Product Photography - Client wasn't expecting a contract

Ok. So here is the situation.

A client I did family photos of last year contacted me. He is in the print business. A client came to him to redesign a package for a product that will be sold at Dick's Sporting Goods, on Amazon, and in a few other stores. He needs a new photo of the product to put on the packaging and contacted me because he knows me and that he is not confident that he could do it.

I do not do product photos fulltime nor claim to be a pro at it. I am also not an expert with licensing. I do some for my day job on a small scale.

All that I told him was that I would need to know the intended purpose of it and that we would most likely do an exclusive license to his client for the general use of this image for his advertising purposes (print, online, packaging, etc)

He was shocked and just said that he only needs someone with a camera to take a picture for him and did not expect it to be complicated. I told him that it is just to protect everyone involved. I didn't even tell him a price. The contract scared him and he just said that we probably wouldn't be able to work together on this.

I did email him and ask him what his & his client's budget is and what he was expecting to pay. No response yet. Still never even mentioned a price to him.

Should I have gone about this another way?

Should I license the image to him or to his client who is paying him to make the packaging? I figured I should license it to his client since his client is the one selling it.

Any advice on how to handle this situation or ones like it would be helpful.

Thanks!

Well, you could do it like I did about two years ago. My wife's family (not her) own a retail business. They wanted me to shoot a lot of the smaller items. I was told, "We'll pay you for it." Great. I spent an entire weekend tweaking presentation, lighting and setup on some test items. I presented the test shots to my BIL, the company president. He liked what I provided and told me to go ahead. In most of my spare time, over the next few weeks, I finished the job. I presented him with a few hundred images on CD, and suggested he pick some for finish-processing. They used the down-sized images off the CD for advertising. I got nothing. Never again.

GeoKras1989 wrote in post #17682814
Well, you could do it like I did about two years ago. My wife's family (not her) own a retail business. They wanted me to shoot a lot of the smaller items. I was told, "We'll pay you for it." Great. I spent an entire weekend tweaking presentation, lighting and setup on some test items. I presented the test shots to my BIL, the company president. He liked what I provided and told me to go ahead. In most of my spare time, over the next few weeks, I finished the job. I presented him with a few hundred images on CD, and suggested he pick some for finish-processing. They used the down-sized images off the CD for advertising. I got nothing. Never again.

No thanks! Saw that coming! lol we will all just learn from your mistake

I dont know what he was expecting I guess. Its for something to be sold nation wide. I think they should expect a license agreement. We didnt even discuss price or budget before he said no.

Point out that the contract protects both parties, and that he really shouldn't be doing such business deals without clear paperwork backing it up. If he goes and gets someone else to do it with no hard and detailed contracts, then he leaves himself open to lawsuits.

Without a contract, then what stops the photographer from coming up later and saying "I didn't give you a license to use my copyrighted materials in that manner!"?

Hehehehe...move on. If a contract scared him, I am sure the price would shock him further. If you charged him more than your own camera, maybe he would think that he could get the same camera and to shoot products himself...hehehehhehe.​...... I had similar experience when my sister's friend decided to buy his own camera to shoot his cousin's little wedding reception. Hehehehehhe...

Luckless wrote in post #17682843
Point out that the contract protects both parties, and that he really shouldn't be doing such business deals without clear paperwork backing it up. If he goes and gets someone else to do it with no hard and detailed contracts, then he leaves himself open to lawsuits.

Without a contract, then what stops the photographer from coming up later and saying "I didn't give you a license to use my copyrighted materials in that manner!"?

Seriously, a contract is the easy part as long as you aren't going to violate any law with the photo shoot and you are acting in good faith. Why won't you???

I would charge $100 per image, assuming I have to bring lighting equipment, light boxes, etc.plus a $100 trip charge to drag the equipment around. I would then do my own printing for large proofs, and set up a time that they could view them. DON'T DELIVER digital proofs, unless you have a watermark all over the proofs, over key areas of detail. They could decide which images they want to purchase. I would have this all worded in a contract. I would even make sure I had the trip charge paid at time of shoot to make sure I received something for the time if they chose to use no images.

