Announcement 2012 World Press Photo Contest

Dear entry coordinator,

In the beginning of December, the 2012 World Press Photo Contest will open
for entries. As a former entry coordinator, you will get an email alert from
us with a link to the website. The deadline for registration for the 2012
Photo Contest is Friday, January 6, 2012 at 23:59 Central European Time.

The deadline for submitting your entries to the 2012 Photo Contest is
Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 23:59 Central European Time.

We look forward to receiving your entries. If you have any questions, please
do not hesitate to contact us at contest@worldpressphoto.org.

Best of luck,

Micha Bruinvels & Anna Lena Mehr
World Press Photo Contest

Hard Times Ahead

Dear photographers, colleagues, comrades,

         “And if you gaze for long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” –Friedrich Nietzsche
 

For a long time we at UNP felt immune to ups and downs of the economic turmoil and the dreaded R word. In fact, if anything, our sales increased at the time when everybody was moaning about the recession. Inevitably, the talk of double-dip and U-shape economic stagnation has at last caught up with us.
There is no need to panic nor worry about United National Photographer’s overall stability or our ability to pay what is owed to you. However, there are some concerns and pointers I would like to speak about.

For years, we have been fair and square with our freelance photographers.  It is, after all, thanks to you that we have managed to trade for almost 15 years, during which we’ve provided 29,000 photo shoots to high-end clients.

So it is with regret that I have to let you know that we are reducing the rate paid to freelancers for one hour photography to a fixed rate, like many players in the market.  This fixed rate will include mileage and most expenses. 

We have been under a lot of pressure lately to reduce our rates.  Our clients, who are very loyal to us, are being bombarded with all-time low figures by other agencies and freelancers. Quite rightly so, our clients want to see a reduction of their bills.

The sad fact is that many companies, for whom UNP has been working for several years, are going under (one example here 28 Oct 2011) while owing us thousands of pounds of outstanding invoices.  As you already know, regardless of this fact, we still pay you for the services rendered.

After much thought, we’ve made this decision. The reason for this blog is not to debate it but to inform everyone that, in order for us to stay competitive and to stay in the business, we are going ahead with it. However, please let us know your thoughts either below or by email/phonecall/text.

It is common knowledge that prices don’t decline during a recession. Well, I wish that all the agencies and freelancers offering ‘no frills photography’ to multinational companies also realised this. I don’t blame them as they all have families to feed and to think about; I only wish that they knew the long-term effects of what they are doing! Not by coincidence, I’ve noticed that some of these providers are no longer in business today!

If you no longer wish to associate with us, then I truly thank you for your help, support and for your, sometimes, cutting edge, brilliant press, pr, corporate, conference, news and features photography services. However, if you wish to carry on with the hope that one day we will get back to normal and that there are good times ahead, then let’s get on with it and carry on as normal, with this hope in mind.

Many thanks,

Hamlet
Managing Director
United National Photographers Ltd

Confessions of a News of the World Photographer

Although associated with the, well, seedier side of our industry, Paul Barker's Snapper: Confessions of a News of the World Photographer is well worth a read. Probably for reasons related to perceived consumer interest, press photographer memoirs are exceedingly rare, so it's no real surprise that one of the very few published deals with the more accessible, celebrity driven end of the market. Accordingly, the book isn't exactly a hard-nosed examination of the business practices of a red top but more a collection of amusing anecdotes and revelations of tricks of the trade which is written in a largely celebratory tone. Of course, the NOTW is now gone precisely because of the clandestine nature of some of their information gathering methods, but you won't find much of that here.

Bill Gates and Photojournalism

Lengthy but worthwhile article here on the various adventures of Microsoft mogul Bill Gates in the commercial photography world. Through his investment firm Corbis, Gates purchased both the Bettmann picture archive (in 1995) and the French photo agency Sygma (1999). The angle taken by the article is that whilst Gates has made great strides in the preservation and promotion of the images themselves, less of an interest has been taken in the contractual rights of photographers over their images.

The article focuses on a lawsuit bought about by former Sygma photographer Dominique Aubert after he discovered that several of his images had been licensed for commercial use by Sygma without his consent and, more importantly, without Aubert receiving the compensation which he is legally entitled to. The story of the legal action and its aftermath form a rather depressing narrative. Finding his initial requests for payment dismissed offhand by Syhma/Corbis, Aubert eventually won a judgement for the modest fee of $140,000. When this was increased to over $2 million in the wake of  a failed appeal, Corbis reacted by shutting down Sygma (which at the time of purchase was reported to be the largest photo agency in the world) at the cost of 29 jobs. Given that $2 million is likely but a fraction of Sygma's annual turnover, this move very much looked like an over-reaction. However, when lawsuits by other disgruntled photographers started to pile up, the commercial viability of Sygma, the reason cited for the closure, seemed very much to be in question.

It's not difficult to see who is to blame here, and it's nice to see photographer's standing up for their (all too-often disrespected) professional rights. Another former Sygma photographer, Allen Tannenbaum, puts it best:

We photographers have always been adaptable – we just don’t want to adapt to our own extinction.

Sign of the times?

Really interesting interview over at the BJP site with wildlife photographer Michael Nichols, who last year decided to forego updating his personal website in favour of creating an iPad App. It's debatable whether the iPad is any better for viewing images than a desktop/notebook monitor with similar screen resolution, but there is certainly an argument to be made about the professional and cultural cache which comes along with having your name attached to an iPad only project, particularly in creative industries. 


Something which the interview doesn't really address is that whilst Nichols' late website was free to access, the app costs £2.49. Nichols claims that profit was not behind the decision to switch, and we are inclined to believe him. Nichols worked with professional developers to design the app, a process which we ourselves know is far from cheap. But regardless of this, the cost does raise the issue of exclusion; £2.49 is hardly likely to break anyone's bank (particularly if they own an iPad...), but it is a further barrier to accessing content already restricted due to only being available on a single platform. But, as Nichols admits in the interview, it's a test and he is happy to be a guinea pig for other photographers thinking of moving their content to the iPad. The app is available here.

Lucinda Grange

Although we ae primarily press and comercial photographers here at UNP, many of us are keen travel photographers in our (increasingly limited!) spare time. The travel photography business is particularly hard to break into, and that's why it's so nice to see a regional gallery supporting one of their own. That's exactly what Hartlepool Art Gallery is doing by exhibiting the travel photography of Lucinda Grange until November. Based in Hartlepool, Grange's work attempts to expose the less-beaten tracks of much photographed cities such as London, Antwerp and New York. Great stuff, and let's hope that more galleries support their local photographers!

Plagiarism

With all of the (justified) fuss surrounding the alleged plagiarism of journalist Johann Hari, it's somewhat timely to read of a quite similar case involving Norwegian wildlife photographer Terje Helleso. Much like Hari, Helleso initially denied any wrongdoing before coming clean. Whereas the fame accrued by Hari is mostly because of the coverage of the scandal, Helleso was already a well-known television personality throughout Scandanavia.

Although the plagiarism by Helleso looks to have been endemic and far from an isolated incident, it should serve as a reminder of the dangers of taking the easy road. The internet is very good at catching even the smartest plagiarists, so you're probably not going to get away with it. Work hard at your craft and succeed the right way.