Local Paper credit; mildly frustrating.

freefall

freefall

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So I take a photo of a local event and loads of people on Facebook like, comment and share it. 150+ likes and people tagging themselves and their friends. I was amazed by the response from it.

I decided to email it to the local paper. In my email I said I was not looking for as payment but wanted my name and website printed as the credit in return for if they use it.

Anyhow, I hear nothing and just presume they didn't like it as I never got an email back. Only I get told well done for being in the paper.... So down the library I go to check it out and its the largest photograph from the event.

They used it and did not let me know. But, the big thing is they spelt my website wrong. Anyone locally who saw that page would not be able to log onto my website and see my other work. That frustrated me cos you never know if a newly engaged couple tried to log on....
 
Then they failed to comply with your terms. Send them an invoice.
 
freefall said:
Does that not seem harsh
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you step into the road without looking, and you get hit by a car
you turn up at the airport without a passport and you can't go on holiday

little errors can cause big problems, so no it's not harsh


free advertising is a good idea though
 
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The very most that you are going to get is a printed correction. You effectively gave the image to the paper as a freebie so any form of invoice will be rightly ignored.

Newspapers have no legal obligation to print credits and doing so was a courtesy.
 
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freefall said:
That frustrated me cos you never know if a newly engaged couple tried to log on....
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I wouldn't lose any sleep over that bit if I were you.
 
I never ever looked at picture credits before I became a photogrpaher.. not for any reason.. did you? If I saw a pic in the paper i just presumed someone at the paper took it..

The chances of anyone seeing a pic in the paper and thinking whoo i want that photographer ... well... not really :)
 
freefall said:
...I decided to email it to the local paper. In my email I said I was not looking for as payment but wanted my name and website printed as the credit in return for if they use it...
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Wrong...Just WRONG.

Their journo's get paid..
Their photographers get paid...
Their office staff get paid...
Their advertising staff get paid...
In fact, everyone else who works for or supplies anything to the paper gets paid for their product or service...
Why shouldn't you?
They want to use your photo to help their business make money why shouldn't they pay...

Try ringing their advertising dept and telling them that you want to book space but you don't want to pay for it because you'll tell all your friends that you booked an advert and that they did a great job designing it and they're great people to deal with. (effectively the same payment they gave you) and see how far you get.

This amateurish attitude of getting off on the w..k factor of seeing your name in print in the local paper/magazine is part of the reason why publications around the globe are getting rid of photographers hand over fist.
Why should they give a job to someone and pay that person well when there's plenty of numpties happy to give their stuff away.

Getting your details wrong in the pic credit shows just how much value they really placed on your image - nothing, zero, zilch, nada.
But you didn't value it either, so why should they?

And Kipax is right.
The only people who notice image credits are other photographers.
My sister contacted me once to tell me about a "great" photo in the paper from an event that I was at and if I'd seen it.
When I said I had, she asked if I knew who took it.
I told her to look at the pic credit "Oh, I never look at those..." she said
 
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Phil, you are straying close to a bit of time off with that post, please keep it civil in future.
 
You sent it in on spec, and really immediately devalued your work by not asking for payment (whether you thought you would get it or not). Having done so you'll get the same degree of attention as any other speculative contributor seeking visibility.

Local newspapers don't have a lot of staff (read: none) who are responsible for letting everyone know that there work is used, or otherwise, on which page and at what size. Nor do the nationals and you'll see from most of the conversations on here that most pro's (who regularly submit and are published) only get to find out their work has been used when they see it in the paper, or get a payment through.

Mistakes happen, and at the most you can expect a small apology hidden away on an inside page at the bottom of a column somewhere. They are not going to give you advertising space for a mistake like that.

If you want to take it further I suspect the most you can do is to push for payment for breaching the terms of your submission - and you'll be £25-40 better of it they pay up.

As for a recently engaged couple seeing a credit in a local newspaper, and booking you for their wedding. Well I guess it isn't impossible but given the number of wedding photographers, and the more usual means by which B&Gs find their photographer I would say it was exceptionally unlikely unless the photograph in question was of a wedding or wedding related event, in the venue that they were planning to get married. And even then it would be remote.
 
You never know. Maybe you could request a free advert what's the worst they can say? Only no?

You don't ask you don't get!
 
DTS said:
You never know. Maybe you could request a free advert what's the worst they can say? Only no?

You don't ask you don't get!
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Payment for a photograph in a local paper £15 - £40.

Cost of an advert in a local paper £150-£1000.

What would you think they are going to do ?
 
Cost of advertising for a small advert on the advert page in my local paper costs around 10% of the lower end of your estimation :/
 
DTS said:
Cost of advertising for a small advert on the advert page in my local paper costs around 10% of the lower end of your estimation :/
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Sorry my estimate didn't include the classifieds or singles listings :bonk:
 
meonshore said:
Sorry my estimate didn't include the classifieds or singles listings :bonk:
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Fair enough - but surely a small advert under a "photography" heading in the classifieds is better than nothing?

That is after all where someone would check, isn't it?
 
DTS said:
Fair enough - but surely a small advert under a "photography" heading in the classifieds is better than nothing?

That is after all where someone would check, isn't it?
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the question is does anyone really look in the paper anymore, I know more people that with check gumtree before they would check the local paper
 
I read both local papers every week with a nice cup of tea :) and always check classified and for sale sections - not saying everyone does mind you, just what I do
 
DTS said:
I read both local papers every week with a nice cup of tea :) and always check classified and for sale sections - not saying everyone does mind you, just what I do
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Would you hire a (wedding) photographer from the classifieds section of a local paper ?
 
