[Leica] Payment for photos

[goldman@math.umn.edu]

Steve;
	Just curious, but how much do you pay writers and photographers.
Jay

Steve wrote
"Also unemployed 30 years ago in California I accidently (the way most of
the
things in my life have happened) fell into free lance motor sports
journalism, writing and photography. At the time the standard pay was $1
per
inch for story and $5 per picture published. Certainly not much, but by
being good and hustling I started to get plum assignments which meant the
inch and picture rate doubled. Wow!! Now $2 inch and $10 a picture, still
not really very much. But I got by and after about a year I was offered a
staff position at a salary that was barely over poverty level, at least it
was steady. And as an assistant editor I had a lot of people call me up
wanting to write for the magazine and when I told them the pay there was
always silence on the other end of the line and a "let me think about it."

Since then I have freelanced for a few national and international
magazines
and the rates are still pretty meager. As an example of somebody we all
know
and love, Mike J. former editor of Photo Technique e-mailed me last winter
after I posted an item on the LUG about a photographer here in Annapolis
who
had taken the famous photo of John, John saluting his father, JFK, at his
funeral. The photographer was now suffering severe depression. Mike J.
thought that would be a good story and by-the-way take a picture. The pay?
$25.

I have a friend who is a free lance writer who does feature stories for
the
Baltimore Sun and Washington Post, been doing it for years, and has never
been paid more than $200 for a feature story.

So why bother? Well if you have a burning desire to be a professional
photographer or writer this is what you have to do, start at the bottom,
work for practically nothing, be very, very good (because there is tons of
competition), learn the self-marketing skills that puts you in the
position
to demand a fair price.

I never made much money as a freelance photographer even though I have
photographed, homeless bums, many celebrities even a President in the Oval
Office. I lost count at 1,000 of photos published, but, it has been a
great
trip. And along the way I learned enough skills so that now I OWN my
second
monthly magazine.

So, it seems like it all depends on where you want to be in life. Just my
.02 cents.

Steve
Annapolis"