It is not complicated, but who cares, apart from the poor model.
Just as lingerie models are trimmed down above the hips to suit the purpose, in this case, I guess, it didn’t harm to emphasize the wrinkles (and the worst, also the aged hands and arms.)
And maybe price pressure doesn’t allow for more than a generic retouch.
We have upcoming elections and was called few week ago by the PR team of a party. They asked price for one particular picture out of a series about social homes in Antwerp. A shot made from a not evident angle, perfect moment of the day, perspective wise correct and reflecting the architects vision of social houses.
I had to reanimated the PR guy after I said my price. He didn’t want to pay more than 75€ VAT included. Belgian tax taken into consideration it would leave 25€ netto. His reference was stock photos and ‘gifts’ from befriended journalists.
I saw the actual folder and the used picture. I think it is a phone pic taken out of a car.... they got it for free.
That is where we stand with the business.
(It was the communist party, maybe that played as well)
For me, it's been a few years since I was over and out. Since then, digital and all that stuff has made it difficult for everyone - or not, depends - and it does seem that people want a lot more from a photographer for a lot less, which also seems a bad business model, to say the least.
However, the expectation of low price is nothing new: clients, especially small people, have always been looking for something for nothing, if only because they have no idea how much money it takes to stay in business as a photographer. The next problem is that they have no idea how expensive it is to produce print.
When I was still producing bespoke company calendars there was the occasional person who wanted to know what it would cost to make perhaps fifty calendars. They didn't understand when I pointed out that you had to make perhaps three or four thousand of them to get the unit price down to be affordable as company gift, in the manner you might give a few people a bottle of scotch.
That's why the big printers used (?) to make a lot of money selling small batches of stock calendars to such tiny companies: they could offer a selection of pre-prepared stock illustration pages with space for a company overprint at very low cost. Nobody could originate at such prices. Matter of scale and spreading cost over many thousands of little firms.
A difference today could be that the current generation of art buyers has grown up in the era of cheap pictures and doesn't even know how photography was prized and priced even twenty-five years ago. As bad, I guess those young ones now doing the photography are also mostly unaware of what's been lost to them.
As for the supermodels - who even calls them that anymore?
Mainly, I think stills is over, making me happy I was in for a few of the best years.
Rob
