“…it is now quite easy to find quality photojournalism without ever picking up a newspaper or magazine. Unfortunately, not nearly as much innovation has taken place to fund these photo stories as has taken place to display them. Aside from obtaining a grant (or taking on a side job), there are very few ways to replace the funding that major news organizations once provided to cover conflict, foreign affairs and investigative stories.” -Tomas van Houtryve

Tomas van Houtryve, whose work we love, has an interesting post about experimenting with alternative funding sources for his photojournalism. Magazine funding has dried up, so he’s using his websites and online services such as PayPal and Flattr to solicit donations as a way to fund his long-term documentary work. Others, such as Molly Landreth, have also had success raising funds with kickstarter. I’ll be interested to see the results.

Update (by ML, 9/14): We just added a Flattr button to this and an older post where we featured van Houtryve’s amazing project from North Korea. As you can see, it is unobstrusive and very easy for bloggers to add the button to posts featuring someone else’s work. An exciting development, can’t wait to see where this may lead.

“…unlike traditional employees, [freelancers] lack any labor protections to ensure that [they] get paid for the work [they] do. Freelancers Union found that 77% of independent workers have experienced nonpayment at one point, and in the last year alone, more than 40% of New York’s freelancers had trouble getting paid.” -Freelancers Union campaign letter to support NY Bill S8084

For anyone who remembers the Digital Railroad debacle or who has been stiffed by a deadbeat client, the Freelancers Union has started a campaign to draw up support for New York State Legislature bill S8084. The proposed law, sponsored by New York State Senator Daniel L. Squadron, would: grant freelancers the same wage protection as traditional employees, require the Department of Labor to pursue freelancers’ unpaid wages, and holds deadbeat executives personally liable for up to $20,000 and jail time. If you’re in New York, you can join the campaign by emailing your state senator through the Freelancers Union website. And for balance, here’s a New York City lawyer’s opinion that the law is misguided or, at least, won’t help freelancers who are already at the mercy of a patchwork of confusing laws.

“The Washington Post Co. said Monday it has sold struggling Newsweek magazine, which it has published for half a century, to audio industry pioneer Sidney Harman.” -Washington Post sells Newsweek to stereo mogul, CNN

CNN reports that Newsweek has been sold to an audio industry magnate. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but the new owner may be on the hook for financial obligations totaling tens of millions of dollars. Sidney Harman pledges “to continue to produce a lively, compelling and first-rate news magazine, but also an equally dynamic Newsweek.com.” This comes after a Chinese group’s recent failed attempts to buy the magazine.

Getty’s got a new scheme to turn flickr into a revenue stream. Now, flickr users can set their pictures up to have a “Request to License” link underneath all of their photos. When someone clicks that link, they will be directed by Getty through the licensing process. The licensing fees, all royalty free, seem to range from $5 to $425. Getty will keep about 70% of the licensing fee. The BBC has good coverage of the deal. And Amateur Photographer outlines why both amateur and professional photographers should be worried about the Getty-Flickr scheme.

‘Amateurs are not necessarily au fait with the value of their images and could be persuaded to license them to Getty for low rates, thereby undermining the rate that professionals work so hard to achieve.’ -John Toner quoted by Amateur Photographer

The previous Call For Artists partnership between Getty and Flickr, launched two years ago, drew a fair share of criticism. See on flickr member’s experience, entitled “I feel like I got screwed by Getty,” as an example. In the first two months, the photographer made about $200, but the royalties soon dwindled to just a few dollars for each sale.

(via Slashdot, of all places)

The Aftermath Project

The Aftermath Project is working on publishing it’s next book, War is Only Half the Story, vol. 3, and the organization needs your help. Each print run costs about USD$20,000. Now, you can buy a print (warning: pdf link) to help fund the publication of the next volume. Prints are available from Ami Vitale, Davide Monteleone, Rodrigo Abd, Saiful Huq Omi, Donald Weber, Asim Rafiqui, Louie Palu, Andrea Bruce, and Sara Terry. The prints aren’t cheap, starting at $400, but they’re beautiful and help support the funding of future long-form journalism. The book is an interesting project, as well. The new volume will feature the work of the 2009 Aftermath project winners and finalists. Sarah Terry, director/founder of Aftermath, describes the book in more detail:

Our annual book is a central part of the Aftermath Project’s mission to help educate the public about the true cost of war and the real price of peace. It is distributed free to a broad audience, including every US senator; journalism and peacebuilding programs; and museum curators around the world. It is also available on our website, www.theaftermathproject.org.

