I've never been much of an activist. But when Big Pancake came to me with their sights set square on this humble photo of Kerry's family-recipe miniature pancakes* – I saw it as a call to arms. I talked here once about people trolling Flickr for free imagery in exchange for exposure and a photo credit. To Big Pancake's credit, it was not how they approached me earlier in the fall (to be honest, they didn't approach me at all; rather, it was an agency out of the U.S.). The ask was up-front and professional in nature – stating their interest, the end use and asking straight-up what it would cost. Through some research and negotiation – and with the cook's permission (hesitant, but she did appreciate their tag line: pancake lovers unite) – I ultimately caved in to Big Pancake, and accepted their big pancakey cheque in the mail last week. You can now find an agency-modified version of the photo serving as the current background image for Bisquick's online kingdom (the best view can be had at the very bottom of the page). And I can safely say this is the strangest thing to have happened to me in a long time.* I would like to stress that no Bisquick was involved in the making of the above miniature pancakes.
As promised, here are some accounts of Flickr image requests that were unscrupulous, crassly commercial or rubbed me the wrong way, either eventually or right off the bat.
The ask: "I am working on Mazda customer magazines, Zoom-Zoom. We have a section for people to submit their own groovy photos, I think your "Swing High" (above, top left) one will be perfect for our Zoom Zoom moments. I hope you can get in touch with me and let me know you are up for this."
The response/outcome: I own a Honda. Get bent.
The ask: "I am writing to let you know that one of your photos (above, top center) ... has been short-listed for inclusion in the fourth edition of our Schmap New York Guide, to be published early December 2007."
The background: Schmap runs a successful series of online and download-able travel/tourism 'guides' for a multitude of cities around the world, and have a fairly honest reputation with Flickr users. However, they are still a commercial operation, and fair is fair: if you're making money, the folks you glean your photos from should be making money. Yes, even if it's a pittance.
The response/outcome: I'm a tiny bit sorry, but get bent.
The ask: "My name is ______, working at LIZ Editions, Paris, France. I have the pleasure to announce that your photograph (above, top right) has been selected to be published in this photographic book Red Inspiration! This book ... brings together 300 of the most pertinent photos illustrating this powerful color. At the end of the book, there is a Photographer Directory that lists the web address where you can be contacted – to consult your biography or any information concerning your photo (legend, anecdotes, copyright). Edited by LIZ Editions, the LIZ-books (a total of 96 works, including Red Inspiration) present elite photos taken by those who show a particular passion for the art of photography as well as young professionals."
The background: a search on Flickr's help forum details many folks' experiences with this same request. Turns out this outfit sells a whole line of colour-themed photography books on the backs of the most naïve, desperate and attention-hungry Flickr users, and sells them for upwards of $40 a copy through retailers like Amazon. They're turning profits, plain and simple, and not passing it on to photographers who make these books even possible. That's sh*tty business practice. Lowest of the low.
The response/outcome: Get bent. Big time.
The ask: "My name's _____ and I'm an intern at NowPublic.com. Just to let you know, NowPublic is running a news story on American Idol and your photo(s) (above, bottom left) would be an excellent addition. If you're interested in sharing it, please follow the links below and feel free to add your own comment as well. Looking forward to seeing your work on the site!"
The background: NowPublic is a "crowd-sourced, participatory news network that mobilizes an army of reporters to cover the events that define our world" – essentially citizen journalism. However, since crowd-sourcing is currently a blight in my chosen industry, I don't really wish to endorse it in other fields, either.
The response/outcome: Get bent.
The ask: "I am designing a website for Destination Winnipeg, intended to attract people to Winnipeg. I wanted to see whether I could use some of your pictures (above, bottom right) ... would you charge anything, or would credit be enough?"
The response: this fellow was asking about three photos in particular, and I offered an educated answer as to how much they would cost for leasing purposes, based partially on test searches through online stock services for similar shots/usages and a bit of advice from friend and local super-pro Ian McCausland (who informed me of DW's shady practice of sniffing about Flickr for their photo needs). Their response to my response? Nothing. Silence.
The outcome: Get bent, despite the promising start.
Over my time as a Flickr member – just over two years – I've been contacted no less than 19 times via email about image requests. It's a common practice, I'm sure, through the site (but not nearly as common as simply taking images without asking, or the only slightly less grating practice of taking images, not asking, but still supplying credit), and these requests have run the gamut from intriguing, to encouraging, to downright insulting. Requests have ranged from high school projects to online travel/tourism sites, to blogs and podcasts. And to come to an abrupt point, not a single request came with the intention of receiving an image – or an OK to use – by offering any compensation greater than straight-up exposure. Because, I gotta say it, Flickr is a vast, grey realm of chum posters largely inexperienced in these matters, and sharks looking to snag images – stock, essentially – for free.
So in a nutshell, a memo to all Flickr account members: if and when you get asked about a particular photo – and I have to wonder now whether it has or will invariably happen to many – do not get drawn into the alluring high beams of almighty exposure. If you are told in no uncertain words that this opportunity will increase exposure to you and/or your work, then I have to inform you: often times this is codespeak for I'm looking for stock imagery for free and thus, boiled down, I consider you sucker material.
Say no. Or add that you'll consider it, but for a fee. See where that takes you; you never know what may happen. I'll detail a handful of situations that dictated such a response, and others where I believed in the requesting party's cause and shifted my stance. As a Part Two later on down the road, I'll detail a handful of ones I told to essentially get bent...
The ask: a Cornell Lab of Ornithology production assistant requested a mosquito submission of mine for Illustration Friday's long-long-ago theme of "insect", for inclusion in an episode of their Meet the Scientists online video series, about avian malaria and its transmission through mosquitoes.
