Jain Lemos » Photography and Publishing

I’m passing on this call to action from the APA and the Copyright Alliance and I hope you will pass it on, too. I also suggest watching the video “Copyright in the Classroom” on the homepage. If you teach or have children in school, their study courses and teaching aids are excellent.

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September 29, 2009
Dear Friend of APA,

Advertising Photographers of America is partnering with the Copyright Alliance in asking you to sign a letter that is being sent to President Obama and Vice President Biden. APA’s advocacy efforts to support strong copyright protections for photographers and all owners of intellectual property are a vital component of our mission. With the threat of further erosion of copyright protections on the horizon, sending a message now to the President is an opportunity that should not be missed.

The Copyright Alliance is a non-partisan coalition of associations, creators and copyright industry leaders that give a voice to individual authors of creative content including photographers. This letter allows your voice to be heard in cooperation and inclusion with creatives from all areas of intellectual property.

Let the White House know that their support is critical to the protection of the rights of artists and the continued value of creative efforts in today’s society.

Go to www.copyrightalliance.org/letter/ to sign the letter. It is an easy process of entering your name, city, state, type of artist and email address. Click the sign button and you’re all done.

Once you have signed the letter please forward it on to your colleagues and friends in all areas of creative output.

Thank you.
Theresa Raffetto, President APA National
Stephen Best, CEO APA National

I believe we’ve reached a point of Internet Osmosis.

My website, www.jainlemos.com appears on SpyFu. Their motto is “Spy on Your Online Competitors.” An alert this morning led me there for the first time.

This is the link to my site’s listing on SpyFu. Notice the webpage’s tab header is my URL. Towards the bottom of the page, there are two boxes with information. One is for Organic Keywords, obviously gleaned from my posts. The other box provides a list of Top Organic Competitors. A bar next to each of my competitors measures the overlap. Today, my highest competitor site is the Official Website of Paul Michael Glaser. No surprise that David Soul would be second.

In 1987, I worked on the feature film, The Running Man as an assistant to actor Yaphet Kotto. Paul was the film’s director (he was called in to take over the project as director a few weeks into production). I remember the moment he arrived on location. We were at California Steel Industries in Fontana, Calif. on a hot and dusty day. More chaos than usual. The movie is set in the year 2019, only 10 years from now.

So anyway, that is a coincidence. But why else would my site overlap so high with Paul’s? The movie is based on the Stephen King novel (written under his pseudonym Richard Bachman).

In 1997, I worked for Headland Digital Media, a division of Penguin Putnam (Pearson, PLC) in Novato, Calif. Our project team created online communities surrounding major book launches, including Tom Clancy’s Politika and… Stephen King’s Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass. Here is a press release announcing the site we built.

In 2007, I updated my LinkedIn profile. I know this because of a recommendation date. This is one of the few (I think) places where I list my full resume details. It reads:

Content Strategist Consultant, Headland Digital Media, Pearson PLC: Developed and launched effective and innovative online marketing Web sites to rollout and promote new books by authors Tom Clancy and Stephen King, increasing site stickiness with the Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass trivia game, exclusive screensaver, and sweepstakes, and the Politika exclusive online game that allowed readers to enter Clancy’s world and encouraged repeat site visits with online prizes.

In 2017, I will check back with SpyFu.

Meanwhile, I will watch the 1977, Season 2, Episode 13 of “Starsky and Hutch” for some clues.

Mask Warning. Photo by Jain Lemos

Apparently some folks still are. Beate Chelette, who continually amazes me with her capacity for having her eyes on all things photography, gives us this Noteworthy Update on her Photosecrets blog. It’s the tale of an LA Times reporter, an attorney from Getty, a Long Beach travel agency owner, a website design firm and a “generic shot of a woman sitting in front of a computer.”

I took this photo at an antique mall last weekend, considering a new mask for my collection. I was wondering how I might use it in a little post.

Lighting Essentials for Photographers is building their article archives about all things lighting. I like the tech sheets section. Their recent interview with photographer Daron Shade mentioned me and I’m happy to reciprocate.

Daron said, “By chance meeting, I met portfolio consultant Jain Lemos and happened to have a few prints with me. She saw clear consistencies across a number of very different images, helping me realize and refine my own style. She really set me on the right path to redefining myself.”

Daron gives a good reminder to keep some type of portfolio with you at all times.

Sept. 4: Speaking of what things cost, my Bay Area writer friend, John Joss, pointed me to this article on SF Gate by Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll. Note the cost of one NYT story was $400K. The editing cost of that one story was $70K. All the costs are outlined in the article. Also, read Jon’s conclusions as to the worth/merit of the story!

Photography Director Rob Haggart, over at his industry must-read blog “A Photo Editor,” posted two actual estimates for recent advertising shoots (click on the Full Screen button to view). To me, they appeared fair and right in the sweet spot of what all parties can comfortably manage. I shared them with one veteran corporate/advertising photographer and she agreed that these look like nice jobs!

I’ve produced big shoots for documentary books with million dollar photography budgets. Since I started working in photography publishing in 1988, I’ve seen prices go up and down and all around based on the “economy” but all along the way, it’s been mostly about the value of what you deliver in the end. Most clients will accept a reasonable bid (or near to) when you have solid explanations that accompany your estimate outlining specifically what they will receive for the price or why certain costs they might not have anticipated are really needed. Budgeting is both a big task and an art. Pulling numbers out of the clouds rarely works. There needs to be a formula behind all figures, including creative fees and how they relate to the rights granted.

Sharing budgets and pricing in a public forum as Rob has provided == not all the time, but every once in a while == I think helps photographers become more confident about their own estimating process. It’s great information and thanks to Rob and his network for sharing them with us.