This working life

Issue 66 of 40 South Magazine

The first in-print publication of pictures from my project This Working Life has just been published over 8 pages in the portfolio section of the highly respected Tasmanian magazine 40° South. If you are interested in Tasmania and all things Tasmanian, subscribe now.

To coincide with this I’ve posted some more of the pictures here. If you want to know more about this project please visit my This Working Life blog.

“Looking at pictures of work can provoke thoughts and feelings about work and life…it leads each to ponder in our own personal terms, not just the subject at hand but the universal nature of human existence.” Ferdinand Protzmann The World of Work.

Flinders Street Station, Melbourne

Gypsy Bar, Brunswick Street, Fitzroy

Kalgoorlie, Western Australia

“Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” Theodore Roosevelt

Nullarbor, South Australia

Perth, WA

Hobart, Tasmania

“Finding the right work is like discovering your own soul in the world.” Sir Thomas Moore (1779-1852)

Sydney, NSW

Armidale, NSW

Byron Bay, NSW

Rottnest Island, WA

Tullamarine Airport, Melbourne

“The strongest bond of human sympathy outside the family relation should be one uniting working people of all nations and tongues and kindreds.” Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)

Bourke Street, Melbourne

Job seeker, Hobart

Collins Street, Hobart

Hobart, Tasmania

Brisbane, Queensland

Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it. 
- Buddha

Brisbane, Queensland

Cambellfield, Victoria

Kimberley, WA

Kalgoorlie, WA

Melbourne, Victoria

Hobart, Tasmania

“I do not believe we can repair the basic fabric of society until people who are willing to work have work. Work organizes life. It gives structure and discipline to life.” Bill Clinton

ABC and Organic Gardener, trying it on…

This week I received a “deed of copyright” from the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s Organic Gardener, a publication I have on a few occasions contributed to. I was at first puzzled as it is nearly two years since I’ve had anything published in that fine magazine. Now, I’m all for contracts when it comes to publishing, but this particular deed I was being asked to sign, wanted me to grant them a fixed re-use price for my photographs of $20 per use, plus the use of my work “on any website owned or controlled by the ABC…for an unlimited time gratis”.

The specific clauses in the ABC Copyright Licence Deed

Normally I would just ignore a rights grab like that, but in this case I felt compelled to respond. I wrote to the ABC as follows:

Thursday, 22 September 2011

 Dear Ms White,

 I am puzzled by the request to sign a deed of copyright related to my material previously published in Organic Gardener.

 While I respect the need for contracts within publishing, I will not sign overarching deeds of copyright related to material already published, that gives the ABC retrospective re-use rights at rates so low.

 Organic Gardener is entirely free to re-use my material whenever they choose, at a rate negotiated with me at the time. I am sure your experience is the same as mine, but I have yet to encounter any supplier of goods or services that will allow me to decide what I want to pay. As the author and licensee of my photographs, it is my prerogative to decide the rates they are offered at. If you disagree with what I ask, it is your right to say negotiate or say no.

 I have forwarded copies of your deed of copyright to the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance and the Australian Commercial and Media Photographers.

 Yours sincerely,

I’ll let you know if there is any follow-up….