[WikiEN-l] NYT: Wikipedia May Be a Font of Facts, but It’s a Desert for Photos

[Durova]

Many professional photographers have older work whose commercial value is
almost nil.  In fashion photography, for instance, the commercial lifespan
of a photograph is extremely short.

Here's a featured picture of that type:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gotsiy3edit2.jpg

These types of shots normally go into a photographer's portfolio as proof of
their skills.  Yet often they still have encyclopedic value and the
photographer may have more to gain by relicensing them under cc-by-sa with a
source link to their own website.

-Durova

On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 8:13 AM, Carcharoth <carcharothwp at googlemail.com>wrote:

> On Sun, Jul 19, 2009 at 8:38 PM, David Gerard<dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/arts/20funny.html
> >
> > One error on licensing. Claim that Wikipedia requires you to give up
> > your copyright unchallenged. Otherwise, pretty good! And should have
> > the right effect in terms of promo photo donations.
>
> The bit I found most fascinating was the professional photographer
> explaining how Wikipedia can help his career, but can also reduce his
> income (from resale of his pictures).
>
> "He said that having his work on Wikipedia has increased his online
> visibility [...] but that the costs are potentially high. “This is the
> lifeblood of my career,” he said, noting that photographers may get
> paid very little for a celebrity shot for a magazine. They make their
> money from resales of the image."
>
> Earlier in the article, his contributions to Wikipedia (Commons) were
> described:
>
> "Jerry Avenaim, a celebrity photographer. He is unusual in that he has
> contributed about a dozen low-resolution photographs to Wikipedia"
>
> It would be interesting to compare why low-resolution is considered OK
> here, to support and encourage the revenue stream of a professional
> photographer, but not in the case of the National Portrait Gallery
> (where the underlying works are public domain), and the revenue stream
> is (in theory) supporting the digitisation costs.
>
> I should disclose here that although I am not a professional
> photographer, I do work in the photography industry, and I'm aware of
> some of the ins and outs of how photographers (and others) earn money
> from their services, skills, and the end products of photographs and
> images.
>
> It usually comes down to access and opportunities, in this case to
> celebrities, in the case of the NPG, to a collection of public domain
> artworks. For news photographers, it is being in the right place at
> the right time. For nature and landscape photographers, it is funding
> trips to far-flung landscapes or having the patience and skill to
> find, photograph and identify an animal or plant. And there are lots
> if niche photographers as well, that specialise in certain areas,
> which may require specialised and expensive equipment.
>
> Carcharoth
>
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