Photographers' salaries

Andy K said:

£10,000 a year is not 'starvation salary'. Get some perspective FFS!

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Maybe not, but around here (Washington, DC) it would certainly qualify as a 'malnutrition salary'. The panhandlers at Union Station probably do better. New York City? Forget it. $20,000/annum isn't even lunch money up there.

I just don't buy the argument that people are inherently "worth" a particular salary range. We are all worth what the market will bear except in countries where the government tries to distort/manipulate the market for social/political purposes (i.e. almost everywhere to varying degrees).

If a job has no market value then so be it. Do something else. Also, some of these lower paying jobs are not jobs that a person would do forever. I have worked as a babysitter and baseball umpire for very low ages not expecting to do that for a lifetime. Those jobs also helped me realize that I must acquire skills so that I could do something more gainful.

Technology always drives down costs and requires increased productivity to stay afloat. Digital photography is no different.

jeroldharter said:

I just don't buy the argument that people are inherently "worth" a particular salary range. We are all worth what the market will bear except in countries where the government tries to distort/manipulate the market for social/political purposes (i.e. almost everywhere to varying degrees).

If a job has no market value then so be it. Do something else. Also, some of these lower paying jobs are not jobs that a person would do forever. I have worked as a babysitter and baseball umpire for very low ages not expecting to do that for a lifetime. Those jobs also helped me realize that I must acquire skills so that I could do something more gainful.

Technology always drives down costs and requires increased productivity to stay afloat. Digital photography is no different.

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Amen. The principle of never accepting a contract which won't augment my skill set has served me well in the IT contracting business.

Okay, being as I live in Derbyshire I can comment with some knowledge on this. Assuming you got the job to translate out to £20k p.a. you will not be able to afford anywhere in the Peak District to live, not buying at any rate, and tbh renting is on pretty much the same scale. You would need to live out of the area, such as in my hometown of Chesterfield, about 1/2 hour drive away and make a few quid on the mileage allowance you are given. £125k will get you a house in Derbyshire. Won't be grand but if you're choosy it won't be in a dump either. Cost of living? Council tax bill about £1k p.a., fuel about £1.04 a litre for petrol, £1.08 for diesel. Everything else will be the same. i haven't looked closely but don't recall seeing anything about equipment being provided so you may be using your own slr and lenses, so that needs factoring in. Plus to operate in the weather the Peak can offer you will need specialist clothing, again needs considering. All in all it's just not worth considering unless you are living at home with mum and dad and are happy to do it for experience and a bit of "kudos", although that's relative. Forget doing it as a living.

Cheers, Lol

c6h6o3 said:

Maybe not, but around here (Washington, DC) it would certainly qualify as a 'malnutrition salary'. The panhandlers at Union Station probably do better. New York City? Forget it. $20,000/annum isn't even lunch money up there.

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Actually $20,000 for HALF TIME (i.e. $40,000 per annum FULL TIME) is not outrageously low for such entry-level jobs - even here in NYC*.

Part of the problem is that these are very desirable entry-level positions - not so much for the salary they pay - but for the "credentialing" they provide. I put this kind of job in the category of "low paying glamorous positions".

Similar jobs are found throughout the media industry. In fact, in NYC, it is not unusual for someone trying to break-into the media industry (e.g. TV, Radio, Print, digital etc.) to work as a unpaid "intern" in order to get experience to put on their resumes. These types of jobs have greater demand than supply and so wages tend to be low - particularly at the entry-level stage.

*Which is why so many young people in NYC live with one or several roommates.

I don't think anyone is arguing that 19-20k is a good salary, only that it is not especially low in the overall scheme of things and certainly not starvation level - there are millions of people on a far lower income.

Buying a house anywhere is getting ever more expensive. Nevertheless, to obtain a 125k mortgage with a partner, one is looking at a combined income of around 36k using the standard multiple of 3.5x joint income (but as low as 30k will do it in practice).

It's the house prices that really make the difference to the cost of living whether you are renting or buying as most other stuff: food, energy, etc, are similar wherever in the country you live (though my London borough council tax is closer to 1600 than 1000 and all my insurance costs are probably much higher as are my service industry needs such as car repair because of the knock-on effects of the high housing costs). 125k won't buy you anything at all near me and I'm right on the edge of London (500 yds). 200-225k will get you an older 2-bed terrace or a modern built flat/apartment. That extra cost translates to about another 20-25k in annual income required to get the mortgage, let alone pay it.


Bob.

copake_ham said:

Actually $20,000 for HALF TIME (i.e. $40,000 per annum FULL TIME) is not outrageously low for such entry-level jobs - even here in NYC*.

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I agree. It's all a matter of perspective. To me it's ridiculously low, but I have a wife and two children. To someone without family responsibilities, who might be pursuing, say, a graduate degree in Art it could seem like a king's ransom.

c6h6o3 said:

I agree. It's all a matter of perspective. To me it's ridiculously low, but I have a wife and two children. To someone without family responsibilities, who might be pursuing, say, a graduate degree in Art it could seem like a king's ransom.

