When tango photography is taken for granted

This is a frequent observation in more or less agitated conversations between tango photographers/videographers and organisers, maestros and sometimes dancers: we already share a lot, you are already receiving a lot from us, sometimes you expect too much, and it can be frustrating when you take it for granted.

This text is inspired by misuses of our photos in/by newspapers and advertisements by organisers, by expectations of organisers to do whatever they want with our photos in exchange of free entrances, by performers who believe that they fully own any image that shows their performances, or generally any professional who considers that photography isn't serious enough work to deserve respect. There was a time when people used to be shocked when "professionals" wanted to use some photo and replied to the photographer that they couldn't pay but that the photographer would have their name on it so that it would be an advertisement for their work. Now some are pushing it even further by completely disregarding the photographer's credits and, by doing so, disregard our work and investment. And yet when we politely claim some respect, they treat us as "evil photographers who are not happy sharing their work". While the debate exists because we already share our works to some extent. Just try doing the same with your car manufacturer in example...

This text expresses my own point of view, but, to my understanding, it is close to that of most tango photographers in Belgium or even elsewhere. I want to emphasise what is fair to expect from tango photographers/videographers given the costs and constraints we have after going very briefly through purely legal aspects.

I am not going to treat the topic of people who don't want to be on photos as I consider this is not the issue here, but it is obvious to me that photographers should also be respectful and not shoot people who don't want it, temporarily or permanently.

Who owns a photo?

Generally speaking, a creator owns their creation even if it doesn't relate to their profession.

Photos belong to the photographer, as commonly agreed: the person who pressed the button. That is called copyright. (The same goes for video.)

Unlike what is often believed, photos do not belong to people appearing on them, but those people can have their word to say about use being made of their image. That is called image right.

This means that both the photographer and the model(s) could opposed to use being made of the work, not that both have right to use it without asking the other(s) consent.

If no agreement exists, then works are protected by copyright, not the other way around. The fact that works are available online does not cancel copyright.

Why we often come and shoot spontaneously

The first reason why people take things for granted is that we often shoot spontaneously (usually for free) in various events. We do so because of a combination of the following:

We are also tango dancers so we shoot in places where we enjoy being and with people we enjoy being with. (Even if it can be unclear that I'm a dancer but I have written other texts about my personal case.)
We are in a creation process that's not only a creation of memories (I don't even want to hear the word "journalism") but also relates to artistic creation. Hence we may want to practice, test gear, test techniques, experiment...
That is how things work in 2016 with the usual media overflow... Nowadays, if you don't do that kind of things or if you do things then don't show them, you may as well not do anything at all and not invest a cent, because "nobody" cares if you have a good camera at home and the skills to use it if you don't make things happen.
And last but not least, because it's always nice to share photos when people are happy about them.

The limits of what should be expected for "free"

Many organisers give us free entrances, and possibly free drinks and occasionally a few free classes. Actual money is very scarce. Photographers who travel on request by organisers may get some more money but to my knowledge they do not truly recover the expenses and the time they spent.

Organisers, other professionals, and actually anybody who can benefit from social media visibility, already get some promotion when we publish our photographs or albums on social networks. (Photography is usually not our profession so we don't get much benefit of media promotion.) Dancers or anybody who appears on the photos can already make some private use of them.

I think that this is the point where things should remain free (except if you specifically asked the photographer to shoot your event), but anything further than this "social media" step, especially when used by professionals/semi-professionals, should stop being free.

Peanuts vs actual costs

The few things that we may occasionally get for free equate to peanuts compared to the costs we may have to buy in order to get quality results: cameras, lenses, batteries, SD cards (the expensive ones that you won't find in your regular multimedia shop), hard drives, software, flashes, bags, colour accurate monitors, owning a car (to transport the heavy gear), crazy computers (video and photography can use more resources than video games)... Then to keep up good results, we have to buy the upgrades of many those to keep up to date. Then there is a huge cost in time spent on selecting and editing photos. For a given number of photos you see, many more may have been worked and yet even more have usually been taken. And finally we have to archive things and maintain these archives.

A fair price should count in hundreds of euros per night, possibly even more than 1.000 for big events, depending on various things.

Expecting too much

And this is likely the main message in this text:

Therefore, organisers, performers: please understand that a few entrances and drinks cannot fairly grant you anything like complete usage rights over our works.

It is also disrespectful to...

Remove copyrights without our consent when using our works publicly, whether you are a professional or a social dancer.
Ask for individual treatment or sending of photos without counterpart, as it may take a lot of time and be disturbing to work things out of our normal workflow. But also because you should let the photographer decide if the photograph is good enough in regards of their quality standards.
Use a version of a work that is not considered as "final" by the artist or which has degraded quality. Such as using drafts or photos that have had their quality degraded when uploaded on some sites such as social networks. (In example, photos posted on Facebook have their quality degraded, therefore are not respectful media sources.)

You should ask the photographer when...

In conclusion, you should always ask the photographer their conditions and/or pay or otherwise compensate for their work in any of the following situations:

You want to use their work(s) to promote a product, a service, an event...
You want to use their photo(s) without copyright mention.
You want to use their work(s) in newspaper, movies...
You want to create any kind of value from their work(s).
You ask the photographer to send you individual photos (re-worked or not), because this always requires extra work.
You want them to come and shoot your specific event.
This list may not be exhaustive and each photographer may have their specific conditions. So if you have a doubt, check their web site and/or ask the photographer.
...

But of course, if a photographer wants to create or earn value from your image, they should ask you as well.

If you did some of these without the photographer's permission, nothing's probably going to happen but you did wrong!

And if a photographer provided you any of these for free or cheap, this should be considered as a gift or a privilege. Most likely it means that they agree to support your activity to some extent and they like to be there.

Illustration

In this context, this is how I see how things should go normally. (I thought of some kind of RACI-inspired chart, but maybe for another time.)

TC, December 2016
Last modification, 23rd January 2022
Some contributions by Elina Pietilainen ( FB: https://www.facebook.com/elina.tangodans )