So here are 2 examples the reward I got on emphas.is.
I selected emphas.is and not kiskstarter, indiegogo, ulule, kisskissbankbank or any other… because emphas.is is the only valuable crowdfunding website… because these 2 rewards are really good examples and because I’ll use these 2 examples to in some next posts…

1st project: 21st Century Communism – Laos by Tomas van Houtryve

You can check the project on emphas.is.

Tomas has been my best crowdfunding experience… I’ll explain hy in a later post.
But with regards to rewards, it’s a big disappointment but also a very good illustration of 3 crowdfunding rewards mistake

• The semantic issue of crowdfunding
• Euros value of the reward not in phase with the market
• Non exclusive rewards

I quickly was interested only in one reward:  the “ Paperback mini-book of the Laos project + A personal thank you postcard photo “.

I love photo books. A  minibook, that’s cool..

But what else could I have selected ? The hard cover minibook? That’s 50 additional $ a hard cover… not for me thank you ! And spending 500 $ or 1000$ for he next propositions was simply not possible…
So let’s look at this minibook… Price 75 USD. Woow! That’s a lot for a minibook. I hesitated for a while, did not support the project immediately,…

I was trapped in the semantic issue… Was I about to support a cause, to help someone out, … ? Or am I a capitalist, willing to get value for my money?

Check my first post on the semantic issue.

Finally I bought the book. What decided me?

• I really was hooked to the Tomas’ project. I wanted to see more about it…
• I was a newcomer to crowdfunding… willing to live the experience… and
• I thought I was going for an exclusive experience… So I put my 75$ on the project

The project started very well… very quickly. After 3 month, it was over and I was happy with what I experienced, and was about to receive my minibook…

I received it, opened it, ….and then… Disappointment. Big disappointment. I received a 15 $ BLURB book plus a postcard. A 40 page 10x10cm BLURB Book. I know the cost price. 12 € + shipping cost and minus 10% for quantities over 10. Of course, I know, you have to add the “author’s copyright” and x, y, z… but…

But what remains is that… I paid 75 $ for a 15$ book and a postcard!… I felt cheated! I was disappointed.

I didn’t even read it. Disappointed. Very disappointed. That’s the second error. The reward was clearly out of the market price. After that, it will be hard for Tomas to have me crowdfund his next project, … and hard for emphas.is to convince me to come back too…

So I did the math Tomas did :

• Sells price 75 $
• Emphas.is commission -15% -> 65 $ for Tomas
• Book purchase and 20 $ maximum, shipping costs from blurb and to me included
• Postcard cost : I don’t know… 1 euro?
• This leaves a 40-45$ margin

And guess what… I thought this was an « exclusive » book. Something only me and the others in the crowd had received. Actually, Tomas never promised it was anything exclusive. He clearly mentionned in the project description that he intended to use this mini book towards decision makers, NGOs, … It seemed pretty neat to get that…. and made me think it was in some sense something exclusive.
But still, then, laver, came  the « bouquet » as we say in french, the massive schock…
A week or 2 later, I discovered that the minibook is on sale on the blurb website and that Tomas was promoting sales of this book.

I understand Tomas needs to make cash on this project, he needs to make his living…
but my exclusivity was gone… And without exclusivity, the only thing that remains is the price!

and the math is even clearer…
The book is on sales for 24€ plus shipping costs on the Blurb website. And the backwards math was like a knife in the heart: If I had just paid 10$ on the crowdfunding campain in order to wave acces to his great backers interaction and waited until the book is out to the public, then I would wave reduced my risks of buying something I don’t like and I would have saved 20 $ ! That’s not what I call an incentive…

So I probably will not crowdfund Tomas again. I guess I may be tempted again because he’s been very good on the « backers » interaction… But I haven’t been on the emphas.is website again since then. After all emphas.is let this happen. Why will this not happen again… ? And emphas.is is “slightly better than all the others”… so…

There is an additional thing I must say about this reward in order to be fair to Tomas:

Tomas actually sent a signed copy of the mini book. And on the postcard he wrote a small but sincere thank you note. It is important both in terms of psychological aspects and in terms of reward value.

