Who's documenting the Christchurch rebuild?

23/02/2013 9:50:43 a.m.

Widelook wrote:

@Sly... Ross Becker has been paid over $80,000 to be in Christchurch for just FOUR DAYs a month over the past two years. That works out at about $800 a day. Becker might be an amateur but it is rather obvious he knows how to charge like a professional.

22/02/2013 7:04:26 p.m.

Pete Monk wrote:

I did a shoot in Christchurch late last year, with a very long lens to get 'behind the wire.' These shots are free to anyone supporting the rebuild, or (still) suffering through it, so long as their motives are genuine, not a commercial cash-in. http://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=plcp&v=r-eaNl5JAN4

22/02/2013 5:02:51 p.m.

spong wrote:

The word the photographer wanted to say was probably "nepotism" and he'd be correct. Becker got the job because a) his wife was the boss and b) because National Library thought for some reason that the earthquake damage could be covered at taxpayer expense by an amateur. That "amateur" now owns half the potential royalties from the pictures which were taxpayer funded. The chance to cover the earthquake should have been tendered out to professionals and it wasn't. Typical govt dept - no apologies and worse no attempt to bring in new talent. To Sly Dixon - that $80K was not for full time work. Becker works freelance so he does as little as he wants for the cash. Check out his website on Picasa. That is not one year of full time work. Might still work out at $1K a day anyway.

22/02/2013 3:04:54 p.m.

Paul Whitham wrote:

This story is actually old news as the stink over it was at least a year ago. Given the size of the contract there was no requirement for a tender and so it would have been a hand picked job anyway. While we have lots of professional photographers I am not sure how many actually have experience in documents events or architecture. As was pointed out in the article the person was also an engineer so that may have given him insights that a professional photographer would miss.

22/02/2013 12:03:39 p.m.

Ruz wrote:

Some of the best photographs are taken by amateurs. I suspect that the pretentious "professional" is annoyed that he caanot take "arty" photographs of damaged buildings and charge a fortune for them. My understanding is that guy contracted to take photos is experienced and knows how to use the pro Canon 1D series with the L series lenses hanging around his neck, The findumentals of working with light using a camera are well known and can be sucessfully learnt by anyone.

22/02/2013 1:57:56 a.m.

Robyn wrote:

We may have missed out on photographs of Red Zone stories from the past two years, but surely it's not too late to start documenting that today. I've even heard that there are professional photographers - the kind who can photograph people - who'd happily work for free.

21/02/2013 10:49:01 p.m.

Geoff Dale wrote:

Rebecca Wright has done a great job on the story of the sole photographer permitted to chronicle our worst natural disaster. We New Zealanders have all been cheated and those qualified people have been Censored from a true record of our darkest hours...

21/02/2013 9:53:43 p.m.

Wayne Harris wrote:

I was very annoyed at the wingeing professional cameraman on your show part of one of New Zealand most over charging professions in the world Let me remind you that lidia KO is an am/tr golfer and the best in the world so why cant an am/tr photographer document Christchurch its only a camera and I have been praised for some of my shots of Nature and Im not a Pro/ photographer good on him and stop wingeing , dont forget he was an am/tr at some time !!

21/02/2013 8:27:51 p.m.

Sly Dixon wrote:

$80 k for two years? Sounds like a bargain. Professional photographers would want $1k per day!