Dover Council in photography row (update 2)
The Dover Town Council, in a bid to keep costs down, is calling for photographers to send their images at the "highest level of definition" necessary - for free
Author: Olivier Laurent
24 Nov 2010 Tags: RightsCopyrightMoral rights
According to Kent Online, the Dover Town Council asked a design firm to update the town's website with a picture of the famous White Cliff. However, in a bid to keep the costs down, a picture of the wrong cliffs was used. "Local photographer Ray Newsam spotted the error," writes the newspaper. "He studied the snap on the Dover council's home page and realised the cliffs pictured were, in fact, the Seven Sisters in Sussex - 76 miles away."
The Dover Town Council was forced to admit the mistake, which it blamed on the need to find images without copyright. "Part of (design firm's) remit was to keep costs to a minimum, therefore nothing with a copyright was used," town clerk Michael Webb tells Kent Online. "This caused its own problems, since it was hard to find a copyright-free photo taken with a professional, high-definition camera."
But now, the city has called for all photographers to send their high-definition images of the cliffs to be used on the site - without remuneration.
Speaking to BJP, Webb says that the "photograph has been on the website for four years, and it has never been a major problem. We never claimed that it was an image of the White Cliffs. What we put on there was a small picture of a bay, and we have many such bays around Dover."
He adds: "What we're now saying is that if people wish to provide a photograph of the White Cliffs, they can do so, but it would have to be of the highest resolution."
Asked why the council did use a professional photographer to provide such an image, Webb says that "in due course, that's what we will do. But all we're doing in the meantime is to offer the public a chance to provide such a picture."
Photographer Steve Bloom tells BJP: "As a professional I find it disturbing that photography has been devalued in this way, and this is a classic case which demonstrates how taking short cuts can be counter-productive. It is up to all photographers to hold out for fees where relevant and for amateurs to realise that where their images are used professionally, they have every right to insist on being paid."
Bloom adds: "Town clerk Mike Webb should also understand the meaning of copyright-free, which is different from royalty free. Even if he publishes a picture on his website without paying, the copyright still belongs to the photographer unless otherwise transferred in writing, and photographers should never give up copyright to their work. They should only license the images for publication for a fee, stressing that the license is 'one-time', so that the images cannot be used indiscriminately in the future."
UPDATE - 24 NOVEMBER, 5pm: Amateur Photographer magazine reports that the Council has asked Dame Vera Lynn to help select the image that will be used by the council. However, town clerk Michael Webb maintains that the photographer won't be remunerated. "We are all hard up, we are all strapped for cash," he tells Amateur Photographer.
Comments
Dover Council Should Pay for Image Use
I doubt very much if Dover Council have any intention of paying for an image of the famous White Cliffs. There are plenty of people with digital cameras who will be only too pleased to see their images used in any way. These people with cameras should get wise and charge for their services, otherwise companies and organisations will keep looking for freebies!
Times may be tight, but I doubt very much if Dover Council takes too kindly to anyone who does not pay their council tax.
high-definition camera indeed!
[...]photo taken with a professional, high-definition camera."
I love it when people don't know what they are talking about, but keep talking anyway.
for the type of responses they get from an open invitation they if they figure any body can snap a pic, they should just grab a camera and go shoot the photo on their own .. prolly get the same results ... with the wrong pic up for soooo long its obvious quality is not at all a priority ..... or perhaps they are too cheap to pay for the gas it requires to drive out for the shot
As a professional photographer I've noticed a worrying trend this year where many clients are getting photographs free from Flickr. Amateurs are excited to see their work published (and often seem to think that it will lead them to a Pro career) and give up their best pics for free.
In turn clients put less budget aside for paying for photography.
Stuart Hollis
www.hollisphotography.com
I do not get any work from my town council even though I run a professional photography business in the ton. They give it to an amateur who happens to be closely related if you see what I mean to a councillor. This appears to be the case for almost every facet of professional work which should be tendered. The most popular search for photographer is 'cheap photographer' You pays nuts and you gets monkeys. I have one image taken recently where the amateur attending the event is seen in my image taking I can only assume a pic of the mayor's arse as I was at the front end taking the shot used for P.R. thankfully the town council wasn't paying or I would have got nowt.