It may not seem much. It did not seem much to me when I was discorering and being very disappointed by the mini-book. But it means much. It means Tomas cares, has sympathy. It means Tomas got it 100% good on his management of his crowd on his project:

• 100% good in delivering “behind the scene” information,
• 100% good in the “making of” sharing with his crowd, and
• 100% good recognition to the backers

In this sense the experience with Tomas on his project is a real success… and “only” the reward pricing itself is a disappointment… And the reward pricing is a global problem in crowdfunding as am underlining in the Part II article on crowdfunding… Tomas is only here an example of this more global problem…

One could also argue that the signed book I got in the reward has more value than the book I can buy on blurb.

• A signed book and postcard hans more $ value… and I didn’t count thins in my math…
• It also has more affective, more symbolic value

True.

Second example: The Story of Uyghur by Carolyn Drake

You can check her project on emphas.is
Another emphas.is project. I liked the ambiance and the tones of the images. I chose the 25 $ reward, “a postcard from the project”.
That’s 10 $ for access to the backers’ private area and 15 $ for a postcard sent to me. Not cheap but fair enough. But what ese could I have chosen?
That’s a point a forgot to mention in my previous post.

Most crowdfunding websites tell you that the “around 25 $” reward is the backers most frequent choice. And they tell you that, as it is the mont important one, you should be very careful when defining it… That’s true… but also thats a mistake:
From my experience the 25 $ is frequently a default choice! The choice of getting a souvenir but also the disappointment of not finding something I really like in the 25- 100 $ range.
So my advice would be to propose more rewards in this 25 – 100 $ range. (More = More quantity and more variety)

In the case of this project, I’m not interested by the 2nd reward : 50 $ for a postcard signed in Uyghur + MP3 (that’s a great original reward… but not one that I personnally want). Neither was I interested in the 100 $ a surprise gift (to my taste, that’s too expensive for a surprise). And the next proposition was at 300 $.

So I chose the 25$ reward by default.

The project went on without problem and after 6 month I received my postcard. I didn’t expect too much as I wen for “only” a postcard.

But when I received my reward, I’ve been disappointed. The reason is of pure form. I received a blank empty postcard. Carolyn had hand-written my address and stamped the card but left the left side empty. My feeling when I received it has been “Damn, I am part of the crowd that enabled her to get the financing for her project, and she didn’t even take the time to write ”Thank-You. Carolyn” .

I believe every single reward should be sent to the backers with a small personalized “thank-you” word from the author… Quick, simple and human.

I know the “postcard signed in Uyghur” is the 50 $ reward… but a small thank-you is costs nothing and is worth a lot…

Voilà!

And again… this is not a post against emphas.is. I chose emphas.is projects because they’re the best…

Exposition du 9 décembre 2011 au 11 janvier 2012.
Vernissage le 8 décembre à partir de 18h30.

Centre Henri Desbals,
128 rue Henri Desbals,
31100 Toulouse.

I hate this term “reward” !

To my knowledge it may refer to the financial rewards

Wanted Dead or Alive for robbery & murder : Jesse James and his gang. Reward : 1 Million dollars in cash.

or to the psychological reward

The mouse pushes the red button in order to get a reward : a door opens and she can get food. But she never pushes the blue button which is followed by an electric shock.

You may admit that this continues to be the unclear and misleading … Just reading this word makes me uncomfortable. I feel like  ”give me your money on your project, I’ll give you a little thank you thing”… “be a good dog and I’ll pet you”. I’m just being provokative… Only one of the website I follow which fund projects related to image have moved away for the awful term “reward”. Indiegogo calls them “perks”. I’m not sure it is much better, but at least it smells like good coffee. In french it’s been replaced by “contrepartie” (counterpart) which I find better…

The reason I don’t like this term, “reward”, is because it adds to the misleading issue : basically it continues in the “donation approach”, in the misleading semantic issue of crowdfunding. So let’s look into details in this topic of “rewards”.

What does the customer, expect from the rewards?

The customer? I mean the backer… Rewards are important for me, the one in the crowd who discovers a great project and you the project owner.  Rewards are important for me. The are what project owners will give me back when the project that I helped funding is over. They’re The straight forward part of the promise the project owner makes to his backers: “You fund my project . You will receive this”. I’m not saying the project in itself and the author’s previous work and the “experience shared” don’t count but, lets face it:

1. If you know the project owner, then you know you can trust him, you know you’ll like his project and you will be happy with whatever reward he gives you.
2. If he’s a friend of a friend, then, ok, you may trust him too, you’ll make sure you like the project and what the author usually does, and you’ll hope, trust, but maybe also check that your friend’s friend will deliver nice rewards…
3. But… if you’re from hat they call the third circle, if you’re not in the author’s network, you don’t know him or any of his real life friends who recommended him to you… then the story is different…

In this post I’ll be discussing rewards for projects for crowdfunding projects from the point of view of a basic guy who is in the 3rd circle (see a definition in Ulule), from the guy who doesn’t know the author and is “not in his network”. Of all the over 10 photography crowdfunding projects I’ve backed, for none did I know the author or someone that know the author.

