Looking for photos from south Asia.

Lars, if you are starting a new job as a picture editor can I be so brash as to remind you that your job is partly to act as an advocate for photography within your organisation, and to lobby against people who set your low budgets, and to do your best to get them as excited about pictures as you are, and to maybe even realise the true economic value of good photography to your magazine.

So if you have, as you said, a “very limited budget for photography”, please make sure your editor knows he or she will get a “very limited calibre of photography”.

I don’t want to offend you, just underline the fact that you’re now in a position that is pivotal in stopping the devaluation of editorial photography.

I have a friend with an exceptional set of pictures recently shot in Bagladesh. I don’t know if you’re interested, or if your budget will cover them because I am sure she won’t discount them, but I will send her in your direction.

Limited budget and was found in 1977…. are they paying the same prices since then???

A doble pae in the 70’s should be not the same now…..30 years after….

give us a limited information about how much you pay for a cover or a doble page man!!!

thanks

I totally understand what you guys are saying and as being a photographer my self I’m very aware of the value in photography, and the disastrous effect of dropping prices. As i mentioned Sydasien has a very small edition and before me there wasn’t even a budget for photography. Im trying to get photography into Sydasien because i think its a good magazine or at least will be after the new board has settle in. I’ve informed the board that with a limited budget for photography there will be limited quality as well. But the reason i made this post was to be able to get the best photography my money can give me, and to give my readers a new reason to buy the magazine. By doing this i hope the budget will get better and i will raise the quality and the rates as quick as its possible. Im very open for suggestions how to bring photography into a small magazine like this.

By paying respectably for it.

The cheese before the mouse.

The editorial photography market is unique in that so many buyers feel that they can unashamedly ask for major discounts because of a “limited budget”, when “limited budget” is just a euphemism for their value-judgement that photography is not worth paying for. It seems to be that many thriving publishing companies the world over have these “limited budgets” for photography.

Maybe you could buy less pictures and run them larger.

Myles,

Here’s the thing – steal what you can from websites at 72 dpi, or dupe “naive amateurs” into giving you their pictures and your publication will be perceived accordingly. Amateurish pictures with poor reproduction.

Or succeed in offering bugger all for quality work, and your publication looks quite good. And you’ve still paid bugger all.

This has nothing to do with lars personally. Well my thoughts don’t. I can’t speak for the person that posted the alert, although I am not affronted by them doing so. The constant “get something for nothing”, “haven’t got a budget”,”if you do it free this time it will lead to more work later”,”there’s no money, but it’ll be good for your portfolio”,”we can’t pay you but you’ll get a byline” rhetoric should be confronted.

This is about the editorial photography game being so devoid of business sense that its participants are collectively being hammered into the ground by organisations who are still making a pretty good dime in general. The common excuse is declining advertising revenues. I say hogwash to that. I know plenty of publishers still making operating profits of 20%, and they’re increasing each quarter. Good by any measure. They’re just reminiscing the days when they had a license to print money. And we’re supposed to sympathise.

This is not a hobby. It’s a business. If you don’t treat it as a business, you’ll have to start doing it as your hobby.

Damn my original reply is not there so Wade’s response makes little sense to others. I was rewording it and hoped to get it up before a reply came through.

I will get back to it when I have a moment but basically what I was hoping to convey is that there are a lot of shite publications out there that will rip you off but when a member of the community askes for leads or help he should not be automatically flagged as an Alert. This can be damaging. Can you imagine if I, as a photo editor, posted alerts whenever I felt a photographer had done me wrong? You’re not all angels!

This has nothing to do with Wade’s original post, he was merely creating a discussion…it was more to the fact that it had been flagged as BE AWARE which I find highly unfair.

Interessting discussion. Just to make things clear, i never said we are not paying respectably prices for photogaphy, my plan from the begining was to focus on a few topics and get good quality photography for that topic, and of course pay market prices for that. but what i first asked for was to establish contact with photographers(to buy assignments or their photostorys at respecteble rates of course) and photoagencies(Make a good deal and get stockimages at the quality that i pay for).

An other good point is that Sydasien is a nonprofit magazine thats main purpose not is to make money but enlighten the Swedish people about this very interesting region.

I sent you an email.

For the record I posted the alert. I will explain why.

I contacted Lars privately after he put up a request. The original request differed from the one you see at the top of this post. I received a private email from Lars basically saying what you now read above. I responded saying that I was not in a position to supply images to magazines that have a limited budget.

I also wrote to Lars warning that this kind of request is likely to arose anger in some photographers on Lightstalker. I thought it fair that everyone should be made aware of the limited budget before they go to the trouble of putting together a small portfolio attached to an email etc if they had no website.

I then saw that Lars had changed his original post to include the limited budget info.

I have in the past supported the argument regarding the supply of free images to portfolio magazines but on this occasion the images I was intending to show were not just sitting around collecting dust.

I will remove the alert, as I do believe Lars acted properly. Sorry to cause any offence.

Mark

Hi Lars, do check majorityworld.com for South Asian photographers and their images.best, kat

Please email me at lars.lindqvist@sydasien, not my lightstalker email.

I should add, (appropos or not) that the value of what Myles has written is uncontestable. Myles (I know him personally) is not only a nice and thoughtful and intelligent person but also a PE for a magazine that PAYS photographers (a bunch of my friends have shown in his magazine) and so his words are of GREAT value to this community (and im not trying to get pics published with him, im just stating that as a photographer and one who has also been pretty vocal about non-paying mags). I wish more Editors would participate too at LS: for both insight and pespective (even though i know some editors from V and E and MJ took a tough time) ...

as a photographer, i think we all work with the reality of “budgets” the difference being: reality or euphamism. I’m always in support of supporing honest discussion, and not rights-graps, free-photos, devaluation etc…

Myles point is a good one :))

cheers
bob

try www.majorityworld.com