Re Up NPPA?

[Guy Critique]

Financially this is one of the toughest years ever.
I have been a card carrying NPPA Member since 1985, I believe in the organization and what it stands for.
This year I have to wonder about if I can really afford the $110.00 for my membership.
I know it is tax deductible, but the money this year is not there.
What to do.....

 

[Latin Lens]

Installment plan?

 

[adam]

30 cents a day for the community, learning opportunities and the contests/motivation? For me it's a bargain. But it is tougher to swallow $110 right before the holidays, at the end of the year. Perhaps you lapse for a couple of months and re-up for April?
I did, and still do, think it was a mistake to cross the $95 line. It just feels like a lot more when you hit 3 digits.

 

[Wutangmaster]

Do what ya got to do.

 

[zac love]

Is your station willing to pay the dues? If not all, for even some of it? I'm sure a 50/50 split would make it easier to write that check.

 

[JoeyO38]

Our station still pays for our membership costs. We have 12 members. If they stopped paying, I would bet we'd go down to 2 members.

If an NPPA membership was $40, like my NATAS membership, more photogs at our station would be willing to pay out of their pocket. $110 can put quite a hole in the pocket.

 

[eb]

That's what credit cards are for
Actually, they should pay you.

 

[Land Rover]

I've been a member off and on through the years and honestly I just don't see what $110 gets me that I can't get by doing my own research and watching stories online. I've got no plans to join again anytime soon. That's not saying its a bad organization, it isn't. It just not for me.

 

[Brock Samson]

I had to bite the bullet and decline renewal this year. I hate doing it, but it's just so expensive...

 

[thru-the-lens]

I've never worked at a station that paid NPPA dues. After over a decade of membership I dropped out 3 years ago. Times were tough then and the station had already zeroed OT and frozen wages, taken away news units, an instituted gear sharing as cameras died. There are signs that economy is getting better. The GM and Sales people all have new cars. Oh. I've buried the lead again.

thru-the-lens.

 

[micaelb]

Dave, eb is right. The NPPA should pay you.

I agree, the dues are expensive. I also think we need to do more for members. The problem we have is money. Raise dues and lose members or lower dues and have a few more members but less money. If dues were $55 would membership double? I doubt it.

What can the NPPA do to make the membership worth $110? Seriously, I would like some ideas. Webinars? Regional events? Hands-on workshops?

I think more important, what can the NPPA do to inspire members to do the kind of volunteer work Dave has done for years? More Daves and an NPPA membership becomes more valuable.

Dave, I hope you re up.

 

[adam]

It's going to be up to each Region to make it worthwhile. We had an unbelievable conference this last fall in Seattle and it cost NPPA members $20. It made membership worth it, but it was a rare occasion.

Here is the key; lower prices a little and start recognizing that video is the future of the organization. Still work is precious but it isn't a growth industry. We have converted still photogs teaching other still photogs about video, while videographers sit on the sidelines of the NPPA. When the association accepts it's future I think TV 'togs will begin to come back. A magazine that celebrates a beautiful but dying aspect of our industry isn't enough to keep membership. Accessible learning opportunities are going to bring people in.

 

[Lensmith]

Not a member...but I still get the magazine.

Same issues of concern for me are reinforced with every issue of News Photographer Magazine.

Overt lack of respect for those of us who shoot video compared to those who shoot stills.

Now that they are finally understanding the importance of video, the NPPA continues to downplay the abilities of existing video members with numerous comments throughout articles.

They still don't get it.

And never will.

As i see more and more respected members of the NPPA, who happen to shoot video, come to the conclusion so many of us made years ago...it reinforces my beliefs about the future of the NPPA.

Not an insult to the organization.

Just an obvious fact that continues to be ignored by those in charge who happen to still try and make a living shooting stills and consider video secondary.

 

[Chicago Dog]

I don't want to reiterate my stance on the NPPA again, nor do I want to start another thread critical of the NPPA, so I'll just ask:

Guy, is there anything you get from shelling out $110 to NPPA that you don't already get on a site like B-Roll.net?

 

[Lensmith]

I agree with you CD. We don't need yet another bash the NPPA thread.

It just reminded me of my frustrations as I read the latest magazine and they bend over backwards to discount the abilities of those of us who happen to shoot video compared to those who shoot stills.

That's not a bash at the NPPA in the end. It's a bash against the majority of still photographers who just don't get it. Which, in the long run, is an advantage to those of us who do!

 

[satop]

I don't want to bash the NPPA also, I learned a lot from them over the years.

I used to be a member of the NPPA, I quit for all these reasons mentioned. What took me over the top, was when I attended one of the short courses, was the seperation of video and stills. there were three times the amount of workshops for still members as there were for video. But, so many of the still classes focused on doing video. why not combine those. No longer are we TV people and Newspaper people. TV web sites have still pictures, I shoot some of them at my station. While video is on almost every web site everywhere.

Why is the NPPA still run as 2 different sides of one organization? Everyone does both in the real world, if the NPPA reflected that more, I would consider re-joining, and I know there would be others also.

 

[JoeyO38]

Mike-

What about the long term? If you cut costs 50%, you aren't going to double membership THIS year, but isn't there any long term planning? I have to imagine membership drops off every year.

Lately, I feel like joining the NPPA is like buying tickets to a game at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees would rather have less fans attending games, but the ones that do pay more money per ticket. The rich shell out the cash, the poor don't go. Same with NPPA. How can a rookie photographer in a small market afford to join on such a low starting salary? There are no $20 seats in the NPPA- maybe there should be.

 

[Chicago Dog]

I used to be a member of the NPPA, I quit for all these reasons mentioned. What took me over the top, was when I attended one of the short courses, was the seperation of video and stills. there were three times the amount of workshops for still members as there were for video. But, so many of the still classes focused on doing video.

That's a great point. If I have a question about still photography, I'm not going to go ask another videographer when I've got access to so many still photographers. That doesn't make any damn sense.

I learned a lot through the NPPA. I genuinely believe that I wouldn't be where I am today had it not been for the enthusiasm and interest at various NPPA events.

However, as I've said in the past, a point came that I felt the NPPA was getting more out of me than I was getting out of the NPPA. One of the reasons I left was because I didn't like that my membership fee was being used to help publish a magazine that considers me a very small fraction of their target audience.

I want to contribute funds to advance my career, not someone else's.

 

[Brock Samson]

Now that they are finally understanding the importance of video, the NPPA continues to downplay the abilities of existing video members with numerous comments throughout articles.

As long as I've stood and defended the organization, and for everything that I've learned from it, I have to admit that the still guys have a serious case of 'my farts don't stink' when it comes to their attitudes towards video. Strange, considering that more and more of them are shooting video...

 

[1911A1]

I ran across an issue of News Photographer from two or three years ago that had an article where the "new media" people were talking about the "ethical challenges" brought on by having to shoot video versus shooting stills.

I was reminded of a conversation I had with Pat Holloway at the Women in Photojournalism conference a few years ago. We were chatting in the hallway and she pointed at the doors to one of the meeting rooms in the hotel where the conference was being held and said that inside were still photographers attending a presentation on how to shoot better video for the web.

I remember her saying that the room was nearly full for that presentation, but that the crowds for the television portion of the conference weren't.


The still photographers who have to shoot video now have a huge resource in the teevee membership of the NPPA, but the vast majority of them seem to have decided that they're going to reinvent the wheel instead of learning from people who've actually been toting around video cameras for a long time.

Judging from the majority of newspaper/web video that I see, they could really use the help.