So I’m the basic amateur of photography. And when I discover a photography crowdfunding project, its quite a quick and linear process: I start by checking the project, then if I like what I felt for this project, I check the author and if I like what he did before. Only after this do the rewards come in.

And when I start reviewing the rewards, it becomes binary. Yes or no. Do I like a specific reward and am I ready to pay for it ?

Rewards must be attractive, progressive, well written… All this is written in the helps/manuals of each crowdfunding site (check on Kickstarter or ulule or any other…) and it so true:

• I’ve decided not to invest in projects in which I really wanted to do so because I did’nt like the reward. I didnt want to pay for something I didn’t want. And it also gave me an odd feeling about the project… The feeling that something was wrong with the project or the crowdfunding approach itself
• I’ve taken only the minimum pledge in a project which I really liked, for which I wanted to get a good reward… but I didn’t find what I wanted in the rewards, either I didn’t like the reward or the gap between reward was too big…

But there is an issue which I think is not correctly raised by the crowdfunding websites :

How do you set the price for each reward ?

The first reward is simple : you only give your backers access to a space where they are only allowed and where they will get updates and more. This space doesn’t cost you nothing… excepted the time you’ll spend on it. You sell it at a minimum price. Some sites set a minimum price (5 – 10 $…). The reasos why this minimum reward is important are, according to me:

• With a big number of low budget backers you still can get a significant part of the fund raised…
• The price has no real link with any value. But it’s an important reward. It’s the one that get’s the author tied with his audience, where he builds a network, his crowd, … That is a value in itself.
• And it is a door open. These low budget backers cans spread the word about your great project to their network and this will bring more backers and more funding… Using your crowd during the funding period is something no one has done well in the 10 projects I backed. But I’ll come to this part in an other post.
• The number of persons who have backed your project is important. The more you have, the more backer on the project, the bigger my confidence will be, and the lower the hurdle to backing will be. And I found this to be independent from which reward the others have selected.

But for the other rewards? Now the question really is :

At what price do you sell your rewards ? Yes sell !

That’s my point. I’m in the third circle, I don’t know you, the author, the project owner. I like your project. I’m interested in a specific reward. But is this worth my money ? Remember, I’m one in the third circle. I don’t give a damn about you and your project.

Because for me, the guy in the crowd, far away in the third circle, when I see your rewards, my question is: Is it worth the money ?

The crowdfunding websites are very unclear on this. They try to tell you, the project owner, (and me the potential backer) that crowdfunding is “a mix of commerce and patronage, and the numbers bear this out”, but also encourage the authors to “ stay reasonably close to its real-world cost” (Kickstarter). What does this mean ? You can sell your rewards a bit expensive, but not too much? Most sites don’t event tackle this issue, and stay in the easy vocabulary of “attractive”, “progressive”… bla bla… and on the statistics of the most common and the average reward levels. Kickstarter communicates in each of their reports on their average reward level, most frequent reward levels. Indiegogo shows statistics too. Only Ulule gives some hints at what they think the pricing should be (and they are in the “a bit above market price” philosophy…).

But all this is statistics, nice principles, without going into the real issue of  how to set a price (excepted ulule as mentionned). This is because they are blocked in the semantic problem, they are embaarrassed. Is crowdfunding a donation or a good or an investmentµ. They don’t take a clear position on this. (and hope to get away with it…)

My approach to rewards price to this is quite radical, and quite different. I wrote that backers must sell their “rewards”. and you can only sell rewards at the price they’re worth. Even in crowdfunding !

Rewards are goods. Goods have a market price.

If you sell a book, the book has a price in a library. You can’t just sell it more expensive and think I will be so happy to support your great project. rewards must be priced at the market price of the good and service you offer. Not more, not less. Otherwise your potential backers won’t buy it ! Otherwise I won’t buy it. And there, you have 2 options :

It’s exclusive, the only opportunity to have this good is to back the project. Its original, nobody else will have it… So this has a specific value. You can sell it a bit above “market price”. I mean I may be ready to spend more than the normal price, you can make a better margin.

