Am I about to get published again?

[Outdoorsman]

I just sent this off the the editor of the newspaper of the county to our north, in Oregon. I regularly submit local photos both to him and the editor here in my county. The Oregon guy does the "Guidelines" which is the weekly TV listings for both counties. The cover features a b&w local photo, which I have scored once before, if anyone recalls the pic of my brother getting tubed on a small wave earlier this year...
He asked for this photo "ASAP" just a few minutes ago via e-mail, and of course I sent it. But he did not say what for, whether for an ad or his paper or the TV listings cover. If he wanted it fast, I can only guess as to why. The listings run every Saturday, so if he fired off the letter as he left the office (about 6 pm PST) he was probably hoping I'd get the pic sent in overnight or early tomorrow. But if he was working late and needed it today for his paper's Friday edition, I think he's still got plenty of time before the paper goes to press. Anyway, I'm happy about the prospect of getting published again, it's always fun! The populations of both counties will see the photo, which means (my estimate) about 40,000 people will look at my pic with my cutline all week long! Now to get that website fired up...
Oh yeah, the pic: the Highway 101 bridge over the Chetco River in Brookings, Oregon. Taken from a hilltop, not the air, with a 3.2MP Olympus C-740UZ.
-O-

[Photo-John]

That's a really nice photo. I like the composition and the angle a lot. I can see how it would work well for a newspaper or some other type of illustration.

Now the important question. If you uses the photo, you're gonna get paid, right? We work hard to polish our craft and pay for our equipment. We need to make sure our art and trade gets the respect and compensation it deserves.

[OldSchool]

Congrats!

Also, looking at your photo... it looks like a good day to be out windsurfing! Nice point break there...
Cheers,
Tim

[JSPhoto]

I shoot freelance for a couple papers and several websites, all sports stuff. It's ok to get published and so on, but it is a whole lot better when they pay you....ON TIME!

I get so aggravated trying to get paid by the papers it isn't funny. They have been as late a 6 weeks, yet they want "their" photos immediately and on deadline. They don't understand that MY bills have dealines too! (maybe they will read this and get their collective heads out of their -----........

Anyway, congrats, keep p;uggin away, and I hope the check is on time!

[Outdoorsman]

While I don't feel it's appropriate to discuss personal finance in a public setting, I will say that my "e-bill" is sent and waiting for the ed. Monday morning (they're not a 7-day paper). They ended up running it today (Sat.) for an extra feature section about traffic flow problems they're having in the area depicted. It's just raw chance that I sent in a photo he really needed right then. The Bad News: they cropped out the river, used only the top section of the image, and printed it full page width. The image I sent wasn't sized quite that large and so instead of asking for a full-rez close-up of this area of the scene (which of course I have on hand) they just upsampled the hell out the cropped area. It looks horrid... my byline doesn't match the byline format of the rest of the paper.
Yeah, it's cool to see your image in print, but in my experience newspapers aren't that great to work for unless you're on staff. And even then it's not exactly a cake walk...
The important part, I think, is that I had fun going out and getting the image and that I was able to share it with others... thanks for the support, everyone!
BTW, today was my birthday, so getting that photo published was a great addition to the day...

[Photo-John]

Happy Birthday! It is a nice gift. Sorry about the bad print quality. That's a drag. I always ask about final print size so I can control the final quality as much as possible.

I wanted to make a quick comment about the money issue. While I think it's fine if you don't want to talk about your finances in a public setting, getting paid for your work is an important issue for photographers. So, I think it's appropriate to say if you got paid. I make it a point to tell photographers they should get paid. Publishers will often go out of their way to use inexperienced photographers work so they don't have to pay as much. If photographers talk about this and stick together then we can make sure our work keeps some reasonable value. So I ask for larger reasons than just to find out if you personally got paid. I want to make sure that photos aren't given away for free and that we all get paid for our work. As I said before, we all invest a lot of time and money in our craft. We need to get paid for our efforts. And even if a photographer doesn't care about getting paid, one person giving away their work for free devalues every other photographer's work.

[JSPhoto]

PJ,

Are you ever right on this one! The papers I shoot for are a royal pain when it comes to photogs, but I am glad I am not a staffer as it is worse for them.

But what really gets me is that the photogs have thousands of dollars in equipment and get the same "per job" pay as the stringer writers who have a pen & paper, maybe a tape recorder! Ohhh that burns me up! And we are expected to have our own insurance on our gear (same as staff) as they won't cover damage. Of course the writers do not have this expense either. The staff photographer has had a lens damaged and I had one destroyed at a basketball game.

It dosen't help when the paper gets a lot of "sent in" photos that they run and don't pay for. I am a firm believer in banning ALL point and shoot cameras from sporting events as it is hitting me in the pocket bigtime!

Speaking of point and shoot cameras at sporting events, one thing that gets me is how anyone with a P&S gets credentials to events like the Indy 500 and Brickyard 400 and so on. These people look stupid standing there trying to get shots next to the real pro's with 400mm lens sitting on a MKII. Then I laugh when the guy with the P&S complains when a pro gets in his way or the shot didn't come out the way he wanted.
I actually had one guy who was shooting with a P&S at Indy email me and ask if I would GIVE him a photo of this years winner for his website. My reply was short and sweet: $200 it's yours.
Funny, I have not heard from him since!

JS