I have become "Them"!

On occassion, I have seen posts, here and elsewhere, by photographers who are complaining that one of their images, that is to appear in a story or advertisement, in a magazine, has been ruined by having the color balance skrewed up, or having been cropped poorly, or etc., etc., etc. Being a lowly amateur, whose photos would never be used for such purpose, I could sit back, take on an elitist attitude, and think how childish and over-sensitive "they" are being.

Well, this afternoon, I got an e-mail, from the regional Culture and Heritage Commission, seeking the use of 2 of my images, to be used in the next issue of their quarterly magazine. They attached a first draft of the magazine, showing their desired use of my shots. One is to be the cover, and the other a full bleed page, at the beginning of an article.

Both shots, were originally taken in landscape oriention, and, of course, I composed for that orientation. However, they want to use both photos in full page, portrait orientation. So, they intend to crop both heavily. When I saw what they intended to do, my first thought was, "They have butchered my photographs!" Then I realized, I have turned into one of the over-sensitive "them".

Well, I guess that I will have to stop complaininig about the "thems" and the Theys". I am THEM! Is there a cure?

By the way, I did tell them that they could use the images.

Cliff

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http://www.pbase.com/cliffb

I trust they're paying you for the priviledge of screwing up your shots. Nothing like a little remuneration to take the sting out of having one's hard work ruined.

You can either take offense that they would alter the photograph that you envisioned as ideal or be flattered that someone appreciates your insight to capture a certain moment.

Personally I'd choose the later.

--
Derbez

shaggy dog said:

I trust they're paying you for the priviledge of screwing up your
shots. Nothing like a little remuneration to take the sting out of
having one's hard work ruined.

Click to expand...

What he said.

Agree. I would be flattered if someone used one of my pictures in print.

Derbez said:

You can either take offense that they would alter the photograph
that you envisioned as ideal or be flattered that someone
appreciates your insight to capture a certain moment.

Personally I'd choose the later.

--
Derbez

Click to expand...

CliffB said:

CliffB wrote:
When I saw what they intended to do, my first
thought was, "They have butchered my photographs!"

Click to expand...

You know what this means? This means you're now a REAL artist!

Yes, you sold your photographs (and congrats on that). But that's not what makes you a REAL artist. What makes you the REAL thing, is all those hissy fits and getting upset about what the Philistines are doing to your art

Unfortunately, being overly sensistive and having an artistic temperament come with the territory. You're just going to have to learn to live it

I took a picture of my cat acting mad and it was published in the 'Your cat' magazine in the UK. When the lady phoned, to confirm publication, my wife took the credit and it was published under HER name. So things could be worse at least you got credit!

I am on both sides here

I like my photography and see what you are getting at but I also work in magazine production and unless a picture is specifically commisioned for the cover it's hard to get exactly the right one - so you work with what u have.

If they think the pic is good enough to use in portrait mode then I would trust them to pick a good crop of it - it's not elitist to want your pic to be used the way it was meant but sometimes that will happen - does it not happen to most artists in some way? Songwriter having to drop a lyric or even a whole song from their album, directors changing storylines in films to suit the production companies etc?

Great to hear your pic has been used tho

I feel bad sometimes chopping a pic I have been given to use in an advert or something because the sales person has designed an ad and drawn 3 lovely even boxes but given me 3 pics of completely differing proportions!

As you may be able to tell it's a major bugbear of mine

CliffB said:

Well, this afternoon, I got an e-mail, from the regional Culture
and Heritage Commission, seeking the use of 2 of my images, to be
used in the next issue of their quarterly magazine.

Click to expand...

That's just outstanding, Cliff! Congratulations! I'm only surprised that more publications haven't been knocking on your door.

CliffB said:

Both shots, were originally taken in landscape oriention, and, of
course, I composed for that orientation. However, they want to use
both photos in full page, portrait orientation. So, they intend to
crop both heavily. When I saw what they intended to do, my first
thought was, "They have butchered my photographs!"

Click to expand...

Of course, you could always "Just say no"!

CliffB said:

Well, I guess that I will have to stop complaininig about the
"thems" and the Theys". I am THEM! Is there a cure?

Click to expand...

Nope....now, you are one of "Them"! LOL!

CliffB said:

By the way, I did tell them that they could use the images.

Click to expand...

So glad for you that you didn't say "No"! When the magazine is published, please show us a scan.

Again, congratulations, my friend!

****

--
http://www.pbase.com/richardr
D70&C-2100UZ&C-5050Z&C-7000Z&C-3000Z

"So glad for you that you didn't say "No"! When the magazine is
published, please show us a scan.

Again, congratulations, my friend!

****"

lol - you do realise that is copyright infringement - which "they" hold very dear to their hearts

Let's see...I had to make a balance...on one side of the scale, we have artistic integrity; and, on the other side of the scale, we have dollars, pesos, pounds, yen, lira, francs, renmimbi (heck those are still yuan), euros, real, krone, rupees, shekels, drachmas, dinar, rubles, pesetas, rand, marks, guilders, schillings...filthy lucre. OK...the $ side of the scale has gotten very top heavy.

Actually, these are really wonderful folks, with whom I have dealt before. So, I couldn't tell them no. Last year, a shot of mine was one of thirteen images that they used in their yearly calendar. They had such good response to that calendar, that they used the calendar images as a travelling exhibit, that was shown in several locations. They also made that display a seven month long exhibit, in one of their museums.

Anyway, my ego trumps my artistic integrity, every time.

Cliff

--
http://www.pbase.com/cliffb

At least they were good enough to show me how they wanted to treat the images, before asking me to decide on allowing their use.

Cliff

--
http://www.pbase.com/cliffb

Congratulations Cliff. Your work is defiantly worthy of publishing. It is interesting to see how the rest of the world reacts to our work and in cases like this how they manipulate it to work for them. They might have been able to use the horizontals if they were willing to adjust there formats to make the photos fit. Some editors will do this and others will not. I’ve had this photo published sideways:



After it won a photo contest and politely pointed out the error. My feeling is let the view enjoy the art they way they want.

Morris

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http://qcpages.qc.cuny.edu/~morris/POD

I remeber this shot, and, all of the confusion about its orientation. Its easy to see how people can mistake it for portrait orientation. Though, that does make for snow falling in a very strange direction.

Cliff
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http://www.pbase.com/cliffb