Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/02/21
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 08:37 AM 2/19/99 -0800, you wrote: >Luggers, > >please check out this URL : www.peaceprojects.org, and read the message >below. I met with Tannen a few days ago, and the concept is very >interesting. Who of us can help, and how? > > >Tina - what do you think? > >Alistair Stewart > Hi, Alistair - Sorry to be late answering this but it took me awhile to digest it all :-) I'm trying to figure out how the photographers can donate their time, pay for their expenses, and still stay in business. I'm all for providing images to NGO's whose work I support under the same conditions as everyone else at the NGO. If everyone else volunteers their time and energy, I'm happy to pitch in and help. If the staff is receiving a salary, then the photographer should, too. I am able to donate photos to some of the NGO's I work with because I receive a salary from the Presbyterian Church. The way I read the website, the only people whose expenses are paid are the leaders of the tours. Everyone else is expected to pay their own way, their photographic expenses, and donate the use of the photographs. I get so many phone calls from non-profit agencies saying, "We would like to use your photographs but we can't pay you anything." My response to the caller is, "Do you receive a salary? If so, why do you expect me to work for nothing." If I responded to every NGO that offered to pay my expenses but expected me to donate my time, I would be out of business in no time and not able to help anyone. The photographers who take these trips and donate their photographs will be taking business away from stock and assignment photographers who already get very marginal profits from the editorial markets available for this kind of photography. When those photographers are out of business, the editorial markets will have to depend entirely on donated photographs which may or may not be available or of professional quality. If I've read the website wrong, please let me know, but for now I see this as a threat to professional photographers. Leically, Tina Tina Manley, ASMP http://www.charweb.org/arts/open/tinamanley http://www.photogs.com/manley/index.html http://www.pomegranates.com/frame/manley/index.html