Economic Stimulus - Will it help photographers find a job?

[dave lackey]

Will it? Will the $819 BILLION stimulus package help photographers find a job? How will construction projects and all the pork projects (whatever they may be we do not know as the public has not seen them), help photography? Maybe documenting corruption?

This is not meant as a political thread. I am interested in how my world of photography will be included in this historic event.

If you think the economic stimulus will help, please inform me as I cannot see the forest for the trees.

[Pickett Wilson]

Sadly, the rapidly shrinking job market for photographers started long before the current economic woes. There is still a need, though, for photographers who have still & video skills, video and audio editing skills, and a good working knowledge of photoshop. Oh, and willing to work your butt off for relatively low pay!

Like they tell public school teachers when they pay them poorly, "It's not about the money...it's a calling."

[Tuolumne]

We can always take pictures of road projects.

/T

[Al Kaplan]

We started into a downward spiral with auto exposure SLR's with zoom lense together with one hour labs. Digital speeded up the process. Now probably 90% of the jobs that would have involved hiring a photographer a decade or two ago are shot by somebody in the office. The pictures might not be all that great, but for the price they're good enough. You see them in newspapers, newletters, government and corporate brochures, everyplace. Get used to it.

[bmattock]

Perhaps, if the government repeats what was done before. Not many were hired, though the work they produced was amazing.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsahtml/fahome.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farm_Se...Administration

The FSA photography group consisted of:

Charlotte Brooks
Esther Bubley
Marjory Collins
Harold Corsini
Jack Delano
Sheldon Dick
Arnold Eagle
Walker Evans
Theodor Jung
Dorothea Lange
Russell Lee
Sol Libsohn
Carl Mydans
Gordon Parks
Martha McMillan Roberts
Edwin Rosskam
Louise Rosskam
Arthur Rothstein
Richard Saunders
Ben Shahn
John Vachon
Marion Post Wolcott

[pesphoto]

What Al say's is true, companies are doing things in house and not hiring out so much anymore. Im fortunate to be a staff shooter for a large Pharmacy chain. They built their own have a studio right in the world headquarters. I was fortunate to find my way in.

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

That money is going to be totally wasted and it won't benefit any ordinary citizen, photographer or not.

To the guy who said public school teachers are underpaid: The starting pay where I live is $35,000 a year to work 9 months. Even if it was for 12 months of work it is more than 90% of the people in my city earn, and it is enough to live decently because the cost of living is VERY low here. The average teacher here makes over $50,000 a year...the new ones starting at $35k will be making much more after they get tenure.

[kully]

No, not at all. It's making it worse for 'photographers'.

Less money means less companies willing to spend money on hiring someone for something when George in Department AS11 has a DSLR and lots of photography magazines on his desk.

Times are different from when Frankie was given some dough and sent out - everyone has a camera now, and don't forget the thousands (in the UK at least) of qualified photography students that leave education each year. Sure, they may not know aperture from their bottom loading - but which company would care about your gorgeously printed shot of a couple kissing whilst jumping into a puddle twixt billboards symbolising the end of an era?

[digitalintrigue]

What we need are tax cuts (corporate, personal, and capital gains.) This is what gets the economy going, and what will employ all sorts of people including photographers.

[Al Kaplan]

Tax cuts is what got us into this financial quagmire to begin with. We're paying for a war with money our grandchildren have yet to earn, so we're borrowing it from the Chinese.

[monochromejrnl]

Originally Posted by Al Kaplan

Tax cuts is what got us into this financial quagmire to begin with. We're paying for a war with money our grandchildren have yet to earn, so we're borrowing it from the Chinese.

and the chinese made their money taxing local companies that benefitted from US companies outsourcing their manufacturing of consumer products that now fill US landfills... it's the 'free market' wonderful ;P

[digitalintrigue]

Well, where does the billions in bailout money come from? It comes from private and public economic activity, not government, and what spurs that activity are incentives, and incentives are low taxes.

What caused this mess was congress (both republican and democrat congresses, btw) that decided it was a good idea to give mortgages to people who couldn't pay them back, and Fannie/Freddie paying off those congressmen to look the other way while they cooked the books and sold the worthless paper.

When it's easy to get a mortgage, everyone wants one, and real estate prices went up artificially.

The people at Fannie/Freddie should be in jail along with the Enron, Tyco, and Worldcom execs. This mess makes those bankruptcies look like the closing of a corner store.

This video is worth a watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQtq77RQRf0

[Frank Petronio]

The idea that the government can somehow spend money more efficiently than the private sector is illogical... it's never been done before. All they want to do is grab more power and votes -- if they wanted to stimulate the economy they would go on austerity budgets, cut taxes, and let local communities have control over regulations, set-asides, healthcare, education, and social programs, etc. We'd pay less, invest more, and have more of a say in what happens in our communities.

That said, the best place for a photographer to be is Washington, D.C. and/or as a Paparazzi-style or Porno Blogger -- those are the only growth areas in professional photography that I see right now. Maybe Obama will create another WPA-style organization? I see they stuck a big hunk of cash in for the NEA... But those are political as hell and you know everyone is connected that ends up with anything. Watch Alec Soth get a huge grant since he's politically correct....

As more people are unemployed, more of them will have time to surf the internet, so internet content will be valuable -- you just have to churn a lot of it out to make any money (digital...)

These photographers are making money:

http://www.theselby.com/

http://www.lastnightsparty.com/

There is some guy in Arizona who flies in pornstars for the weekend and posts the results, I read that he was clearing $500K per year. But I lost the URL, I never bookmark those things.

See! You can do it too.... Zig Ziglar and Tony Robbins approve!

