dennis ho Posted October 7, 2006 Share Posted October 7, 2006 hi all. i am a rookie photojournalist just getting my feet wet, and i'm doing it in new york city. i have the opportunity to shoot for a reasonably well circulated brooklyn weekly newspaper. they have handed me a contract which is a "work for hire" contract. every mentor i have ever talked to has told me that work for hire is a terrible thing to do to yourself. but everyone who i have as a personal resource is also a venerable veteran of the industry who maybe got into it at my level decades back when the game was different. has it changed in this regard? is work for hire just the way it's done these days in new york? is taking a work for hire contract simply the only way to get a foot in the door in this town? i need obviously to get published, and i'm willing to do almost anything to make it happen, but i don't want to establish any precedents that i will regret, and i'm loath to let go of the copyright on anything i do. i'm a total hoarder of my own work. if anyone has any input on the matter, i would be very glad to hear your 2 cents. thanks! -dennis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaelging Posted October 7, 2006 Share Posted October 7, 2006 Our newspaper and all the other newspapers in the Gannet chain , will only use free-lancers under the "work For Hire Contract". It lets them hire you without paying workman's comp and other benefits to you. If you don't want to work under this restriction, for most papers you don't work.Only you can say if you can live with this contract.When I started out at my paper I worked for $90.00 a week, I worked nights and had Tuesdays and Thursday off. If It was me and I wanted to get my foot in the door and get noticed, build a portfolio and make contacts , I would do it. It not like being indentured, if you don't feel it works for you , then quit and look for something better. Unless you have a degree, some work experience, or internships under your belt , I think this is a good way to get noticed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dennis ho Posted October 7, 2006 Author Share Posted October 7, 2006 so if you have some work experience, some internships or what not under your belt, then do you still do work for hire? what are the chips you need to have in place in order to leverage a better deal? or do better deals exist? and if so, what are they? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaelging Posted October 7, 2006 Share Posted October 7, 2006 If we have a intern who is a very good photographer then we hire them at the end of their internship. If there is no opening or we are in a hiring freeze, then they work part time using the Work for Hire Contract until they can be hired. Sometimes we will give them a second internship to keep them until a full time job opens up.With many papers, such as the Dallas Morning News, giving buy outs to older experienced photographers then I would think someone has to do the work and papers seem to be hiring young photographers at much lower pay ranges. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dennis ho Posted October 7, 2006 Author Share Posted October 7, 2006 so when you are under a work for hire contract, does that mean that you never get to use any of those photos again? and if the paper resells or does whatever with those images, does the photographer's name still get shown in the photocredit? or is that the type of situation where you see just the agency with no photog attached (eg: "AP file photo" or something like that)? also, what if i submit a photo but they don't run it that week? does the work for hire contract entitle them to the copyright for even those photos that they did not select? thanks for your input, michael. your work, btw is very beautiful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaelging Posted October 7, 2006 Share Posted October 7, 2006 Dennis, all this will be spelled out in the contract. I have not looked at our contacts for several years so I do not remember how they are worded. As a Staff photographer ,the paper owns my photos that are shot while I am being paid by them. I have over the years shot photos that were used by many other new organizations, from one photo the paper made over 50 thousand dollars. I did not make any more money off of the photo, than my regular pay check. These do not come along every day and yet I am paid well for my work. A freelance photographer can take a one in a life time photo and make a $100,000 off of it and keep it all.You will have to decide what your chances of making a living , without going the contact way Vs. signing the contract. I believe in life there are no right or wrong decisions just different consequences. Before I was hired here at the paper I was offerd a job at the Longview Daily News in Washington. I had a wife and son and the job would not have paid enough to live well on. I turned the job down , and a few months later, Mt. Saint Helens blew up and the paper I decided not to work for, won the pulitzer prize for photography that year.Like I said, different consequences. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dennis ho Posted October 7, 2006 Author Share Posted October 7, 2006 the contract i have been handed is a freelancer's contract which pays $20 per photo that is run. basically, a symbolic stipend. i am not being offered any other kind of wage or salary. does that make a difference with the copyright situation? i understand that most photographers working for big dailies under a salary usually do not own the copyright to anything they shoot while on the job. however, seeing as i am not being paid anything except $20 per image (and $15 per additional image used from the same shoot) is it still usual procedure for the paper to gain control of the copyright and universal usage rights on all those images for the rest of time? keep in mind that this is not a paper which has "full time" photographers, so i'm not in a position where i'm waiting for a real position to open up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaelging Posted October 7, 2006 Share Posted October 7, 2006 Like I say , I can't remember what our contract states. I think we have first time rights, and then the rights go to the photographer, but I am not sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dennis ho Posted October 7, 2006 Author Share Posted October 7, 2006 first time rights makes a lot more sense to me. we'll see, hopefully the editor guy sees it the same way... i'll have to talk to him about it. the thing is that my #1 priority is to shoot for a publication of any kind, because if i can't get my stuff seen, then what does it matter who holds the copyright? on the other hand, i don't want to be unnecessarily taken advantage of. but i suppose if that's just the way it's done, then i'll happily go with it. out of curiosity, what was the picture that you had on the front page of the nytimes, and did they buy it from the arizona republic or (whichever organization held the rights), or did they have you on assignment? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaelging Posted October 7, 2006 Share Posted October 7, 2006 Actually I have had several photo on the front page of the New York Times, including a photo of shoppers running though a Target the day after thanksgiving , but the photo of Sammy the Bull Gravano being arrested her in phoenix was the photo that the paper made all the money on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dennis ho Posted October 8, 2006 Author Share Posted October 8, 2006 if that black friday shot of the shoppers was in the last year or 2 i do specifically remember it. pretty funny. so when your paper sells your image to the new york times, what does the nyt photo credit say in that situation? would it say "photo courtesy of Arizona Republic" without your name listed, or "Michael Ging/New York Times" or what? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michaelging Posted October 8, 2006 Share Posted October 8, 2006 It was 2 years ago, I did a pan shot at a slow shutter speed to make her look like she was running fast. She was moving to get one of 50 cheap tvs. It sometimes reads,Michael Ging ,The Arizona Republic, or Michael Ging , Special to the NY times. I usually do get some kind of credit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aardvarko Posted October 8, 2006 Share Posted October 8, 2006 that's rotten pay. The Washington Post pays a day rate, regardless of how many pictures run. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dennis ho Posted October 8, 2006 Author Share Posted October 8, 2006 hi chris. yes indeed, it is rotten. hopefully though, it serves as a stepping stone. hopefully i'll eventually get to a position where i'll be able to shoot for a publication that will actually pay me an honest rate. for now, i just want to make sure that if they're not paying me, that at least they're not raping me as well. we'll see. it might well be that photographic slavery is simply the only way to get into the business these days. i'll find out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ratface1 Posted October 10, 2006 Share Posted October 10, 2006 Dennis, you may want to edit your last post there - just a friendly tip, as a blog entry in college ended up costing a friend of mine a position with a paper. Just because it detailed some drinking adventures, this person was deemed undesirable. Left her unemployed for a few months... But to your question, nothing wrong with freelancing, even if the pay is poor - it gets your foot in the door, and you'll land a job! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now