Time pays $30.00 for cover - Photographer Ecstatic!

More than the value of coins inside the jar? Or less ? :-(

Gamma agency is dead since a long time. Others will do soon confronted to istocks photo alike.

Wait a sec…
What’s the value of a Time Magazine cover tearsheet on your portfolio, if you’ve only been an enthusiastic amateur up until this point?

I’d be happy too. All of these BS publications that want your photo for free, in exchange for “exposure” and here is one where the exposure’s value may actually exceed the money they might have paid you. (If he plays it well…)

Magazines have been using stock photos in illustrations for ages. This is no different, except with the Internet, it’s possible to know the actual photographer.

Stock is dead. That battle is lost.

I’m happy for the photographer, despite his lack of meaningful remuneration. If he’s smart, this could be a hugely significant event in his career.

Yes, absolutely Jim, I’m with you in terms of exposure, but I think photographers need to be aware that doing this depreciates the value of all photography, including theirs. If we continue to succumb to these depreciated offers magazines will expect high quality work for less on a regular basis, so even if it does get you great exposure, it won’t matter if the shoots you get from this exposure are grossly under payed(at 30 bucks a pop you’d have to be lining up at least 20 assigned shoots a month, minimum, especially for a studio photographer). Where we can differ from part time shooters-whether we’re young emerging photographers or established pro’s- is to refuse these ridiculous prices and let clients know that quality work comes with a higher price tag. What this tells me is that the photographer is hungry like me, but perhaps too hungry, in any event, it is pretty nice to have a shot on the cover of Time, but I still think based on what they charge for advertising space this is a crime regardless of the exposure and encourages other magazines to do the same thing.

I would love to say I am surprised by both Time and the photographer, but sadly I am not.

The irony is not lost however, Time is leading by example…you know, “the New Frugality.”

Well he does get a tearsheet. That’s worth something, right? Right. Maybe he can pay $100 to have a poster made of the cover. Oh, then he should also frame the iStock check he gets for 30 bucks. Worth more framed than cashing it. The ‘new’ economics of photography. Best to try to keep the “free” out of freelancing, but doesn’t always work.

And so this photographer has $30 and an image on the cover of Time. Its not going to pay any bills but he does have some bragging rights down the pub! Pathetic the state of the image making business and its because of many many reasons that not everyone will agree on. What is clear is that digital capture together with the internet is causing mega shifts in our culture and the way news/images etc are put out to the world. Orphan works, copyright grabs and the value of an image is under threat and its just the beginning. Photography as we know it will cease to be within 10 years. The concept of being a freelance photographer will cease to be in news and sport at least. The only way to survive in the future will either be a staff job, shoot weddings, editorial and maybe portraits or be a pap.

Back to Time.. im asking myself whether i would like a cover on Time for $30 or nothing at all.. My answer is nothing at all because if Time pay $30 for a cover when it used to be around $2500 my time as a photographer is at an end!

For all you amateur and wannabe photographers out there who would take the $30.. Dream on.. you will never earn a living as a photographer all the time you undermine proper rates.

Ive never agreed with microstock or even royalty free because the end game result will be the end of proper agencys. What really amazes me is that the agencies appear to have no voice whatsoever and there suppliers mean nothing to them..

Most of all i do feel sorry for the new photographers coming through.. never has it been so difficult to get work that pays a proper rate in order for them to be creative and have a truly independent voice. Tip of the iceburg.. Time will no doubt be sourcing as much as they can at $30 a pop.. .. followed by every other mag.

is it 90 days payment????

This really isn’t a fair discussion unless we know how much Arthur Hochstein, the illustrator who used the stock photo, took home for the cover. I’m guessing it was more than $30…

Let’s say this was 20 years ago, before microstock, before Flickr, before creative commons. Same cover, same illustrator, same stock photo—how much would the photographer have gotten for an image used in an illustration on the cover of time.

This isn’t an editorial photo that was gotten for $30, after all.

I think this shows that we should be making images that go beyond enthousiastic amateurs’ work. In the current age, real professional phtographers have only a limited advantage over enthousiastic amateurs as far as technique is concerned. This used to be different. But professionality in a creative environment is a thin concept if it is only based on being technically ahead. As for myself, I am one of those young guys. My challenge “to get there” may be comparable to established photojournalists’ challenge “to stay there”. In that sense, we’re all in the same boat. I may have less to loose, however.

