NY Post Photo Test: Shoot The Perp

We hear the New York Post freelancer "tryouts" are underway on this week, and photogs continue to feel insulted at the very idea. (To recap: Last month DOP David Boyle sent an e-mail asking Post freelance photographers to come by the office and prove they are still worthy to shoot for the 25-cent tabloid.)

A source tells us the meetings go like this: Freelancers check in at Post HQ in Manhattan, where someone logs the serial numbers of their camera equipment. This is to make sure they have their own pro gear and aren't just borrowing it from other freelancers.

Then the photographers are put in a car and driven up to the Post printing plant in the Bronx. Once there, they must complete three mock assignments:

* Photograph someone through the window of a car.

* Photograph someone leaving a building (as if on a perp walk).

* Photograph a piece of artwork (as if capturing a family photo or other document out in the field).

Amazing. Just add athletes, starlets, and the occasional freakish animal, and bang, you've got all you need to fill a Murdoch paper!

Our source complains that experienced photographers find this test humiliating – particularly ones who have been devotedly shooting hard assignments for the Post for years. So why bother? "You would get paid less at another paper," the source says.

Comments

[Tom Gibbons]

I suppose they want photographers who will submit to any indignity, yet have developed enough as a "professional" that the gear is part of the bargain.

The Post must be growing desperate. Look no further than their attempted smear of NYT Director of Photography Michelle McNally, an actually respectable member of the mass media. Now ABC is actually reporting this hogwash!

[Aaron Cohen]

Only at the New York Post, kids. Only at the New York Post.

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