Alternative Headline - Taxpayers pay £500 for a pro photographer to take picture they could have had for free.
how much does the BJP pay photographers to put their work in its magazine and online?
sometimes the money just cant be allocated especially when its taxpayers money better spent on something else. The reason photography is so popular is because just about anyone can do it.
How would this picture benefit the people of Dover?
Alternative Headline - Taxpayers pay £500 for a pro photographer to take picture they could have had for free.
how much does the BJP pay photographers to put their work in its magazine and online?
sometimes the money just cant be allocated especially when its taxpayers money better spent on something else. The reason photography is so popular is because just about anyone can do it.
How would this picture benefit the people of Dover?
I just put my comment on our local web forum for a bit of fun about a council cock-up but glad to see it has taken off with this angle. Have a look at www.doverforum.com, thread title in the members section is "Website boob" but is also on the front page.
btw it is Dover Town Council responsible, Dover District Council are not involved and are very professional.
I want a high definition camera now....
One would think that pictures on a website for a town council should actually represent the local geography accurately.
I wonder if New York City website has pictures of Chicago skyscrapers just beause "there are lots of skyscrapers in the New York area" Ha Ha!
Going to ditch my £25,000 Hasselblad for one of these new high definition cameras suited for pictures on websites. I hope it can produce huge files; at least 60kb for sure?
Sounds like a job for the boys to me...anyone running the website could recommend the stock photography websites for high res images.
http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-35738626/stock-photo-cliffs-of-dover-kent-coast-of-england.html £29!!!
The King Canute approach to life by some of the commentators here is laughable. Like it or not, digital technology has made taking a passably good photograph possible for the average man on the street with little or no training. That's life. Why pretend otherwise ? However the answer is not to whinge about it - the default setting for so many photographers - but to carve out a new niche by offering a far better product. The only people who are affected by this trend are mediocre photographers who have been getting away with mediocre images for far too long, and who now seek to do the same through restrictive practices. For these photographers, blue birds over the white cliffs of Dover are undoubtedly a common sight - because they rarely set their colour balance properly.
Quite cleary not 'everyone can do it', Roger. Otherwise they would have done and got it right first time.
S
www.thebigsociety.me.uk
Photography isn't just about taking snaps
Thomas asks: "How would this picture benefit the people of Dover?"
If it doesn't benefit anyone then why use a photo at all?
As this story shows, professional photography isn't just about shooting snaps. It is about writing accurate caption material, also cataloguing and archiving. When you pay, you receive a professional service and you have a contract with the supplier.
The funny thing is that 95% of the digital photos that are around today probably won't even exist 25 years from now because a single copy was stored on a harddrive that failed or on media that became corrupted or obsolete. Archiving isn't on the radar for most people.
Already photo researchers find it extremely time consuming to research images online, because there is so much junk. Imagine what it will be like another 25 years on! Whereas they will be able to contact me, ask about a photo of a subject and I'll have quality images at my fingertips ready from them.
...how much public money is this council wasting by having people hunt for images online, writing press releases with 'shout outs' for free images, and then fielding all the responses (99% of which will be no good and without accurate captions) just so it can 'save' £50 on photo reproduction fees?
And someone has already been made to look an idiot because the wrong photo was put up.
Presumably Dame Vera will be judging for free before website is then updated for free. All this time taken to a find suitable photo is, of course, spent during the councils own time. They would expect to be paid for such a frivolous matter, would they? Hmm.
My local town council have just issued a statement saying that they will no longer be tendering for photographers for contract work as a volunteer in the community has offered to do all the work. I have asked if this is going to be the case for admin, catering, building work and any other service which is paid weel for as it is usually carried out by a town councillor or at least a relative of a town councillor. Go figure!
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