Oh for FUCK"S SAKE!!!!

Who is the IDIOT that is happy he got paid $30 for a TIME cover?

I have had TWO EDITORIAL TIME FRONT COVER STORIES and I can tell you that once the money runs out YOU CAN"T BLOODY EAT THE MAGAZINE!

I am sorry but anyone that accepts this kind of payment has absolutely destroyed the viability of this industry.

So all those bloody legendary photographers out there that everyone lionizes and immitates are up shit creek because of MORONS that think a piece of paper hanging in their office with a photo of a JAR for godsakes is somehow important,

BIG NOTING FOOL!!!!!

Anyone that thinks this is a fair price deserves to go back to kindergarten and stay there.

And I am sorry Diederik, that is the most fatuous comment I have ever heard. TIME is branded as a news journal and while they love interesting work, they also have a set style agenda for the little bread and butter portraits.

The trouble is enthusiastic amateurs that don’t have any idea except for instant gratification. If they didn’t have cameras they would be lining up to get onto Big Brother, Survivor, So You think You Can (add any kind of pursuit that can instantly humiliate someone for being an amateur)

The person that thinks that $30 is fine for a TIME Cover spare a thought for my dependents. You just effectively took a meal off their plates,

BASTARD!

Go Lisa, I agree whole heartedly. This guy has been taken big time. Thirty bucks, ninety days later no less, and a tear sheet. Well at least he can wipe his ass with the tear sheet at some point in the future, because that’s exactly what it’s worth.

This is no validation of his photographic prowess, it’s bargain basement shopping by one of the fallen giants of the publishing world.

Bullshit is what I say. Naïve amateurs, and idiot pros who sold their work to micro-stock have killed editorial photography. To hell with them all.

I’m glad I saw the writing on the wall a dozen or so years ago. Every day I wake up grateful to have a regular gig with an organization that gives me free reign, a good salary and fantastic benefits. All of the pros I know who are still out beating the freelance bushes are dying because every moron with a digital camera is now a “photograper” willing to sell his mediocre yet sadly technically proficient dreck for next to nothing and a tear sheet.

Bastards indeed, all of them, from the buyers with the walmart attitude to the sellers who have no idea about the photography business.

Rant over.

Down, down and down she goes, where she stops nobody knows . . .

Simple find a new profession that meets your needs both financially and self gratification…… you can always sell your soul .

I´ve already tried that, Imants, but there´s such a glut you have to pay the bastards upfront before they haul you away. Maybe there´s a new niche in the porno industry for some of us . . .

Time paid only 30 bucks for the image because that was all it was worth. It was an entirely generic, unoriginal throwaway image with a price to match.

The real mugs are any photographers that think producing similar generic mediocre imagery by the ton now entitles them to larger fees. Restricted supply might have meant that once, but no more. Even if the image was produced by a fulltime professional, they’d have a hard time monetising that image for a decent fee. There are too many other generic images out there easily available for less.

Diederick is bang on the money (excuse the pun). The only sensible option is not to produce such imagery. After all, professionals have so much more time and skill to produce better images than part timers, right?

RIIGGHHTT??

(insert uncomfortable silence here).

Yeah Sion,,,

All I got now is time and huge fucking debts to go with it!

And excuse me but all the creative work that I see out there getting the money is in art galleries…

You show me a magazine thats using those kinds of images and I will show you a begging letter from the editors looking for free submissions for great exposure.

Oh fuck it…

I am off to make cheese-’cos god said blessed are the cheese makers!

I love the fact he had to go and buy a copy, so he didn’t even get 30 bucks in the end :0)

All of these comments vibrate a lot of frustration and I can understand that. Times are tough, no really tough. We have seen this development for a number of years in The Netherlands now. I shot a portrait of Marilyn Albright and was paid EUR 19 for it. Commissioned by one of the freely distributed newspapers. In reaction to the digital revolution, newspapers and magazines started lowering their freelance payment rates, because film and development expenses were no longer incurred and, therefore, needed no longer to be included.

Personally I think these issues have a lot to do with decreasing reading numbers. NRC, a leading newspaper, terminated all of it freelance contracts last year. And staff numbers are decreasing as well.

