…and would be hunted with only her cunning to protect her.
Anyhow, I spent a while today reminding myself just how exploitive the media market is from a photographer’s point of view. Everywhere I look, there’s something new reminding me that about the most important thing I can do for myself as a photographer is simply to cover my ass. It doesn’t matter how good of a photographer you are – you will fail outright if you let the art directors, ad agencies, etc take advantage of you. I know it sounds pessimistic and untrusting, but they will fuck you over. Just give them that chance.
In the new issue of Photo District News there’s a short but very valuable article about things to watch out for in ad agency contracts – things you have to deal with when you license (and note I didn’t say sell) your images to an ad agency. There’s all kinds of sneaky things in the fine print. Shit that, for example, if you agree to it essentially makes you into a human shield to keep the ad agency safe in case someone sues over the use of a photograph. Or things that transfer ownership of your images to the ad agency and grant unlimited use. All kinds of things that are extremely bad from the photographer’s point of view, but very good (if immoral) from the ad agency’s point of view.
Sad but true, the world is out to fuck you in the ass before beating you near enough to death that you can’t complain but not so close that you can’t recover to be subjected to it again.
But life is great. Really it is.
Tonight I FINALLY finished printing my friend’s wedding pictures. Talk about a pain in the ass. 70+ prints, all done by hand in the darkroom. Never again will I willingly shoot a friend’s wedding. Or any wedding for that matter. And if I somehow get conned into shooting another wedding, I’m shooting it all on C-41 chromogenic film and having a lab do all the printing.
It’s nice to be done.
It’s also nice to have a job. Or rather, it would be really nice to have a job. That’s right, I’m still unemplyed. Boo. Boo hiss. Stupid job market won’t stupid let me stupid get a stupid job. Grrrrrrrr. Submitted an application at a big textbook exchange in town today and went by the temp agency and told them I’m back in town, so if nothing else I should have a little part-time work coming my way within the next couple of weeks.
I hate money. I really do. The only thing I like about it is that it allows me to do things that I want to do. But I hate that I don’t have it and that it’s so hard to come by in any significant quantity and that it twists around human society into such bizarre and perverted forms that we spend the majority of our days fighting with the rest of the world to get a large enough piece of the action to not starve to death and perhaps work to the poitn of being able to achieve some other perverted concept relating to quality of life.
This really isn’t going anywhere. Time to go do some other shit. As usual, another post later tonight possible if I feel so motivated.
