[KeithJones]

June 7, 2008 at 9:00 am

In South Africa I bought a game rangers vest..
all the national parks emplyees thought I was an Inspector from head office….
Good service in the cafes though !

If you are looking for a photo vest have a look at a shooting or fishing vest instead – more durable and bigger pockets !

I still don’t think I’ll invest in the hasselblad thingy – I’m having a diamond one installed in my front tooth (giggle)

Keith

[KeithJones]

June 7, 2008 at 8:54 am

In the USA the Government cut the petrol tax when the petrol price went up.
Obviously they care about their voters….

[KeithJones]

June 7, 2008 at 8:37 am

Best Way I’ve seen is a paypal button underneath a BUY THIS PICTURE $25 bit of text.

Keith

[KeithJones]

June 7, 2008 at 8:31 am

Scoopt seems to want to keep all rights for 12 months exclusively.

I think that is too restricting.

Why should you want to give up all rights for them to make money.
You can also bet that if they are selling via Getty they will also be taking a cut out of that as well.
So you end up with pennies and your own copyright pictures that you can’t sell !

Remember – all Newspapers have a Picture Desk and if the picture is good enough they will use it.

With the advent of the Internet you can sell your own pictures and keep ALL the money !

Keith

[KeithJones]

April 20, 2008 at 6:08 pm

No I really did think the guy was winding us all up …
I’ve tried some funny processes in my time like toning and POP (printing out paper)
and I reckon our water supply could produce a minor image (well it does on our sink …)

Thanks for setting my mind at rest !
Keith

[KeithJones]

April 12, 2008 at 9:37 am

I used to tell people if you turned a transparency over you could see the other side of the person …
amazing how many people tried…
Keith

[KeithJones]

April 12, 2008 at 9:04 am

I’ve had a few minor incidents when security officers have tried to take my camera for photographing their building – they seem to lose interest when I phone a local police station and report them for theft.
That usually works. It is after all theft when takes your camera against your wishes . I have only had to do that twice in Ireland but half a dozen times in England.

Thats what you get for paying security officers minimum wage.

I operate on the basis that if I can see it I can photograph it. (Except near schools & childrens playgrounds where Its understandable that parents have justifiable suspicion of anyone photographing their kids) I just don’t photograph kids at all.

Keith

[KeithJones]

April 12, 2008 at 8:32 am

This is a bit off-topic till you get to the end of the post…

I was going to do a calendar for a local charity.
Then I watched a late night tv program 2 weeks ago on people who had made some of those calendar Girls type calendars in England.
One or two came out a few years ago followed by a raft of 200 or more different calendars each year.
It’s a moneymaker for some people and one lady made over 16,000 pounds for her charity.
(disregarding the subject here its the principle …)
However many of those who made Charity Calendars ended up with a calendar they couldn’t sell and were stuck with all the printing costs and a garage full of out of date calendars.

The main reason was that they had not thought out how they were going to sell the calendars.
Shops & Garages might take a few but thats not enough to make a calendar a worthwhile project.
The lady who made some serious money involved the whole of her community – yes the whole town ! as a sales force and they barnstormed the county selling the calendars to almost everyone they met.

When I went to to Lourdes I was very touched by the heaps of discarded crutches,wheelchairs etc from cures that had been made there

I wouldn’t want to see you making a loss on the Lourdes project
So Please make sure you have a marketing plan for your Lourdes Calendar before you even leave to photograph it.

A calendar sounds like a moneymaker but many UK people ended up with big overdrafts doing it.
Maybe getting an agreement from the charity about who finances it would be a good idea.

Keith

[KeithJones]

April 9, 2008 at 6:15 am

I’ve been considering one of these storage thingies for a while.
The only thing is – I’ve been trying to cut down on the weight I carry (yes that too ! – I could lose a few pounds)

Until now I’ve been taking an old Nikon FM2 to make QUITE sure I have the picture on film as well as digital.
(I can use the same lenses on both of course) and in the rare case of a really good picture (I reckon I take one like that every couple of years …sometimes !) I get a local internet cafe to write a cd/dvd as well.

