I hate having my photo taken

Nice to have a chat yesterday with local photographer Rob Tibbles, he is doing a piece in the local paper about my new book and came round for a portrait. Lots of people call themselves photographers by Rob is one of the rare breed who actually makes some money out of the profession. He’s not too bloody bad at his job too, given the flat light, poor subject material and chilly conditions he made a decent fist of making me look human!

It’s funny when fotohogs get together that the subject of “How much is a photo worth” always comes up. For a surf photographer there is a massive amount of investment in equipment (cameras, lenses, tripods, computers, software and waterhousings), there’s travel and time spent chasing the surf and there’s the time and skill in capturing, processing and selling the images. We both agreed that in todays climate that unless you are tied to a magazine, it is very difficult if not impossible to pay the rent and eat food if you are a ‘surf photographer’. It has to be a passion.

Compare the work of an artist who paints ‘modern art’ on canvas (hoping that no-one works out that they’re actually just flicking paint around like a dick) and sells it for a nice little income, to that a photographer who is expected to give all his work away for free…… Now ask yourself the question, how much is a photograph worth.

Some more of the excellent work of Rob Tibbles can be found at

http://www.robtibbles.com