Wrapping up the Mediocre fiasco & how to do it right.
Picture: Sunset light on the face of Half Dome, from Olmsted Point, Yosemite National Park, California.
In my last two blog posts, I reported on the mediocre quality of images used by Travel & Leisure Online for their Best Views from US National Parks feature, and the subsequent post when it was discovered that one of those ‘mediocre’ images was actually mine, albeit wrongly credited and badly reproduced.
So allow me to tell you how this has resolved itself. As soon as it was pointed out that the image metadata contained licensing information from one of my agents, yet that sale had never been reported, I contacted my agent last week and asked them to investigate. This morning I got an email saying that the sale had been re-instated, it showed up on my sales report page, and I’ll be getting my due percentage of the licensing cost. I’m sure when they contacted T&L, it was probably all explained as an ‘oversight’, which is not an uncommon excuse when dealing with high volume buyers and sellers. Today, the photo is now properly credit to me on the T&L web site, but the photo still looks like crap. OK, maybe not crap, but the reproduction quality of the scan is certainly ‘mediocre’.
Now, if by comparison to Travel & Leisure’s quest for low cost or free images, and the overall poor quality of their BEST Views presentation, look at a similar presentation done by National Geographic, called, “Best of the National Parks: The Most Beautiful Places.” The difference, in my humble opinion, is quite dramatic. Clearly, NGS cares about image quality and the overall quality of the presentation, and Travel & Leisure Online obviously cared more about saving money than distributing a quality product. So, which company do you think showed me the “Best” views, and which company do you think I admire more? (Rhetorical questions.)
Comment on this post:
Copyright info for using or linking to the pictures.
June 8th, 2009 at 7:25 pm
Glad to see you resolved your issues. It’s still strange that your agent didn’t register the sale…not very professional imho.
The reason I wanted to comment in the first place is the picture you posted with this. All I can think of is WOW. This has to be one of the most incredible pictures of Half-Dome that I have seen! Incredible light.
June 9th, 2009 at 11:12 am
> OK, maybe not crap, but the reproduction quality of the scan is certainly ‘mediocre’.
How hard can it be to “reproduce” properly a digital file ?
What is alamy’s color management ?
June 9th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
The Nat’l Geo shots are just stunning.
June 9th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
Thinking again about your question, I am wondering if the whole incident has been framed correctly. Because of the way you told the story initially, everybody assumed that T&L was after cheap images. But in fact T&L licensed your image from alamy, probably out of convenience over licensing it directly from you. And, unless I am mistaken, alamy lacks a “editorial web” category, so their web licenses are rather high (maybe you can clarify that by sharing the fee with us if you wish). I know first hand that the “standard” web fees paid by NGS are actually lower than those alamy fees (although I tend to license in volume to NGS, which makes lower fees acceptable).
So this is not about cheap images, but more photo-editing and editorial focus. Looking at both articles it is clear to me that the NGS is photo-driven, and appears like they found great images and then wrote about the location (how else would they feature Butternut Key otherwise ?). On the other hand, the T&L article is information-driven. Based on the little bit I know about the National Parks myself, having been to all locations described, I’d say the information in the T&L article is superior.
June 10th, 2009 at 7:09 am
QT:
Thanks for the in-depth reply. Yes, it was framed correctly.
When they contacted me directly for my Glacier Point image, the communication from T&L came in AFTER they’d licensed the Alamy image, and clearly stated the only compensation was a credit line and ‘exposure’.
Alamy does make bulk deals, so the rate was just shy of 3 figures. Both NGS & T&L and many other large volume users all have special deals and arrangements with agencies that have practically no bearing on calculator rates.
My take should equal a very decent brew kit for my next batch of beer.
Also, as I mentioned elsewhere on this subject, it appears that T&L may have licensed a few images, but continued to search for free or lower cost images as replacements, in hopes of refunding any licenses. Yes, T&L may have had superior writing, but for a feature called “Best Views”, remember a picture is worth a thousand words, and I stand by my assertion that the majority of the images featured to show those best views were, in fact, mediocre.
Cheers, and many sincere thanks as always for your valued thoughts and opinions.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
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