News Snaps: The Shaft

Hey, guess what, photographers? You’re getting the shaft again! From everyone! Enjoy. No, seriously, you are. Whether from rockers or from ad agencies, you are being asked to give up ever more of your livelihood.

Ad borg Omnicom (parent of BBDO, TBWA, DDB, Martin|Williams, etc) is enforcing their payment policy in which “ad agencies will no longer assume liability for a project if a client doesn’t pay. This could force a photographer to eat the cost of an ad shoot if a troubled advertiser fails to pay an ad agency.” As if. ASMP is recommending that photographers give no “grant of copyright license until all related assignment invoices are paid in full.” How about also not shooting unless paid something up-front? Especially from such sterling companies as, oh, GM, whose new terms say “no advances” and that “GM will ‘typically’ pay ad agencies within 60 to 75 days of an invoice, who will then pay the photographer.”

At least we can all still rock out photographically at concerts… er… oops, guess not. Morrissey (Morrissey, of all people!) recently sent out a contract to show photographers asking them to sign over all rights and negatives! Get out! Apparently Coldplay has been doing something similar lately. Read more about concert photography at the Make Major Moves site.

Better, instead, to go dig through the archives at your local museum. Seriously. Apparently the Art Institute of Chicago shows only 120 images from their 17,000+ collection of photographs! The shame! But you can ask to see the collection and they’ll let you. Maybe you can take a peek after your next yoga session in the museum atrium. With the economy and budget cuts and all, many museums are branching out in unique ways and perhaps “museums are the new community centers.” Just make sure to wipe the sweat off your body first. I’d rather not have that locker-room smell hanging around
the exhibits.

What’s old is new again. Yes, apparently there is a growing trend to get your images printed up on metal plates. Didn’t we leave those sort of materials behind in the 1840’s? Not one, but two companies I’ve recently seen are doing this. AluminArte is a process of printing on an aluminum plate from Image Wizards and you can get “Chrome” prints that are fused polyester on aluminum from Laserlight Printmakers. I’d love to see some samples in person.

Finally in this installment, with the increasing trend to release movies in 3D, it baffles me that the beloved Viewmaster is hitting the scrap heap with the elimination of most of the reels. If you’ve got any old reels you don’t need, let me know!