I've been published (This is the first one I knew about anyway)

Well done, another free image in a paper, another nail in the coffin of the press photographer.
 
To be honest with this picture it wasn't anything I was too worried about. And as it was local and unfortunatly nothing new in Brackell it wasn't going to make anything other then the local free paper thats about 10 pages long
 
Jimmy_Lemon said:
*awaits the arrival of Victor*
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Looks like poster #2 beat him to it
 
fixedimage said:
Well done, another free image in a paper, another nail in the coffin of the press photographer.
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ooo a free image in a free paper....who cares.

If you haven't got something nice to say, better to keep quiet ;)

Well done OP :)
 
Harvey_nikon said:
ooo a free image in a free paper....who cares.

If you haven't got something nice to say, better to keep quiet ;)

Well done OP :)
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Thank you Harvey,

I wasn't expecting to be shot down in flames like I was. I understand where people are coming from but like I said this is being used in about a 10 page free paper so didn't really expect to get anything from it apart from some recognition with my name under the photo.
 
I had a fire story picture in our local rag. They gave me £30 for it, so you've missed out on a little.
 
SimonBalaam said:
I wasn't expecting to be shot down in flames like I was.
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Aaaaaw come on.. if you announce to the world that you ahve been published in newspaper of any sort..but you didnt get paid then its gonna happen every day of the week.

I am not all that bothered to be honest and dont like getting into the argument about paid.. but your excuses hold no water at all.

SimonBalaam said:
but like I said this is being used in about a 10 page free paper so didn't really expect to get anything from it apart from some recognition with my name under the photo.
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The writer of the article got paid.. the editor got paid.. the people supplying the paper and ink.. the office staff... geeze even the kid on the paper round got paid..... why did you think you where the only person that shouldnt be paid?

If you dont want paying thats fair enough.. your picture your choice.. just the reasoning behind it seems very poor..
 
OP, it's not to do with you being paid for this particular image in this particular paper, more the trend of papers getting - then expecting - images for free.

Well done for getting published but spare a thought for the pro tog trying to feed his weans getting told that you gave an image for free so why should the paper pay for his.
 
I got published a few weeks ago. Albeit the pic editor stole my copyrighted picture from flickr and used it without my permission.

A compensation cheque for 3 figures came in the post yesterday so it worked out alright :D
 
Front page of the local free paper I got no monet for it but wasn't too bothered really. Got credited for it though.

Sorry about the quality my wife sent it from her iPhone
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Being paid in Monet's would be payment indeed :)
 
I understand the comments regarding papers getting images for free. If I had a photo that a newspaper wanted and I got paid for it, even though I am not a photo journalist, would that be acceptable?
 
icnoble said:
I understand the comments regarding papers getting images for free. If I had a photo that a newspaper wanted and I got paid for it, even though I am not a photo journalist, would that be acceptable?
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yes because you miss the point.. the point isnt about taking work off other photographers paid or not..

personally i am a realist and i dont think theres anyhting can be done about it.. its just the way the world is..no point moaning about it.. move on and adapt is my motto... i only responded because the OPs reasons where so ....well.. so silly.
 
Ok I've not said much because I didn't really want to start ranting.
I've said I wanted recognition which I've got. It's the excuse above I used. I didn't see it as silly but as now it seems thats what is being spouted. The other reason why I wanted no money for this is my real hate of drugs and what they do and how people selling the damn things use this addiction to exploit people and the money that in some cases they cant afford so use crime to fund the addiction. It's a vicious circle that should be stopped if possible. At the time I said they could use this photo there were no arrests as the people growing the stuff were not there. In my eyes it was a good opportunity to try and give exposure to people who may know nothing about what happened and may give help to the police to track down the bast**ds that were growing it.

