Nachtwey, continued
15 Dec
Brian Smith, John Harrington, David Burnett, Vincent Laforet, Chris Morris and David Alan Harvey weigh in on the big flame war. Laforet invokes the pay your dues dictum, which I’m not sure I agree with.
It’s called investing in yourself, and not just assuming you’ll do your eight hours and be cool. That’s when you get the job at 7-11 just to pay for this. New York expects a lot from you – it demands that you do what’s required, and I think you have to pony up. Again, you have to pay your dues – whatever it takes to do that, and if you don’t, you don’t have a right to complain.
I don’t believe that in principle all beginners should essentially be hazed because the pros working today had been and so you shall too. But in the competitive market it’s certainly better to be hazed than to not get a start at all.
In the end the consensus seems to be that Nachtwey can probably find some way to compensate the interns with some fundraising or commercial jobs (!), but that it is hard times and the intern has to have the sense to realize that he will learn potentially more about the realities of running a photo operation than he would in college. Not sure that justifies unpaid internships, but an interesting point is that for some kids seeking college credit for the experience, it is against federal labor laws to pay them, so perhaps the listing is only trying to be inclusive.
David Alan Harvey concludes with a bit about getting a start in general:
I don’t know how you tell some kid who spent $50k on an education what they ought to do – we’re all in different places and make different deals. I don’t know what the answer is. There’s no one answer, clearly. There’s a lot of really good work done now, and not being published. It’s getting published on websites, and no one’s getting paid for it. That’s a tough one. What do you do? Bag it, and get another job? How do you get to a point where you’re not going to be at the absolute bottom of the money barrel 24/7? It’s a very tough balance between investing (paying) yourself, and giving something away that’s really of value that should be paid for.