(via Donald Weber)

Newsweek is up for sale, after two years of staggering losses. After a redesign hoped to reinvigorate the weekly magazine in the era of internet-speed news delivery, the publication saw declining ad rates, declining circulation, fewer pages and pictures in each issue, much less original reporting, and substantial staff cuts. James Fallows, of the Atlantic, has a great perspective of what place Newsweek holds in the news magazine ecosystem and why an Economist- or Atlantic-like strategy won’t work for the magazine.

The current problems faced by the newsmagazines remind me of an item published on the New York Times’ Paper Cuts blog about the founding of Life magazine, ‘The Show-Book of the World’: Henry Luce’s Life Magazine Prospectus. Of particular note in the prospectus is the second section, which addresses the need for thoughtful visual journalism, and it rings even more true today:

Pictures have become a dynamic power in the Fourth Estate of the Twentieth Century. But, although people demand and get pictures in nearly every periodical; although the gravure section of the New York Times is the section most “read” by the distinguished clientele of that journal; although pictures have made FORTUNE famous; and although the superlatively successful Daily News is commonly regarded as a picture paper…

Nevertheless, people are missing relatively more of what the camera can tell than of what the reporter writes. With more or less success they “follow” the news–i.e. the written news. They scarcely realize how fascinating it can be to “follow” pictures–to be for the first time pictorially well-informed.

For this there are many reasons. Pictures are taken haphazardly. Pictures are published haphazardly. Naturally, therefore, they are looked at haphazardly. Cameramen who use their heads as well as their legs are rare. Rarer still are camera editors. Thus, many a newsworthy picture which can be taken is not taken. Thus, too, only a fraction of the best pictures of widest interest are brought to the attention of any one alert U.S. citizen. And almost nowhere is there any attempt to edit pictures into a coherent story–to make an effective mosaic out of the fragmentary documents which pictures, past and present, are.

The mind guided camera can do a far better job of reporting current events than has been done. And, more than that, it can reveal to us far more explicitly the nature of the dynamic social world in which we live.

-Henry Luce, June 1936 ‘The Show-Book of the World‘

Change a few words here and there, mention the ubiquity of photos on the internet, add a bit about the shift of news reporting from facts to opinion, and Luce’s prospectus could easily describe something missing and much-needed in the current mediascape.

The Photojournalists’ Cooperative is shaping up to be a great resource. A facebook group now numbering well over 2,000 members, the Cooperative is designed as a place

“to give freelance photographers a platform where they will exchange ideas and help each other maintain high standards as they navigate the dramatically changing business of photography in the areas of: image licensing, contracts and copyright protection.”

The group admins are an impressive array of working photographers, and the membership is a diverse range of people from those just entering the industry to well-established photojournalists. There’s a little more information at lightstalkers, and much more in the facebook group. Membership is open to anyone, but you must have a facebook account. And while you’re logged in to facebook, consider linking up with us, too.

You should be reading Mike Davis’ blog if you aren’t already. Now a freelance editor, Davis started at the Albuquerque Tribune and has worked for numerous books, the White House, the Oregonian and National Geographic; his awards are too many to name and he’s edited the winning entries of many top awards numerous times. In short, the guy knows what he’s doing. His blog now serves as a sort of oracle into the process of picture editing, and it’s full of practical advice. The posts are varied–there are interviews with photographers he’s worked with (here’s one with Matt Slaby on creating long term bodies of work (Slaby previously interviewed on dvafoto)), discussions of compositional theory, ideas behind how bodies of work should be edited, career advice, and on and on. Bookmark it, subscribe to the RSS feed, read it every day.

Like APhotoEditor, the people at Photoshelter are putting out some great posts recently on their blog. Of special interest recently are the posts: The 7 Common Tax Mistakes Made By Photographers, 8 Ways to Get More Work From Existing Clients, Why People Aren’t Linking to Your Photo Website, Secret Social Media Marketing Recipe from Photographer John Lander, Combat Photography, Wounded Warriors & the Long Wait for Help, and The Mix – The Marketing Formula of Successful Photographers. Lots to chew through there, but most of it is a quick read that’ll hopefully lead to a more thoughtful examination of your own business strategies.

Maybe you’ve already seen this, but it was new to me today. The reviewer takes a look at how Time (likely the issue featuring Daryl Peveto’s Tea Party coverage), GQ, and Popular Science, are using the iPad to showcase their content. Looks beautiful to my eyes, but I can only imagine that creating both pretty horizontal and vertical versions of content will increase design time and money. Even in the poorly shot video above, though, the photos look beautiful. Will it save the world? Journalism? Photography? The jury is still out. Photoshelter has corralled a few opinions about what the device means for photography, the New York Times has a wide-ranging set of opinion pieces, and there are many other reviews available.