The approach: courteous, genuine.
The response: a no-brainer for me, the Lab is a huge presence in birding circles. I offered permission after asking a few questions about the project, final application and the image's part in it.
The outcome: video! (you don't have to watch the whole thing, but trust me, it's there.)
The ask: a representative from a Brooklyn, NY, ad agency asked of using a photo of Kerry (above) in an internal microsite for an accounting firm, built to celebrate a local branch's ten-year anniversary. The site would be accessible to firm employees for ten days, each day featuring a different image – yup – culled from Flickr.
The approach: misguided.
The response: (I keep a canned version of this on file now) "Apologies, but I cannot release this photo for use without the suitable compensation. I appreciate however, that you've asked – I know of many situations where this is not the case, so thanks for asking, and best of luck with your imagery search for the site."
The response to the response: "I was wondering if you would just let me know what you would have wanted to be paid for us to use your image for one day in the US. We have gotten approval from all the other flickr photographers for free but we are happy to pay you what we can for use. Could you just let me know what that would be?"
The outcome: this was all it took to open a dialogue, even though I was saddened by the prospect of nine other Flickr users coughing up images for free to an international accounting firm. The agency and I eventually settled on a dollar number for a lease, plus it opened the door to a second lease for an e-invite, effectively doubling the amount. I also asked for a signed separate contract for each use, which the agency provided. The cheque was in the mail for some time, but eventually showed.
The ask: "I'd like to use one of your photographs (above) in a video podcast I am co-producing for the new Peterson Field Guide to Birds ... I would be happy to send you a copy of the book as a thank you for this use, or $20 if you prefer. Your photo would only appear for a few seconds onscreen. You would be credited as a photographer in the closing credits of that episode."
The approach: all-business.
The response: done and done – I opted for the book, and downloaded a nicely-made podcast on North American wood warblers (which look to be accessible now only via their website and a registration process).
The ask: the web services coordinator with the City asked about using my hot-air balloon panorama of downtown (above) as the header of the City of Winnipeg’s redesigned website. Since it was not mentioned in the initial message, I led with a more open-minded variation on my canned response.
The approach: professional, informative.
The response: through a dialogue, a two-year lease of the image was agreed upon and a contract was signed. I did not opt for selling the image outright, another option that was presented.
The outcome: my image is now poster child for the City of Winnipeg website for the next two years.
Just goofing around, experimenting with this 2005 shot of Kerry's niece taken at Batoche National Historic Site north of Saskatoon. The interpretive centre there had a tickle trunk of sorts full of vintage clothes, and Anna – camera-shy on that particular day – was proud to show off.
The edge effect I pilfered from Renee Robinson's (aka the immensely talented Playingwithbrushes) Flickr page. Her photostream is stuffed to the dusty rafters with elegant, delicate portraits and other imagery – the perfect treatment for Photo Friday's current theme of old-fashioned. A closer look at the original photo can be had here.
One of my more rewarding Flickr finds has been the CBC Radio 3 group page. It's a decent enough depository for quirky or interesting snapshots of Canadiana (mixed in with some straight-up scraps of randomness) – and I've contributed more than my fair share, 41 in total. But the ultimate goal of anyone submitting to the CBC Radio 3 group is being chosen. Chosen specifically, as image of the day, a special moment in a photo's life where it ascends to official background status on the CBC Radio 3 homepage. This past Tuesday, a photo I took of my Rocket Robin Hood buttons for the 2006 GDC Manitoba button swap attained image-of-the-day status – the second time I've made the cut (the first being last June, with this shot of Kerry on the swings in Matlock taken with slide film many moons ago). In addition, this shot of a grumpy Shriner in last summer's Icelandic Festival in Gimli was used on the CBC Radio 3 blog (below) in a discussion about, well, summer festivals.
For this, I earned the pleasure of receiving a free t-shirt and nostalgia-riffic CBC button in the mail while away on vacation. Yeah. So there. Free t-shirt. I figure that's fair, not only for a day's use of a couple photos, but also for the many Canuck bands I've discovered through their Friday podcast.
I'm foregoing the task of just meeting Illustration Friday's weekly challenge and tripling the effort to include merits that meet the Sugar Frosted Goodness current theme of hats, IF's own theme of tales and legends ... and a hilarious Flickr drawing group dedicated to – of all things – bears in ill-fitting hats. This troika developed into what you see here, and while the sketch's suitability for Flickr and SFG is clear, for Illustration Friday it's perhaps less so. But there is a certain leniancy to IF's theme this week that allows for some interpretation, so read on.So how does a grizzly bear come across a papal hat? The answer to that might not be black-and-white, but this concept is loosely based on a legend widely used in the realm of sarcasm – that of the Pope s**tting in the woods. The Urban Dictionary defines "does the Pope s**t in the woods?" as follows: a sarcastic answer to a question with an obvious answer of "yes", or "duh", taken as a combination of the similarly-intended "does a bear s**t in the woods?" and "is the Pope Catholic?" – also phrased in the form of "is a bear Catholic?"
As such, my grizzly bear is clearly Catholic.This bear was based from a photograph searched for on Flickr, a great source of reference material (the hat itself I found in Google image search). Most of this piece was sketched with my thinnest pen, a Pigma Micron 005, using thicker nibs to hash out any edges. Selective colouring was intentional here; I was aiming for a piece much more sketchy than normal, and didn’t want the use of colour to overpower the time I spent with my sketchbook and pens (click here for a larger view of the sketch-work).
