Last week signalled the end of this year’s run of summer music festival shoots. The final one, Golden Plains, played out under gear-meltingly hot weather and left me exhausted days after. I reckon I clocked two twelve hour days of shooting, plus another maybe ten hours of editing. I was paid $300 for my work – flat, without allowances for travel, nor additional compensation for post-production. The pictures were published on a widely-read major entertainment website.
This, in the live music photography world, is a very privileged position to be in. The publication I was commissioned by treat their contributors financially better and with more respect than most other Australian music/entertainment sites, which is why I’ve shot (live music) for them exclusively for some time.
And I’m glad, to a point – despite my rate working out at around $8/hr for something like Golden Plains – because I really love shooting music, and something’s better than nothing, right? And, as everyone repeats to me: no-one earns anything in music editorial.
I’m ‘happy to’, also, because in some ways I’ve been trained to be. Emerging music photographers are taught early that being selected to shoot a show is a privilege, and that their payment (which is more often than not show admission) is fair, even enviable. There are plenty of other people who want the job. The tickets are expensive; you’re lucky.
These arguments have been repeated to me so many times – by editors, and by other photographers – that it seems most everyone believes it. I don’t. I think it’s absurd – a skewed culture of imposed gratitude, applied in the wrong direction. I am not grateful for the opportunity to work for free or for a low rate.
A healthy system would work like this: photographers are hired to shoot something because their work is worthy of publication, because they’ve worked hard to get it to that standard. They would retain full copyright always, and be paid, and if payment is impossible (which, granted, it sometimes is) then other compensations would be made. Made because editors are grateful for the favour their photographers are doing for them.
For example, such compensations could look like: loosening licensing restrictions so that once the commissioning publication has run the pictures the photographer can on-sell them for profit. Like: minimising photographers’ festival expenses by arranging food vouchers, in return for including pictures of the catering outlet in their festival gallery. Like a bartering system where a publication works with its key advertisers to help sponsor photographers’ exhibitions or books. Or simple stuff: throwing photographers comp passes to shows they’re not shooting.
I’m not pitching these as concrete suggestions – rather, pointing out that with a little thought and creativity (of which there is no shortage within music media) contributors could feel valued even when they aren’t being so financially. Budgets exist, of course, and indeed many editors do an amazing job in stretching them in their contributors’ favour. However, there’s no such cap to explain the shortage of these non-monetary forms of compensation.
Regarding finance: photography’s a prohibitively expensive profession. We outlay for equipment, for maintenance, for insurance, studio hire, computers, backup systems. If we’re not paid, we don’t break even as assumed, because we need to first recoup expenses. In fact, we usually factor our business expenses into our quotes.
I currently feel so undervalued doing this type of work that I’m on the cusp of abandoning music shoots entirely to work only in fair photographic sectors that have proven they can reward me for my services. I watched another music photographer whose work I greatly admire get to this point recently and drop out, which was sad. I was excited to see where her music work would end up. But I understood, too – it’s exhausting and time consuming. Although there are other means for us to sustain ourselves as photographers, it doesn’t make the lack of proper compensation and respect for the work we create in music editorial any fairer.
Because, after all, work is not ever just about cash – it’s also about being and feeling valued. The basic freelancing options available are: to work solely in music editorial, which is currently financially unviable. Or, to work in music editorial and offset the meagre income by also working outside of it, which in my case means corporate shoots, private clients and working for publications in healthier sectors. Another (limited) option is to work in music but to bypass traditional media outlets and shoot directly for publicists or sponsors. A fourth option is to not work in music at all – the field that personally inspires me and that lured me into photography in the first place.
Note that these complaints aren’t really relevant to small, in-kind shoots for struggling musicians and the like. Working for free for these guys is a different kettle of fish – they’re largely in the same boat as photographers. Some, as a side-note, have found wonderfully creative ways to recompense me for free shoots without a budget in sight. Nor do my arguments refer to personal work shot purely for creative expression. My issue is with the exploitative attitudes of many large-scale music publications.
Though these publications and their editors shoulder some of the blame for the situation we’re in, photographers are also at fault – for continuing to accept unreasonable conditions and for undercutting those trying to make a living, bringing the standard of treatment down each time they do. Some publications feed off this willingness and attempt to increase their demands while further lowering their rates.
You’d assume going lower than ‘nothing’ would be hard, but some publications have spiralled so far down they’ve inverted: I became aware recently of an Australian magazine that has demanded its contributors pay for the privilege of producing content. I’m sure there are contributors out there who have accepted these terms. It’s a circular and destructive system, and its existence has a lot to do with how we’ve learned to see ourselves and to value our own work.
Now, I feel guilty for writing all this. It’s uncomfortable to step outside this pervasive indebted mentality. But I’ve come, eventually, to see the situation this way: people hire me because they’re impressed by the body of work I have worked really, really hard to produce. Thus, the only person I need to feel grateful to for being hired is myself and those who have taught and supported me along the way.
Perhaps, affirmative psych talk. But a job’s high desirability does not make it ok to skew contributors into believing they’re lucky to do that job for pittance. Nor does it equate to something being easy work. Multi-day festivals are some of the hardest jobs I’ve ever shot. While writers work in teams and alternate to ensure rest, photographers generally cover whole events alone, not stopping for fear of missing something, with an extra 15kg on our backs.
Similarly, enjoying a job and having fun while working is not ample compensation for producing said work. I love my job – love it – but there aren’t many occupations outside the arts, at least where this is deemed a factor in deciding rates of pay.
On rates: as we stand, the 2011-12 MEAA recommended freelance photography rates (currently in review) are:
Photojournalists, per day: $1,135
Photographers, per day: $911
Per half day: $607
Per hour: $227
Photo reproduction $217 for a single column photo (scaling upward from there)
This means, for a job like Golden Plains, at one of the highest rates available from an entertainment publication for live music photography, I worked at 8.8% of my recommended rate as a music photojournalist. That is if we calculate the rate offered to me at $100/day and if we ignore the business operational costs I generally charge for.
I see no reason why large, commercial entertainment publications are exempt from at least working toward recommended freelance rates. Clearly the full amounts would be laughable to many, especially those that don’t understand the costs of running a photographic business, but surely few would argue against an increase from the 8.8% mark, which is the top tier. Remember – most photographers covering Golden Plains/major festivals are not paid at all.
The publications in question are all backed by major companies and attract significant corporate advertisers. Editors must work within the budgets assigned to them, sure, but they also possess the skills to push back harder on our behalf and to find creative ways to improve conditions for contributors.
It is not indie publishing, and I need to feed myself.
This article was in part inspired by exhaustion and in part by this Tumblr and its spreadsheet,which lists publications globally and outlines how they treat their photographic contributors.
