Took this portrait of a high-jumper for a story on him before heading off to the state finals. Had him use a track & field measuring tape to illustrate his personal record.
Something about his backyard was cool. Lots of weird stuff leftover from a previous property owner. Saw the sun coming through the trees and totally bit the idea that others have done.
Other worldly. Eerie. Creepy. Unsettling.
These are some of the words that come to mind when I look at this photo. No, it’s not one of those “smack you in the face” good fire pictures, but I like it anyhow. Guess you have to be in the mood.
My friend Jeff sent me a link to public radio WNYC’s exploration of New York City street photography; its roots, what some photographers try to achieve, and even a street shot challenge open to everybody via Flickr.
There is almost too much here to see at one sitting, so either clear out your schedule for an hour or bookmark it and come back, because it deserves your attention.
So far, my favorite part is the videos of street photogs at work talking about what they do. I love hearing other photographers talk about photography, and the three I’ve seen so far have not let me down.
Jamel Shabazz
“When it comes to the drugs, the violence, enough of that stuff already. I’m looking for something different.”
Sandra Roa
“The truth is it’s not that easy…It’s about trust and that means time.”
Bruce Gilden
“If you can smell the street by looking at the photo, it’s a street photograph.”
I spent a few years living in Rego Park, Queens just over 10 years ago and did some street photography while over there. Actually, I had no clue what I was doing, so calling it street photography might be a stretch (usually a grasp of f-stops and shutter speeds help when you take a picture). I did come up with a couple of shots, some how, some way, that, at least to me, still stand up. Maybe someday I’ll go through my negatives again and see if I lucked into anything else.
A few photos from a two-day series the paper put together on our local emergency room. Day one focused on the people who work there while day two looked at the patients.
I took my Rolleiflex film camera in and did what I could. I was actually really happy with the way these came out. It’s strange using a manual focus camera with a viewfinder that makes you look down instead of directly at the subject. On the other hand, it forces you to go slow — in a good way — while increasing the connection to whoever you’re photographing.
Plus you get to work with film, which I still love. Just something about it…maybe a warmth, but not in a color sense.
Girls playoff soccer — a fun game to shoot that went into double overtime with the home team putting together a come from behind victory. One of those games that made the hair on your arm stand-up.
Time to pull out the sunscreen.
Sometimes I wish I could take pictures of my friends and family as a full-time job.
If I was smart and knew how to do it, I’d create an informal poll to see which of these two photos people think was the posed portrait and which was not.
Hmmmm……..maybe I’ll look into how I could do that.
The photo above is from a story on the techies who worked backstage during the latest high school drama production.
This picture was from a story on foster care graduates who are living on their own with help from a local non-profit.
Last August, I got an email from a production coordinator at the Forensic Files who was looking for photos from the three year-old Eric Copple double-murder case. For those who’ve never heard, it was a crazy story about a guy who killed his wife’s best friend and her roommate on a Halloween night that put Napa in the media spotlight for a minute.
The police were able to catch the guy because he smoked what was at the time a new brand of cigarettes and left a few butts on the street outside the victims’ house while waiting for the right time to strike. To this day, the general public is unsure of what drove him to do this — in fact, he says that he blacked out while it happened.
I sent the production coordinator a bunch of low-resolution images with the newspaper’s copyright on them and mentioned that they would cost $700/image.
It’s always a strange formula that takes, at least for me, a maddening amount of research to come up with dollar figures for photos to be used by other media. At around the same time this guy emailed me, I had just finished inking a deal with the UK womens magazine “Pick Me Up“. Three Copple case photos to be used once each, 1×2 inches wide at the bottom of a page came to $1,200. That, again, took a ton of research to come up with, but in the end worked out, mostly because I took into account the circulation and ad-page rate of the magazine while creating a price.
And yes, if you’re reading between the lines, the price changes depending on how they’re used and who is using them.
Keep in mind I know going in that the $700 figure is high, but that is on purpose so when they come back and say it’s too high (which they did), at least I’m not going beyond their worth while coming down some in negotiations.
Well, two weeks ago, I finally hear from the production coordinator again and he says they are nearly done with the show, picked out seven they liked, want to license them but are looking for a flat rate (aka $700 is too high).
Strangely though, he criptically said at the end of his email that if a flat rate is not possible, to proceed as planned. I took this to mean he would like to get a better deal, but understood if that was not possible. After talking with our new photo editor and managing editor, they decided a few people higher in the newspaper’s food chain needed to be consulted before making the next move.
So, I did some more research, chatting with the Sacramento Bee’s Director of Photography Mark Morris as well as Napa Valley wine country book-photographer and former National Geographic freelancer Chuck O’Rear. These conversations confirmed my notion that the original figure I put out was on the high end but I also learned that fair contracts used for licensing photos for television include wording different that what they had in their contract.
Typically these contracts, from what I can tell, allow usage with one or two-year unlimited airings of the show add 15-100% more for unique images (part of my reason for being on the high end) and add 15-100% more for video/dvd use.
Their contract said they could use the images in the show 1. in perpetuity, 2. worldwide and 3. in any current or future form of distribution not yet in existence.
This sounds unreasonable and is unreasonable, but I expected language like this and from talking with Chuck, these contracts are usually boilerplate and everything is up for negotiation.
Oh yeah, they also came back a second time and said that they only needed five total and had a deadline two-days away. And could we send them the images while working out the details.
The higher ups came back and said the price remains unchanged ($4,900) and the license will only be for one-time use.
They said no thanks.
I was disappointed because I thought the higher ups came back too strong with a counter offer. I know they do not want to give away the store, and I’m not about to give them use in perpetuity as well as current or future distribution, but they should have come down some. At least to string out the game.
As it stands now, we do not know if it was the price or the terms that killed the deal for them. And that is something I’d like to know because when it comes to knowledge of the business of photography, I’m just a toddler learning to walk.
Another video. This time, with some dramatic views from above.