Photography Lessons from Spider-Man

The Variant cover on Amazing Spider-Man #552 featuring Spider-Man who is mixing his day job with the crime fighting.

After about forty-seven years you would think Spider-Man would have taught you just about everything you would need to know if you if you were to came face to face with the Green Goblin.  But what about when you’re facing a viewfinder?

As the most people know Peter Parker is Spider-Man’s alter ego. Peter found out the super hero gig doesn’t go too far when comes to paying the bills so he has to fall back on other his other skills to keep his fridge full and the lights on. Parker went with what he knows as a photographer to bang out a living. Well he is a newspaper photographer, so it’s just a step above taking a vow of poverty at times.

There are three things we can learn from Peter Parker’s camera habits to the upper hand in news worthy situation.

Take you camera everywhere.

Peter makes most of his photographs of Spider-Man in action. It may sound odd, but he set the camera up with a intervalometer and later a wireless remote to capture the action. No matter how hairy the confrontation would be, had the camera with him or nearby.

The point is even if you are just going to pick-up a sack of Krystals, take you camera with you. You can not predict where the next marketable photograph is going to be and you don’t want to have your Nikon sitting at the house when a meteor crashes into the local Kmart.

Find a unique vantage point

Peter had to place his camera from light poles,  bridges, storm drains, hovercrafts and other odd places to get above the action to give his photographs the ‘It’ factor to stand-out from other shots taken of the action. You may not be able to scale a building to get a bird’s-eye view, but you can get yourself into a position that no one has thought about photographing from. Five feet above or ten feet to the right can be the difference between a photo that gets ink and one that stays on your hard drive.

Expect to negotiate, just don’t give it all away

Peter was had to sell his photographs to Spider-Man’s biggest detractor, J. Jonah Jameson at the Daily Bugle.  Just watching the scenes from the movies where Jameson would bully Parker on his price is one the few times I want to scream out at the theater for someone punch him.

The truth is in today’s economy a photographer isn’t going to get a premium price from a newspaper unless it is earth shattering news. You may have to accept a lower price, just don’t let them take you to the basement. Hold on to all republication, resell and legal reprint rights, along with your copyright. Every photograph has a secondary market, hopefully you have website to handle your print ordering and it has your contact information for other inquiries. A good book to have on your desk is the ASMP Professional Business Practices in Photography to give you guidance on how to handle the J. Jonah Jamesons  that you come your may across.

I’m sure if you looked deeper into the pages of your Spider-Man comics you may pick-up a few more pointers the Web Slinger. If you do feel free to share them. I will point out that I don’t believe the I.R.S. will let you deduct your subscription to The Amazing Spider-Man based solely on this article.

Just An Afterthought

What camera do you think Peter Parker carried around?