That is just me though, and that is actually low if you do any research on this topic.

You are producing artwork that they can use to sell hundreds, if not thousands of products. They should consider this advertising/marketing costs and will write them off with their schedule C. If somebody is asking for a handout, ie. $20-50 for your time, forget about it.

BlakeC wrote in post #17682804
He was shocked and just said that he only needs someone with a camera to take a picture for him and did not expect it to be complicated.

He doesn't understand that an item of intellectual property isn't a commodity like a crate of tomatoes. Most people have had no reason to learn the difference.

TeamSpeed wrote in post #17682860
You are producing artwork that they can use to sell hundreds, if not thousands of products. They should consider this advertising/marketing costs and will write them off with their schedule C.

Listing a business expense on Sch. C doesn't mean their outlay is zero. A high price will still cost them more than a low price.

I wouldn't want to work with that guy in the first place. Save yourself the headache and time and move on

OhLook wrote in post #17682973
He doesn't understand that an item of intellectual property isn't a commodity like a crate of tomatoes. Most people have had no reason to learn the difference.

Listing a business expense on Sch. C doesn't mean their outlay is zero. A high price will still cost them more than a low price.

We file 2 schedule Cs annually, which serve to remind us our outlay each year. I am just saying that they will offset revenue with the marketing expense.

What you fail to understand is he is a businessman and you are some guy who fiddles with a camera. Just kidding of course but its obvious that he doesn't respect or understand the business of photography. It sounds like perhaps you could have eased him into it, but unless he finds another aspiring pro he can sucker, he'll learn soon enough.

If there wasn't a contract when the family portraits were taken, then I could see why he was scared off.

gonzogolf wrote in post #17683156
What you fail to understand is he is a businessman and you are some guy who fiddles with a camera. Just kidding of course but its obvious that he doesn't respect or understand the business of photography. It sounds like perhaps you could have eased him into it, but unless he finds another aspiring pro he can sucker, he'll learn soon enough.

That's shouldn't be a problem since there ARE plenty of them out there....

TeamSpeed wrote in post #17683311
If there wasn't a contract when the family portraits were taken, then I could see why he was scared off.

There was a written and signed contract for that too.

I think maybe he doesn't understand that photos (especially for marketing on this scale) cost money. Like was said earlier, it is the cost of marketing and should be treated as such.

He is redesigning the package for his client and his client is selling it in stores. I told him I think that I should license the photo to his client since he is the one using the package and selling the product. Maybe that scared him because he wants to up-charge him on top of my charge? Maybe he was hoping to have me do it really cheap for him (as a favor because he is now a repeat customer with me) then charge his own "photography fee" to his client?

In this situation, would it be best to license the image to the company making the packaging (to be used solely for this packaging)? Should I license it to the person who owns the product and will be the one actually using and selling the product with the packaging? Or should it be some sort of hybrid license? I'm not used to dealing with a middle man. Small businesses usually just come straight to me.

BlakeC wrote in post #17683715
There was a written and signed contract for that too.

I think maybe he doesn't understand that photos (especially for marketing on this scale) cost money. Like was said earlier, it is the cost of marketing and should be treated as such.

He is redesigning the package for his client and his client is selling it in stores. I told him I think that I should license the photo to his client since he is the one using the package and selling the product. Maybe that scared him because he wants to up-charge him on top of my charge? Maybe he was hoping to have me do it really cheap for him (as a favor because he is now a repeat customer with me) then charge his own "photography fee" to his client?

In this situation, would it be best to license the image to the company making the packaging (to be used solely for this packaging)? Should I license it to the person who owns the product and will be the one actually using and selling the product with the packaging? Or should it be some sort of hybrid license? I'm not used to dealing with a middle man. Small businesses usually just come straight to me.

Ok..is all clear. I wasn't too clear about who is the real clients here. I think the deal can be worked out as long as you can charge him appropriately. Taking into the account that he would upcharge his package to his other client with YOUR photos. Judging from your wording, it appears the talk never got far into pricing....