speaker-0: Pause. Excuse me.

speaker-1: There's the intro. Bill

speaker-0: I'm sorry! How is that?

speaker-1: to continuous agitation with Jay and Bill. All right, so last time we were talking about the Instagram post ⁓ about unlimited usage and how we felt that it discounts the reality of what's going on in the world of commercial photography these days. Yeah. If you haven't listened to the last episode, go back to the previous episode and then join us here again.

speaker-0: What's the controversy? I can't

speaker-1: Keep going back to this perfect storm idea, but it's a perfect storm. Not only are clients increasingly asking for w work for hire, not only are they ⁓ increasingly unwilling to give me significant information about what I'm bidding on, not only are they they want the quote now, ⁓ they won't come back to, hey, we like your quote, but we'd like a few little changes. They w

speaker-0: Dis yeah, they won't discuss it. They won't discuss it.

speaker-1: You you get one bite at the apple, and if your quote wasn't the one selected, best of luck to you. That to me is another huge difference. And I don't I'm not smart enough to understand exactly why that has changed so much. I sort of chalk it up to th they're not as used to negotiating that was part of our business ten years ago is not maybe as much a part of the business now. They've gotten their free quotes and

speaker-0: I think the younger people are are ⁓ intimidated by having those conversations. People don't like conflict and you know, I mean sometimes it's younger people who are talking to us and it's just uncomfortable. And they don't I mean what I get when when when there's some resistance, I told you about you know one that I just had the other day. And w when there's some resistance or it costs too much, what I get is just silence. and if I check in, then in this one case she was frustrated enough to say Well, I thought it was gonna be yeah, we don't have the budget. I thought it was gonna be two hundred dollars, not nine hundred dollars. And, you know, there was there w she was really throwing shade at me there. which is fine. I mean, d she has a right. ⁓ but to think that I can go out I'd like to discuss this this experience actually, but to think that I can go out for two hundred bucks, like I th there's just very, very little ⁓ That's not a that's not a business model that I can really sustain. I can't just go out and do things for two hundred bucks unless it's like, you know, for a for a a kid or for my friend or something like that. It's just it's it's really actually even then, it's not it's not worth it. Either it's free or it's like minimum five hundred or a thousand, depending on what you do. I used to have a rule that I wouldn't go out the door for less than a thousand. I would like to have that rule still. Yeah, I don't I mean increasingly have to be more flexible on on my rules, but ⁓ To to push back on the other thing about, you know, on the other end of this of this discussion in this post, I mean, there were there are a fair amount of people who were ⁓ frustrated with people saying that we have to give unlimited usage and increasingly have to do that more. ⁓ some of them, I mean, I and I respect most of these people. One of them is an architecture photographer that I follow and I th his work is fantastic. ⁓ and he's MP Kelly. And he says the capitul his name is Mike Kelly. The capitulation here is depressing. My success in financial independence is largely attributable to being stubborn as a mule regarding licensing. I've never had a shortage of clients with the model, even very, very early in my career. Everyone needs to read blah blah blah blah, learn how to be c overcome the common objections.

speaker-1: That's an answer out of time. That's an answer out of time.

speaker-0: Well, he's also an architecture photographer and people do clients do ⁓ in that range and as someone who has switched recently, I have noticed this. There's more of an openness to that discussion. There's more of an expectation that you're gonna also license imagery to the contractor on the job and the landscape architect and other people. ⁓ what

speaker-1: Without knowing the details, what I hear in that answer is he is great enough now that he knows when they call him, hey man, I cause I get ⁓ look, ⁓ I get a little bit of this myself. If someone calls me for a corporate shoot, I'm like, this is in my wheelhouse. I'm gonna charge them a reasonable fee and it's not gonna be inexpensive, and I'm gonna kill this for ⁓ Uh-huh. And if they wanna save some money and get a lesser quality of work, fine. That is a wonderful place to be. An empowered feeling of like, I'm the best choice for this.

speaker-0: Yeah, and you get there typically after in the second half of your career, let's say.

speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. And I'm sure Mr. Kelly is there and he built that reputation in a in an environment where that works. And he's now at a place where I would bet he still is getting pushback. ⁓ And he's going, Well, why look all these newbies are ruining this for me? No. They don't have a system that allows them to push back. What they have is a system where they go, Well, actually it's ⁓

speaker-0: I bet he is getting pushback and he's he's

speaker-1: It would be a thousand dollars extra for a three-year license, and the client's gonna go, Well, I don't understand why, and we're just gonna go with one of these other bids. And he might argue, well, that's why you can't give those other bids. This bell has been rung. It ain't getting unrung. The cat's out of the bag, the Pandora's box has been open, and there is a flood of content creators coming from a different system, whether that system is social media or video production, where usage was not done. By all means, I am here to say keep bidding with usage. If you feel you can do it, do it. I still do it.