In the projects I’ve searched for, this was sometimes proposed, but not too often, usually as as the proposition of a private meeting (of photoshoot) or as the possibility to get the « clap » of the movie. Some go further. GMB Akash in his survivors project on emphas.is proposed signed thank by some of the survivors. That’s good ! This has value added by the rewards to a good project!

Sacha GoldBerger’s Mamika project on kisskissbankbank is a very good exampe too (in french). Indiegogo presents the example of the spark arts project which funded the most part of the project through the “creative / orginal” reward (a personalized comedic song/performance performed for you).

Otherwise, when you decide to only propose something normal, then you should even sell your reward cheaper than the usual public price.

Cheaper ? But I said “at” market price a few lines above?!… Yes, but: I’m your backer. I don’t know you. I take a risk. Why should I buy your reward ? Shouldn’t I wait and see ? That would be less risky ! I could decide after I see it if I like it and if want to buy your reward (book…). Actually, when talking about rewards, I donot see much diffirence with book subscriptions. And some sites actually propose pre-sales/subscriptions process (ulule does, and emphas.is announced on l’atelier des medias de RFI (in french) that they will soon do it)…

Yes I know, crowdfunding should not be reduced to rewards, it’s sharing an experience, its… I know. It’s true (I’ll come back to this in another post), but it’s bullshit. I’ll put my money in your project only if I consider the value of the rewards to be good.

I know what I’m saying is frightening ! Based on this you can do your math again and again…

You will need much a lot more backers than expected

Define your rewards, take your usual sales price for those (or the market price), deduct 10-15% for the website and transaction fees, make a special discount for the crowdfunding campain (« pre-sales » approach), then look what your margin remains for you. That’s the funding you get from a backers when they selects your rewards… and it means you will need a lot of backers.

You will have to increase your funding target because the weight of the cost of the rewards in the project are increasing significantly.

And if you reverse the math, coming from the margin to the revenue you need to make from your crowdfunding campain, you will conclude you need to set a significantly higher than expected funding target… It means a lot of backers, but also a a psychologic effect on the potential backers: Why is so much money needed ? Will the project make it to th funding level ?…

And that’s where the crowdfunding websites should be very very clear, they must clarify the semantic issue. It seems there is some sort of taboo on the budget project. It should be clear and transparent. Let’s write down clearly that the budget is (for instance) 50% for rewards, 10% for the website and 40% for the production of the work!… Shocking ? Embarrassing ? No !

Let’s finish on 2 positive words :

• One can hope that setting more attractive prices will generate more volume. I mean more backers but also backers selecting higher priced rewards.
• The solution is in the exclusive rewards… (see above)

To be continued…

Actually, I also spent a few month preparing my own crowdfunding website, dedicated to image based projects… but I just dropped it. Hey, we all face the issue of fincancing our projects (banks rules for accepting credits are great project killers), of making a living (real life bullshit!), and I started having some doubts on the crowdfunding model…

This is the first of a few blog posts in which I will share this experience as one in the crowd, putting my money on crowdfunded projects, but also as a person who has taken a deeper look into the crowdfunding model. I hope that this will be useful both to the project owners in order to better manage their campaigns and to crowdfunding website owners to improve their models.

Crowdfunding is a quickly growing business. Kickstarter, Ulule, … most are so far on a parabolic growth curve.

Kickstarter is the only site I know that publishes regular detailled and transparent reports on their activity. They just released their latest report, celebrating both their million backers and 100 millions dollars pledged. Here is the document:

One Million Backers

Great. But this business only started from nothing 3-4 years ago with indiegogo and 2 years 1/2 ago with kickstarter. Of course this parabolic growth curve does say there is potential in the crowdfunding business. But what else? A trend approach is not relevant for forecasting the future of a “new” market. So let’s forget the growth and big zeros figures. Let’s focus on the product and on customer satisfaction. From my experience and research, there is a big problem here…

Crowdfunding, as most products, has major youth conception problems. The industry needs to solve them in order to keeps its customers and continue its growth.

The risk faced by the industry is visible in page 3 of the above kickstarter report. Only 16% of the backers are repeat backers. It means the customer retention rate is very low. Backers are not coming back. The parabolic growth curve won’t last for years with such a low retention rate. This is probably because a lot of backers are in the close circles of the project owner (in the first circle of friends and family, or in the second circle of the friend’s friends) and therefore only come and go on this known project without browsing around other projects on the website. This is one issue I’ll develop in a specific post. But this is also probably because many are as disappointed as I have been and don’t want to come back…  This is why the industry needs to improve the crowdfunding product.

