Advance Notes: A client wants to use one of your photos on his website. What do you charge the client? Here's an easy formula to use.
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WEBSITE PRICING is easy if you use the "Hits Formula." It applies to both editorial as well as commercial markets. A client asks, "What do you charge for website use?" Return the question with your question, "How many hits does your site get each day?"
This question may stump them, and they may admit, "I don't know." But you can easily look like the expert when you return with, "Just a minute, I'll let you know."
Using the free software from www.Alexa.com (a company owned by Amazon.com) you call up Alexa.com. Type your client's website address in the search bar. Once a page comes up, at the bar at the bottom of your screen, click on, "traffic." The statistics will not only show you the owner and address of the company (you can spout that back to them also for verification) but the number of "Alexa hits" they get each day. Alexa has its own secret formula for determining the number of web traffic hits, but it's generally regarded as close to accurate.
Now that you've determined this figure, you are ready to apply the "Hits Formula." Most inquirers contacting you for a photo to use on the Web, are interested in acquiring a photo for their Home Page, and the formula applies to this usage.
THE FORMULA*
If your client currently receives 50,000 hits a day, you will charge them $25 per month. If they receive 100,000 hits per day, you will charge them $50 per month. If they receive 200,000 hits a day then their monthly fee would be $100.*
A client may be just starting out and not have stats available yet at Alexa. Your response: "Who are your competitors? Can I assume you plan to keep up with them? Let's see what they are getting in the way of daily visitors."
Of course, if your client receives very few hits per day, a minimum you would establish is $10 per month.
Some companies may plan to use a number of photos at various places on their website. In that case it's discount time. The monthly fee for the initial, primary photo will remain the same, but for the extra photos, divide the monthly fee by the number of photos they plan to use. This will give you the per photo fee to charge, for those additional photos.
You might find it necessary to make some bargaining concessions. To keep the style consistent in their website, they might want to use only one photographer's work - and plan to use many photos profusely throughout their site. It may be good politics to adjust your price for volume purchase.
For non-profit organizations that might have a high visitor count but a low budget, be prepared to make adjustments.
* Multiply the number of hits by .0005 to get the dollar amount you will charge them each month for the use of your picture on their home page.
Rohn Engh, veteran stock photographer and best-selling author of "Sell & ReSell Your Photos" and "sellphotos.com," has helped scores of photographers launch their careers. For access to great information on making money from pictures you like to take, and to receive this free report: "8 Steps to Becoming a Published Photographer," visit http://www.sellphotos.com
Welcome
to AvailablePictures.com. Here's where you'll
find information about selling pictures,
photography how-to, digital photography,
and photo specialization.
Real Pictures Sell
200 years ago, storytellers retold the glories of victory and the horrors of defeat to enraptured assemblies of townsfolk. The depth of the emotional impact of the stories was left to the imagination of the listener. When motion pictures came along the depiction of strife and war was left to actors and the magic of cinema. Hollywood had the job of holding our hand while we shivered with delight or closed our eyes in fright.
Make believe in tinsel-town lasted until the Vietnam War when we were introduced to TV coverage albeit censored by the networks. Motion picture, to this point, had not been the medium to deliver homo sapien reality to the masses.
To expect (or try to) depict real emotions on film in the past was the job of artful movie directors and career actors. Rarely did it succeed. And now comes along a new medium of motion pictures, the video format. The producers of the box-office hit,"The Blair Witch Project" asked, "What if we allowed real people to film themselves in their own experience in a potentially near-hysteria situation?" On;y three pick up "actors" were used for the film, given a medicore video camera and film, and pointed into the woods and given an assignment on a few 3x5 files cards to look into a folktale about a witch that one time frequented the hills of western Maryland.
The box office proved (the movie has made millions) viewers were ready to pay for a motion picture that was void of professional actors, computer tvisuals, and million dollar backdrops. Yes, Internet hype drove many to the film out of curiosity. But word-of-mouth drove the box office receipts off the charts. For once, viewers of the film were able to experience the real emotions of others, in a storyline that strung together raw footage that laid out their internal selves as if their emotions were beef cattle parts being prepared for supermarket meat counter packaging. (Sorry, I didn't know any other way to express the impact of this kind of footage.)
Did the film propose some message? Since the outcome of the film wasn't predetermined, the message became as vapid and as intriguing as a rumor -real, yet maybe unreal. Whatever.
Do we have a new genre of film? Is it some kind of faux snuff experience in disguise? Probably not, because everything that will follow The Blair Witch Project will be tainted with the temptation to do it one better. Like a mask pulled from a face at the Halloween Ball, the black cat is out of the bag. Therein lies the unique voyeurism of this film. Like the wonder of having your first child, it's impossible to repeat the primordial experience.
This film is more than the raw reality of a cop chase on a Los Angeles freeway. It tinkers with the thought processes of the zombie followers of two-dimensional Stephen King novels, and on a level that writers and cinematographers can't dip into. Film students for years to come will pronounce their own assessment of The Blair Witch Project. And the curious outcome is that the participants, the actors and producers, didn't know what they were getting themselves into. Art sometimes happens by accident.
