I was hired for an event....

I was hired to shoot an event at a local gallery, she called me said ill give you 50$ for the hour and that was about the gist of it, shes pretty busy. So I shot the event and some of her gallery, I was a little bored. I gave her the photo's whoch she loved with an invoice/contract of right, and it said you can not use for advertising or print. She loved the photo's and asked me to change the advertising and print restrictions bc she wants to send the photos to the newspaper and use print for her own usage; I took it as flyers or print ads for her store. Now my question is did her 50$ grant her full custody of the photos? I feel if i let her use the photos for her own advertising she got a really cheap commercial shoot. I have no one to bounce this off of, so please lend your .02

Rule #1 Contract first... then shoot.

lesson surely learned. but any advice on what to do.

Michaelangelo716 wrote in post #15809327
I was hired to shoot an event at a local gallery, she called me said ill give you 50$ for the hour and that was about the gist of it, shes pretty busy. So I shot the event and some of her gallery, I was a little bored. I gave her the photo's whoch she loved with an invoice/contract of right, and it said you can not use for advertising or print. She loved the photo's and asked me to change the advertising and print restrictions bc she wants to send the photos to the newspaper and use print for her own usage; I took it as flyers or print ads for her store. Now my question is did her 50$ grant her full custody of the photos? I feel if i let her use the photos for her own advertising she got a really cheap commercial shoot. I have no one to bounce this off of, so please lend your .02

...its your business: you decide what rights to grant and what rights not to grant.

Does $50.00 grant her full custody of the photos? How on earth is anyone one supposed to answer that question?

The only one who can answer that is you. It sounds like when you agreed to the deal you didn't spell out a licence or supply a contract. So she went into the deal thinking one thing and you went into it thinking another. You should have spelled out your terms from the start. If she had known your terms she probably wouldn't have hired you.

Welcome to business. Next time, you will do better.

What do you want to do?

She hired you to supply images she can't use. What good is that? If you had spelled the usage out before she hired you that would be different: but you are trying to "change the rules." Sure: she paid you almost nothing, but you did take the job. You will exert more energy worrying about this than you will by granting her the rights to use the images. If it was me, I would let her have the usage, explain to her the value of what you have granted her, then go out and get more paid work and do it better next time. In business you are always learning and you are always screwing up. Learn quicker and screw up less.

you make pretty valid points, and it wasnt a huge foul up, but next time this wont happen so i guess it paid off lol

Why would a client use you if they can publish the photos? Chalk this one up to your inexperience, remove the restrictions on usage, and get your terms right in writing the next time.

Work out all of your costs on the project, insurance, travel, time, equipment.

Then look at your markup on the project.

Is the markup high enough to include the publishing rights?

It all comes down to how much money you want/need to make on the job.

sspellman wrote in post #15809429
Why would a client use you if they can publish the photos? Chalk this one up to your inexperience, remove the restrictions on usage, and get your terms right in writing the next time.

While I agree, there needs to be a limit. i would not care about the newspaper, but would care how large or what type of ads these images would be used in. if they are for the website, no problem, but i wouldn't want them on billboards around town. I would also look at placing a time restriction on usage. Say 1 year. after that she can pay for continued use or she can hire someone else at a greater expense and pay for the rights. I think this would benefit both and likely add a few more dollars into the OP's pocket in the end.

If there was no contract before you started shooting then you can either look like an a$$ and not change your standings, or agree to let her use the images as she sees fit. She went in thinking she was getting everything, you went in thinking something else .... this is why you have contracts before you work, so everyone is on the same page.

If it were me I would change the usage rights and deliver her a new agreement with a stack of your business cards, say your sorry for the misunderstanding and ask if you can leave a stack of cards in her shop.

She offered you $50 to take photos, and in the absence of a contract otherwise I believe she owns the product of the work she paid you to do. Give her the images, don't try to impose restrictions afterward.

tim wrote in post #15814672
She offered you $50 to take photos, and in the absence of a contract otherwise I believe she owns the product of the work she paid you to do. Give her the images, don't try to impose restrictions afterward.

Actually, it's the exact opposite. At the instance of the shutter click, the copyright is established and belongs to the person creating the image, unless that copyright has been transferred to another party, in writing beforehand. In other words, in the absence of a written contract, the copyright belongs to the person creating the image and they can decide what they want to do, either in terms of transferring ownership or licensing usage.

Interesting, the law's different here. Still I think it's wrong to take the money and then not let the person who paid you use the images. That should be made clear up front.

ok so here's what I decided to do. First she owns the gallery where she sells my work so I really want to keep the air clean, especially since its in my home area. So I made an agreement that she can use the images unrestricted except for monetary gain. I say this because I took some photos of food etc that are pretty good and I wouldnt want her printing some postcards or anything as such. In the contract it said I retain ownership as well. I did say my thoughts about what i thought/ what she thought bc I believe open communication is best. ( at this point anyway, as you can see I am still learning to be a business ) She on turn said my site and name would get credit in the papers, also the ads if doable. I also stated she cannot manipulate the images in anyway. I asked she ask me if she needs anything with the photos done. So all in all I did lose out on some, it was a 30 second drive , one hour of my time taking photos and about an hour post in total. But now I see how much more intricate and delicate all this is. So from my learning expierience for next time I will be better organized, better informed and therefore more professional all around. I do thank all your comments , its hard with no one to bounce ideas off of. So i appreciate it

Not a bad approach in the end... it's your call afterall. Keep communication lines open and perhaps she'll bring you back next time. I'd be honest with her and say you haven't done this before and these are the terms you've learned from other photographers - you took the lower rate this time but hope she would consider you again and you'll work out more of the details before hand. If I were you, I'd just chalk all of this up to a valuable lesson learned and let her have the photos without restriction just to "clear the air".

Considering she sells your stuff in her gallery, I think it was best to allow her the use and not ask for any more. Not sure if you mentioned that in your original post or not.