Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/07/14
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Professional to Tourist In some old world cities like Rome & Athens professional photographers are charged to photograph within their historic sites. I first came across this situation at the Forum ruins in Rome where I had intended to shoot a number of scenes for a stock photo agency . There is an admission fee for entrance to the area, but when I went through with equipment bags and tripod I was asked if I was a professional photographer. "Yes, I'm shooting material to take to Canada," I replied truthfully.. This was an unfortunate admission on my part as professional photographers must pay an extra fee of 100 Lire for there pictures. I could accept that for a day of shooting within the ruins. Then my interpreter discovered the fee was for each exposure. I asked did they mean each different location or each time I exposed a frame? The fee was charged for every time the camera went click! Imagine a 36 exposure roll was going to cost 3600 Lire. I probably would shoot 10 or twenty rolls during the day and that got to be very very expensive and that was more than I could accept! We returned to the car, unloaded the camera bags and tripod into the trunk, filled our pockets with film, slung cameras on our neck returning to the entrance as tourists. Admission fee paid and ticket in hand we entered unchallenged. When we finished the day 30 rolls of 36 exposure Kodachrome were exposed. It didn't take much to calculate the shooting fee would have been 108,000 thousand Lire. If I was paid that amount to shoot the assignment I wouldn't feel too bad, but to have paid it out, not on your life. Sometimes it pays to be a professional tourist!