Today I received this email regarding a photo I have up in a SmugMug gallery:
"Our company is interested in creating a poster of one of your photos so we can put it up in a customer tour suite. What kind of compensation would you be looking for in order to release a full-resolution digital file of a La Jolla beach shot?"
I did a little research based on the domain it came from and they appear to be a legit real estate company in California. My photo(s) are not of anything they have for sale, but but they are beach landscapes from a nearby area. I'm not 100% certain but it sounds like they want to make it part of a display in a model home, or something like that.
On one hand the photo is already taken and sitting in my gallery, and was shot with gear I don't even own anymore, so there is no overhead involved in letting them use it. On the other hand they are a business and would be using it in a promotional display. If it's going to help them make money on some level then I feel like I should be fairly compensated for its use.
How should I go about determining a reasonable price for this? What questions should I ask, if any, before giving them a number?
Thanks in advance!
