Those Were The Days
Jan Wright
Fast forward to a time when the magazines I was writing for started to go under and I started to be looked on as a photographer, this is how I have been earning my living for the last 10 years or so. After an on spec request by an Australian online magazine to write about animals I found I wanted to start writing again, and oh my god how things have changed. Just like everyone thinks they can take photos because they have a phone with a camera, now everyone thinks they can write because the only need an internet connection to write a blog. I made the mistake of going on websites like Freelancers and People per Hour and realised that there is hardly any value to writing or photography any more. You must remember that I’ve never had a ‘proper’ job. I’ve freelanced for the last 20+ years and only had a few regular clients (too few if truth be told), so I’m writing solely from this perspective. As a writer and a photographer I really feel my ‘profession/s’ is/are totally undervalued. Had I specialised either in writing or any particular form of photography I would have gone under years ago. As it is a bit of blogging here and PR and Wedding photography there, I am just keeping my head above water, but at a time when, if things had remained, even slightly the same, I should be comfortable, very comfortable.
Interestingly, as far as photography is concerned, I have found my services as a retoucher in more demand than ever because people are offering their services as wedding togs free or at cost and just can’t do the job. A typical request from brides, ‘Please can you make my wedding photographs look professional’ and how I’d love to reply, ‘yes, it’s easy, get a professional to take them’. Instead I spend more time than I would like making poor photographs look better with every growing frustration. So much so, that my next venture is to embrace the wannabe togs and offer tuition on being the photographer at a wedding, note not a wedding photographer.
With writing, I feel I’m on a hiding to nothing, my turnaround used to be 4,000 words in a morning, although that was my best and certainly not sustainable, now I can probably manage 600 words in half an hour with a few hours break, so I can’t compete with the Indian and Continental writing teams who offer to write 5000 words for $30 (USD) in 1 day. However, there are also reposts of these jobs asking for re-writers to correct grammar and make sentences scan, so maybe writing and photography will be going the same way, and the professionals of yesteryear will re-working the images and words of the wannabies of the future.
I often wonder what sort of argument John and I would have today. I admired him greatly, but so disagreed with him then, as I would now. He would have been fortunate enough not to have to fight the inevitable but get out of the ring. Me and I guess some of you are still fighting. Sorry this is so long, I do get carried away.
Jan Wright (ne Krall)
Malcolm_W
arguments haven't changed, the facts have. You haven't asked for
advice, but I'll give it, anyway: sell to buyers who want quality, not
a low cost. They are out there.
Malcolm
Jan Wright
Hi Malcolm, Thank you for the welcome and the advice and I've been following it. I have been holding on to my principles, I'm just waiting for the day Tesco give loyalty points on them.
Jan
Ben Tudor
Hi Malcolm, Thank you for the welcome and the advice and I've been following it. I have been holding on to my principles, I'm just waiting for the day Tesco give loyalty points on them.
Jan
--
--
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to FleetStreet...@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/FleetStreet
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "FleetStreet" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to fleetstreet...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Jan Wright
I desire food not building supplies, but if they rewarded high principals maybe I could have refurbished the house - hey ho.
Jan
PJ White
> I often wonder what sort of argument John and I would have today.
What would you and John be arguing about? Whatever you wanted. Anything
and everything. He liked arguing. There was plenty of material. That's
partly because of his love of arguing and his skill in constructing
something out of nothing. (The latter also helped when writing columns.)
It's also partly because the forum brought together people who worked in
very different parts of the great forest of journalism. I began to
realise that there was virtually no statement about what journalism is
like that couldn't be contradicted, genuinely and with evidence, by
someone else whose experience was the opposite. I remember your argument
about writing and taking pictures. I think John was exactly right (in
his part of the forest) and you were exactly right (in the part of the
forest you laboured in). That's partly why some arguments were so fierce
and so interminably contested. It's hard to give up when you *know* you
are right. Such fun.
I want to modify Malcolm's advice. It's not enough to say "sell to
buyers who want quality". I've made a point over recent years of asking
every editor and publisher I've met, "do you value quality editorial?"
Funnily enough, they all said they did. I believed them. What kind of
buyer doesn't want quality? The key thing is whether they have the
budget to pay for it. In the sector that paid my bills for years they
don't. The reasons for that are clear and structural. Job ads, govt
spending, and subscriptions all plummeted below a line. Great for
Malcolm and others that their sectors still have budgets. But don't
think it's a volition thing. I admire ex-colleagues, editors and
shoestring editorial staff, still pumping out material as best they can.
They're still professional, dedicated & hardworking. They care as much
as they always did about the quality of journalism. It grieves me to see
that they haven't the budget. It would grieve me more to think people
were dissing them as not wanting quality.
Cheers
PJ
Chris Wheal
Pj as ever, spot on.
Chris Wheal
+447831268261
Sent from my iPhone
Jan Wright
Hi PJ,
Ahh, all the names coming back to me and the memories.
Yes I agree with you. I was totally gobsmacked when I sent of fa batch of pet blogs and product descriptions to an Australian commercial website and they paid me .50c per product description and 1AUD per blog ABOVE what we had agreed because of the quality of content and how I had weaved in the keywords. It renewed my faith in the industry, even if it was on the other side of the world. I also realise that certain sectors like Government have seriously cut their budgets especially for photography and have armed their press officers with point and shoots, which is why the standard of photography has dropped in newspaper reports
Sadly, people really do believe that anyone can be a photographer, because nearly everyone dabbles and I found that more often I had to justify my fee to would-be clients. Now, I simply explain that you really do get what you pay for and what you are paying for when you hire me is 15+years’ experience and a commitment to provide the images asked for. This usually works with PR and magazines, but Joe Public are yet to be convinced that I can produce an image on my £5,000 camera and £1800 lens with 15 years’ experience that is better than they can get on the iPhone, hence the industry of photography retouching is booming. I am even getting work from jobbing photographers who want their wedding, or portrait shots improved, colour balanced etc. to a professional standard, and I know it's happening in the journo world too.
Jan
Nick Ryan
Ben Tudor
--