Hi all,
enjoying my work at the moment, yes its for free
You're not actually working for pay? So someone is making a mug out of you for their own financial gain (i.e. the newspaper)? Unfortunately, because of what you're doing (along with thousands of other weekend warriors) in "working" for free for these newspapers you're, in essence, depriving yourself of being paid for your images!
Had a cheeky local newspaper ask me for images last weekend. Quick bit of background - I had contact from them at the beginning of the season asking if they could use my images. I said of course they can but they have to pay for them. Then came the usual reply "We have no budget for purchasing pictures blah, blah, blah". So I said no pay, no pics. I said to him if they were willing to put an advert for my business (I run a cleaning business) in the newspaper every week, then I could supply an image or 2 each game. Didn't hear anything else from them. As it turns out, they now get images from a weekend warrior if they can. Crap picture for free is better than a decent picture that's been paid for, in their eyes. Back to this weekend - they contacted me asking if I had any pics I could send over as the usual guy hasn't been supplying them the last couple of games. Quote - "I don't suppose there's any chance we could use a pic of yours while *** is out of action is there? Still can't offer any money, sorry."
I replied, mentioning that I didn't get a response about the possibility of publishing my advert each week in the paper. I get back "It's a good idea but unfortunately for us, it's the same as paying you. The only thing that keeps a free paper like ours afloat is advertising revenue."
So of course I send a reply asking how they can have the cheek to ask me for something for free, that I normally charge for, but they're not willing to provide exactly the same thing in return, something for free that they usually charge for! What's the difference??
So, they'll be using crappy mobile phone shots taken from the sidelines for a while!