Knowledge is power - New site for pricing photography

[Jack Dahlgren]

One of the founders of a discussion list I am on has introduced a new resource for professional (and others I suppose) which allows them to share information about going rates for photography. His feeling is that many of the new people in the industry are nearly giving away their work because they are unaware of what prices have historically been paid to photographers and that the consumers of photography have an advantage due to this asymmetry of knowledge.

I have no stake in it, but I think it sounds very interesting. I believe it is entirely free, so I'm not sure what the business model behind it is. Check it out here:

http://www.shakodo.com/blog/16/shakodo-opens-to-the-public-press-release-december-8th-2010/

[Kirk Gittings]

The only problem with that as I see it.........in public photographers are total BSers about the fees they are getting. I used to belong to the one of the big national photog orgs-you all know the name. Thursday night meetings were like a bunch of silver-back males pounding their chests bragging about fees and rights. Come Monday morning they were undercutting each other like their career was a fire sale. I learned not to pay much attention to surveys of photographers about fees etc. I believe only what I see on their actual invoices.

[Frank Petronio]

Yeah the president of our chapter used to do all-rights buy-outs for his day rate all the time.... I guess he made out OK for a few years but he eventually went bust like a lot of the rest of the chapter.

Not advocating doing buy-outs for the same price as what others would charge for one-time rights... I note that the people who hold their ground on rights are most often the best photographers creatively too.