The other day, I was waiting to shoot a concert for a K-Pop girl group performing in Singapore and started to have an interesting conversation with the Media Relations Officer in charge.
This conversation has left me feeling very uncomfortable and til today, 2 months later, I can't really swallow it well.
I asked her if they hired freelance photographers to cover events like these and she mentioned yes.
Then I went on to ask her, because I truly am curious about market rates now... I being a photojournalist have totally lost touch with the outside world....
And this was the reply I got.
"OH... we don't pay photographers. These photographers want to shoot for free. But in return we give them free tickets for the show."
Immediately I start to justify this for the photographer. I don't know why I did , but it's in my nature to give people the benefit of the doubt.
Maybe they are FANS. Maybe they really love to be part of the action and like most of us when we were young, we would "pay our dues" just so we can gain experience and get a portfolio together.....
Then she started to justify this out loud. Which made things worse. I started to feel a little insulted...
"These photographers are passionate... they are very passionate about what they do. So they don't ask for money...They just work for passion...."
This got me thinking...
Where does this leave us, us, who do shoot for a living. We definitely don't do this for the money. Photography is just too painful to reap monetary benefits from. It doesn't happen that way. Not in this line of work.
I am a photographer and I take pictures for a living and I AM passionate about my craft.
But now everyone that owns a camera or a Digital SLR, is a "professional" photographer.
Being brilliant at Photoshop does NOT make you an amazing photographer.
They want to do the job so they undercut everyone else by doing it for free.
This spoils the market.
And it spoils the companies out there who just want mediocre coverage without spending a cent.
I know I said this before, that we all were in that situation before where we would gladly intern for close to nothing (pay) just to gain experience.. but even that was to gain experience to then move on into doing this professionally. The problem with this is that clients would always expect these types of trade-offs. That's really sad. I'm not insecure about my works or my ability as a photographer but it does get frustrating when you meet people out there who hold little respect for the nature of this type of job. Hirers and photographers together.
I had an interesting conversation with Stuart Franklin the other day at the launch of the Magnum exhibition and he was talking about how in Europe, Photography as Art was so niche that it was almost unseen by the commoner. Photographers are King in the European world. Advertisers, creative directors work around a photograph... Whereas here in Asia, where everyone owns a camera.... our craft has been widely accepted which is awesome, but at the same time, cheapened. Perhaps this is a problem arising from middle class societies where everyone has a camera, and photography has become so available that no one respects this form of visual communication anymore. On one hand its a good thing that visual literacy has spread so widely across our country but how do we strike a balance and educate people about the difference between a picture with soul and a snap shot?
It seems like we are shifting toward photographers becoming a service desk and worse still a free service.
I really hope that non of the people I know do this...only because this will not help the industry and the good efforts of many photographers out there who are trying to save this trade from becoming just another shallow means of communication.
