Best Business Practices for Photographers [121]
Corporate-type photography is by no means limited to corporations. Numerous other entities employ corporate photography, such as philanthropic organizations seeking to promote their causes or efforts to make the world a better place; organizations seeking cures to terminal diseases by illustrating the end stage, waypoint conditions, or how these diseases affect everyone; and disaster aid organizations who do good after a community or nationwide incident and document that work not only to justify their outlays to the disenfranchised, but also to ensure an ongoing influx of donations to maintain their existence and make a difference in the future. As a way to illustrate the separation of style from how the photography is used, schools that teach photojournalism often use the work of Angus McDougall. McDougall produced photography for International Harvester's in-house publication, International Harvester World, back in the late '60s and early '70s. His work was stylistically photojournalism, but was, in fact, corporate work for what was termed a corporate magazine, following his work for the Milwaukee Journal and Life magazine.
Commercial photography is essentially photography created to offer or promote a particular commodity, from services of every form and type to physical products from A to Z. There are media buys in editorial publications, sales materials, consumer brochures, posters, billboards and transit ads, stills in television commercials, tradeshow booths, product photography, and the list goes on and on. One variation on this type of work is when you are working for a political campaign, which is definitely not editorial, but is used to promote the candidate rather than a corporation. As noted in Chapter 21, "Resolving Slow-and Non-Paying Clients," make sure that you are paid in full before or upon delivery. It is standard practice that all work done for political campaigns is paid without the extension of terms such as 30 days or 60 days.
It might be easier to understand if you consider that when you're doing corporate or commercial photography, there will usually be many more people giving direction and signing off on the finished product. I have found myself waiting hours as a photo I produced at a public "news" event, which was covered by the news media, is pored over and an excruciatingly correct caption is written by a legal department. Coming from an editorial background, I know that the photo desk and a final editor are no doubt going to rehash the caption if it ever runs in the first place.
Consider an example, written by me, the editorial photographer assigned to cover the news event. This isn't a real caption from a real event—that should be obvious. It is, however, nearly identical to incidents and caption delay experiences I have had for corporate clients with whom and for whom I have worked.
As Anytown High School junior Gina Jones (left) looks on, Honda CEO Phil Albertson (right) explains how the new Acura runs off hybrid technology, Monday, February 29, 2009, in Detroit, Michigan. Jones won an essay contest that will award her the Acura, and Honda donated the car to the local Sierra