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Supplying pictures to papers
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Has anyone here got much experience in supplying pictures to newspapers. I have one paper that 3 months on still have not paid me for 13 pictures printed. They requested the pictures rather than me submitting them and printed every shot I sent in to them.
I now have more pictures to be sent to papers, I shoot for the local boxing club, I dont charge them but some of the lads buy posters off me. The club have asked me to forward pics onto 3 specific newspapers, one being the one that has still not paid me, for this one I informed both the sports editor and chief editor that the pictures were available to them as soon as agreement has been made re the outstanding payment. All these 3 papers have been informed that pictures would be sent to them by the club and are expecting them. One paper has requested pictures to be sent to them and would discuss payment after they receive them and decide which ones they will use and finally the 3rd paper has said they will not pay for them at all.
To the 3rd paper I did state they were expecting the pictures which would not be supplied wihtout a payment agreement. The lovely girl on the phone said, ‘in that case we just wont use them’ so I said well not many people out there will work for free, she doesnt and I certainly wont.
Are these 3 instances normal practice? After the dealings with the first paper I decided to just stay away from papers but since I have a good friendly relationship with the club and given the lads work very hard with it any pictures printed would be added advertisement for their club so I am willing to go through the hassle for it but I don’t see why I should give my pictures to papers for free. I mean they pay the writers of the stories so why not the photographers?
I’ve never sold pictures to papers. I think you should get paid for your work though. Most papers have photographers that work for them regularly, and I’m sure they don’t work for free and would charge the papers to go take pictures in the boxing club. Its a tough call without knowing what the practice is in papers. I’d stick to my guns, if you want to be paid for your images that get printed then that’s the bottom line. You need to be careful that the boxers don’t submit copies of the poster images to papers etc without your permission too. How about selling the pictures to the boxing club for press release?
Best of Luck,
Sean
Hi Sean thanks for the reply. Well definitely sticking to my guns. If these papers think they can get my pictures for free then they wont send one of their regular photographers which means not only is the paper winning and I’m losing but so is the other photographer who could potentially make a few quid out of it.
The paper requesting free images has decided to run the story alongside a Bernard Dunne story and just use Dunne images, fair enough, but next time if they want pictures they can send one of their own people. The one who owes me money has yet to return calls and mail but the 3rd seems happy to take pictures and pay for them.
I always heard working with papers was a messy business and was never really interested so this has completely turned me off. Only because of the fact that I have friends in the club I started taking pics their and the guy setting it up is a nice guy putting a lot of hard work into it and doing good for the local community by giving the young lads something to do, for this reason I would not charge the club, they have no money yet and are still trying to save for heating but the posters pay off for me. The local parish newsletter will get free images but that is where I draw the line.
I can totally relate to what you’re saying. Most papers now want images for free. This is to reduce their costs, and also because so many photographers send in free images to see their work published. Yeah, it’s nice to see your name in the paper beside your photo, but it doesn’t get you very far.
Too many photographers starting out send away free images to papers. They believe that this will help them get future paid work, which is actually seldom the case. The more the papers get for free, the less they want to pay for other photos.
Then there are the other papers who agree to pay, but then drag out payment as long as possible. Solicitors tend to be a nice way to push them along to pay though, since simply sending in an invoice and then chasing seems to get little or no response.
Like you, I’ve become very disillusioned by the press. I prefer to sell my images to the clubs, and then sell them the rights to use images for publication (press). It’s not a brilliant business model, but I know that the clubs will pay much quicker than the papers will.
I’m not sure what is the best way to solve your situation, but you’re not the only one in that position.
Some info here – https://www.photographyireland.net/viewtopic.php?p=175960
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