So, I think pointing the finger at enthousiastic amateurs makes litte sense and is only fighting symptoms. Behind all that lies the fact that readers are turning away from traditional publications with increasing speed and that traditional publications have not managed to make their internet presense earn them the amounts of money they are loosing on the other side.

As regards the $30, the real question is: if $30 can buy acceptable quality, then why spend more? Would you do that yourself, just to keep an industry alive, had you not been part of it yourself?

And: how many of you are still magazine subscribers? Because the fact that that species of people is disappearing is what is really killing the indutry. I, for my part, have no subscriptions at all, I get all my news and information through the internet and I never pay for it.

So I suggest we redefine the topic. These developments are a given fact, they will not go away, no matter what we say about them. It is up to each and everybody to come up with an intelligent and creative answer to them. Clinging to what was there in the past is just a way to loose valuable time.

Diederik,

Not so sure about your decreasing reading numbers argument. So if that’s the case, have we seen a reduction of the cost of the magazines to reflect this? Have staff inside the magazines taken a drastic wage cut because of decreasing reader numbers?

Let’s face it, the magazines are to blame as much as the prosumer.

Any muppet can go down to BHPhoto and grab a 5d and a lens. The fact that the magazines decided to go all cheap and use anyone for imagery is the reason we are in this situation. Hell why pay a pro, bob (who shoots weddings, likes to have ladies take their clothes off and calls it “nude art photography” also shoots editorial gigs and is cheap.

The thing is, the reader won’t complain to the magazine about crap images, so it’s a win/win situation for the magazine and prosumer.

Hey guys stop crying in the milk we need it for the cheese

“I am off to make cheese-’cos god said blessed are the cheese makers! "

Ha. Where’s Bignose?

---

My guess is that it was the illustrator who bought the photograph. He probably pitched the idea (or was simply told) and then found the cheapest image he could so as to improve his profit and avoid taking the photo himself… Time probably paid for an illustration and included the iStock credit only to be safe because it looks so much like a photograph.

What’s more perplexing to me is what they were thinking to go with such a boring cover. I mean, no one thought, “We have a valuable brand and our covers are important… Let’s put a little time/effort/money into making something more worthy of our subscriber’s interest..?”

Will it really help the photographer’s career? Maybe… if he doesn’t reveal which cover/photograph. Because most anyone can spot $30 stock images a mile away.

I’m here. I have to say, if I’m making an image for the cover of a magazine, and I flip through the stock images, and see this cool pic of a jar that would be JUST right for my cover art … and then go to my editor and say, “Well, we can get this image for 30 bucks, OR… we could fly Jim in from Bankok and rent a studio in NY and put him in a hotel for a couple of days and get him to shoot a jar full of money for us, it’ll be fantastic …” I think I know what the editor will say.

C’est la bloody vie, guys …

maybe nachtwey, kozyrev and TIME’s other heavy hitters could flex their muscles a bit and “encourage” TIME to take a different route next time.

im all for capitalism, but within limits. $30 seems way beyond/below that limit.

just sayin’.

I wasn’t moralizing the use of cheap stock images by illustrators… Just pointing out the fact that it’s not a photo cover — it’s an illustration cover.

Visually the difference might be slight but the cash-flow implications are significant.

Every week TIME has an opportunity to make a great cover with a photograph of something that actually happened the week before. Rather, it has been an ever increasing flow of bad illustrations, some of which have damaged the credibility of authentic reportage. For a so-called news magazine, they have fouled their own nest.

it’s actually not that it’s a crap image, sure could be done
by anyone, but it is timely. who else thought to take that
photo?

unfortunately costs $15.95 to buy the framed cover.. there’s
more than half gone already. ironic. and a sad joke. can’t
afford to laugh.

This will upset someone im sure – WHAT A KNOB!! and all that thinks its great to have a tear sheet – How the hell do you eat a tear sheet and quite frankly this is why the industry is absolutely bolloxed – Thank you very much again!
And for all those who want to slag me off – get on with it!

Sad indeed.

I got many times mores for a cover on a newspaper in the 5th city of the province of Quebec (not as big circulation as TIME for sure). And that was not years ago, it was last week.