By the way, the good news is in page 4 of this report: Repeat backers on kickstarter are good contributors and increasing!

Before going into details in the needed modifications of the crowdfunding product, let’s start with the definitions and the semantic issue of crowdfunding:

The crowdfunding semantic misunderstanding

Wikipedia defines crowdfunding as the

collective cooperation, attention and trust by people who network and pool their money and other resources together, usually via the Internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations. Crowd funding occurs for any variety of purposes, from disaster relief to citizen journalism to artists seeking support from fans, to political campaigns, to funding a startup company or small business or creating free software.

You get the picture ?

When crowdfunding was about financing NGOs, wikipedia, or open source software development  or … we didn’t expect a return on investment. Pure donation. I support this cause therefore I give. The only reward I get are my satisfaction as a human being, the possibility to live according to certain values like sharing, non profit…

Later came crowdfunding with a financial model. I’m an investor. I want to ear money from the project I fund. I love crowdfunding because I fund something I like. But I do it as an investor. That’s the model primarly used by the music industry. You can even fund companies in this way. It’s the capitalistic approach to crowdfunding. In France we have one website operating in image related projects. I tried it 2 years ago.

crowdfunding on people for cinema

The idea is to fund the distribution of a cinema movie 2-3 month before the premiere. I this case : A great director (Bertrand Blier) and 2 incredible actors (Jean Dujardin & Albert Dupontel) and a wierd pitch. Le bruit des glaçons on People for Cinema. I invested 100 €, could have lost all, would have got my money back at 500.000 cinema entries, and finally got 120 € back 9 month later. 20% return on investment. Not bad ! But that’s not my cup of tea. I just got money. This investment was as boring as any other! I’ve abandonned the capitalistic crowdfunding. It’s not what I want.

So what is there in common in common between supporting NGO’s, making a financial investment and backing a creative project while expecting to recieve a non financial reward ?

It’s all funding made by a crowd. But this being said, we said nothing…

This semantic issue of crowdfunding: It does not define the product. And it is misleading.

Misleading? :

• From the project owner’s point of view, there’s no semantic problem, its not misleading: You’re using crowdfunding to get fund for your project. You get it from a crowd. The deal with the crowd obliges you to fulfill a few actions such as sending rewards… Full stop. (I’m making a caricature on purpose here)
• But for the one in the crowd, for the individual who’s putting his money on a project, what does crowdfunding mean? As the product’s not well defined, there’s a wide range of individual expectations. Is he closer to donation or to making a good deal? Is he here for the reward or for the experience? …

Of course, there is a population of crowd funders who are happy with supporting projects and in phase with the ” projects owners’ ” approach : Crowdfunding is for getting fund for a project. For them, no semantic issue, no misleading message… But this crowd may not be big enough, and may not be “”returning buyers” enough to make a lasting and big enough business fordel for the crowdfunding… So, once this said, the question is to decide if  crowdfunding ‘s customer target is to gather

• People who believe in a specific project
• Groups of persons who support a specific cause
• Lovers of photography who want to support the photographic creation (photography or video or …) and reply to a specific call for supporting a project received through their network

That’s a choice that can be made, but which is not clear. When we look at projects, at the way the crowdfunding websites, it seems to me that the crowd which is the target customer group is a bit wider, in cluding

• Lovers of photography who want to support the photographic creation (photography or video or …) but have a priori no specific link with a specific project
• Amateur photographers who want to share with the authors, get access to the “making of zone” as emphas.is calls it, …
• Amateur photographers
• Amateurs of art in search of original, different, and/or exclusive contents
• Curious crowd willing to experience something, discover new things, make themselves a pleasure…
• …

For this 2nd part of the list (which is not well defined by the way… symptomatic…), the crowdfunding business model is not well defined, misleading…

What do the crowdfunding websites and the project owners propose to the crowd ? What do they propose to their target customer groups ? and, at first, what are their target customer groups ?

The crowdfunding websites should be clarifying this issue. But on the contrary, most of them are increasing this misleading situation, saying crowdfunding is both supporting a project (i.e. donation), sharing (i.e. experience), and getting value for your money (i.e. investment)… the hen that laid golden eggs…

They usually only give general guidelines, support project owners on demand, moderate projects before funding is launched…  and finally let the project owners alone do what they think they should do with their crowd. From a legal point of view, this has a clear consequence : all the responsibility for non fulfillment is on the projects owners.

