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I was scrolling through Labour's manifesto illustrations yesterday and thought I spotted one by me. It turned out it wasn't mine but it got me wondering from where they might have sourced the pictures. There were no credits at the back but it looked as though some were snaps made by Labour activists/members and some, perhaps agency stock. 

 

Have you ever made a political party sale and what sort of money was made?

 

Rgds,

Richard.

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Yes, kind of. An MP once used an image of mine in a political statement on Facebook about an opponent. It was actually snatched (not knowing it was protected by copyright) from a newspaper use on the Internet. My e-mail was well received - and I got the double of what I would have received for a regular agency sale.

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Many years ago, (1970), I was commissioned, (well-paid), to take the campaign photographs for a candidate in one of the south Wales valleys. The party booked practically every large poster hoarding site in the constituency for the election period, many up to 48 sheet size so the valley was saturated with them.  The series of posters were just huge printed blow-ups of my B&W photographs of the candidate in various locations and situations relevant to the constituency with a simple text slogan. 

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I have taken many photos of Hillary Clinton since 2006 when I did a cover for a local magazine. Several of Bill too. Having met them both several times over the years, I've always been a supporter. Anyway, many have been licensed since then.

 

However, all is not rosy. One that I really like of the two of them (which was licensed for positive and/or neutral stories in the past) ended up in a book where I netted $200 for an 1/8th page limited run (one of my better licenses for an editorial photo that was nearly a decade old by then), but not thrilled to see the photo used in a book about some conspiracy theory. 

 

Additionally, several of my 2015-2016 images were licensed during the campaign, some in articles favorable to her, which is what I envisioned when I took them, but many others, to my dismay, were used by some conservative and even some of those awful alt-news sites in stories supporting that other guy. 

 

Once your photos are available to be licensed, it's really out of your hands. That is always the risk you take with editorial photos. 

 

The sad part is, some of the respectable publications didn't credit them using my name, but many of the less savory sites did (those are the times I wish they'd just use the agency's name). At least I was paid for the many uses and none of them turned into memes.

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Despite having a fair selection of political figures on file, way and away my best selling political photos have been the following lamp

 post, of which I did a whole series of shots.

an-array-of-election-signs-on-a-lamp-pos

 

As a bonus, the lamp post didn't argue about how it wanted to be portrayed, either ...

:)

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  • 2 weeks later...

One of the leaflets that has dropped through my door shows their candidate superimposed over a shot of the Palace of Westminster. It's so noisy that I wouldn't be surprised if the file used was no larger than a forum avatar. Shocking

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I got some photos of George Galloway a couple of years ago.

I put them on Twitter and George 'liked' them and they sold for something like 'small business use' within a week.

I assumed it was him, for leaflets or something.

Most of my political sales come from the papers, stock pictures of obscure backbench MPs who have said something stupid or offended someone - it's a huge market.

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