The above is the reason why when asked by the paper if I wanted to comment I said no because I would have ranted like above and to be honest it would have not been able to be printed.
 
we can only comment on the information you give us....if I read that you didnt want paying because its a ten page free paper then I find that silly given the other people got paid.. going by the information you gave...Not a mind reader you know :)
 
Well i'd be chuffed if my photo got published, paid or not, because like Simon, i'm not a pro, but it would be nice to know someone liked it. Well done Simon :)
So I suppose some of you think amateurs should not give away pics in case the pro togs kids starve! lol maybe they should take a better pic than the amateurs then :razz:
 
You really have no idea. It's not about BETTER - it's about FREE!
 
KIPAX said:
yes because you miss the point.. the point isnt about taking work off other photographers paid or not..

personally i am a realist and i dont think theres anyhting can be done about it.. its just the way the world is..no point moaning about it.. move on and adapt is my motto... i only responded because the OPs reasons where so ....well.. so silly.
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True

awp said:
Yep - well done you been recognised - as a source of free pictures! Nothing more.
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Truer.

You might have been willing to give this image for free because of your stance on drugs but I have a feeling you may have shot yourself in the foot if you ever have an image which you feel is newsworthy and for which you do want payment.

If that situation ever occurs then you'll know how the photographers trying to make a living from press work feel when a paper says they can't/won't pay for images because they got some for free from a bloke called Simon last week.
 
I came on here this morning happy I had my first printed photo. I didn't expect to get ripped to shreds (probably very naive of me) I had my reasons as stated above why I didn't mind it being printed for free. I didn't feel like I had to fully justify these reasons. I see this as a great friendly forum and there are some really helpful people on here. It just seems that what I have done has been very frowned upon because I made no money from it. I've treaded on no pro photographers toes with this photo as there were none there when it was going on. If there was a pro there I would not of even bothered getting my camera out.
 
SimonBalaam said:
I've treaded on no pro photographers toes with this photo as there were none there when it was going on.
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You are still completely missing the point!!

Why not tell everyone here you are also chasing payment - because someone used a pic of yours without permission?

What's the difference?
 
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Bevy187 said:
Well i'd be chuffed if my photo got published, paid or not, because like Simon, i'm not a pro, but it would be nice to know someone liked it. Well done Simon :)
So I suppose some of you think amateurs should not give away pics in case the pro togs kids starve! lol maybe they should take a better pic than the amateurs then :razz:
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awp said:
You really have no idea. It's not about BETTER - it's about FREE!
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I was going to make this point but did not want to risk offending the OP.

I'd imagine any photographer, amateur or professional, would rather know that their image was used because it was the best one not because it was the free one.
 
sorry fixedimage - most on here don't care - just so long as they get the ego trip.
 
Bevy187 said:
Simon, they are your images, you can do what you like with them! End of!
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join the club!

I'm sure there are publishers all over the country reading this thread and chuckling because they know they are going to get free images for everymore. Not good images - just free ones. The one in the OP looks like it was taken from a distance - what was wrong with getting close and showing the action?? There were no photographers there to get in your way.
 
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To the OP congratulations on getting published, is a shame it was unpaid, but ultimately that's for you to choose if your happy with unpaid, I find some of the comments amusing to say the least :)
 
I get where you are coming from Simon. As an amateur I'd be chuffed at having something in public print too. Enjoy your "15" minutes of fame and don't let the " **** on your fireworks" brigade on here get you down. I too am beginning to see it isn't the friendly forum it portrays itself to be. A few arses on here ( not on this particular thread I hasten to add) go out of their way to be un- helpful. One in particular replied to a perfectly simple advice request with " I am not your google bitch" or words to that effect. Anyway congratulations on making it to print, and like you said there were no paid togs covering it anyway .
 
awp said:
You are still completely missing the point!!

Why not tell everyone here you are also chasing payment - because someone used a pic of yours without permission?

What's the difference?
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I see your point. I understand your point I'm not missing it. Like I said there were no other photographers. If there were there was opportunities to get much better photos then what I took and I wouldn't have bothered if there had been a photographer there. I only passed it on when they said there were no arrests made. My other photographs are a completely different matter and nothing to do with this I'm sure everyone has read the other thread and sees it in a different way. This photo I gave permission to be used. The other ones were taken with no consent of mine.
 
