Really tacky!

[Don Dudenbostel]

It's not like this hasn't happened before but it hasn't happened in over forty years. Here's a little background, I'm not a young kid with a digital rebel. I've been in the commercial photo business for over forty six years and have shot for Life, Esquire, New York Times, Parade and many many fortune 500 companies including catalogs for Philips Electronics, Annual Reports for Exxon, catalog and ads for John Deere, ads for Union Carbide, Philips petroleum, Johnson and Johnson, McDonald's and on and on . I'm also a PPofA Master photographer since 1985. I'm not a beginner.

I pitched a potential ad agency client this week and got a call from the creative director today. He goes into the details of the shoot and as we're discussing it he says, "There's no budget". I said, "What, no budget as you want it for free?" That's exactly what they wanted. Anyway this agency has never assigned a job either pay or free to me and they're calling me to get a full day free for something they are making money on. It's not even a charity. I told the creative director that if they had been a good client and assigned work over time I would take care of something like this as a favor but not on the first assignment. These folks know my work and don't need to do a test with me. I also said if it would lead to other pay jobs I might consider it. No such promise was the response.

What do you think, Tacky?

I had a similar thing about three years ago. I did a freebie for three days for the United Way. I directed the lighting for a series of TV commercials and did the still photos for the ads. All of the crew did it for free and we didn't even get a thanks. No thanks at all! The real kicker was the agency that asked all of us including the writer to do this for free got paid by the United Way.

Enough is enough!!!!

[Ari]

Shameful, but, unfortunately, all too common in this day and age.

[Kirk Gittings]

Been there, made that mistake. Fully agree with

I told the creative director that if they had been a good client and assigned work over time I would take care of something like this as a favor but not on the first assignment.

[photobymike]

i feel ya

[Don Dudenbostel]

It just burns me that companies are that bold. Thinking about it I've had a handfull of companies assign work they never intended to pay for from the beginning. One of them was known for that and unfortunate I didn't know. That one I took to court and had the owners Mercedes impounded. Got my money! At least this group warned me up front.

[Don Dudenbostel]

The upside to this is I'm retiring late next year. I love my work but I'm exhausted with business. It's been a fantastic career and I want to leave it while I can walk out on my own terms. I have a great art photo business and will continue that but no more commercial. You get spoiled when you worked in the golden era of the business. It's tough to see the industry reduced to this.

[Jody_S]

You get spoiled when you worked in the golden era of the business. It's tough to see the industry reduced to this.

Sadly, it's not just the photography business that has been so reduced and dumbed down. There is a corporate mentality that views talent as an unnecessary expense, not as an asset.

[ScottPhotoCo]

Honestly, beyond tacky. Bullshit if you ask me. I've been a creative director with some of the biggest agencies in the world for a long time now and left the big agency world to start my own agency several years ago.

If I had ever asked a quality photographer to shoot for us at even half their rate, let alone free, I would have fully expected them to tell me where I could go. If they didn't, I would have wondered how good they were anyway. Working for free hurts everyone, including the people getting the free work as the people doing it likely don't have any vested interest in a quality outcome. A sad state of the advertising business indeed.

My rule is if I work for free then it is a cause or project I believe strongly in, and you have no right to dictate what I do or how I do it. If you pay, you pay my rate and we work as partners to execute a shared vision. Either way I'll give 110%. The difference is the process. For me, there is no middle ground.

I say stick to your guns unless extenuating circumstances dictate otherwise. Good agencies take care of quality people.

Tim

[Don Dudenbostel]

There is a new corporate mentality. I have a good friend that was terminated from his job last November. It was a producer for a fairly major tv production company. He'd been in the business for almost thirty years. His shows were major network series. He was booted out because he was making too much money and replaced by the owner of the business brother in law. It didn't matter that he produced and developed more successful shows than any other producer in the company. His Tallent just wasn't valued.

It's great to be 65 and about to retire.

[photobymike]

Do you know why they want free work? Because they can and will get a hungry photographer anxious to make his bones