But from a business point of view, this is killing the hen that laid golden eggs !

No one in the crowd knows what to expect; everyone in the crowd makes up is mind for what he thinks he should get; project owners do whatever they think is they obligation or their moral entitlement… crowdfunding websites hope to get away with this. But I’m not happy. I believe many in the crowd are not happy. The customers are not happy. Remember the 16% retention rate of kickstarter in the document above?

As a conclusion: the crowdfunding websites must clarify & better define their product, and solve the semantic issue that causes the loss of many customers.

The next posts will go step by step through the problems I’ve experienced with the crowdfunding product, while backing projects on websites which propose the non financial rewards.

As I wrote already a bit about this “payback issue” of crowdfunding, I’ll write the 2nd post on the tangible payback of crowd funding:  the rewards.

PS: I still believe in crowdfunding… contact me if you want to build a next generation of crowdfunding website or project … ;-°

And this was his 1st competition in the TOP 32, at only 17… and he defeated King Kelly in the quaters. Next competitions will be exiting… What’s ahead of us? A leadership transfert or a hard fight…?

Check the heat reviews on the great quiksilver live website. Great final, but the semis and Gabriel’s Medina quarterfinal 2 and his win against Kelly Slater.

I wish I was in Hossegor this week and taking photos… But I was earning a living un rainy Alsace
So here’s a portrait of Gabriel this summer in Lacanau.

Lien:  le billet de félicitations de son sponsor BILLABONG

Justine Dupont, the french surfer from Lacanau just won the ASP Europe womens’ title. Congratulations Justine! She also qualifies for the 2012 TOP 17 tour! The joints Pauline Ado, who finished 9th this year on the womens’ TOP17 world tour.
This image is part of a work I did in 2009 during the Oakley Pro Junior of the Soöruz Lacanau Pro, and is part of  the serie “Surfers – shoot & jump”.

Link: lCongratulations Justine by her sponsor BILLABONG

Dimanche 18 septembre

Avec

• Jane Evelyn Atwood
• Marie-Christine Pons pour la Maison des ini­tia­ti­ves
• Cécile Thimoreau pour l’Assoiciation Fnars
• Martine Lacoste pour l’Association Clémence Isaure
• Isabelle Tardiglio pour l’Association Entrez Sans Frapper
• Maïté Desbats et Carole pres­tat pour l’Association APIAF

Femme photographe – femme photographiée

Le thème initialement prévu de cette conférence était “femme photographe, femme photographiée” mais en la préparant les intervenants ont estimé que le thème n’était pas opportun et ont préféré le réorienter autour des questions d’éthique.

Jane Evelyn Atwood est quand même revenue un moment sur la notion de femme photographe.

Pour elle, il n’y a pas de femme photographe ou d’homme photographe, mais juste de bonnes et de mauvaises photos.

Mais le sexe du photographe crée un différence dans l’accès aux sujets traités. Elle cite comme exemple son travail sur la prostitution. Un homme ne pourrait pas traiter le même sujet. Il ferait autre chose et autrement, simplement parce qu’il existe un rapport complexe entre la prostituée et l’homme alors qu’une femme aura plus facilement accès à son intimité.

Réciproquement, évoquant son travail sur les légionnaires à Beyrouth, alors qu’elle était bloquée sur place et était la seule femme, elle a su se faire accepter et a pu faire ses photos parce qu’elle se comportait exclusivement comme photographe, et jamais comme une femme.

Problèmes d’éthique dans la photographie sociale

Chacune des intervenantes a commencé par présenter les problèmes éthiques qu’elles ont rencontrés en lien avec la photographie.

Cécile Thimoreau pour la FNARS a lancé un appel à auteurs pour traiter des SDF et le jury a retenu un projet traitant de la beauté de la peau. Il s’agissait de photographier des personnes torse nu. Coté éthique:

• Question de représentativité : la recherche de volontaires aboutit à des hommes essentiellement noirs. Les femmes d’une manière générale ont des difficultés à se dénuder et les noirs ont culturellement plus de facilité à être torse nu. Il a été décidé de “forcer” une certaine représentativité en recherchant spécifiquement certaines personnes pour présenter proportionnellement les différents sexes, ages, cultures…
• Question du droit au recommencement. Il a été décidé de ne faire signer des droits à l’image que pour 3 ans afin de laisser place à l’oubli et au recommencement.