SimonBalaam said:
I came on here this morning happy I had my first printed photo. I didn't expect to get ripped to shreds (probably very naive of me) I had my reasons as stated above why I didn't mind it being printed for free. I didn't feel like I had to fully justify these reasons. I see this as a great friendly forum and there are some really helpful people on here. It just seems that what I have done has been very frowned upon because I made no money from it. I've treaded on no pro photographers toes with this photo as there were none there when it was going on. If there was a pro there I would not of even bothered getting my camera out.
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The fact that you were there and no-one else was was what made you the best on that night. Unless you shot that from your lounge window you made an effort to go out and take that image, an effort that others, pro or otherwise, did not.

Being the only tog at a job (or the only one to wait in the rain or the only one to walk the extra distance) is great because it means that by default your images are going to be the best. Being best by default doesn't mean you are any less deserving of a paycheck.

PS. If you think you've been hard done by in this thread then I might suggest you don't mention your freebie in real life company of any freelance/press photographers. I have heard tales of tripods or light stands being 'bumped into' and camera bags being used as urinals.
 
Congrats mate, good on you. Doesn't take much for things to get heated on anonymous forums...

I think that the main thing to take from all of the above, is that you deserve to get paid, you provided a service, so next time try to get some cash from them. They may be a free paper - but they will earn money from selling advertising space.

S
 
awp said:
join the club!

I'm sure there are publishers all over the country reading this thread and chuckling because they know they are going to get free images for everymore. Not good images - just free ones. The one in the OP looks like it was taken from a distance - what was wrong with getting close and showing the action?? There were no photographers there to get in your way.
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I didn't get any closer because I was only taking the photos as a distant interest (I knew nothing about the drugs whilst taking them. We found out in the morning) in the dark to see what my D700 was like at high iso and it was late at night and i wasn't even dressed to go outside as I was ready for bed lol.
 
At the end if the day it's up to Simon what he chooses to do with his pics. Some egos on here seem to think it is all about the money, but that's not necessarily true for non professionals. He hasn't robbed anyone of a fee and it is a bit hysterical to suggest that the newspaper publishers will chase him for free pics in the future. Get real some of you.
Congrats Simon .
 
SimonBalaam said:
I knew nothing about the drugs whilst taking them.
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that sounds pretty incriminating to me! :)
 
Marts said:
At the end if the day it's up to Simon what he chooses to do with his pics. Some egos on here seem to think it is all about the money, but that's not necessarily true for non professionals. He hasn't robbed anyone of a fee and it is a bit hysterical to suggest that the newspaper publishers will chase him for free pics in the future. Get real some of you.
Congrats Simon .
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You are completely missing the point.

If there had been other photographers there and Simon's image had been the one that sold and was used then he wouldn't have "robbed anyone of a fee", he would have been in competition with the other togs and would have been paid because his image was the best.

Infact, I would consider Simon to have done the world of fees paid for press images much much less damage by taking a payment for his image. It's not about this image or this paper, it's about the unwillingness of editors to pay pro staff to take pro images because they can get alright images for free.

I doubt this newspaper or any other will ever chase Simon for free images, there's probably another 10,000 Simons out there sending in images and asking to paid with just a byline. However, I do stand by my statement that now Simon has given this paper one image for free he will find it very difficult to get them to pay him for any images he might want to sell them in the future.
 
Look at the Internet - it stands a reasonable chance of being at least one of the nails in the coffin of printed news.

The big titles that do not have unique selling points (Page 3, xenophobia, re-runs of re-examinations of Princess Diana's favourite pair of socks) are having to put up Pay Walls to get people. To pay for news that is pretty much freely available anywhere else n the Internet, with questionable success.

I'm going to kick the hornet's nest and suggest it will be the way with photojournalism: unless a photo does or says something that no others do or will, it is no better than one which comes from a kid's mobile phone, for free. Photographers will have to adapt or do something else.

Economics sucks, but it will always win.

Props to the OP for getting the image out there, regardless of the reason.
 
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