Editorial photographers, by virtue of their raison d'etre of photographing single pictures, have been capturing emotional subjects like this ever since the invention of the 35mm camera--something a motion picture could not do -up until it stumbled on The Blair Witch Project. We have the same license of the producers of The Blair Witch Project. We can photograph slices of life without the crutch of Hollywood props and stand-ins. Our pictures project reality and truth.
We may not see anymore Blair Witch Project movies, but the success of the film has proved to the stock photo industry that "real pictures" sell.
Rohn Engh, veteran stock photographer and best-selling author of "Sell & ReSell Your Photos" and "sellphotos.com," has helped scores of photographers launch their careers. For access to great information on making money from pictures you like to take, and to receive this free report: "8 Steps to Becoming a Published Photographer," visit http://www.sellphotos.com
Business
Notepad
YES. IT’s TRUE.
Digital thieves swipe your photos - and profit from them - In an age when
digital photography rules and people post their images online, how can we
stop our photos being stolen?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jun/18/news.internet
TAKEAWAY: Until technology intervenes with digital protection for our photos, thievery can’t be controlled.
... Full
Story
STARTING OUT. Break into photography
by taking an online photo course. This website maintains it
will help you avoid the usual pitfalls of beginners in photography.
Designed for all ages.
Publish your PHOTO BOOK
The quickest way to publish your book is to self-publish. A search on Google will find you many publishing companies that will take your manuscript from draft to layout to finished product.
Subscriber Charles Gillespie, MD has already published several books. You can see examples of them at http://www.blurb.com/bookstore /search?search=gillespie
Here's a list of publishers who accept self-published books.
ARE YOU A 'SERVICE' PHOTOGRAPHER
OR A 'STOCK' PHOTOGRAPHER?
Know thyself was the advice Plato gave his students. Good advice for the stock photographer, too, who wishes to market his/her photo illustrations.
To apply Plato's suggestion: If you know where you fit, in the vast spectrum of the world of photography, you'll have easy sledding when it comes to marketing your pictures.
Why? First of all, there's no one quite like you. You have a treasure of experiences, knowledge, know-how, and interests. Plus, you are a talented photographer. When you know your own strengths and select your markets accordingly, you'll find that photobuyers like to work with photographers whose file of stock photos match their layout needs.
Know thyself. You are an important resource to photo editors, if you do your homework and find the photobuyers whose photo needs match the photos you like to take.
'SERVICE' PHOTOGRAPHY:
Many newcomers to the field of photo marketing initially set their goals toward advertising, PR, industrial, fashion, and assignment photography. These and similar "work for hire" areas are what we call "service" photography. Clients pay for your services - at your day rate - to shoot their visual needs. There are drawbacks, however. Assignments don't come easy. Service photography is a fast-paced existence. ("We need the picture yesterday.") The ulcer incidence is high. Your pictures rarely belong to you. (Work-for-hire means the client owns the copyright -- and the negatives.) Your pictures are often "art-directed." ("We want a girl with blonde hair and a red dress.") The resulting photographs have limited "lasting value." (Have you ever looked at a graphic-design annual of the year's best photographs? --from 1965?) However, the large fees may make the service photography area worthwhile to you.
STOCK PHOTOGRAPHY:
Stock photography, on the other hand, is at the other end of the spectrum. Stock photographers deal via the Internet, UPS, FedEx, and the mails, selling photos they like to take, on their own timetable, and which they direct to selected photobuyers who welcome new talent to add to their select list of suppliers.
Know thyself. Are you more interested in selling yourself (service photography) or your photos (stock photography)? Do you prefer the glamour of a whirlwind lifestyle or the rewards of the quietude of living at a self-directed pace?
Rohn Engh is director of PhotoSource International and publisher of the weekly PhotoStockNotes. Pine Lake Farm, 1910 35th Road, Osceola, WI 54020 USA Email: info@photosource.com Fax: 1 715 248 7394
Web site: www.photosource.com
Of
Interest
DO-IT-YOURSELF –
"How I Created My First Coffee-Table Book. I decided after reading positive reviews online. What sold me was it’s ease of use, as well as being able to produce my book and market it through their bookstore commission-free. http://rising.blackstar.com/how-i-created-my-first-coffee-table-book.html
TAKEAWAY: Self published books can also serve as a catalog. ... Full
Story
COST OF TRAVEL OVERSEAS is always prohibitive for the stock photographer
just starting out. One way to skirt around this problem is to become a
Travel Agent.
NEED TO FIX THEM? -- Can a Little Maintenance Increase your Microstock Earnings? - If you've assumed you can just upload and forget your microstock photos, you may be
missing out on the opportunity to increase the earnings from your existing
portfolio.