speaker-0: I push back. I mean, you know, I'm bidding against people. We just talked about the other day, like my client who used my photo in an ad that they did not that the licensing did not cover. And that's because other photographers have not ⁓ had that discussion or limited the use in any way. So I I'm frustrated when other people in this specific niche, in specific specific to architecture and interiors, are not are just giving away all the usagers, giving the images to the other to the to the clients. And I haven't gotten a great sense from the other from my competitors how much they're holding the line on usage. But do I wish that they would? Yeah. I definitely wish they would because then it would become easier for me to do it. And it's a fairly small thing. This is not like talking to a nation of of larger clients or even ad agencies that or production companies that don't want to pay it anymore. This feels like a battle that could be won. So to be fair to Mike Kelly, there is a good reason to push back on that. A hundred if you can get it.

speaker-1: My argument really is just it it's too late. I don't disagree with him at all. I I think I think I don't disagree with Ms. Stern. I don't disagree with him. I don't deg disagree with anyone who's saying we should do this if they were saying if what they were saying is we should have done this. We should have all unified and said we're not even going to consider jobs that don't include limited usage. And and if if we had held the line This would be a discussion. It does not strike me as we as reasonable to expect this these days. That that there are too many people who came up in a system already who are who are 30 years old, mind you, not 20, who who have been doing this for nine years and maybe they came from video, maybe they came from social, maybe they ⁓ w wherever they came from. I mean, I had an assistant probably 15 years ago who did a photo shoot for ⁓ ⁓ a a a major denim manufacturer in the United States in exchange for eight pairs of jeans. Like and it lived on their so and he was, you know, he was nineteen and he was hip.

speaker-0: Well, but that's so that's an example of someone who should definitely have known better though. Who should have been

speaker-1: Education. Because he was he was just a kid. Right. He had no idea. Okay. He was like, I'm skating with my friends and I'm getting some free jeans. That's that's what we're up against. We're up again this is not happening now. This already happened.

speaker-0: Well, but how can you how can you meaningfully say we, quote unquote we? I mean, the to calling all photographers we is just such a it's such a big tent. You can't say like it just doesn't s feel meaningful to say, well, we should have done this and we should have done that. We're a constantly varied vast thing. And the reason, you know, the architecture photographer that it doesn't make perfect sense for the architecture photographer to write in and say, Well, you should hold the line on licensing. Yeah, for you in your niche. of a at a certain skill level and which also that's a very technical sort of niche, that makes sense. But you can't just like apply that to everyone else. You can't apply the high end advertising or even the middle advertising.

speaker-1: He's bidding against other highly skilled architectural photographers who all know that. Right. So it should not be less, it should not be as much of an issue for him. For me, I'm not a generalist, but I think I'm closer to a generalist. And when my phone rings, it might be an agency, it might be a mom and pop, it might be an irrigation company, it might be a regional company, it might be in-house marketing at a Fortune 500 company. But almost irrespective of their status as a company, I don't have any idea what they expect to spend. Some of my best paying clients last year with the best terms, biggest scopes, and biggest paydays, for lack of a better way of saying it, are s are smaller companies. And some of the sticklers who have the most egregious rights grab contracts and the slowest pay terms, and just the worst deal overall are the global mega corporations who know Well, if you want to work with us, you're gonna accept these terrible terms and these lower rates. And again, supply and demand is undefeated. You can't be mad at somebody who his last four bids have been returned dead on arrival because he included usage license. And then the next time the guy goes, I gotta get this job. All right, ⁓ here, this includes unlimited usage because I think that's what everybody else is bidding on this, and then they get the job. I'm sorry that sucks. That's the reality we're up against. Every time I give a bid, I have to assume I and I do assume that at least one other person bidding against me is charging a fraction of the fee I'm charging, irrespective of usage. So I I try to simply base my response on what I think the client expects and how much they value what I do. If I'm a warm body who's been invited to bid, I'm gonna be as competitive as I can and I'm gonna minimize. usage and and and and line items and equipment fees and I'm gonna try to bundle it all together for what seems to me to be a fair fee as my best shot of getting the job.

