I get paid to shoot hourly, but others want the photos too. $?

[funk1196]

I shoot for an event agency, they do decorating for weddings/parties/etc. They pay me hourly, and i work for about 2 hours at a time... it's probably gonna be $50/hr. (I don't even know if thats a decent rate for me.)

Anyways, my company suggested that i try to sell the photos to anyone else i can that took part in setting it all up.

Florist.
Lighting guys.
Vineyard that the event was at.

But.. how the heck do i charge these other people? The florist contacted me immediately to buy some photos.

Do i charge them as if they I were working directly for them at $50/hr and give them all the photos?
or
Charge them per photo?
or
Charge them a certain amount for all the photos from the event? ($50...?)

[primoz]

Due many reasons, I'm not to keen of giving all photos to someone. So personally I would charge them per photo they would want. Sure they can get 2, 5 or 100 of them, but I would still charge per photo, and you can easy give them some discount, if they take more. Just don't consider 2 as more :mrgreen:
But that's just my personal opinion and that's how I do. If someone else do it differently, it's perfectly fine with me :)

[convergent]

I would do the same as primoz. I've had contracts before to shoot sports pictures for schools where they paid me a flat rate, but I then still put them in my online gallery to sell to parents if they wanted to buy products from me. I would recommend you do that... just put them in an online gallery/storefront like ExposureManager and then people can buy what they want. Just make sure you work out the copyright thing with the folks that are paying you, and don't just rely on their word about it.

[funk1196]

I would do the same as primoz. I've had contracts before to shoot sports pictures for schools where they paid me a flat rate, but I then still put them in my online gallery to sell to parents if they wanted to buy products from me. I would recommend you do that... just put them in an online gallery/storefront like ExposureManager and then people can buy what they want. Just make sure you work out the copyright thing with the folks that are paying you, and don't just rely on their word about it.

haha.... work out the copyright thing?
does that mean get a lawyer to write me up a contract that says "i will not distribute these photos to anyone else without permission from (me)"? and get each person to sign it?


cause i'm selling them to other businesses that want to use them for their own advertising... so they obviously are going to use them to market their stuff.

[primoz]

Personally I just put "small print" into invoice. It doesn't even need to be something really special. Something like this does its job just fine, for those few photos I sell for personal use:
Photos and images can be used for personal use.
Commercial use of photos is not allowed without written permission from XXX.
Additional use is possible with written permission from XXx.
Copyright of photos and images remains with XXX.
Resale of photos to third party is not allowed without written permission from XXX
And written permission always means also extra money :)

[convergent]

I meant that you should have something in writing from the company that paid you hourly granting them the use that you want to give them, but retaining full copyright for yourself. You just don't want to have them come back to you after the fact and argue with you about who owned the pictures... even though by law I think you do if you did nothing. Its more about "good business" than the legal technicalities.

[funk1196]

Personally I just put "small print" into invoice. It doesn't even need to be something really special. Something like this does its job just fine, for those few photos I sell for personal use:

And written permission always means also extra money :)

So i won't be printing any. When you send everything digitally, do upload them to photobucket or something and send to them, and then send them a word document as an invoice?

(i know this is getting technical, but it'd be nice to know what others consider professional as far as digital goes)

[primoz]

When it's about selling photos to "normal" people not to agencies or newspapers (99% of our business are agencies and newspapers), I want money in advance (enough of bad experiences, that unfortunately we don't trust everyone anymore). That means I sent them invoice (pdf in e-mail, or paper in normal mail) and then they get requested photos over e-mail, as download from our web or on cd in mail, whatever they choose.

[amfoto1]

You need to buy some books and read them as well as do online, library or other research on the following subjects...

1. Pricing and marketing your images, and the art of negotiation.

2. Licensing your images for commercial use.

3. Model/property releases for commercially usable images.

4. Copyright and copyright protections.

5. Legal and business forms for photography.

This is called "leveraging" your work and it's key to many professional photographers success... Rather than take on more jobs and take more photos, make each job you do more productive and develop as many revenue streams from each of your images as you possibly can. Think of it as working smarter, rather than harder.

