

Such requests frequently originate from organisations with a lot of cash on hand, whether they be publicly listed companies, government or quasi-government agencies, or even NGOs. Often, it is a simple matter of taking a look at a public filing or other similar disclosure document to see that the entity concerned has access to significant funding, certainly more than enough to pay photographers a reasonable fee should they choose to do so.

To make matters worse, it is apparent that all too often, of all the parties involved in a project or particular effort, photographers are the only ones being asked to work for free. Everyone else gets paid.

Given considerations like this, you can perhaps understand why we frequently feel slighted when we are told that: “We have no money.” Such claims can come across as a cynical ploy intended to take advantage of gullible individuals.

We Have Real Budget Constraints
With some exceptions, photography is not a highly remunerative profession. We have chosen this path in large part due to the passion we have for visual communication, visual art, and the subject matters in which we specialise.

The substantial increase in photographs available via the internet in recent years, coupled with reduced budgets of many photo buyers, means that our already meager incomes have come under additional strain.

Moreover, being a professional photographer involves significant monetary investment.

Our profession is by nature equipment-intensive. We need to buy cameras, lenses, computers, software, storage devices, and more on a regular basis. Things break and need to be repaired. We need back-ups of all our data, as one ill-placed cup of coffee could literally erase years of work. For all of us, investment in essential hardware and software entails thousands of dollars a year, as we need to stay current with new technology and best practices.

In addition, travel is a big part of many of our businesses. We must spend a lot of money on transportation, lodging and other travel-related costs.

And of course, perhaps most importantly, there is a substantial sum associated with the time and experience we have invested to become proficient at what we do, as well as the personal risks we often take. Taking snapshots may only involve pressing the camera shutter release, but creating images requires skill, experience and judgement.

So the bottom line is that although we certainly understand and can sympathise with budget constraints, from a practical point of view, we simply cannot afford to subsidise everyone who asks.

Getting “Credit” Doesn’t Mean Much
Part and parcel with requests for free images premised on budgetary constraints is often the promise of providing “credit” and “exposure”, in the form or a watermark, link, or perhaps even a specific mention, as a form of compensation in lieu of commercial remuneration.

There are two major problems with this.

First, getting credit isn’t compensation. We did, after all, create the images concerned, so credit is automatic. It is not something that we hope a third party will be kind enough to grant us.

Second, credit doesn’t pay bills. As we hopefully made clear above, we work hard to make the money required to reinvest in our photographic equipment and to cover related business expenses. On top of that, we need to make enough to pay for basic necessities like food, housing, transportation, etc.

In short, receiving credit for an image we created is a given, not compensation, and credit is not a substitute for payment.

“You Are The Only Photographer Being Unreasonable”
When we do have time to engage in correspondence with people and entities who request free photos, the dialogue sometimes degenerates into an agitated statement directed toward us, asserting in essence that all other photographers the person or entity has contacted are more than delighted to provide photos for free, and that somehow, we are “the only photographer being unreasonable”.

We know that is not true.

We also know that no reasonable and competent photographer would agree to unreasonable conditions. We do allow for the fact that some inexperienced photographers or people who happen to own cameras may indeed agree to work for free, but as the folk wisdom goes: “You get what you pay for.”

Please Follow-Up
One other experience we have in common is that when we do provide photographs for free, we often do not receive updates, feedback or any other form of follow-up letting us know how the event or project unfolded, what goals (if any) were achieved, and what good (if any) our photos did.

All too often, we don’t even get responses to emails we send to follow-up, until, of course, the next time that someone wants free photographs.

In instances where we do agree to work for free, please have the courtesy to follow-up and let us know how things went. A little consideration will go a long way in making us feel more inclined to take time to provide additional images in the future.

Wrap Up
We hope that the above points help elucidate why the relevant photographer listed below has sent you to this link. All of us are dedicated professionals, and we would be happy to work with you to move forward in a mutually beneficial manner.

The economics of digital photography

When images were made using film clients understood that film, processing, proofing, printing and Polaroids would all be appearing on their invoice. With a reusable memory card and delivery by electronic means it is therefore some people’s conclusion that these production costs have been negated. Everyone appreciates the benefits in turnaround from a digital workflow but the industry will be heading down the tubes unless many more understand the economics:
 
1. Capital costs – When a photographer bought a professional film camera this was a seriously long-term investment, lenses would be added and spare bodies would follow but these cameras were going to be around for a long time. Until I moved to digital I still regularly used cameras that I had owned for 10 to 20 years. Improvements in imaging technology were made in film emulsions and every photographer benefited from this each time they bought a roll of the latest type, which was paid for by the client. Today with digital cameras we all have to stay ahead of the curve by buying into better sensor technology, meaning expensive new cameras are now bought at regular intervals.

2. Processing costs – Creating a digital image from a RAW file requires equipment and software both of which, unlike the equipment in a darkroom, require constant upgrading. To be clear here I’m not talking about the variety of retouching, CGI or post-production that may be required (after all the photographer may not be doing this in-house), I’m talking about getting from your camera to a proof; download, storage, some basic adjustments and corrections to enable upload for preview.
 
3. Delivery costs – Just because you don’t courier a transparency any more it doesn’t mean there are no delivery costs. Broadband connections, FTP sites and the equipment to use them all involve expense.
 
4. Storage costs – Paper storage pages for negatives or transparencies (which the client had already paid for) have been replaced by hard drives, DVDs and server space (which the photographer is now expected to pay for).