speaker-0: What are we saying? What do what what would our ⁓ different advice be to anyone who's like and if we if ⁓ who's having this conversation, like let's say like younger people getting into this or people who've been shooting for a while, anyone who's struggling with this, as as I am. I mean I try to I try to to to package usage. What is our advice if it's different from hers? Is it just to give it, you know, just to include it?

speaker-1: No. Number one, have a J in your life or a bill, ⁓ or preferably multiple, and do what we do and call each other and go, hey, I'm I'm I got this request. How would you handle this? Here's what I'm thinking. ⁓ well, I think I think you're a little light on this. I think you could do this. ⁓ I'm worried about this. That is invaluable, number one. Number two, you have to start ⁓ really getting into the weeds with ⁓ understanding your your client expectations and and what what they are most likely to be expecting from you. And that's really difficult. The best way around it is to build your I I think a real business person would call it a a funnel. Yeah. So that you're in sh you're you're sure that the only people calling you are agencies and high end people. Whatever

speaker-0: it is you want, that is s a certain amount of pre-qualification, so you don't have to have this education conversation every time if you can do that and still get enough work.

speaker-1: I get Google search calls, I get agency calls, I get production crew, crewing companies call. And I know when a pr s for example, one of the commenters said these production agencies have been ⁓ a a bane to photographers' existence. I get these calls from a crewing company that'll be like, hey, we're we're shooting a a a a video project, a TV commercial for XYZ Corp. ⁓ we need a photographer, and I and Nine times out of ten, it seems to me they're expecting to pay a flat fee of twelve hundred bucks for the day. Yeah. And I'm just not willing to do it. I'm just hit best of luck to you.

speaker-0: That's what people on that on that thread are complaining about. And they're saying like the production companies have ruined everything 'cause they just play that pay that

speaker-1: You have to have a limit. I'm not suggesting, ⁓ we all just give it away. But we we have to gain as much knowledge. Clients are not a monolith, right? The agency representing Coca-Cola and their next photo shoot is not does not have the same expectations as the irrigation company down the street. And that's not to say you have to do licensing limited usage with one and not with the other. you just have to really try to understand what is this client's expectation. If if we're if if we're gonna charge based on value, well then when the local irrigation company calls me for a chute and I recognize, ⁓ this is gonna get seen meaningfully by two hundred people, should I do that shoot for thirty-five bucks because the value's so little? No. So i there is some amount of like my expertise, the value I bring is at least somewhat Irrespective of the audience you're gonna capture.

speaker-0: Well that was the argument for dividing creative and and usage fees in the you know ⁓ in the old days and I still sometimes do that, but it's gotten it's gotten difficult. What I more often do is put it all in one creative fee and then include the I have another line that says usage, but it's included. That's how I handle that.

speaker-1: If I get any inclination that the client understands or expects usage, I absolutely line item it out and I absolutely spell it out and I absolutely limit it. If it feels like I got one shot at this bid, ⁓ I'm not going to get a chance to ⁓ educate them on this, or if I do, they're just gonna leave pissed off and not understanding why my bid is higher than the other person's. ⁓ I'm gonna either factor it in in my own head and then build it into the creative fee. Or I'm gonna go, look, this is one where I think I gotta I gotta eat shit and and and offer unlimited usage on it.

speaker-0: How that not punishing the client who's the good how is that not punishing the good client who knows the difference? ⁓

speaker-1: In theory, it's in theory it's because that client is getting higher value for the work, right? They understand usage because it's gonna be a high profile thing. Probably the the chart of people who understand usage and a higher value image in terms of audience and how often it's gonna be seen, they probably track pretty well together. You know? So it's it's it's harming them the same way it was harming them w or punishing them. when you charge them more for their usage because it was just gonna be a higher profile use for a higher profile client.

speaker-0: I guess.

speaker-1: If when I get a bid, when I get a request from an agency, I'm including usage. I assume that audience is familiar with usage and I'm including it.

speaker-0: You mean what do you mean you're in

speaker-1: Sorry, in I'm line I'm I'm I'm spelling it out. Yeah. I'm saying here's a one year fee, here's a three year fee, whatever. And I'm gonna let them come back to me, hopefully, and say, Hey, what if we wanted this? Because a lot of times they come back and say, Hey, what if we wanted five years usage? And then you increase the price and they go, Yeah, that sounds good. We'll do that. I've had that happen ⁓ I would say plenty, but I guess maybe not recently. ⁓ my my advice, my my as much as I'm qualified to give advice, I don't know what the hell I'm doing, much less what somebody else should do. I do know what I'm doing. I'm figuring it out and it's changing and we're trying to adapt. And the way I'm adapting is really trying to understand what I exp what what I believe the client expects. And do they expect usage? And if they do, I spell it out. And if they don't, but they should, I fold it in. And if they don't expect it, don't understand it, and don't want to be educated about it.