[bmattock]

Originally Posted by Al Kaplan

Tax cuts is what got us into this financial quagmire to begin with. We're paying for a war with money our grandchildren have yet to earn, so we're borrowing it from the Chinese.

Which was a brilliant maneuver on our part. The Chinese were running a huge trade surplus with us. They ended up with so much money, they were running out of place to put it all. They bought up trillions in US debt and then invested in a bunch of US banking and brokerage houses (pre-collapse). Now they are chained to us at the hip. We go down, they go down. We can't buy their lousy goods unless we have easy access to credit and an unlimited debt ceiling. So they must continue to finance us.

It's totally cool. They'll never invade us, but they thought they'd buy us. We pulled sucked them in and now we totally pwn them. Lolz.

If I'm bankrupt for a thousand dollars, I have a problem. If I'm bankrupt for a billion dollars, my debtors have a problem. When governments are bankrupt, all the countries that own that country's debt have a problem.

[Al Patterson]

Originally Posted by dave lackey

Will it? Will the $819 BILLION stimulus package help photographers find a job? How will construction projects and all the pork projects (whatever they may be we do not know as the public has not seen them), help photography? Maybe documenting corruption?

This is not meant as a political thread. I am interested in how my world of photography will be included in this historic event.

If you think the economic stimulus will help, please inform me as I cannot see the forest for the trees.

This package is a pork-fest. If you think this will help, you are kidding yourself. Now maybe if you photograph some of these projects on spec, and self-publish your own book on this this era, it might. But you're on your own.

[Frank Petronio]

Actually I think the economy stalled in order to screw over Putin and put the brakes on China, I know the USA and EU can absorb the losses far better than those countries can, so it is sort of an economic war taking place behind the scenes.

Really we want a lot of foreign investment and borrowing. China needs us to be successful and can't afford to fight with us, plus our cost of living has gone down since our buyer power has increased.

It's sort of an either-or situation -- either we're complete isolationists or we just open everything up. It's probably better for the world -- peace and prosperity wise -- to have a world-wide market.

The news media spreads all this doom and gloom. Meanwhile real people are still going to work and building houses and the mall parking lots are full. I think half this "collapse" is psychological and set upon us by a careless, immoral, and incompetent press. Not one outlet has done any digging or research, they just use press releases and allow themselves to be spun.

Right now we are living better than any society in the history of the world. And what do we hear on the news? It's the freaking end-times. Right....

As far as being a photographer, the middle of the bell curve of the market is... umm, gone.

[digitalintrigue]

Yes, the media is part of our problem. They really think most of us can't think for ourselves.

But one post on these issues is more than enough for me for a few days...

[Al Patterson]

Originally Posted by Al Kaplan

Tax cuts is what got us into this financial quagmire to begin with. We're paying for a war with money our grandchildren have yet to earn, so we're borrowing it from the Chinese.

Tax cuts have pulled our butt out of the fire before. JFK, Reagan and Bush all used tax cuts to spur periods of growth. The problem is that both Democratic and Republican congresses spend money in a way that would embarrass a drunken sailor on shore leave. If Congress were forced to budget like the rest of us, we wouldn't be were we are. This includes spending on wars as well as on iinfrastructure, retirement, etc. If I have to live within my income, how come the pinheads in Washington can't (or won't)?

[mojobebop]

don't think so.
too much pork attached.
and a lot of the 'projects' are designed to
take effect only after few to several years.

[colyn]

If you are a pig it might help ya.............PORK BELLY!!!!!!!!!!

[canonetc]

No, I think the Stimulus plan might not help photographers as a whole per se, except those already employed as City, State or Federal staffers who will document the roads-building process.

People will still get married, even on a budget, so consider wedding photography.
Cheers,
Chris

[Krosya]

Originally Posted by Frank Petronio

The news media spreads all this doom and gloom. Meanwhile real people are still going to work and building houses and the mall parking lots are full. I think half this "collapse" is psychological and set upon us by a careless, immoral, and incompetent press. Not one outlet has done any digging or research, they just use press releases and allow themselves to be spun.

Right now we are living better than any society in the history of the world. And what do we hear on the news? It's the freaking end-times. Right....

.

While I mostly agree with the first part of the statement about media, I'm not so sure that we live better now than any society in a history of the world. Lots of companies going out of business (Circuit City, for one), many others letting lots of people go (GE, GM, Ford, etc) - and thats just what I see where I live.
Yes, meadi does make things look 100000% worse, but things do happen.

[Krosya]

Originally Posted by Chriscrawfordphoto

That money is going to be totally wasted and it won't benefit any ordinary citizen, photographer or not.

To the guy who said public school teachers are underpaid: The starting pay where I live is $35,000 a year to work 9 months. Even if it was for 12 months of work it is more than 90% of the people in my city earn, and it is enough to live decently because the cost of living is VERY low here. The average teacher here makes over $50,000 a year...the new ones starting at $35k will be making much more after they get tenure.

Sounds like it's a good idea to become a teacher?

[mumford]

Originally Posted by Al Patterson

Tax cuts have pulled our butt out of the fire before. JFK, Reagan and Bush all used tax cuts to spur periods of growth.

If I have to live within my income, how come the pinheads in Washington can't (or won't)?

Because somebody has to pay for those crony contracts, illegal wars, tax cuts and corporate welfare for the richest and powerful. May as well be you.

[mumford]

Originally Posted by Frank Petronio

The idea that the government can somehow spend money more efficiently than the private sector is illogical... it's never been done before.

And letting the banking and "private sector" crooks run wild is more than illogical, it is criminal.