It’s All About Value
[by Judy Herrmann]
Almost every time I give a business seminar, someone asks me about working for free. Sometimes, they’re trying to build a portfolio. Sometimes, a worthy cause, a prestigious client who’s promising more work later or a popular publication that’s offering a credit line has reached out to them.
If you want to build a profitable business, you’ve got to receive fair compensation for your work. The majority of that compensation has to be in the form of cold hard cash – after all, that’s the only way to pay most of your bills. But if the non-monetary compensation on offer has genuine value, it still counts.
Let’s take the portfolio scenario. If you’re going to shoot for your portfolio, it has to be under circumstances where you’re guaranteed to get portfolio worthy images. If the shoot involves people, they’d better have the right look for what you’re trying to achieve. Clothes, hair, make-up, the faces and the bodies have to be perfect for the story you’re telling and the shot has to fill a real hole in your collection. You have to be able to maintain total creative control and shoot for yourself first, them second.
In my experience, neither promises nor traditional credit lines have much value. Hyperlinked photo credits have more value. Depending on the context (e.g. the cachet of the client, the audience their site reaches, the impact of your photos, etc.) they can even have significant value.
If the worthy cause is one you’d be willing to donate money to, you can consider donating your skills instead. Understand, though, that you won’t get the same level of tax benefit. In most cases, you can only deduct out-of-pocket expenses, not the value of your work or time.
Bottom line: use your good judgment. Just because you’re capable of doing something, doesn’t mean it’s in your best interests to do it. My rule of thumb? Every job we take has to provide fair compensation for the market value of what we deliver. My first choice is always cash but I’m willing to consider non-monetary compensation (or a mix of both) as long as the total value we’re receiving matches what we’re providing.
Acclaimed advertising & editorial photographer Judy Herrmann conducts seminars and one-on-one consultations that help people grow their businesses and build more satisfying careers. Judy@HSstudio.com
3 Responses to 'It’s All About Value'
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I very much disagree with this article. While the idea of value is nice we are a profession and to be considered a professional we should stand strong on the idea of getting paid money. If I call up my uncle for help with the car that is different than if I take my car into a professional shop I expect to pay and I expect to receive professional work done right without “well I think I fixed it, you can have it for free just tell your friends…”
Yes assignments are fun at times being both rewarding to our portfolios and life experiences. BUT that’s NOT unique to only photographers I know scientists who hike into incredible backcountry environments to take samples, I know airplane pilots that speak of incredible night time flights over cool terrain, etc.. However non of these professionals would think of doing their fun work without funding – not even a question! What point is a photograph if it’s never published and if there is money for publication, money for bandwidth, money for the writers/designers etc why is there no money for the photographer? Would we have caved so easily if we had a $2,000 lab bill? If you want to do that incredible rewarding once in a lifetime assignment that is going to springboard you to fame and fortune do it with rented gear and see how free the rental store is. Our clients are calling us expecting professional work and this weak minded business philosophy that only photographers seem to cave in on receiving an intangible “value” for their professional work is wrong. Further more internet etiquette about posting ideas on a public forum that surely will get reinterpreted down to the nth degree by an organization such as ASMP is an incredible lack of respect to our own business profession.
Yes photograph does have value today more than ever before go to a professional service’s web site with bad photography and instantly you equate the value of the photography to the value of the service you will be receiving. Go to a hotel with amateur interior images and conscience or not you are going to make a value judgment about spending the night there. And today more than ever companies big and small need not want NEED quality images and if this is your business then strictly speaking you need to charge money for your work!
Dear Jeff-
I appreciate and respect your passion and I don’t think we’re as far apart on this issue as it may appear from your comments.
A few years ago, David Pogue wrote an enlightening article about attitudes towards the theft of digital content. He cited a 2005 speech he gave where he provided a series of scenarios and asked the audience to raise their hands if they considered various actions theft. His scenarios build up slowly: I record an HBO show to watch later… I forgot to record the show so I borrow the recording my buddy made and copy it… I don’t have a buddy so I rent it from Blockbuster and copy that…
My point is this – these ethical questions have absolutes at either extreme but there’s a world of grey in the middle.
My post does not advocate that people shoot for free or shoot for fun. Instead, I argue that there are times when non-monetary compensation has real value and times when it doesn’t. The wise business owner learns how to see the difference and respond appropriately. Stealing a page from David Pogue, let me ask you this:
- A model and photographer both need shots for their portfolio. They agree to do a “trade-for-print” where both get something non-monetary that has real value to them. Is the photographer destroying the industry by agreeing to this deal?
- A design magazine needs content and offers to write a feature story about a photographer that it will distribute to its entire readership. The photographer agrees and donates both time for the interview and images to illustrate the piece. Should she have said “No images unless you compensate me for the usage”?
These widely accepted industry transactions are based entirely on non-monetary compensation. And I think most photographers would agree they’re worth doing.
Let me take this a step further. A few years ago, my studio was offered a contract to be the exclusive photographers for a local magazine. As part of the compensation, we accepted a full page advertisement in the magazine. This non-monetary compensation brought in new business that was worth far more than the dollar value of the ads. We’d have been fools to turn it down.
Every day, literally hundreds of photographers are asked to do work for free. The past has taught us that telling photographers to “Just say No” won’t work. But providing a framework for photographers to look objectively at these deals and realistically assess their true value (or lack thereof), just might.
Jeff & Judy, you really are more like apples and apples than apples and oranges. I think you are just eating off opposite sides of the same apple. We work for cash. It pays the mortgage, buys groceries and gives us a sense of self worth in that we are supporting ourselves. Like many photographers, we have been burned by pro bono work for “well intentioned clients” or causes with the anticipation of getting business from credits or “Wow, who did that work,” referrals. Because there was no fee, they saw no value and didn’t always use our work. The only pro bono work that we do now is our choice and not in response to promises of semi well intentioned credits, etc. We expect nothing and usually get nothing so there are no disappointments.
We have a wonderful nonprofit account that pays our full creative fee and whatever usage and post production fees we charge. If it’s too much, they either walk away or we negotiate a smaller package that fits their budget. They never beat us down on price because we are the only ones that give them the quality that they want. We design a lot of post production image-dependent products using a library of our images shot for them in past years and they pay the post and usage fees as quoted. We have also had successful quid pro quo shoots for services and products equal in value to our services.
However, cash is best and what you are both saying on different sides of the apple is, “Use your good business judgment and evaluate the fair market compensation of what we deliver.” Usually, it’s cash so we can stay in business and have a life, but there are times when we can swap something of equal value to us. It’s not “caving in,” because in our business minds we are satisfied that it has value equal to or greater than the services we are providing.
Like any business decision, we have to determine what value the exchange will have to our business and how it will fit in with our business plan. The balance is different for everyone’s business model, as you have both indicated.
As far as pro bono is concerned, if we don’t expect anything, we won’t be disappointed and once in a while we’ll be blessed.