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Yes. I think we tend to project our own current state in life onto the situation - rather than realize that what we're talking about is a entry job.

If I were a 21 y.o. college grad seeking to get my MFA in photography and could snag such a p/t job working in my chosen field - I'd be lording it over my friends!

Work HALF a day, make 20 grand do nothing else and piss and moan because you are not making more

Or

Work HALF a day and make 20 grand. Then Go down the road and get another HALF day job and make a lot more money because you work a WHOLE day.

Just what would the OP feel is acceptable for a half time job?

20 grand for half time is not something to moan about.

If you want to buy a house you should be working full time. If you want to support a family work a full time job. If you want to make a LOT of money choose a different profession.

If I was back in the UK I'd be very interested in this job. Great location, somewhere I'd love to live & work, and best of all part-time so I would have time during the week to pursue other avenues.

A friend did just this about 10 years ago, taking a part time job as a photographer for a military research establishment, sure the pay isn't high but it is a safety net while you expand into different areas something that is very difficult if you work full-time.

If my wife didn't think the UK's is far too cold I'd go back for this

Ian

mark said:

Work HALF a day, make 20 grand

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Just a slight correction - the salary offered is £18,000 odd pro rata, i.e. assuming that full time means 40 hours, the person doing this job would receive 22/40 or just over half of this. As someone else has remarked, the job holder would probably find it impossible to do exactly 22 hours and then stop, more than likely it would be 30 hours and all for £10,000. As has been remarked earlier, this is just about OK for someone living at home with parents, who might also help out with the cost of a car, it simply isn't a living wage for anyone else. What salary would I expect? At least enough for food, clothing and shelter (plus the car required for the job!).

A further observation, which may interest our American friends - my maternal grandfather was a truck driver for the railroad company, his wife did not work (busy raising 5 children). With his wage alone, he managed to buy a quite nice terraced house in Ilford, Essex (34 Montreal Road) which is the kind of property selling in 2008 to white-collar professionals for upwards of £200,000! As they say - go figure!

It depends on circumstances. If your home is bought and paid for and you don't have to factor in rent or mortgage, 22 hours a week is easily a living wage. There are millions of people in Britain on or around £10,000 a year. They survive.

One thing that is often overlooked are the benefits in staff positions. granted, at part-time, there won't be the same benefits that a full time position would have, although I'm not sure about how UK gov't jobs would work. I am in a staff photo position and started actually as a part-timer. I worked two and a half days a week, as a lab tech and assitant to a studio photographer. At the time, the amount of money I earned--I was in my early 20s--seemed pretty good, since I had barely eaked out a living in the year before trying to work as a freelancer. I worked for a little more than a year as a temp--first working the two & half days, then eventually working 40 a week. I never worked OT during that stint as a temp--not like I would later do as a full timer, only here's the deal--when I work OT, I get time and a half, with premium for holidays--this is double time. I get paid or get it in comp. I now have 16 years as a staffer more or less, 15 of them officially.

How this works out--I started near the bottom of the pay range, and each year got COLA & pay raises. I moved to the upper middle of the pay grade this way, only to be reclassified in a national type survey of commercial photog jobs--I moved about 3 grades higher, and got a bit of raise this way, as the salary was adjusted. Every five years, I incrementally move higher in terms of how much paid vacation I get. I earn about two days a month right now. I have close to 300 hours of paid vacation alone now, and close to 1000 hours of paid sick leave. I can carry 200 of those vacation hours indefinitely and all the sick leave--apply all that towards retirement as well. When I made 5 years, I became vested. When I hit ten years, I started to get longevity pay. I get full major medical paid for by the employer, and cover my wife under it as well. There's a good retirement plan, and I will be able to retire with a full pension--sometime in my early 50s.

All my gear is supplied, facilities (2 darkrooms, studio, finishing areas, computers etc). We have a car, and access to a motor pool for vans, trucks etc. Fleet cards, access to fuel pumps at gov't facilities etc. When we travel, we get per diem--food & lodging covered. Our equipment insurance is covered, liability insurance is covered etc. Basically everything you would get as an employee. This is what I would look at in terms of reading job postings like this. The benefits on top of the salary, as well as the facilities & what is supplied. It all adds up in the end. What you bring is the skill as the photographer or whatever the job requires--they supply the rest. That's why in terms of work-for-hire, they keep what you produce as well. To think of it as "yours" in terms of rights, is missing the point. That is the tradeoff for the paycheck & the job security. For me, it has worked out well, and I can't complain.

my opinions only/not my employers.

Another thing that should be taken into account is a pension scheme. Either an employers or private. I note here they offer a local goverment scheme. Which on this salary will not amount to much, plus being part-time you have the option of opting out.

Having worked for local goverment myself (40 years) I appreciate the benefit of a good efficient pension scheme. When my employer offered me redundancy and early retirement at the age of 55, I bit their hands off! However leaving my employment early meant I didn't get a full pension, but its ok, this along with my freelance work keeps me going. But as I'm sure you all know a decent pension is very expensive and is often over looked when your young. The one thing I told our students, 'if you only take one piece of advice from me.......get a decent pension'.

