Non-Paid shoot...giving jpegs for advertising use...use watermark?

[Laramie]

Title says it all. I shot a golf tournament for my school NON-PAID job. They want the pictures for further use in advertising, etc. Do I watermark the jpgs or no?

[DDCSD]

What did your contract state?

[Laramie]

No K. Just kind of a, "hey, will you shoot the tournament?" kind of thing.

[Palladium]

No K. Just kind of a, "hey, will you shoot the tournament?" kind of thing.

OK - kiss and tell.

Why did you go and shoot this event?

What were you planning to do with the images?

I don't believe that you didn't have some idea about what you were planning on doing with the images when you decided to accept the invitation to capture the tournament.

IMHO - the worst thing you can do is hold your images hostage. Don't make enemies - chalk it up to learning experience and give a couple of your best images and tell them next year I'll have to charge you.

edit - I missed the part about being for the school. Then it's a little different - Does the school usually pay you for coverage of events?

[DDCSD]

I'll just say that it looks second rate and tacky when someone uses an image for advertising/promotion that has a watermark or logo on it. That in turn makes you look tacky for putting your watermark on a finished product.

That's my opinion.

[ChrisRabior]

For your school huh. Sounds like this might have been done with a purely news-driven purpose in mind, and now the school also wants rights for advertising. If that's the case, you don't want to hold your images hostage (as said above), but you definitely want to be straight to the point with whoever asked that you would not have agreed to shoot unpaid if you knew the terms ahead of time. See if they can swing any form of reimbursement. It may not be much, but you need to set a precedent with them that you will absolutely not shoot for free.