You won't be selling your images to those other vendors, you will be licensing their usage of them at a negotiated price that's fair to you and provides what they need.

Assuming their usage will be commercial in nature, you will need signed model releases from any recognizable people in your images. You might also need signed property releases.

Amazon.com has a lot of great books on all the above subjects.

In answer to your later question, you provide the images to the customer in whatever way they require. Today that's usually digital files, possibly by ftp or burned to a disk. I suggest you don't worry too much about these minor technical details, they'll tell you what they need.

You have much bigger things to learn about. This is important. Some image usage license are in the thousands and even tens of thousands of dollars range. Others are only a few dollars or less than $100, but might be sold over and over again for many years.

I didn't include stock photography as a subject above, because that's not really what you'll be doing. But, there are some similarities and many of the same topics apply to stock, as well. In fact, if you license your images in the way proposed, it would be a short leap a much broader, even global, customer base and even further leverage your work through stock sales.

p.s. You mention that you are "paid hourly" by "your company" to shoot the photos. Something you really want to pin down immediately is if you might be defined as a "staff photographer" or are working under "work made for hire" rules. If so, you don't own the copyright of your images and cannot sell them.

If not, do you have it in writing? If not, get an agreement in writing from your company immediately! This is very important. You don't want to find yourself in a position later where someone might be able to challenge the ownership of your work and the income you have been deriving from it.

[PhotosGuy]

p.s. You mention that you are "paid hourly" by "your company" to shoot the photos. Something you really want to pin down immediately is if you might be defined as a "staff photographer" or are working under "work made for hire" rules. If so, you don't own the copyright of your images and cannot sell them.

If not, do you have it in writing? If not, get an agreement in writing from your company immediately! This is very important. You don't want to find yourself in a position later where someone might be able to challenge the ownership of your work and the income you have been deriving from it. Excellent point!

Photo Lawyer - Understanding Work for Hire (http://nylawline.typepad.com/photolawyer/work_for_hire/index.html)

And be careful what images & rights you sell to each client. Sometimes overlap is OK & sometimes not. If someone pays $x00 for two years rights to an image, he doesn't want to see it on the web or newspaper advertising someone else.
This is why I rarely give everything I've shot to someone & always shoot a lot of images. I want some for me, too. So i won't be printing any. Keep in mind that, if you sell a Cd of images for them to make green, underexposed, crappy prints at the corner drugstore, not only will you lose the sales, but those will be your crappy prints that will be shown to their friends? ;)

[funk1196]

Excellent point!

Photo Lawyer - Understanding Work for Hire (http://nylawline.typepad.com/photolawyer/work_for_hire/index.html)

And be careful what images & rights you sell to each client. Sometimes overlap is OK & sometimes not. If someone pays $x00 for two years rights to an image, he doesn't want to see it on the web or newspaper advertising someone else.
This is why I rarely give everything I've shot to someone & always shoot a lot of images. I want some for me, too. Keep in mind that, if you sell a Cd of images for them to make green, underexposed, crappy prints at the corner drugstore, not only will you lose the sales, but those will be your crappy prints that will be shown to their friends? ;)

well the company i work for is actually the ones that suggested that i sell to others. they know i'm just starting out, and they said 'i bet you could get the florist/vineyard/etc. to buy your work too, so i'd contact them!'

but if i were to sell per image... what is a reasonable price?

the people buying them would be using them for advertising, and posting on their website to show their customers what they'll be getting (florist, etc.)

[PhotosGuy]

but if i were to sell per image... what is a reasonable price? One that makes you both happy? Since you're shooting at an event, I'd guess that the quality won't be nearly as good as if you did a dedicated shoot, so most likely you won't get top dollar.
Look at these:

Editorial Photographers Price Estimator (http://www.editorialphoto.com/resources/estimator/estimator.asp)

UK - Excel & .RTF download: NUJ Freelance Fees Guide: Photography: Day rate calculator (http://www.londonfreelance.org/feesguide/phcalc.html)

FotoQuote - source of photo pricing information for photographers. (http://www.cradocfotosoftware.com/fotoQuote-Pro/index.html) ($140)