I think the whole attraction of digital is the light weight of the cameras and to add a laptop (small but very appealing to thieves) and a storage unit would be a bit much for me to carry nowadays.

Hmmm – last week I went to Keukenhof to photograph the tulips…. quite disappointing – my own tulips are much more advanced than the ones in Holland (and they aren’t covered in 4 inches of snow like theirs were !)
If you are planning a trip to Keukenhof leave it a couple of weeks then it will be glorious – there were just a very few beds in flower – the masses you would expect will not be out till the end of the month at least.
I’m not just rambling here – I found the camera outfit (body plus 3 lenses and batteries,filters,flashgun was quite enough to carry. I reckon I walked around 7 Km so cutting down the camera stuff is quite important to me.

Keith

[KeithJones]

April 9, 2008 at 5:39 am

I would have thought around $ 700 to $800 would be right.

I’ve never sold a picture from FLickr though – I just use them to store photos I use on my Squidoo sites.

I did have a couple of people wanting to use Paris pix from Flickr but neither wanted to pay for them… funny how people get paid for doing picture research but don’t actually want to part with money…
Picture researchers get $20 to $30 an hour by the way.

Keith

[KeithJones]

April 9, 2008 at 5:18 am

Ashley’s list is excellent
I use a spread sheet to work it all out.
The things one needs to take into account are as follows:

1. Pre production time
2. Photography time
3. Post production time
4. Travel Time
5. Retouching
6. Crew / Assistant
7. Stylist / Hair / Make-up
8. DVD & back-up
9. Prints / Contact sheets
10. Insurance
11. Location / Studio fee
12. Props, Wardrobe
13. Rentals
14. Sets / Expendable
15. Courier / P&P
16. Actors / Models
17. Travel / Fuel
18. Miscellaneous

And I wish I had that years ago !

One more thing to take into account is how long they are going to use the picture.

There are still clients in UK and America using pictures they bought 20 or 30 years ago.
Yep they are a bit dated but things like the Statue of Liberty or Big Ben are still valid
(I took those on Kodachrome 120 which are still looking great even now !)
Keith

[KeithJones]

March 22, 2008 at 8:25 am

I don’t know if this helps but there is a photographer in Clonakilty with a 20″x30″ (rather nicely framed) picture in his window at 500 Euro .

I sell pictures through a few galleries and they go for around 120 Euro for a 15×12 or 150 for a 20×16.
That includes a basic black frame.

If anyone has any ideas for outlets for framed pictures I’d appreciate them !

Keith

[KeithJones]

March 22, 2008 at 7:53 am

When quoting for unlimited exclusive use don’t forget that Corbis charged Microsoft 132,000 $ for the photo that came up as the start of Windows….

All major companies do include a budget for photography – some are more realistic than others.
Keith

[KeithJones]

March 22, 2008 at 7:36 am

When I was in the stock industry we regularly got request for ‘unlimited use’

It really all depends on how big the company is and what it’s worth to them.

My Agent in America sold a picture of mine ten years ago for 15,000 dollars (but didn’t pay me for it !)

I always figured that ten times the fee for say – an ad in a daily paper or major magazine was reasonable.

I don’t think I’d sell unlimited exclusive use (the EXCLUSIVE is important) for under 2 to 3 thousand dollars…

One tactic I used to use was to throw the ball to the customer and ask them what they had budgeted for the picture use…

Hope that helps
Keith

[KeithJones]

March 22, 2008 at 7:26 am

I knew Getty were being sold but didn’t know it had happened yet…
THere’s a bit about it at Stockphototalk http://www.stockphototalk.com/phototalk/

Looks like its a German Private Investor outfit.

Anyone thinking of putting pictures with a stock library should really read Stockphototalk (I’m not connected with them ) as they seem to get all the latest news quickly (mostly by press releases )

Have a look through the back files there and you’ll find lots about most people.

The whole stock business is very much in a state of flux and has been for a couple of years.

Keith