Jane Evelyn Atwood affirme être constamment en train de se poser la question de savoir si elle accepterait de faire ce qu’elle demande aux autres. Elle explique que pour son exposition actuelle à la MEP, elle a volontairement flouté 3 visages parce qu’elle ne sait pas ce que sont devenues 12 ans plus tard ces femmes photographiées en prison et qu’elles ont le droit à l’oubli, qu’elle n’a pas voulu risquer qu’elles soient reconnues alors qu’elles sont insérées dans une nouvelle vie.

Quand elle arrive quelque part, elle annonce tout de suite ce qu’elle va faire et comment ça sera diffusé (y compris TV…). Il y a alors 3 cas de figure, ceux qui disent oui tout de suite, ceux qui disent non tout de suite, et ceux qui hésitent. Jane n’insiste pas pour convaincre les gens parce qu’alors, souvent, les gens le font pour la mauvaise raison et que c’est ces cas qui aboutissent à des problèmes. Jane insiste sur le fait qu’elle fait signer un droit à l’image “pour toute image prise”, refusant la possibilité à la personne photographiée de censurer des images… parce que c’est le travail du photographe de savoir quelle image est intéressante…

Marie-Christine Pons pour la maison des initiatives parle du problème de la prise de vue en milieu carcéral et de l’interdiction faite par l’administration pénitentiaire de prendre des images, de l’obligation de flouter, de la censure d’images imposée par l’administration, de la volonté d’empêcher des publications… et ce même quand les prisonniers sont d’accord pour être pris en photo.

Jane Evelyn Atwood confirme l’existence de ce qu’elle appelle un abus de pouvoir de l’administration française qui veut empêcher que des images soient faites en prison hors de leur contrôle. La France est, de l’expérience de Jane, le seul pays où l’administration décide de tout pour les détenus et uniquement en fonction de ses propres intérêts (aux USA si un détenu est Ok, tu peux le photographier).

Maïté Desbats de APIAF est souvent sollicitée par des photographes qui veulent faire des travaux sur les femmes mais en a très peur parce que la représentation de la femme en photographie est souvent très stéréotypée. Jane lui répond qu’elle a raison de se méfier et qu’avant de laisser rentrer un photographe, il faut protéger ces femmes et voir les travaux précédents du photographe…

Martine Lacoste pour l’Association Clémence Isaure choisit de parler du fait que, souvent, les photographes et journalistes veulent présenter un message qui dissuade, ce qui veut dire pour la personne photographiée qu’elle devient le représentant de ce qu’il ne faut pas faire, l’icône de ce qu’il ne faut pas être. Cela pose un grave problème d’image d’elles même à ces personnes que l’on montre du doigt et qui sont en réalité plus complexes avec leurs dignités, leurs puissances, leurs faiblesses, leurs forces.

En conclusion Martine Lacoste  estime que la notion même de droit à l’image pour une personne en situation fragile pose un problème éthique.

C’est alors que la pluie interrompit la conférence… Mais la discussion s’est poursuivie à l’abri, dans le container librairie.

Je n’ai pas pu m’empêcher de m’amuser à  noter que Jane Evelyn Atwood avait pris soin de mettre une protection antichoc à son iphone alors que son Leica restait libre autour de son cou… Robustesse Allemande contre technologie californienne…

.

Samedi 17 septembre

Avec :

• Jane Evelyn Atwood.
• Didier de Faÿs, Directeur de la rédac­tion de Photographie.com.
• Benoit Rivero, direc­teur adjoint de la col­lec­tion Photos-poche-Editions Actes Sud.
• André Rouillé, his­to­rien de la pho­to­gra­phie.

Jane Evelyn Atwood

Jane revient sur son parcours qu’elle juge “classique”:

• Travailler pendant des années sur un sujet, le terminer, puis le vendre à un bon prix en exclusivité à des Match, NatGéo…
• Vivre à “frais minimum”, développer et tirer sois-même ses films
• Vendre des images en agences (son agence en Italie vient de faire faillite)
• Locations d’expositions: Jane estime que ça marche maintenant (insuffisamment pour en vivre), après 15 ans de carrière nécessaires pour avoir la matière et la reconnaissance.

