When the National Association of Realtors asked photographer David Hobby for the “non-exclusive, royalty-free right” to use a picture he’d taken on NAR’s HouseLogic.com website, the trade group may not have realized that Hobby also publishes a popular photography blog, Strobist.
“Ever feel like you are being taken advantage of as a photographer?” Hobby wrote on the blog. “Or that people in other professions think so little of us that they assume we would gladly work for free?”
“Of course you do,” Hobby continued, before reprinting the request from HouseLogic.com in its entirety with only the author’s name redacted. “It happens all of the time. But if you haven’t had the pleasure, this is what it looks like when it happens.”
Hobby, who started Strobist blog to share some of the knowledge he’d accumulated about lighting in the 20 years he worked as a newspaper photographer, followed up his self-described “rant” by asking NAR on Twitter if the group would help him find a Realtor in his area who would be willing to work for free.
NAR spokeswoman Stephanie Singer told blogger Jim Romenesko that the email Hobby received was simply an attempt “to open the door to negotiate the use or cost of a photo,” but that in this case “Mr. Hobby’s response was such that we didn’t pursue the conversation further.” Source: strobist.blogspot.com
