A Photo Credit doesn't Pay the Rent

Fully agree here.

Hardly ANYONE reads who took the picture.

Photo credit is worthless.

~Eric

[11A Fotografie]

Maybe I'm the only one, but I think the people that do read the photo credits are either the person that made them, or an other photographer.
When I'm 'reading' the papers, I indeed watch all the photos, and the credits to who made them. But people who aren't interested in photography probably wouldn't indeed!

[Jim Bryant]

I always make it a point who shot the photo. Interesting that most folks don't care. But true, most non-photographers could care less.

[Daisho]

Why would they care?

Here is how it works.

1) your regular Joe blow does not care, he won't read it either
2) Another photographer... might be interested, if he really is, he will mail the paper
3) Some Art director/PR agent He or sure will call the paper/agency and inquire, no matter if your name is there or not and will take it from there. This way he already has a contact to name in his initial call and a picture to connect.

As said, a photo credit isn't worth the paper it is printed on. People want quality they should pay for it.

[Brian Mullins]

I meant to weigh in on this earlier - had to untwist my panties from another thread first.

I shot primary for a bi-monthly magazine (50,000 distribution) for 2 years. Each magazine ran anywhere from 20-25 photo shoots every issue. So, taking on the low side of that equation, that means I had 240 articles with my photos, and credit in them. I was paid for shooting but, I wanted to point out, with that photo credit, it did two things for me.

1 - Other photographers knew my name from the articles.
2 - Not a single client ever realized, until I told them, it was my work in the magazine they read every other month.

So, if you are marketing to photographers, photo credit does have some value. If you are after clients, then get paid because they won't find you that way.

[GadgetRick]

Originally Posted by BigVinnie

Ask them what they pay the writers. Most folks I know read about 1/2 the content in magazines, but they look at all the pictures.

Right but most people notice who writes an article but never pay attention to who shoots the photos. I know I didn't really pay attention to that until I started getting more serious about photography.

This is the cause of the problem from what I can tell.

[Aussie Jo]

I was recently approached to put in a quote to photograph a luncheon featuring a high profile guest speaker for a charity event. I would have loved to have done this function, so I reduced my price a little. Even still I missed out on the job as they had another photographer willing to do it for free. While I can totally understand the other photographer's motivation as I had also considered doing it for free, we both missed out on being paid for the job - which in this case I know that there was allocated funds to cover the photographers fee - so it wasn't necessary to do it for free.

[Jim Bryant]

Originally Posted by Aussie Jo

I was recently approached to put in a quote to photograph a luncheon featuring a high profile guest speaker for a charity event. I would have loved to have done this function, so I reduced my price a little. Even still I missed out on the job as they had another photographer willing to do it for free. While I can totally understand the other photographer's motivation as I had also considered doing it for free, we both missed out on being paid for the job - which in this case I know that there was allocated funds to cover the photographers fee - so it wasn't necessary to do it for free.

Jim - Aussie Jo --- You should educate that person with a cricket bat.

[danbaileyphoto]

Of all the assignment work, stock photo requests, and direct client inquiries that I've gotten over the years, NOONE has ever called and said "hey, I saw your photo credit on that image in.... we'd like you to shoot some photos for us as well."

Never happens. That said, I always specify on my invoices that clients will ALWAYS include a photo credit on my publications, or else the invoice fee will be tripled. Photo credits have value, but they should never be used as substitution for compensation.