Friday, May 31, 2013

Hawthorne Heights Charge Photographers for Work

Rock band Hawthorne Heights posted on their website today an "opportunity" for photographers and fans.

Source
"Are you an aspiring photographer? Come take pictures of us all day at Warped Tour! We will provide you with the access, and experience you need. We will also take your pictures and put them on our Instagram page, and give you full credit for it. This is a great package for anyone who loves taking pictures, whether its for a hobby or professionally."                                (Source: http://hawthorneheights.limitedrun.com)
The catch? The photographer pays the band $150 for this "opportunity".  This is a new low in terms of photographers (and fans) being taken advantage of.  Photographers work hard to not only get excellent shots, but also edit them to perfection so that the subject of the photo (in this case the band) looks their absolute best and will be happy with the outcome.  To expect a photographer to pay you for their work is ridiculous.  Getting experience is great, but there are better ways to get it than to pay for it.
Fans, photographers (professional or aspiring) unite and boycott.

*UPDATE: Hawthorne Heights has since removed the package from their site and posted a public apology on their facebook.
Source
Peace, Love, Music<3 

2 comments:

  1. I agree with you--for professional photographers who hope to use their photography skills as a means of income, this deal is really lame. The band should be paying photographers for their skills and experience, not the other way around. Any opportunity that requires a person to pay in order to do something that they should technically be paid for is pretty questionable. Unfortunately "opportunities" like this come up a lot, and people don't realize that they are being taken advantage of.
    I think the band has since taken down the package and they posted an apology on Facebook. It seems they had good intentions but didn't really understand what was problematic about it.

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    1. I agree. They seemed to have good intentions and there are a lot of people that do things like this, they just don't get as much public attention (and backlash) for it.
      (Also, thank you for letting me know about the facebook post! I had heard that they had removed the package but I didn't know they posted on facebook.)

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