Author Topic: Sports Illustrated Fired All of Its Photographers. Does It Matter?  (Read 2138 times)

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Offline ABX

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This is happening in a lot of industries where labor can be purchased cheaper through freelancers. The publican can just buy rights to the images themselves or pay the photographer on a contract basis for an event or season. It isn't just photography. I've seen this in many types of businesses. The cost of employment, especially for required benefits, is skyrocketing and it is much more cost effective to let the 'employees' be a freelancer and buy their own healthcare, retirement, etc. It is funny they left out the ACA impact, they even made mention of 401K, Dental, but didn't list the biggest benefit expense of all..
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orts Illustrated, one of the world's top purveyors of the still image over the past six decades, has announced it will no longer employ staff photographers. That staff has waxed and waned over the years—and has been at zero previously, even in the magazine's heyday—but it was down to a half-dozen men who lost their jobs with the decision. One, Robert Beck, shot the magazine's two most recent covers.

The magazine will still arrive in mailboxes each week, and its pages will still be stuffed with images; to most readers, the loss will be vague at best, symbolic at worst. Sports photographers nearly have always been less famous than their subjects. It's not as if anyone ever wondered whether the person who shot Y.A. Tittle or Bobby Orr or Dwight Clark or Brandi Chastain or Michael Jordan or Phelps-Cavic or Usain Bolt or Muhammad Ali (or for that matter Tyra Banks) had a spot on the masthead, a 401(k), dental....


http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120839/sports-illustrated-lays-staff-photographers-what-we-all-lose

On a related note, now that they are using freelancers, I volunteer to shoot the swimsuit issues.

Online DCPatriot

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Re: Sports Illustrated Fired All of Its Photographers. Does It Matter?
« Reply #1 on: January 25, 2015, 10:55:40 pm »
They probably take them back on as "Independent Contractors".  Give them a 1099 at the end of the year and let them pay their own quarterly taxes.  No responsibility for heathcare either. 
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Offline ABX

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Re: Sports Illustrated Fired All of Its Photographers. Does It Matter?
« Reply #2 on: January 26, 2015, 01:21:10 am »
They probably take them back on as "Independent Contractors".  Give them a 1099 at the end of the year and let them pay their own quarterly taxes.  No responsibility for heathcare either.

Exactly what is happening.

Oceander

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Re: Sports Illustrated Fired All of Its Photographers. Does It Matter?
« Reply #3 on: January 26, 2015, 03:01:36 am »
Some of the photogs might form their own association - make it a partnership so each member has a fiduciary duty to the others and can't go behind the back of the association and take work opportunities - and then each one is an employee of the association.  With enough weight, the association may be able to get exclusivity provisions with publications like SI.  There are plenty of ways to play the game.

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Re: Sports Illustrated Fired All of Its Photographers. Does It Matter?
« Reply #4 on: January 26, 2015, 05:06:01 am »
Some of the photogs might form their own association - make it a partnership so each member has a fiduciary duty to the others and can't go behind the back of the association and take work opportunities - and then each one is an employee of the association.  With enough weight, the association may be able to get exclusivity provisions with publications like SI.  There are plenty of ways to play the game.

It actually opens up competition, too.

There's nothing stopping SI from accepting some free-lancer's work that may be covered at the same event by one of the 'reliable' familiar faces.

My conception of the free market at work.   :patriot:
"It aint what you don't know that kills you.  It's what you know that aint so!" ...Theodore Sturgeon

"Journalism is about covering the news.  With a pillow.  Until it stops moving."    - David Burge (Iowahawk)

"It was only a sunny smile, and little it cost in the giving, but like morning light it scattered the night and made the day worth living" F. Scott Fitzgerald

Offline PzLdr

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Re: Sports Illustrated Fired All of Its Photographers. Does It Matter?
« Reply #5 on: January 26, 2015, 05:11:51 am »
The ONLY issue is how it affects the Swimsuit issue!
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Offline Luis Gonzalez

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Re: Sports Illustrated Fired All of Its Photographers. Does It Matter?
« Reply #6 on: January 26, 2015, 06:41:23 am »
I'm volunteering my services to shot the Swimsuit Issue.
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Offline kevindavis007

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Re: Sports Illustrated Fired All of Its Photographers. Does It Matter?
« Reply #7 on: January 31, 2015, 11:04:34 pm »
Exactly what is happening.


I see that happening all over..
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