:
TAKEAWAY: If you are shooting for the editorial market you may want to consider not changing a thing. However for the microstock audience, yes, bring ‘em up to date.
http://www.microstockdiaries.com/can-a-little-maintenance-increase-your-microstock-earnings.html
PROUD OWNERS. Photographer finds stories behind Cadillacs.
On a June Saturday nine years ago, Bill Gaskins stood on a street in Baltimore watching a fleet of Cadillacs cruise by - dreamboat cars with tailfins, chrome bumpers and whitewall tires, 20 to 30 of them, each owned by a black man. He had heard about the revival of a tradition in that city's African American community: the Cadillac Parade, with marching bands and carnival rides. He traveled from his New Jersey home to see it.
Looking at those machines, the photographer knew he'd found his next project.
The Charlotte Observer reported that Gaskins launched "The Cadillac Chronicles," a collective photographic portrait examining the relationship between black men and their vintage Cadillacs, those typically made between the 1940s and 1970s.
http://www.dailyadvance.com/news/state/photographer-finds-stories-behind-cadillacs-108681.html
WHERE ARE YOU? The American Society of Picture Professionals has released guidelines entitled “ASPP’s Best Practices for Locating Copyright Owners of Photographic and Visual Art”. The guide is intended to be a “living document” and will be continually updated as new registries and technologies become available. This version 2.0 contains many useful links to organizations and other places where one can access information.
ASPP Executive Director, Cathy Sachs, said: “Especially in light of the Orphan Works pending legislation, it was our hope that these guidelines would be helpful in locating copyright holders, and that they might eventually aid in the construction of the defined "diligent search". This in turn, we hoped, would minimize the flood of "orphans" that might be created by inadequate search procedures. We feel that none of our members would benefit from that.” The guide can be found here: ASPP Best Practices Guide
Website: http://www.aspp.com
TAKEAWAY: Look into ASPP as a basic organization you should belong to.
http://www.aspp.com
Kim Weston was born and raised in photography, the heir apparent to a fantastic lineage of photographers who taught him the culture and the craft of fine art photography.
Five years ago, the established photographer and his wife Gina decided to build a nonprofit foundation dedicated to fostering photographic education by nurturing the medium they love. Called the "Gina and Kim Weston Scholarship Fund," its mission is to both educate and enlighten the community about the richness of photography on the West Coast. Their commitment has been to support local high school, university and college students interested in studying art photography.
The result is the Weston Photography Scholarship, a competition that enables students to prepare for portfolio reviews before college applications and helps advanced students feel validated as fine art photographers.
http://www.montereyherald.com/leisure/ci_10350017
CAPTURED SPLIT-SECONDS. New Scientist Eureka prize for scientific photography won with toy rocket image. RMIT University's Phred Petersen won the 2008 New Scientist Eureka Prize for Scientific Photography for photographing a toy rocket with a Schlieren lens, with stunning results. Mr Peterson teaches his students in Scientific Photography the capability the Schlieren lens has by capturing everyday objects in action. Here is some footage he took of a match being struck.
http://www.rmit.edu.au/browse;ID=v9xrnww46q6b1
http://gallery.rmitsciphoto.com/
DIGITAL TO THE RESCUE. From Papyrus to the Web: Photographs of Dead Sea Scrolls to Go Online.
Scientists and scholars in Jerusalem have begun a programme to take the first high-resolution digital photographs of the Dead Sea Scrolls so that they can be shown on the internet.
The Israel Antiquities Authority ends a pilot project this week which prepares the way for a much larger operation to photograph the 15,000-20,000 fragments that make up the 900 scrolls. The scrolls, first photographed in the 1950s after their discovery by shepherds in caves near the Dead Sea, have been kept in monitored conditions in a vault. Only four specially trained curators are allowed to handle them.
In a project that could take five years and cost millions of dollars, the fragments will be photographed first by a 39-megapixel digital camera then by another digital camera in infra-red light. Finally, some will be photographed using a sophisticated multi-spectral imaging camera.
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/219099.html
TAKEAWAY: Digital capture may find us more than we want to know.
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/219099.html
A LOOK AT THE WORLD Verve: a new website devoted to documentary photography . Geoffrey Hiller edits and publishes Verve, a concise, informative blog all about contemporary documentary photography around the world. When you're ready to explore some serious issues that rarely make it to mainstream media, hunker down and check out Verve.
http://www.lensculture.com/webloglc/
mt_files/archives/2008/08/verve-a-new
-website-devoted-to.html
- or -
http://vervephoto.wordpress.com/
TAKEAWAY: Cartier-Bresson would have been proud of these photographers.
http://vervephoto.wordpress.com/
EIGHT-MEGA PIXEL MOBILE. Samsung brings 8MP digital camera to mobile phone.
The megapixel battle on stand-alone digital cameras may be slowing down but not for mobile phones. Samsung recently launched its eight-mega pixel mobile phone-a first on a Symbian OS-based mobile phone that company officials said would offer a powerful mobile photography and multimedia experience.
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2008/sep/01/yehey/techtimes/20080901tech1.html