But there had been a negociation between Information Director and me and the buildup of professional relation and respect. We, photographer, got to keep some control on our product.

It is also a matter of respect of ourself, our time and our skills. Sad that this guy has so little respect for his work, or doen’t have a clue about issues of that profession.

Well when we’re finished blaming other people for our problems, we can become dock workers and live happy lives.

From my last statement
“Sad that this guy has so little respect for his work, or doen’t have a clue about issues of that profession.”

I would add that maybe he is learning about these issues, right now.

I was reminded of this story while rereading the 1984 Patricia Bosworth biography of Diane Arbus last night. Here’s an excerpt from a section on the photographer Robert Frank….‘In 1947 the Franks came to New York and Frank began photographing for Fortune, Life, Harper’s Bazaar. The pay was terrible ($50 a picture)’.

Think about it, sixty seven (67) years ago the major magazines were paying $50 a photo (not a cover , a photo) and today a photographer is excited he got $30.

Don Denton/www.dondenton.ca/blog

I love that quote, Don. Thanks for that. Worse still, adjust those 1947 dollars for inflation , and Frank was paid $483.62 in 2009 dollars for a picture, which is depressingly close to many publications’ 2009 day rates.

it seems like this whole ordeal is more an indictment of where Time Magazine is these days as a product than where photography is as an industry. This probably isn’t the first recent Time cover to pay so little for an image, considering a lot of their covers are featuring photo illustrations made from stock images (pill bottles ect.).

And Time isn’t paying $30 for an image that can’t be reproduced or something that is completely original, they could have made that image in-house using an unpaid intern and a point and shoot.

As for the tearsheet argument- he isn’t credited with a byline (just iStockphoto) and no one in the position to commission a photographer will see this image (the very few that might be looking on Model Mayhem) and think it is a good representation of creativity or originality and want to hire him for his unique vision. And he certainly won’t be hired to shoot something similar, since now everyone knows you can buy it for $30. So there really is no value in the tearsheet, aside from bragging rights for having a Time cover, albeit a bad one.

I’ve made a retracted three replies on here on second and third thought, but what the hell. The reality of today’s business is that we as PJ’s are not really that relevant anymore per say and events like this are going to be a lot more commonplace.

Photographers in a lot of the newspapers and the magazines are now forced to be both reporter and photographer, and reporters are now expected to take their own pictures as well. the two crafts are being combined in to one. A lot of papers and magazines replacing staffers who aren’t cross-crafting with interns, and local bloggers who will work for free or next to it.

Any kid with a camera can get a lucky shot with a two hundred dollar digital Rebel, and would kill to have their shot published. For every one opening there’s a hundred willing to work for next to nothing just to get their foot in the door and even more who will work just to have the credit who have no interest in the industry at all.

It’s all about yellow journalism and citizen journalism today. Face it that’s the future of our business. For the few photographers who who turn to cross-crafting, there’s always hope in learning video. So, you’re either going to be a writer-photographer or a photographer-videographer.

You can thank digital for it too. We created the medium to make out work easier, sadly we made it so much easier, we put ourselves out of work. and a $30 Times cover is just one more example.

30 bucks would be good money for that lucky kid and his rebel enough for some grub at macas with two friends …….plus the bbbbbbrrrrrragging rights coupled with a new found confidence.

That’s astounding. I think the Mount Olive Chronicle in Chester, New Jersey pays more than that. If revenues at Time are worse than a small town paper in NJ, I wonder if the editors, publisher and other staff are also paid the same at both organizations. But you know, I dropped my TIME subscription when it got thinner. Thinner paper, thinner reporting, thinner photography, thinner quality. It still has it’s moments, but it’s not what it was. As for the kid’s confidence, well now, not sure how things are in Australia, but on the East Coast of the U.S., with auto insurance, high living costs, health insurance costs, maintaining an automobile, computers, software, and, of course, not least, maintaining cameras, I’d say that that kid would have to be selling 4-10 such images every day, 7 days a week to break even. So he might be confident, but he’ll be pretty tired. And confident or not, if the prices of even premium publicatons get that low, he’d be better off selling sneakers at the mall, where he can dream of photography while stuffing feet into Nikes.

