Picture: Alpenglow on clouds in evening above Half Dome and Tenaya Canyon from Glacier Point, Yosemite National Park, California.
A few weeks ago, I was contacted by an editorial intern at Travel & Leisure (Online) requesting permission to use an image of mine of Yosemite National Park for a feature they were planning on running called, “Best U.S. National Park Views.” The email said they could offer a credit line, but made no mention of payment. When I replied saying I’d be happy to have my images considered, but queried about payment, well… that was the last I ever heard from them.
Yesterday, I finally got a chance to see what Travel & Leisure Online selected for showing off the “BEST” views from our US National Parks. Sufficed to say, I think T&L got exactly what they paid for, and the result was completely underwhelming. Best Views; hardly. A representation of anything Best? Certainly not the best photos. I thought their photo selection was mediocre (at best) and at worst, just a crappy representation of our country’s most stunning visual landscapes. (My personal opinion is that only two of the images rise above “decent”, a couple more are “OK”, and the rest… ugh.)
If you’re like me, and are completely underwhelmed by this lackluster visual presentation, please contact the Editors of TravelandLeisure.com (second listing under the Comments & Questions section) and tell them that with visual features that use such poor quality photos, you see no compelling reason to return to the site in the future. With enough comments, maybe the editors will think twice before using photos that are merely (read: barely) (re-read: not even) good enough.
Yeah that is pretty pitiful. Justification for not subscribing to that magazine alone just on the lack luster images. Of course as a photographer you know thats not going to sit well with me. A sad state of affairs for certain.
All sorts of companies don’t want to pay for photo’s and this is the result; really crappy representation. They probably found all of these on Flickr and the so called photographers let them use the photos for free because they feel honored their picture was picked. These photog’s don’t seem to know they are being taken avantage of.
Yeah I agree Gary. Pretty mediocre stuff. I mean cmon, the images look like year 2002 digital point and shoot quality judging from how contrasty the images look.
Heartbreaking isn’t it? I got a call a few days ago from the picture editor of a a magazine I have always wanted to photograph for. I was thrilled to get the call, really excited when she told me that she’d known about my work for a while and really liked it, and then bitterly disappointed when she told me what she expected to pay for the assignment. I realise it wasn’t her fault and that the rates were set by her bosses but I was pretty disappointed to have to turn down an assignment from a company I would have loved to work for. Will we ever get to the point where the general public demand better of their reading material? We can only hope so.
“Gorgeous vistas of national parks’ untamed mountains, deep forests, pristine lakes & more! http://bit.ly/15nykY”
yes $12 worth perhaps
If they are good at Customer Relationship Management they will monitor tweets about @TravlandLeisure
http://twitter.com/TravlandLeisure/
The images of Acadia and Badlands aren’t too bad. The rest are just snapshots. Obviously having a title of editor doesn’t make you one!
Surprising to see something associated with Travel and Leisure done so poorly.
Agreed. The images were pretty poor, for the most part. The Denali image was an insult — every Princess Cruise tourist who takes the bus tour through the park has the same damn shot. I can even tell you which bus stop it was taken from — my husband and I waited more than 2 hours for the clouds to clear for a glimpse of the mountain top when we visited.
Composition, lighting, and color were mostly either bad or cooked up in Photoshop. Very disappointing stuff.
I do need to make one more comment here.
Sadly, the general public couldn’t tell a good photo from a crappy one, even if the crappy one left dirt on their eyeballs after viewing it.
‘Nuff said.
(And I think that might have been profound enough — at least for me — to tweet, so I’ll do that now.)
Thanks again for the post.
Honestly, I think it could have been worse (except for the Denali image).
Instead of finding that heartbreaking, I see it as reassuring to see the limits of what you can do with low-cost stock photography. If they had managed to put out a stunning feature with free photos (which is probably possible given enough time … but time is money isn’t it ?), that would have been more worrying.
I feel sorry for the photographers who gave their work away for free, and got literally nothing out of it. I didn’t notice any credited names — they might have been there, but I didn’t notice them. If T&L was smart, they would start a Flickr group and mooch to their heart’s content. People would probably post to it in droves on the chance their picture might be used for free and maybe, if they were good little monkeys, get a little sand kicked in their face for their trouble.
Maria has an excellent point–the public doesn’t know any better. They probably use a photo-altering program that produces those overly color-saturated, high-contrast shots people seem to like so much.
And I’m sure photographers are not much different from writers, they hear “you get a byline” and because they aren’t the support of the family, they agree to have their work taken from them, for free no less. And the rest of us, for whom this is our living, wonder why we can’t make enough money for our work.
Gary – check a little bit closer.
They did use your image of Yosemite and misattributed it
http://www.travelandleisure.com/slideshows/best-us-national-park-views/2
http://www.alamy.com/image-details.asp?aref=AD6XJP
thanks to Jeffrey’s Exif viewer
http://bit.ly/7fPZG
I had the same reaction as QT – I’m glad to see they couldn’t but together a better issue.
Some magazines recognize that photography is valuable content that brings in subscribers and advertising revenue. Evidently, Travel and Leisure views it as a way to fill space. I subscribe to a lot of magazines – one thing they all have in common, quality photography.
Adding to Maria and Quinn’s points, I think it’s sadder that the general public doesn’t expect more quality photography: Travel and Leisure should be showing people what great images actually can be, engaging through education and discourse rather than hiding what great work truly is; the more people know about what great images are and what great images take to create, the more the broader public will appreciate and value great images.
Aside from the embarrassing misstep of not noticing your own [misattributed] photo from Alamy, your point is still valid, Gary.
Travel & Leisure entitled their piece, “Best U.S. National Park Views” but it seems really they are talking about places within the parks which have the best viewpoints, not the best photos taken from those places.
So “you leave the paved world behind to go off on your own two fee” and take “quick 1.5-mile hike from the Logan Pass Visitor Center ” to Hidden Lake, for example.
Then the sent a summer intern out to rustle up image, giving him no, or limited budget, and having no regard for getting the highest quality pictures from the best viewpoints.
Such a lost opportunity, when there are so many brilliant landscape photographers who could have provided the world-class images to really showcase those scenes.
And such a shame for T&L which has had some excellent photographers shoot for them in the past, to allow such a shoddily put together, low-cost piece to go out.
Whoa, those are really unimpressive. (Your “real” photo is quite different from the stupidly cropped and washed out version they posted. I suppose we might give the other photographers the benefit of the doubt given what they managed to do to your photo, but still…
… if those are the “best views,” I’d hate to see the stuff they rejected! 🙂
Dan
This is the challenge that we (photographers) are facing in these economic times. Editorial fee’s continue to drop. Magazines are dying and have yet to figure out how to charge or make a profit with online material. I wonder how our images are going to hold up on a Kindle… No doubt the quality of a publication depends on it’s writing and images. The problem is no one wants to pay for it….
Absolutely wonderful pictures.
I love the Mountain and the valley.
That looks like an awesome place.