What's Being Paid For?

This is a discussion that I’ve been on two sides of throughout my time being a photographer. Two sides? Both sides? Maybe there’s more sides. We might find out as I write this.

When I first got into photography it was photographing rappers, so it was mostly me just being happy meeting rappers that I’d looked up to growing up and being wiling to photograph them for bragging rights (because I was just at the end of my “wanting to be a rapper” phase) or actually getting a couple of dollars from them (or having to chase them down for half of my money; King George formally of No Limit Records — yeah, I’m calling out names). This was all going on pre-2010, when the the only site that I knew of that was photography related and dealt with both photographers and models was Model Mayhem (when it was useful). But I didn’t think my skills were good enough to start reaching out to experienced people to photograph them. Plus, I still hadn’t decided to take photography serious yet; I was still had music producer aspirations.

When Tumblr started getting popular between 2012 and 2015, was when I started finding a lot of photographic work from people around my age and my “demographic”, if you may; Black kids from the hoods. This started to spark my interest in photography again, and I slide a foot back in with my father’s Nikon CoolPix 8700 (still not sure why that’s the camera he went with when he came from the days of SLRs and TRLs). Tumblr also came with some interesting models, that until that point I’d only seen on places like Suicide Girls and didn’t really have ways to contact because the social media things hadn’t really developed outside of Twitter.

Until 2015, I’d been photographing friends with the aforementioned CoolPix 8700 and doing “we’re friends and I want to help you get better” work. It was in 2015 when I saw a Tumblr (maybe Instagram) post from a model that I’d be watching for a while that said she was traveling out to the Bay Area to do some modeling work. So I checked my bank accounts and decided it was time to buy a “real” camera. And this is where today’s topic begin…

This model was a working model and I recognized that, so I had no issues with paying her for her modeling skills and time. But the discussion of who gets paid in these type of interactions always arose during the early days, and sometimes, still do today. Now I understand that there are people who are working models and do what they do for a living, so of course they are expected to get paid. But there are also photographers who are photographers for a living and expect to get paid as well. A modeling agency may reach out to a photographer for a job they need done and the photographer will be paid. Just as well, a company may reach out to a model to participate in a campaign that they would like to feature the model in, and they will be paid for it. That all seems standard to me and make sense. But it gets a little tricky when both the photographer and the model are freelancers doing what they do for art or personal projects. Let me explain.

Photographer reaches out to model and lets them know that they would like to photograph them for their book project and they agree to pay model their modeling rate. But now (now meaning “these days”), models are also expecting or even requiring to receive photographs from the shoots, sometimes even requesting a specific amount of photographs. So did the photographer just pay the models to provide them with their work for their own personal use? I feel like this is the only place that this happens. It’s a weird one, but I always use this analogy: You don’t go to McDonald’s to order some food, then give the cashier or the cook in the back a handful of your fries after paying for your food. Now this becomes a touchy subject because it becomes a thing of courtesy versus obligation. The model has offered up their time to work with the photographer, so it would be cool if the model had something to show off from their time working together as well. But they have been compensated monetarily for the talent and time. So is there an obligation for the photographer to also give them they work that would created? Has this now become the model should be paying the photographer for taking photographs of them for the model to use?

I’m sure that photographers in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, would give models a call and offer them a print or two from the shoot that they had together, but the days of the Internet and social media has seemed to make this less of a “work-for-hire” with the nice photographer who would offer you some photographs from the work you two have created situation to a “model profit monetarily and get the work” situation. The photographer has become a tool even when they are the employer, for lack of a better word.

Is this just the United States for the not-so-poppoing photographer? I think so.

I’ve made a lot of photographer friends over the years and depending on their level of popularity, the situation is different. Without putting any names out there, I have on photographer friend in the U.S. who does not pay the model (and people) that he photographs and everyone is cool with that. He’s a pretty big dude in the Internet photography scene as well as is area in the real world. But I’ve also talked to other photographer in U.S. and they seem to be in the same group as myself, where they may have a model or three that they work with on the “homie” plan, but the majority of the work they do is hiring models to bring their vision to life. I’ve also talked to some photographers from outside of the United States and it seems to be the exact opposite. Sure, I’m sure that there are models who would require payment to do work, but it seem the majority of photographers in other places do not pay the people that they create with, and like the first photographer I mentioned, it’s never an issue. Photographers in Taiwan, Japan, and Germany that I’ve spoken with have all told me that they do not pay people to create their work, but 90% of photographers in the U.S. are working with people who require it.

Again, I understand that some models are working models and model for a living. But my argument here is more some over the work that is being created. Are photographers paying the models to create work for them, the model, or for themselves? This is where contracts and agreements come into play. If you are hiring someone for something that is going to yield work that you would like to be used exclusively for you (the photographer) and your project, then it is best to make that clear up front. Even then, for me, I start feeling obligated to shoot “extra” photographs that I would offer up to the models, but I don’t think that should be the norm; that’s when it becomes TFP work.

This kind of turned into a ramble as I had an idea going into this writing, but did not fully plot it out before my fingers hit the keyboard, but I think I laid out the overall idea and ask the important questions.

What do you think? If money is changing hands, what is also expected or obligated to be exchanged along with it? If models are expecting photographs, should they be paying photographers or simply doing Trade-For-Prints shoots?