TheFlyingCamera said:

Walt, we all already do that, every time we buy materials and hardware about the only thing worse is having boats for a hobby. Slapping the word "photo" on something means you can charge three times the street value for something; slap the word "marine" on it and you can charge 10x. Now, they've really gotten into the game with digital photography- slap the word Digital on the front of the word "photo" and all of a sudden a plain glass 55mm protective filter costs $50 (not even UV-coated!).

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Add the word Aero or Aviation to it and it's 100X....


erie

The salary is not bad for essentially only working part time.

But there's a lot of things to take into consideration. For instance, the car allowance. If it's a reimbursement for mileage, how much is being paid and how many miles have to be driven? I've worked on a job that required me to use my own vehicle, driving high miles and getting a piss-poor car allowance. I quit that job and took a lower paying job and I was better off because I didn't have the expense of higher insurance, more frequent service, ever-increasing fuel costs and quick depreciation.

Location, location, location. 10,000 GBP is nearly the median household income for families in their prime in my rural Missouri county. Some farmers have millions invested in land and equipment, and work very long hours to earn more (or much less in a bad year). At least housing can be reasonable far enough away from cities, perhaps $10,000 to $30,000 USD for an old basic house in the country or a small town. I live 70 miles from a camera store or major shopping centers, so it's convenient to live without luxuries. Five television channels and many radio stations are available without cable or a dish. Crime is fairly low. Life can be good without 10,000 GBP a year.

Life is very relative. That £10K a year is not 'starvation salary' as a photographer in another part of the land still try to earn this money.

Ok, what do you want! Labour is product on market and it is under market rule. So, as you want to buy cheap, also employer wants to buy cheap. In your case is cheap car or clothing, in employer case is cheap labour. But as labour is on market same as car that is that. So:

1. Stop whining and accept that you are not people, humans, but goods on labour market and live with fact that others do not want to buy you for money you want

or

2. Change system you live in and move from capitalism to something else which is not only market or money driven

After all, that is capitalism, and you all want it, so you got what you wanted.

I think Haris has got it right.

We all think that we are underpaid and that we pay too much for everything else.


Steve.

Got my W-2 on Friday. If I were to work this 20,000 dollar part time job I would be making half what I am making now. As I said before, if you want this job and make more money, take two jobs.

As to the statement that there is no ay to get what you need done in 23 hours a week, I say why not. If you put in the required number of hours then leave, go to your next job. If they want you to work more hours you tell them to pay you more. If they do not want that then you work your 23 and collect your pay for 23. On the other hand, if you are bucking for a promotion then volunteer more hours.

Haris is right to a point. If one wants to hire someone they are not going to go with the lowest bid, if the work is critical. If this is work that can be done easily by someone just out of school then the lowest cost is the way to go.

Steve, I do not feel like I am underpaid. I am finally happy with the amount I get paid. Sure, I could use more, that gaorsi 6x17 shore is purdy, but I do not NEED more. but considering my food bill doubled over the last year I say yes things are getting too expensive.

mark said:

Sure, I could use more, that gaorsi 6x17 shore is purdy, but I do not NEED more.

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I think that would be true for most of us.

Whatever salary I have had over the years (ranging from pittance to not bad) I have always used up exactly all of it. Generally you make your lifestyle fit around what you earn.


Steve.

Also, it's not really relevant to compare £10,000 to $20,000. Yes, that is the exchange rate at the moment but a while ago it would have been $17,500 or even $15,000.

It's only really relevant comparing it to something stable such as the national average wage in whichever country.


Steve.

Steve,

Unless I misunderstood the ad it did say £ 18,907 per year pro rata + car allowance. I admit I rounded up to 20,000 and did not make any currency conversions. If I do make currency conversions at today's rates that is over 36 grand a year for a part time job. Up until recently I made less than that for a full time job. Not too bad from where I stand.

Lol999 said:

Okay, being as I live in Derbyshire I can comment with some knowledge on this. Assuming you got the job to translate out to £20k p.a. you will not be able to afford anywhere in the Peak District to live,

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Well I think it's a bloody good wage if you ask me..

I broke my back 8 years ago and when I got my first job afterward, my starting salary was £10,000 per year for a full time job in the IT industry!!

I worked my way up to 14k the next year - job hopped to 20k the year after - 33k the year after that and finally 55k now I work for myself.. for the first year I lived quite a normal life..

To put in in perspective, I was on the dole (benefits) before that and I took home £70 per week to live on after bills and rent I had £15 per week..

I managed to go out on this (helped on a magazine for free tickets to events), got to eat out (restaurant reviews), go on trips (cheap tickets for out of peak time) and learn web development (cheap computer and shared internet connection).

Everything is relative - I'd be happy to be on 10,000 per year if I was doing something I loved - I could spend the other half of the year doing something that paid a little better...

Tim