Interesting piece by PDN Photo District News: Who Pays Photographers?, a new site on Tumblr set up by an anonymous editorial photographer, seeks to provide a platform where photographers can share information about what clients in all fields, from editorial to advertising to non-profits, pay photographers.
Fact is, clients pay different prices for same jobs, depending on who you are. Also, the day rate is only part of the fee and photographers can be quite secretive when it comes to talking about actual rates. Now there are guidelines for paid photogs:
Still in its infancy, the site “Who Pays Photographers” is based on a similar Tumblr, Who Pays Writers?, which, you guessed it, lists fees paid to writers. According to the anonymous founder of Who Pays Photographers, the response has been a bit overwhelming, indicating a serious interest among photographers to talk about, and read about, the fees clients pay for photographic work.
Thus far the site has information about The New York Times, Getty Images, AP, AFP, The Wall Street Journal, ESPN and several other clients in the US and abroad.
PDN exchanged emails with the creator of Who Pays Photographers. Excerpts:
What inspired you to start the site?
The site was a simple reaction to Who Pays Writers, a site that was linked to a number of times during the recent Nate Thayer kerfuffle with the Atlantic. It seemed obvious that the photo industry could really benefit from having such a resource and I found it surprising that nothing of the sort existed.
How have you promoted it?
The response has been a little overwhelming. For Monday (3-11-13) alone, the site has had 15,000 unique visits. Submissions come from surprising corners of the world (e.g. $26/day is the going rate for one Polish newspaper); on average, I receive three-to-six an hour depending on the time of day. I originally shared the site on Facebook with some fellow photographers; interest has snowballed via Reddit, Twitter, etc.
How do you confirm the veracity of people’s submissions?
As almost everything is anonymous, I have no way of confirming the quality of submissions; the data is public on the site and I hope that viewers who care to correct the record will simply submit their info on their experience. E.g. four reports on working for Le Monde will provide a fuller picture and possibly also, reveal which data point is inaccurate. For sure, this may lead to false info occasionally, but ideally, the info will be self-correcting (…) Because the site is based on anonymous submissions, there is a slight trend towards negative posts. But I think this could be positive overall, in that photographers will have at least the beginnings of a sense of a given client’s track record, and possibly, in making such info public, the client will clean up their act.
Have you heard from any clients yet, griping that they’re listed?
No one has complained yet and for gross inaccuracies, I’m definitely ready to delete any clearly false or misleading info (…) The site gives an impression of having a lot of data but it’s currently really limited to assignment rates, wire service rates, stock sales and the odd NGO day rate. For young, new photographers, the numbers on the site will probably be very discouraging — but there’s a lot that isn’t touched on within the site about the wider business of photography, such as how to negotiate for better rates, pitch unique projects to multiple magazines, diversify sources of photo income and so on.
Now have a look at the spreadsheet — some rates are a disgrace, some pretty decent.