Pour Jane, la situation des photographes est la même que celle des peintres il y a quelques siècles : On travaille sans commande et de temps en temps on vend une image…

Jane se soucie peu des modes de diffusion de ses images et insiste: ce qui compte c’est de faire des images qui durent 50 ans!

André Rouillé

AR résume l’histoire de la photographie et le lien entre technologie et pratique photographique, affirmant que rien n’est plus fort au niveau du sens que les outils technologiques car ils changent tout du rapport à la pratique photographique:

• La photo est née avec l’industrie et la maîtrise de la chimie. La photo ne se diffusait alors pas naturellement et était l’affaire d’un petit nombre. La représentation du corps est très esthétisée, réalisée en studio, se rapprochant d’une peinture
• A partir de 1854 naissent les grands magazines qui permettent la diffusion des images
• En 1888, l’apparition de Kodak révolutionne la photo en la rendant plus accessible à plus de personnes, autorisant la prise de vue sur les lieux de villégiature. L’esthétique des photographies réalisées est différentes et pour la première fois on observe de corps coupés dans les photos…
• Avec le 24×36, c’est toute une économie qui change, et la possibilité de naissance de la profession de photo-reporter
• Le numérique est une nouvelle révolution technologique que change la donne sur la pratique photographique. Ne plus avoir de viseur, pouvoir faire 400 images au lieu d’une pellicule de 12 change le rapport à la prise de vue et les images, permet de nouvelles esthétiques visuelles…

Désormais les images se “diffusent toutes seules” et il y aura de ce fait de moins en moins de gens qui se déplaceront pour les faire puisqu’il y a des gens sur place pour les faire, le problème étant le formation de ces personnes. Ce n’est pas pour cela que la profession de photographe va mourir, mais la pratique photographique est en train de changer, et très vite…

Pour André Rouillé, l’image fixe devient de plus en plus l’arrêt d’une image vidéo, et l’instant décisif cher à Cartier Bresson se décide lors de l’éditing vidéo.

Benoit Ribero

Il rappelle que la mission d’un éditeur inclue la défense des auteurs et du droit d’auteur, une tâche difficile avec les nouveaux médias. Le travail des éditeurs est de dire NON, souvent, parce qu’il estime que le travail n’est pas abouti. BR est ravi qu’il y aie aujourd’hui grâce aux nouveaux médias la possibilité pour tous de se confronter au public, d’avoir un retour sur son travail, de tenter sa chance.

Les nouveaux modes de diffusion posent la question de “qu’est-ce qu’un photographe”, de la place des “nouveaux auteurs”, les homo-photographicus comme les nomme Joan FontCuberta dans son prochain ouvrage “la boite de pandore”, et de ce que l’on veut diffuser. BR se pose la question de la manière dont évolue ce “flux d’images” sur internet et de la place que ce flux énorme laisse aux photographe. Même s’il se pose la question de la place du photographe, il estime qu’il restera des “Auteurs”, c’est à dire des gens qui porte un regard. Mais la pratique du photographe va changer, allant vers une nouvelle écriture en alliant notamment la vidéo et de nouveaux médias comme 24h.com

Didier de Fays

D2F estime que la période actuelle est très intéressante parce qu’elle permet au photographe de reprendre le contrôle sur les moyens de diffusion de son travail, parle de webdocumentaires et de crowdfunding.

Il rappelle l’importance que Willy Ronis apportait aux légendes de ses images et se réjouit des nouveaux moyens à disposition des photographes. Si les légendes “sonores ” on toujours existé, elles sont désormais facilement exploitable et d’autres moyens s’y ajoutent comme la  “vidéo”.

Pour fixer une limite, pour la bourse du talent, il a été décidé de ne prendre pas en compte les travaux vidéo pour lesquels il a été fait appel à un réalisateur autre que le photographe.

Il cite Franck Horvat qui est l’un des premiers photographes a avoir développé une application pour IPAD “afin que si je meure dans un an, mon dernier ouvrage soit le meilleur” mais aussi parce que

• Sur 40 livres qu’il a édités, seuls 5 sont encore librairie. L’accès à son œuvre est difficile, et l’IPAD permet de faire redécouvrir ce qui n’est plus accessible
• Sa photographie dépasse largement le domaine de la mode pour lequel il est reconnu mais les éditeurs le cantonne à cette étiquette et l’IPAD lui permet de montrer d’autre facettes de son travail.

(cette présentation ne traduit pas bien la tension houleuse qui régnait autour de la table…)