Lou Lesko’s book Advertising Photography credits Los Angeles based photographer Anthony Nex as the man who coined the phrase “digital service fee” or DSF which covers many of these expenses.

I believe that there is a very clear need for education here because these costs must end up on our invoices, like all costs in all businesses. Whether included in rates or as a separate fee, clients and new photographers (who are often far too keen to discount) need to be aware of the unavoidable cost of digital imaging. I will close with an example from the extreme end of the discounting scale that illustrates the need to educate both commercial photographers and commissioners of photography:
 
I recently discussed a brief with a publicly funded organisation that needed a photographer to cover an event – the requirement was in two parts:
1. One shot of the national CEO getting involved in activities at the event, delivered fast for a press release.
2. Followed by “a large amount of stock images from the event to be used for future publicity” to be delivered later, after some editing.

The discussions went well and I provided a quotation, this was the email reply I received the next day – “Hi Stephen, Thank you for getting back to me. Unfortunately we won’t be needing you in this instance. You were competitively priced and I was very impressed with what you were offering. However, we had an offer for a young photographer to come along and do the event for free which we simply couldn’t turn down. I will keep your details on our system for future jobs if that is ok?” Discussion with colleagues has revealed that this is in fact quite commonplace and this raises some important points:
 
1. Working for free reinforces the misconception that digital photography has no cost and those who suggest it often exploit the myth that “the exposure will be very worthwhile”. I would suggest that a referral from a company who have no budget will only ever lead to more “work” from companies in the same sinking boat.
 
2. What about the other fixed costs of running the business, for example would someone who expects you to work for free be happy if you arrived on their premises without public liability insurance? After all if they are not going to pay you how on earth can you be expected to pay for insurance? If you do work without it both you and the “client” are taking big risks in a society where litigation is a way of life.

3. The most damaging aspect of working for free is the threat it poses to the sustainability of our industry – surely anyone who has a genuine interest in making a career out of professional photography will want to be starting out in a business with a future.

My response to the client was simple “I certainly can’t compete with that on price! However I remain confident that my 25 years experience enable me to compete on quality and service.” I stopped short of pointing out the real dangers he faces, not least of wasting a considerable budget running an event without making sure he will get high quality images delivered to specification within the agreed timescale. After all a photographer who will work for free probably values his reputation about as much as he values his work – the danger is that value gets confused with price.

UPDATE – 16/08/11 – Arts Council England’s site www.artsjobs.org.uk is hosting a brief for a commercial comission from CultureLabel.com who are – “looking for someone who wants to build their photography portfolio”. They claim – “Your work will have the highest visibility on CultureLabel.com, and we’ll provide a small fee to reimburse you for your time”. The advert expires on 17/08/11 so here is a screen shot in case you miss it online:

Banner ads – direct action or something else?

Display advertising or banner ads on the web look for all the world like a textbook example or direct action advertising – you see the banner and then click through in direct response to the message – just like the “cut out this coupon and bring it to the store” or “call this free phone number” adverts developed in previous decades.

Facebook’s $100 billion IPO is based mostly on banner ads, however industry figures suggest these ads have a click through rate of only 0.1%, so how can this possibly add up?

Perhaps a more realistic metric for success in this form of advertising is not the direct response percentage but the exposure they provide – nobody clicks on a billboard but if you drive past a few on the way to work every day I bet you can remember right now what they have been advertising lately.

I know from personal experience that almost any time I add to that 1 in 1000 click through figure its because I hit a banner by mistake but I can list companies from memory who I regularly see advertised on Facebook. Given that these ads are also demographically targeted to me using the details in my profile there clearly is value beyond click through here. After all nobody ever clicked through on a TV advertisement, it’s all about exposure.

As opinion builds that banner ads are more about increasing awareness of an offering and building affinity with a brand, rather than getting an impulse to click on them to navigate off the page that you are reading, the purpose of their image content will surely be under review. The result could shape future commissions and might even give rise to more use of bespoke images, what do you think?

Introducing the Flip-Side Portrait

Key people are the greatest asset of a successful company and showing them in the best possible light to prospective clients should be a priority. Biographies, qualifications and other details are often provided across a range of media but what about images? If you look around some company websites or literature what you find is pretty variable in quality.

The Flip-Side Portrait works on the same principle that has seen social media being integrated successfully into marketing strategies, I think this breaks down into 3 areas:

1. If you like someone you are more likely to do business with them.
2. If you can get to know someone socially it helps build your working relationship.
3. If a person is interesting they become more three-dimensional in your mind and therefore more memorable.

So the aim of the Flip-Side Portrait is to provide a high quality “at work” picture and an “outside work” image to go with it. These can be used online where the text beside the work picture encourages the viewer to roll their mouse over the image to reveal the other side or in all kinds of printed media where the alternative image adds depth to the person being described.

This is John McKee, Chief Executive of Linkubator, CEO of Amtec Medical and co-author of “STAR – Leadership Behaviours for Stellar SME Growth” (written with his Father, Will McKee).

And this is John McKee, breeder of saddleback pigs, being watched over by his ever present and always faithful friend, Flash.

Researching this concept has revealed that captains of industry enjoy a diverse range of activities outside work – sailing, motor racing, mountaineering and flying gliders were among the first I encountered when I started to ask around!

It was also interesting to hear how many successful business people spend their own time helping others; the image below is of Mike Mills, former Chairman of Ulster Carpets and Business Angel, speaking to encourage new start-ups and aspiring business people at a “Get Up and Grow Conference” – http://www.seedpse.com/conferences/