The kid’s got no overheads, lives with mum and dad, goes to school, plays Nintendo, chats online,got the digi rebel as present and borrows dad’s computer in between fighting with her/his siblings for computer time, only has to sell one and gets top billing in the playground for atleast a few months.

Next kid does the same…………. then mum and dad get into the act borrow the kid’s digi rebel and the rest is history on the front page. Easy peasy

The joke is …if you “want” a “copy” of that front cover u can get it for
$19;95 or the fancy Custom version whatever that is for $109:40 inc postage !!

Why is this such a hot issue for some people?

I don’t blame Time for using an image that cost $30.

As a business, why would you pay more than $30, when you can get exactly what you want for $30?

I don’t blame the photographer either. If they are not a full time professional, then why would they care what other photographers think?

Nor do I buy into the ‘damage this person is doing to our profession’ argument.

Microstock is here to stay. Love it OR hate it. It is never going away.

Many magazines are folding. Many are struggling to stay afloat.

Why wouldn’t a magazine – a business – save money and use a cheaper image?

Is it okay? Is it a sad day for Time? Is this where we want our profession to go?

Doesn’t matter. We do not have control of it.

The only thing we have control of is what we decide to shoot. Like Mark Seager said – “diversify and stay professional and profitable”.

Please see my other post with a query on on finances.

diederik meijer

www.theblacksnapper.com
www://twitter.com/theblacksnapper

Well said Mark.

The guy is a tool. Even if you agree with a pragmatist such as Mark, who has “diversified”, it seems that the technology(and the fucking geeks who created it) is eating the lunch now and photojournalists are going to be doing stories on other emaciated PJs and selling it as stock to Canon so they can sell more plastic boxes. Videography! no thanks, Advertising pays well but no doubt that is also coming down. Bottom line is that there are too many people with silly plastic number machines capable of generating a two dimensional representation of the world,and many magazines do not need or do not want, or are too ignorant to pay for someone good to put time and hard work into it. Anyway soon no one but the computer programmers and the guys at Goldman Sachs will be payed, and of course they are in it together. Same old story, youve got to decide if its worth it to you.

I guess the problem is, that photography is not equal photography. Creating cheap stock images is one thing, and I 30$ is not so bad for stocks. Who uses the stocks and for what doesn’t matter anyways. So TIME used Stock imagery for graphic design..that is ok with me.
But people have to understand that, only because they “just” paid 30 bucks for a indifferent stock images doesn’t mean, that the photoessay also goes for 30 a pop. And I think that is what we photographers should focus on: try to show the customer that there is many different forms of photography especially in a economical mindset. Some images are created very easily, very cheap and some need more time, more money and more effort. If people are not willing to pay for the extra effort and also don’t need the extra effort, well, then we just rendered obsolete. But that is the way it goes then. If people have just a difficult time understanding what it means to do proper i.e. photojournalism in money terms than we should try to enlighten them.
PJ is not the only field in photography that suffered by certain amount of semi-pros who invaded the playing field. Everyone got his share in the business. But good photojournalism and good photography in general had always something extra than just “be there and shoot”. If we keep delivering images like that, than we shouldn’t wonder that “externals” take our gigs. We also have to keep the edge while taking pictures. But I guess that was never different.

i used to get all exercised about this kind of thing and how ‘unfair competition’ by amateurs was destroying the photographic industry etc etc…

then i read an article about how many newspaper film critics have been laid off because of the wide availability of online reviews. yesterday there was a piece about how oxfam is driving second-hand book dealers out of business because they cant compete.

did i think, gosh, i’ll show my solidarity with the redundant film critics and never read another online review? like fuck. i shrugged and yawned and moved on. the world changes and evolves and so does everything in it including film reviews and booksellers and the production of imagery and no one outside of our little club could give a monkey’s if suddenly 50% of photojournalists find themselves redundant. will the papers still have pictures in them? yes. that’s all anyone cares.

i live off stock sales and its tough as hell these days. but getting into a froth about tumbling repro fees isn’t going to help anything. evolve while you still can or go the way of the dinosaurs.

I didn´t know it was a matter of recombinant DNA . . .

for $50k there’s a swiss clinic i know of that can remove unsightly recombinants once and for all. quick and painless operation that turns you into a pulitzer prize winner overnight.