While photography is every bit as important to publications as it ever was, the reward for it continues to decrease. There is another factor that is easy to lose sight of when considering the unfairness of the rate of compensation paid to photographers. For each day that a photographer is paid for, he or she spends additional time performing tasks related to the work done on the paid day. ASMP's survey shows that, for every day of photography, the average editorial photographer spends a total of 10.2 additional hours on assignment preparation, post production work, administrative duties and travel time. The result is that it takes 18.2 hours to earn a single day's rate.
Photographers have the same costs of doing business that any small service business has.
Many of them are also paying off college loans for the education that is a necessary prerequisite to be a successful photographer today. These rates would include one time use in print media and would not include electronic rights, foreign language rights, or English language rights outside of North America, or any reprint rights. ASMP also believes that photographers have good reason to adopt these recommendations of ASMP in their individual negotiations with publishers, and that, while free to ignore ASMP's opinion and recommendation, doing so would only further threaten their economic futures. The eroding economic position of editorial photographers must be stopped and reversed. It seems clear that publishers have no intention of changing it as of this writing.