Iron Man and Jeremy Keith
Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008
Iron Man and Me: A great story about how this image got used in the movie Iron Man. Wish I’d read this before I watched the movie.
Remind me to take more shots of the shuttle assembly building!
[via Derek Powazek]
What I find most astonishing about this story is that the photographer was so insistant about not getting paid. Rare these days– he must be an interesting guy. Or very poor.
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Sheryl: Actually, he’s a successful web developer, quite well known. He didn’t want to get involved in payment no doubt because he wasn’t aware of what the image was being used for. Many of us get offers all the time from both legit and illegit places that want to use our stuff. It’s more trouble than its worth to get involved with all of them because some turn out to be not for real.
Great story! How cool is that? Thanks for posting Richard :D
Wow! I just saw Iron Man on blu-ray a few days back.
Awesome movie!
Very interesting article.
I’ll say it’s interesting… I wish my flickr photostream was pawed over by Hollywood movie producers. And yes, I’d take the money!
I read this when it was posted to the Flickr blog and I must admit it bothered me a great deal. It still does.
I understand that working out licensing agreements is a pain, and can be more trouble than it is worth, but when a company is practically begging to give you money it seems unfair to those trying to make a living in the photography industry, like me.
Wired magazine wrote an article earlier this year saying that the photography and media industries have evolved. While the writer mentioned practitioners must find new ways to succeed, and even suggested giving some imagery away for free, I highly doubt this is what they were talking about.
For the past two years I have donated more than $2000 of photography goods and services to local charities. At a minimum, Mr. Keith should have been paid with a new laptop for his troubles or donated the money to a good cause.
$1500 buys a lot of turkeys for Thanksgiving.
John: The piece we’ll continue to disagree on is his right to do as he pleases with his photography, including giving it away. I just do not think that he should feel guilt or anything about how his decision about this will affect other working professional photographers. It’s his photograph and his decision.
I totally respect what you and many others are trying to do to educate photographers of their rights but I don’t call “rights” “responsibilities.” I call them rights. Once I know my rights it’s my right to do as I please with them.
In this case, the photographer, a busy web developer did not want to put time and energy into dealing with the photo licensing world, which, is his right. He felt it was easier to give the image away than deal with lawyers, contracts, etc. The money was not the point here, it was what he wanted to do.
While you and I might have handled it differently, I respect his right to do what he did.
I keep track of several industry blogs like aphotoeditor and another that details that latest magazines to go extinct, which seems one every few days. PC Mag was the latest casualty. Yesterday I read that the venerable Time Magazine is now trawling through flickr for free images and National Geographic canceled their yearly gathering of top-tier pro photographers given the economic climate. The industry is changing rapidly, and published including magazines and photographers must evolve, or perish. I agree that it is this photographer’s right, but I don’t have to like it.
Maybe he should get an agent. I’m just sayin! :-)
John: As they say, the internet changes everything. I’d go deeper: digital changes everything. Digital cameras, digital writing, digital magazines, digital subscriptions, etc.
All the pieces are tossed up in the air and in my mind the best thing to do (for us individually) is to let them start to fall and sort out before we pass judgement. There will be casualties no doubt and some of them will hurt “good journalism” as we know it. I get it that a lone blogger can’t have a foreign bureau while The New York Times can but if the NY times is giving information away on the web how can they pay for it? They need a new model, simple as that and they’re struggling for one.
While I don’t agree with everything Larry Lessig says about copyright and CC and all, what i like about what he’s doing is that he’s exploring new ways of sharing information. He’s not against crediting authors and photographers but he’s trying to find ways of doing it that take better advantage of the new mediums people are publishing in now.
As far the the post above, I have no problem with any part of the process that led to it being in the movie, including the fact that the photographer didn’t want to have a contract or payment. That’s one more model to choose from. No doubt you won’t choose it, but some will. I fall somewhere in between: I give away a lot of work but I also sell and license work and had a license been offered for this image (if it were mine) I’d have done the license with the money attached. But, I fully support anyone in not going that route for whatever reason.
Yes. I largely agree, including the belief that to succeed today requires giving away some material away for free. I regularly give away images for use by non-money making entities and personal blogs. There is a great recent article about this on aphotoeditor.com.
Over the past two years, Waxy Photography has donated more than $2000 in goods and services to local charities, including the British Columbia Children’s Hospital Foundation. I’m also currently running a print charity through my website where approximately 25% of the profits go to Children’s Hospital. I’m more than happy to help a worthy cause and hope it inspires people to pay it forward.
Maybe this photographer does — I really have no idea. This is where your non-judgmental comment speaks to me. That said, the Marval franchise is doing particularly well. It would have been something to see that Flickr post end with: I donated the cash to my local food bank. That’s my hope though I recognize I’m playing armchair photographer.
This is the article I mentioned:
http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2008/12/08/bil-zelman-shoots-pro-bono-but-not-for-free/
This is also interesting:
http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2008/12/10/time-magazine-trolling-for-free-pictures-on-flickr/
John: Hey, I agree completely. If the photographer were interested in leveraging money out of the studio to do something with that would have been ideal. The issue is, he had other things to do and didn’t want to focus here. No problem.
Hey, maybe you should become a rep for these types of people.
Sounds like an interesting business idea. The only two problems are that you need to find them before the make such decisions, which is a losing proposition, and you need them to enter into a contract which seems to be another losing proposition.
John, actually, I’m not so sure about that. I think you might be able to make hay out of the problem you’re citing.
Many “groups” have reps that act as bridges between individuals who have something to sell and individuals who want to buy those things.
If the bridge entity were hip, streamlined, and took a small cut for the connection I think it might be both useful for photographers and also useful for buyers of photography.
I know a few people who do it for artists, maybe I’ll ask them how it works.
But, maybe the way to do it is through the web: a “facebook” like connection site where one entity is connected to another.
Just thinking out loud. But, I do think it’s more constructive to consider how you could help the person in question in this post make a connection with the movie company that was beneficial to all and also, easy.