Business proposal advice

Canon boys and girls, need your help again, here is the drill.

I emailed my university's Athletic Union, offered my service to take photos for them during various sporting events, now they've got back to me for a meeting and a business proposal from me.

What I have in mind is the following:
a) a set fee for everytime I turn up to shoot a particular event
b) a set of photos for them to use online per event(5-10 images)
c) I'll charge for each print required by individual or clubs, only printable by myself.
d) A fee applies if any of my images will be used in any printed materials, such as promotional flyers, magazines, student papers; fee is variable depends on usage.
e) I retain all copyrights to my images supplied.
f) AU's assistance on release forms for each shoot.

What do you guys think?

I'm no professional, but I do understand business plans and rights.

How about setting two categories for use by the Uni?

1. Photos that they 'lease' from you and pay a fee everytime the use them? Or an agreed fee for a set number of uses - e.g £x for 10 uses, £x+y for 20 uses.

2. Free use photos - they can use as many times as they like but pay a higher original outlay?

Good luck.

A good plan and the potential for the highest income over the long run for the everytime use. The set fee for a limited number of uses is good too. If there is one image they use to their limit then you can always re-license for further uses.

Still not a bad plan either. Drawback you may lose out on a use that would pay 10 times the rate you got for covering the event. However, it may make them more prone to using your work thus giving you more exposure. Make sure all work is credited.
Of course you have to have an idea of what their budget will be for photography and place yourself in a postion to get the maximum you can and stay within their budget.

I would see about being able to make images available to the players and their families for sale. Thru your website and you could keep an accounting on how much is sold.
Maybe the AU could do the selling thru them and you set the price, they get a 50% commission for doing the marketing and printing costs. Let them collect the money and issue a check on a quarterly basis. This would be a way for them to recoup some of the fees they pay you and allow you extra income from the images.

The most important question you should ask or have in the agreement is a payment cycle. You don't want to get locked into an agreement and then find out you will cover 15 events before you get paid for the first one.

That does not sound very "concrete."

What if the AU neglects to get all of the signed releases for one event, and then you are selling prints? Is it going to be the AU that is subject to lawsuit, or is it you? <you>

---Bob Gross---

sorry, i should have been a bit more specific, what i meant there is AU will pass the message on to different clubs and societies, so that they are aware of signing the release form, hence AU(or me) can make sales of those photos. I will bring actual forms to every event.

Should I get the team captain to sign it on behalf of the whole team or do I need to track down every player individually?

Thanks for the advice on sales, another thing, say for football games, I'll be renting lens, should I ask them to cover the rental cost or should i pay it out of my own pocket? I don't think they would have a big budget on photography side, it might even their first time to deal with this, how should i approach this without scaring them away?

I would think that from their prospective, if they are paying a photographer to take photos at events, then that photographer should have the equipment they need and not cost them extra. I say work that cost (or part of it) into your fees you are collecting from them.

The smart way, for you, is to have the team manager or captain to have all of the team players sign some general liability release form to continue playing on the team, and down in the fine print is the photo model release. Then the manager or captain gives you a copy for your records.

As a professional photographer, you are generally responsible for your own camera gear. If you have to rent gear, then consider inflating your daily rate or hourly rate so that it covers all or part of lens rental.

Personally, I don't think lens rental is very wise. I prefer to plunk down the cash, buy the lens, and then not have to screw around picking up a rental and then returning the rental for a shoot.

---Bob Gross---

Put it this way - if you booked a taxi to take you to the game you would expect the driver to have his own car and not want you to provide one!

What is wrong with the lens you have now? I took a look at your SS member page and I don't understand why you need to rent a lens. Maybe there is a reason for which you haven't explained why the rental is neccessary.

most shots from football games were shot using a rental 400mm 2.8, i can't afford one myself, not even a 300mm 2.8 ...

Ok then you better figure your rental cost in your rates, get at least half of it. One thing I would do is look at how much the rental rate is going to cost you, as in how many games you will rent that lens for. How does that compare to the cost?
Maybe the rental place will let you have it on a long term rental where part of the rent goes towards payment. Or get a credit card just for that lens. Buy it and then cut the card up, make the payments and I imagine it will be quite a bit less than a season of rentals.

Regardless, if you have shown them work done with the 300 and 400 2.8's you need to provide that same kind of result. That is what they will be expecting and what you will have to deliver.

As to the question on lens, if you are photographing a football match or something like this, then you will not use the same style as you would at say Old Trafford. When you are a grounds like Old Trafford you want to get compression into the back ground, bring in the fans in the stadium into the photo. But when you are on the University’s sports field and try the same technique you will end up having the back garden of number 12 in the photos, the washing from number 14. (It’s a little exaggerated for effect) you will probably be able to get by with a 70 – 200mm or 80 - 200mm with a 1.4 converter. To get an idea of what I am talking about have a look at one of the local weekly papers for the area in which you live, have a look at the sports section, and see the style of photographs used, for the local Sunday league matches.
Remember you are shooting for the AU / Guild and their publications you are not looking for a cover shot / full page shot for the Sunday Times Magazine.

I know you want to do your best but you will need to examine the cost’s factors very carefully, I think that you have done a good job of this in you proposal.

Incidentally which University are you studying at, as I am at the University of Liverpool.

thanks for all the advice, i really appreciate your time!

What I'm gonna do is go to the meeting first, leave equipment out of equation, try settle the deal first, then i'll find my own way to sort out equipment lackage.

Peter, I'm at University of Manchester