Photography chain table moves to address fair pay bottlenecks

Photo: Pixabay

Professional photographers portray the world, but are themselves often out of the picture when it comes to their terms of employment and working conditions. That’s why HTH Research, with the help of the national umbrella organization DuPho and sector experts, commissioned by fairPACCT in August 2022, conducted an exploration of the bottlenecks. The conclusion is as follows: photographers have concerns, work providers do not. A tariff directive provides guidance and more clarity is needed about the “black box” of copyright.

“Photographers have concerns, workers do not.”

Focus on applied photography

Photography comes in all shapes and sizes. According to recent research ‘De waarde van beeld, Beeld van waarde. The economic value of image in the Netherlands.’ from February 2023 commissioned by the Image Rights Federation, there are nearly 23,000 photographers working within the image sector and 12,000 outside of it. The top six activities involve photographs for 1) companies, 2) consumer special events, 3) advertising, 4) government, 5) autonomous art practice/documentaries and 6) culture/events.

The intention is that, partly on the basis of the studies, the Chain Table on Photography will focus from May 12, 2023 on the position of applied photography in the cultural sector. This also includes the visual material in (government) archives. This mainly concerns business assignments by freelancers, such as event photography for openings, concerts or meetings. This also includes promotional photography for posters, websites, (theater) guides and other publications.

Composition of the chain table

Ruud Visschedijk, former director of the Nederlands Fotomuseum, is chairman. The chain table consists of workers, intermediaries and vocational schools. In addition, a wide range of work providers have been invited with the most important criterion: multi-year institutional subsidy and thus a large fair pay responsibility. They range from companies, festivals and venues to presentation institutions for the visual arts, museums and archives.

Practices/Future