speaker-0: Yeah, I do I handle it similar to the way you handle it, although I I try to fold in that value as much as I can and charge appropriately if I think it's a higher profile gig. And I also I mean, I also try to just sort of get the the the idea of the budget ⁓ from the outset. So it's sort of it's sort of all wrapped into the art of bidding and estimating itself. ⁓ it's not sort of independent of managing limited usage or not, or managing the license or not. And I really think the battle is more, as you said earlier, over work for hire versus not.

speaker-1: I think they're also finding like, hey you guys, there's a lot more photographers out there. Let's just say it's gonna be this, take it or leave it, and one of these people is bound to do it. I th I think I get the impression that that is that they know they've got us over a barrel. They know we're gonna get tired of not getting jobs and we have to figure out how to address that.

speaker-0: Are they even thinking about that? Is the average client even thinking about that though when they come to you? Your irrigation company, you know, client, for example, who comes along. They're not thinking about maybe that's a bad example, but they're not Well, but they offered you decent terms though.

speaker-1: Yeah yeah. They offered me decent terms. It's a very small business. ⁓ you know, I gave ⁓ a quote for twelve thousand dollars. They're gonna be fine with it. It's basically gonna be unlimited usage and did you s Well I probably did. I probably did because I did give him I was thinking I had just kind of talked to him, but I haven't. I I gave him a proper bid. So yes, and I don't recall exactly what I spelled out, but a a boilerplate in a situation like that would be that I would have probably said I would have looked at who that client was and their understanding of usage and their their their need for these images. And I would have thought of it as like, all right, these are basically ⁓ of limited value after five years, so I can think of it like a five-year usage and ⁓ give them a give them a price and call it unlimited usage. F ⁓ no the the the line that I frequently will draw is No, I definitely say no third party no third party licensing included, no paid advertising included.

speaker-0: No third party use? Right, I say that too. Although I've I've encountered resistance to that as well. Hundred percent.

speaker-1: Yeah, a hundred percent, but I'm gonna let them say it, right? And that feels less egregious. That that to me is my way of saying, like, hey, are you an agency who should know better? No? Okay. Or or hey, do you have do you have designs on a thirty thousand dollar ad spend here? Okay. As opposed to are you just gonna do some direct mailers and put some pictures on your website for your local ⁓ small business irrigation company?

speaker-0: Mm-hmm. In which case maybe I don't need to maybe I don't need to break your balls about this usage conversation where she's exactly she won't understand at all

speaker-1: Yes. I think they feel beat down about that stuff sometimes. And I and I just think pretending that I could say to that client, so here's the deal. ⁓ you know how you and everything else you do in your life, you pay a guy to come do a job for you and then you say thanks so much and you never see each other again? Well, in my case, I'm gonna do that, but then in a year I'm gonna call you up and say, pay me again.

speaker-0: He's gonna look at you like you have two heads. But to to someone else's point here, what about all the things that we pay subscription models for? Increasingly, and that's is usually IP based. It's software, it's you know, it's an ongoing thing. How often do you do you own your Photoshop? Do you own your copy of Photoshop?

speaker-1: Good news, Jay. No. My theory for how we proceed, which I will n I will only tease today. My theory for how we're going to do this in the future, because people need content, they don't need one hero shot. ⁓ and and I know they do sometimes. I'm talking broadly. The bulk of the need is for lots of photos, good photos, nice photos. Quote, we don't need a Hollywood production here, but they want it to look nice. Their need is a fire hose of content for all of their their stuff. So yes, I'm gonna tr I'm gonna give them a subscription fee, a retainer, something along those lines so that I get repeat business. You are signed up for a quarterly photo shoot and you will pay me, you know, whatever per year to have a quarterly one day session where I'm gonna shoot content for you and I'm gonna make it as good as I can within those constraints, and you're gonna look at that and go, boy. Two thousand dollars a month seems pretty good for that. And they're gonna get four photo shoots and they're always gonna have new content. I think that's gonna be the process going forward that more of us are gonna do. Yeah. There's room for usage in it where where appropriate, but for the for the local ⁓ three person law firm, maybe not. ⁓ for the local irrigation company, maybe not.