I would at least check their work on their website/take a look at their portfolio.

I'd base my decision on their work not their advertising methods
 
I wouldn't lose any sleep over it, although I know how irritating not being given credit is, and wrong credit. As much as I agree with the sentiment that photographers giving work away for free will be the death of photography as a profession, if you demanded any kind of money they would quite happily just ignore you, and either use another photograph (also likely provided for free), or simply not run the story.

Sometimes photographers get a little ahead of themselves and deem the image more important than the story. Well, it certainly isn't to a newspaper editor.
 
Try to look at it this way ;
freefall said:
So I take a photo of a local event and loads of people on Facebook like, comment and share it. 150+ likes and people tagging themselves and their friends. I was amazed by the response from it.

I decided to email it to the local paper. ...

They used it ...
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:thumbs:

Now be happy.

(Next time offer photos to them for big monies. :D )
 
freefall said:
So I take a photo of a local event and loads of people on Facebook like, comment and share it. 150+ likes and people tagging themselves and their friends. I was amazed by the response from it.

I decided to email it to the local paper. In my email I said I was not looking for as payment but wanted my name and website printed as the credit in return for if they use it.

Anyhow, I hear nothing and just presume they didn't like it as I never got an email back. Only I get told well done for being in the paper.... So down the library I go to check it out and its the largest photograph from the event.

They used it and did not let me know. But, the big thing is they spelt my website wrong. Anyone locally who saw that page would not be able to log onto my website and see my other work. That frustrated me cos you never know if a newly engaged couple tried to log on....
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A couple of suggestions that may help:

Call the paper before submitting the image. Try to pick a quite time, ie if it's a weekly, call the day it comes out, not the day before as they'll be mad busy trying to meet the deadline. Late morning is probably a good time to call a daily. Try to speak to the reporter who covers the relevant area. Ask if they have any photos, or do they have the event covered by one of their regular photographers.

This is an important bit, so pay attention: Ask how they want the pic to be submitted . Most will ask for the shot to be sent as an email attachment, not via drop-box or anything like that. Make sure you send it to the right person. Likely file size will be between 1-2MB. Do not add captions or watermarks to the actual image, do not do any fancy editing, such as borders or mono conversion. They will do that if they want it. Make sure that you have added all relevant information in the file metadata - caption, a brief outline of what it is about, your preferred form of credit, contacts.

IE:

Santa drops in at LittleDarlings pre-school on Thursday
Pictured are...
Photo by...
School contact (vital!) is headteacher Mrs Thing, phone...
Photographer contact is...

If you don't include this in the file, your picture is anonymous. Include the info in your covering email as well, but the photo may go to a different desk for processing, and the different desk could well be miles away and image and email can easily get separated. A paper will not publish a shot if they don't know what it is about, and unless you add the data to the file, chances are high that they will use one of the other unsolicited shots that flood into newsrooms.

By all means ask about payment. Don't demand it, don't quote prices at them. If they have a budget for unsolicited amateur shots, you may get a fiver. You should get a credit.

If you don't get a credit, and then rant at them, you have guaranteed that they will never use you again.

You will have to invoice them for any agreed payment, which will probably take a month or more to get to you. Ask how and where you need to submit the invoice.They will not pay you automatically.

If your shot is particularly newsworthy, you may get paid more. If it is very newsworthy, you may be better sending it to an agency that has contact with the nationals, who will pay far more. SWNS may be a good starting point for this.

Big local events - carnivals and the like - are likely to be covered by the paper, and a snapper will have been arranged some time before. Don't send a sunset.They have got lots of sunsets. Millions of bloody sunsets. Sunsets up to here. Ditto kittens and puppies.

Best bet is something like a small village fete or something happening on a Saturday or Sunday evening when all the usual photographers are in the pub at their regular place of worship.

Speculative shots are welcomed by most local papers, but you have to play by their rules. If you keep at it, and your work is good, and submitted correctly, you may find yourself being asked to do shots during busy times, holidays, illness, and the like. And they will pay their standard freelance rate for these. Doing your research first will improve your chances of getting published.

Act the prima donna and they will simply use someone else. There are plenty of polite people trying to get work into the paper.
 
That above advice is spot on for the future but i have to admit i have done my own thing and am quite happy with it. Well actually I'm over the moon. The advice is great by the way.

Well here is an update. I rang them and was really polite. I did state for the record again that I'm not after money but a nice credit would be a bonus in case any brides ever bothered to look up the website. They apologised loads and said they would happily print a correction email in the first few pages of the paper and put my website and a description of my work in the next issue. I jumped at that and said they have exceeded my expectation. The shot was to do with charity and getting payment was not something I was craving but they offered. But I declined, told them to send it to the charity whose work I took a pic of.

After some of the bizarre comments in this thread I expect to be flamed by a couple of people for sending photographers into the gutter. But hey, that charity means a lot to me.

If I wasn't to make money of these shots in the future then I will follow the exceptional advice in the post above. But I doubt I will submit images because I just don't take them often.
 
Post 26 and you now tell us over a week later that its a charity that means a lot to you....if only you ahd mentioned that in the first post eh ? :)
 
KIPAX said:
Post 26 and you now tell us over a week later that its a charity that means a lot to you....if only you ahd mentioned that in the first post eh ? :)
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If he had done that we would have missed the toys getting thrown out of the pram :lol:
 
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