Ive been lurking on the list for a while, but never posted, and er...should have introduced myself when I susbscribed...sorry.
My name is Sion Touhig and I'm a news / feature photographer based in London, shooting 35mm digital for about 3 yrs.
I read this on the digest today,
" We can't argue with libraries because they are only passing on the demands
of the clients (the image users)...The Libraries don't have to argue with the clients because we (the image makers) will fall over backwards to meet any demands that are set...
The clients don't have to modify their behaviour because they are the ones with the cash...they can ask for whatever they want"
Well I'm a client with cash, so I'll walk into a pub and offer the landlord 50p for a pint of Guinness...and see how far it gets me.
Ultimately WE'RE to blame for this problem, by consistently refusing to accept that WE are the ones offering the product/service to clients, for a fee that WE should find appropriate for the running of our business.
...so if I dont have the cost of a pint, well thats just tough - nothing personal, but the landlord has a business to run.
It's a free market (so we keep getting told), so clients are of course entitled to take their business elsewhere - but that decision ought to based on the photographers skill etc and not because they're willing to work for peanuts.
It's because we have this 'artist / patron' idea of working that we continually allow clients to screw us down - they kick us and we keep coming back...which is why the word that pops up often in front of "artist" is "starving"...
If we all started realising that we're businesses offering a service and should expect to be paid on our terms -
Job, Invoice, 30 day wait, Cheque.
and not theirs -
Wheedle about fee, Job, Invoice, 30 day wait, Narky phone call, 45 day wait, Accounts dept nonsense, 60 day wait, Rights grab, Cheque with rights grab printed on the back, Cheque bounces.
...things would be a lot better all round.
It's not about 'taking a moral stand with clients' - theres nothing moral about it. It's business.
We should listen to the technical gurus like the people on this forum, because we're professionals and want to improve our skills and knowledge. Clients (and libraries) should expect that as a given.
But it's because there's enough of us who are happy to run their businesses like a hobby or a charity that things will continue the way they are.
Sion Touhig.
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