speaker-0: But even if you set aside usage, because I like that idea of that model. Like I would love to get clients on a repeat thing, even if it's like not a high, high production value kind of thing or a high fee thing. If I could have a retainer situation, I keep trying to introduce that to certain conversations and haven't had luck so far. But even there will be resistance even there. There will be, you know, I I would anticipate the stumbling block being, well, we don't want to pay up front. We don't know what we're gonna be doing, you know, in in a year. And so we just wanna w just give us the just give us the efficiency pricing now for one shoot.

speaker-1: Well, can't do it for one shoot. I can I can happily do one shoot. Right. Well, and in my case, I don't the the and I've only s just started doing this within the last couple months. I I f I frame it as content creation. We can and I and I frame it as we can talk about whether it's stills, whether it involves video, we can talk about special f circumstances that are out of scope here. But if what you need is content, and what I need is to

speaker-0: Cost you fifty percent more.

speaker-1: ⁓ pay my rent.

speaker-0: And charge for my w what I need is to charge for my work. Is to charge appropriately for my work.

speaker-1: Fee for my work. Well, I can come up with a situation where in fact the one I just mentioned, the guy didn't know where he was gonna be in a year. And he was like, I'm not interested in this in a year. What I want is something over the next four or six months. So I'm gonna do four photo shoots, assuming I get the job. His reaction was quite positive. But if I get the job, I'm gonna do four shoots over the next four or six months and essentially ⁓ make three thousand dollars a day for four days over the next four to six months. And he's gonna amortize that payment as two thousand bucks monthly over the next four to six months or or three thousand bucks if he only does four months. This particular client, if if I thought about it, th even the way I would have proposed it a year ago is I would have said, yeah, here's the cost for a day for me to come out and shoot a bunch of content for you. And let's say I got four grand for that. I I I don't know I would have gotten one payment of four thousand dollars and then I wouldn't have done any more work for him until he needed me next time. This way I I'd much rather do four times that work for three times that fee. It's just the reality.

speaker-0: I absolutely would rather do more work for a lower a lower rate for the work, but do more work overall and also the the paycheck is w way higher. It's just a way better way to to stay in business.

speaker-1: Work begets work. Yeah. My goal is always to try to be reasonable and flexible with people, not to get walked over, not to give away the farm. But as you said to me, I think on microphone recently, ⁓ maybe it was just in conversation, like you give the same bid three times and you don't get it and you say to yourself, I don't think this costs that anymore. Yeah. It's not going in the direction we thought it would ten years ago. It's going somewhere new. There's just a lot of less people.

speaker-0: Yeah, it was just a lot less people becoming photographers.

speaker-1: ⁓ you think? I think they're becoming photographers, but they're becoming content creators.

speaker-0: There aren't very many of those jobs though. There aren't very many of I don't think there are very many of those jobs though. The in-house photographer, videographer at the at the design firm. I mean there's a few.

speaker-1: I feel like every one of them, if it's big enough, has somebody. Some twenty-four-year-old is doing it until theoretically until they go out on their own. But now the going out on your own is harder because of all the things we've been discussing. I still contend in the future the job that you and I do will be more closely thought of as content creation f primarily for social media and the the commercial photography part of it.

speaker-0: I hate that word. I hate it. I content creation. Content Content's a terrible word. It's terrible. I mean it ju I that doesn't sound like anything I want to do.

speaker-1: Yeah. Because it represents the devaluation we are exactly talking about. The the sooner we understand that that's what it is, that's what the clients not all of them, not a hundred percent of the time, that's the need in the in the industry going forward. It's gonna be the American Society of Content Photographers.

speaker-0: Yes so it just sounds boring, but Well, and I guess on a functional level on a functional level it covers photo and video and potentially even illustration and things like that. And even writing. That's content too. So if you're you know, if you're like, well, it's mostly photography, but there's a little bit of this other stuff, then you can say content to mean all of it. But it's annoying. Continuous agitation. Okay, you gotta be quiet now. Continuous

speaker-1: Okay, go ahead.

speaker-0: Three, two, one. Continuous Agitation is produced by Jay Fram and Bill Swalik. Write a review and rate the show on Apple Podcasts. Five stars, please. Follow Jay on Instagram at J Fram. That's J A Y F R A ⁓ Follow Bill on Instagram and threads at Swalik. That's S-A-W-A-L-I-C-H. Read Bill's newsletter about photography at art and math.substack dot com. Write to us with questions, comments, and effusive praise at j at jfram.com or bill at swallop.com. Thanks for listening.

speaker-1: Yeah.