Friday Happy Hour: Photographers Report Their Day Rates at $900+

Friday Happy Hour: Photographers Report Their Day Rates at $900+

This week we were struck by several photo series, including those by the 2013 winner of the Sony World Photography Awards, as well as some important information on photographer day rates and copyright.

Survey shows photographer day rates in the UK and U.S.

Eposure, “the UK’s best platform for sourcing commercial photographers”, conducted a survey to find out more about the day rates of both UK and U.S.-based photographers. The survey found that almost half of all respondents charge $900 or more per day. 10% charge more than $2,000 for a days work. Day rates were considerably lower for UK-based photographers, with the majority charging somewhere between 300-700 GBP (although factor in the currency change).

Jonathan Hobin recreates the world’s most brutal tragedies with children

Canadian photographer Jonathan Hobin‘s In the Playroom series features children reenacting some of the more horrific tragedies of the past century. It includes 9/11, the death of Princess Diana, and Hurricane Katrina. “The funny thing is, kids play games where they kill each other all the time,” Hobin told Vice in an interview. “Whenever a kid plays with a water pistol they’re pretending to kill someone. It’s something we see constantly. I’m directly referencing where kids might be learning to do those things and that makes people very uncomfortable.” See all the images here.

Photo by Jonathan Hobin

Photo by Jonathan Hobin

Photo by Jonathan Hobin

Photo by Jonathan Hobin

Photo by Jonathan Hobin

Winners of the 2013 Sony World Photography Awards

Last week, winners were announced for the 2013 Sony World Photography Awards. Norwegian photographer Andrea Gjestvang was named Photographer of the Year for her series of portraits of children and youths who survived the July 2011 massacre on the island of Utoeya, outside Oslo. Photographs were judged in six different competition categories, including Professional, Open, and Student Focus. See all the winners over on The Atlantic’In Focus blog.

A portrait by Andrea Gjestvang, named Photographer of the Year in the 2013 Sony World Photography Awards. The photograph comes from a project called “One day in history” featuring portraits of children and youths who survived the massacre on the island of Utoeya outside Oslo, Norway on July 22, 2011.

UK Parliament passes legislation making it easier to use copyright material

Last week Parliament passed The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act, allowing photographs and other creative works to be used without the owners’ explicit permission as long as a “diligent search” has taken place. Then the company may license the image for commercial or non-commercial use. The act has been dubbed the “Instagram act”, in reference to a recent scuttle surrounding the use of images posted to the image-sharing social network.

The Department for Business, Innovations and Skills claims that the act will help remove unnecessary barriers to legitimate uses of work. The licensing money can be claimed by the image owner should they come forward at a later date. The BBC reports that the exact workings of the new legislation in relation to copyright are yet to be formalized.

The Image, Deconstructed

The Image, Deconstructed (TID) examines the mental thought process behind a photographer’s image. Much of the work is based in photojournalism, and several PhotoShelter members have been featured in recent weeks including Todd Spoth, Pete Marovich, Amy Toesing, and Brendan Hoffman. One of the founders, editorial photographer Logan Mock Bunting, is also a PhotoShelter member.

Pete Marovich’s images are of a protester outside the U.S. Supreme Court as they debated Califonia’s Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act. “The biggest challenge shooting in the morning in front of the Supreme Court is the light, especially on a sunny day,” he says. “The sun rises behind the Court, so if you want the Court in the background, you end up shooting into the sun.”

Photo by Pete Marovich

“I saw this guy with the sign earlier in the morning, and even though I had already made some images of him, I kept tabs on him,” says Pete. “I was standing off to the side of him and I saw that he was now facing away from the Court and that the white sign he was holding up was kicking light back in his face. I made my way in front of him as quickly as I could to make an image before he lowered the sign or turned around.”

Buy gear and name your price with Greentoe

Greentoe.com has been showing up in the news quite a bit lately. The site works with authorized retailers to sell photography products – the only difference is that you name your own price. Watch the video below to learn more.

Altering photos deemed fair use in Patrick Cariou-Richard Prince case

Some important implications have come out of a closely watched copyright case between photographer Patrick Cariou and artist Richard Prince. Prince used dozens of Cariou’s portraits from his book on Rastafarians to create a series of collages and paintings. In March of 2011 a judge found that the use by Prince was not Fair Use and Cariou’s issue of liability for copyright infringement was granted in its entirety. 

But the appeals court held last May ruled that the judge’s interpretation was incorrect, and that a majority of Prince’s work manifested “an entirely different aesthetic” from Cariou’s pictures. Language seems to be doing a disfavor to the artists in this case, with terms like “different character”, “new expression”, and “new aesthetics” being used to determine whether or not the work falls under Fair Use. Fair Use has always been a gray area for photographers, something which was not any more cleared up from this case. (via APhotoEditor and The New York Times)

Gorgeous images from Shangai’s Sightseeing Tunnel

German photographer Jakob Wagner captured these gorgeous photos through the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel in Shanghai, China, a popular tourist attraction that takes you on a 5-minute tunnel ride featured visual and audio effects. Wagner used long exposures to showcase the colors and transform the tunnel into another world. (via My Modern Met)

Photo by Jakob Wagner

Photo by Jakob Wagner

Photo by Jakob Wagner

Photo by Jakob Wagner

 

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There are 7 comments for this article
  1. Pingback: Survey Reveals the Average Day Rates of US and UK Photographers
  2. Kevin Shields at 2:08 pm

    Re Jonathan Hobin photos. As a subscriber to PhotoShelter I’m disturbed that such images are being shown here. Look at the lifeless expressions on the kids’ faces. Corrupting a minor used to be a crime in the US.

  3. Matt Lit at 12:44 pm

    Great…that’s down by hundreds of dollars since the 90s. Check with ASMP for what those day rates were. No wonder the photography industry is F*ckd…PHOTOGRAPHERS…wake up and learn how much it cost to run your business!

  4. Jeff Baker at 2:18 pm

    Thanks Matt… That survey is not just bogus… It actually gives a true demographic of what the industry has become… Aside from editorial shooters only 10% are getting decent paying jobs. That shows just how much demand has dried up and that OK is good enough. I feel so fortunate to have been in the business when both quality and respect were present. I retired about 2 years ago and just had a client call and beg me to bid on a project so they could ” get some shots we can actually use.”
    Sad indeed!

  5. Pingback: Company reveals average day rates of photographers in the US and the UK - PhotoVenture
  6. Pingback: Geek O Graffi » Photographers Report Their Day Rates at $900+
  7. Pingback: Unternehmen veröffentlicht durchschnittliches Tageshonorar von Fotografen in Großbritannien und den USA | PhotoVenture

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