Question

Topic: Advertising/PR

How Much Should A Photographer Receive For His/her Work?

Posted by Blaine Wilkerson on 8/5/2004 at 8:26 PM ET 250 Points
We are hiring a professional photographer to take some unique pictures for our ads, website, articles, etc.

Model selection, location, creative design/format, emotion, etc are being arranged, paid, and organized by US. The photographer wants us to pay for film and processing fees. Sounds reasonable. Right?

Well, that's not all they want. They are insisting on exclusive copyright to all photos and are only willing to allow us a one-time usage PROVIDED we list the photographer's name, studio, and website next to every photo on all materials. For any additional usage, they are requesting us to pay a license/usage fee.

Again, we are hiring the models, selecting wardrobe, location, props, etc and instructing the photographer what we want.

Now, our stance is if the photographer wants the copyright, they need to pay for all the expenses.

What do you all think? Have any of you had to deal with this?
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Pepper Blue on 8/5/2004 at 9:09 PM Accepted
    Dump him.

    I used to work with commercial photographers all the time.

    Standard practice was we paid for the transparencies, we owned them.

    All they required was that if we published our work/photo in a commercial publication that they received credit for it.

    Other than that I was free to make color copies, post to our website (no credit, but I would give it anyway) pretty much anything I wanted to do.

    That guy is crazy, how did he ever get clients with demands like that?



  • Posted by Inbox_Interactive on 8/5/2004 at 9:11 PM Accepted
    Just adding my two cents here and confiming what others have told you. Yes, there are photographers who play the copyright game, and yes, this is primarily how it works in the wedding and baby photo business (not the ones at Sears, but really high-end stuff).

    Having said that, you're kidding yourself if you think (not that you do, but one of the replies said this), that taking professional photographs is as simple as pushing a button and turning a lens. That's like saying, "Why am I paying you $10,000 to write this copy for my direct-mail package? You're just typing words on your computer, aren't you?"

    Getting back on track, make sure that whoever you hire understands that this is a work-for-hire deal through which you will maintain 100% ownership and copyright.

    We recently needed a product photographer for a client and we actually found someone very good and very fast but still very cheap on guru.com, but your mileage may vary.
  • Posted by Carl Crawford on 8/5/2004 at 9:29 PM Accepted
    hi jett,

    DUMP HIS SORRY A**,

    get a new photographer

    Sweetasman01
  • Posted by Blaine Wilkerson on 8/6/2004 at 2:11 PM Author
    Thanks Everyone!

    I get the picture.
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