A photographer's job is to take pictures. Am I right? You pay them to perform a
service, the service of taking pictures. Why do the photographers retain the rights to images of me or my child? They then ransom additional copies of those images to you. Images that you have already paid him or her to
take. Some may sell you the rights [to print] (for an additional charge) to those picture, many will not. Wal-mart and many other photo labs require a letter granting you authorization to reprint YOUR photos taken by professional photographers.
Everyone wants pictures of the biggest events of their life, which usually includes their wedding and their children growing up. My wife and I had a photographer at our wedding. The photographer was part of our wedding package. I didn't learn the photography business model until after the wedding. You can pick out a few pictures as part of your photo package. If you want additional copies of those pictures or prints of any of the other pictures taken, you must order them from the photographer. Most wedding photographers will refuse to sell you the negatives until at least a year after the wedding. Baby photographers have a similar model, but most will sell you the negatives or digitals when you purchase their premium-est of packages. For this reason, my wife and I have mainly avoided baby pictures taken by professional photographers.
Admittedly, this type of arrangement may have made since before
digital photography and before you could have film developed at the grocery store. Unless you had your own dark room to develop film,
the photographer was the obvious and often only choice to obtain copies of your
pictures. Holding on to the negatives/originals just facilitated things. Film costs money, so does photo paper and the chemicals used to develop film and make
prints. However, with digital, there is no film. The cost
of storage for each pictures if marginally zero. Anyone can take
their pictures to FotoMat (just kidding, there hasn't been a FotoMat booth in probably two decades) or have them printed from online. This is even if one wants actual prints instead of just the digitals, which can be posted and
shared on Facebook or other social media sites or placed in digital picture
frames.
I have a programming background. If you're hired for a
contract job or have a long term employer, whatever you produce while on that job, including the intellectual property (IP) rights, belongs to the company that paid you. You were paid to
perform a service (creating a program or code). You don't own it, the employer does. If you use a Realtor to find a house, she doesn't get to maintain possession of the house and charge you rent to live there. She was paid for the service of finding you a house only.
Since most photographers have yet to change their business model, my recommendation to parents who want lasting memories of their growing little ones:
- The best lesson I learned in business law is don't sign stupid s#@t. If you don't agree with any of the small print in the paper work, which often includes wording indicating that they will retain possession of the content and can use your images for their own promotional purposes, just cross it out. If they argue, take your business some place else.
- Take your own pictures. For the price of many of the photography packages offered, you could purchase a pre-owned digital camera (DSLR) and a photography class at a local college. You can then take your own great pictures of your family in for years to come.
- Clark's Dad
3 comments:
Part 1:
Sir, as a professional photographer, I just want to tell you, that the reason photographers charge for the session, and then for the images, is because 1) the session takes time, and we are experienced at what we do (many of us, anyway). We have taken classes, and have had years of experience. We also have business insurance to pay... and to cover the cost of our equipment (my camera, with my cheapest lens on it, cost $3150). 2) If you don't like the images, you have still covered us for our time to deal with your baby, and your attitude, and the time it takes for you to cross off anything on our contract:) You don't have to buy them. But you have the option to. The images themselves, we charge for as artwork. Because they are. We value our time (especially when we have families of our own, and need to make a living).
You do not have to value what we do... but I thought you should at least be informed. Some photographers will charge what they want to make up front and are then able to give you the digital images and the printing permissions. Other businesses operate differently, and they charge for their service seprate from the images.
I agree that you should purchase your own camera. It is important to capture as many moments as you can. But please don't call what many people have as a business, a "scam."
If a photographer has created a piece of artwork, and no one else can create it (because of her unique vision and experience), then she does indeed own the rights to the work. A realtor is not creating anything. A programmer might be creating something, but, he is paid a lot of money by a company to produce work as such, and the company may own the right to that thing. Photographers often work for themselves.
As a side note... images developed at a professional lab are far better prints than those developed at a grocery store... I would hate to see any of my images on such cheap paper, when the images are supposed to be printed in the best quality for my clients.
If you add up what we make and divide it by how many hours we spend with editing, that is what we make per hour. But, you also need to know, that we do not work 5 days a week, 40 hours a day. Let's say that I charged $150 for a session, and you received the printing rights to the images with that session fee. Let's say that I spend 4 hours editing, and the actual session itself was an hour. $30 per hour, right? Not bad, you might think. But, that doesn't include the time to prep for the session, the consultation time with you, the drive to and from the session, or posting the image to a gallery or doing a sale session. Let's say that an entire session, from consultation to completion, is 8 hours (some photographers spend more time on editing... so that number could easily be 10-12 hrs). This brings our hourly rate to $18.75 per hour(if the number is 8 hrs of work).
But then, as I mentioned, there's the professional camera equipment we use. The cost we've spend on education, or continuing education to keep up on the latest trends in photography, and the time it takes us to do that. The cost of our computer and cell phone-- the cost of gas, and our car repairs... which are all necessary in order for us to run our businesses-- and then there's business insurance costs. The cost we need to spend on marketing in order to reach our ideal clients (those who value our work, is one part of it;)).
If a photographer were to be able to book even 3 sessions a week... that would be 156 sessions a year (it kills me to even write that number... each session is a lot of work... especially with a newborn or child). That is $23,400 per year... and that is without considering taking out those expenses that I mentioned. Does the photographer have a studio, and have to pay rent, or have a home studio, in which they are paying for a mortgage...
Part 2:
Don't forget we have student loans (photography, or a degree otherwise), and we also have to eat...
Do you think that is livable, Clark's dad? Do you think that a person would choose to work so hard for such little money?
"Most wedding photographers will refuse to sell you the negatives until at least a year after the wedding." <-- This is an untrue statement. It might be true for a small town... but this is not how the majority of wedding photographers run their businesses.
We value what we do... we value what a photograph is to us, and what it is to our clients who value it the same way that we do. Each photographer has different dreams and goals in life... has a different number of children... has a spouse that makes a different amount of money... has different loans to pay off. I have a friend who is the sole provider for she and her husband, while he goes to school. She makes between $1000-$2000 at least per family portrait session she photographs. Not everyone is her client-- and that is okay. But, she has put in a serious amount of effort and money into running her business so that she can make a living.
You can put a price on family or baby photos if you'd like... but I still recommend finding a professional that you value, to take at least some photos for you.
A true story, for your reading pleasure:
http://fototails.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/a-letter-on-my-doorstep-portraits-are-more-than-paper/
Thank you for reading this.
Sincerely,
Female Professional photographer, beginning 6th year in business (and hoping it won't be my last year as a full time photographer, since the economy has hit the wedding industry pretty hard). I'd write my name, but to be honest, but I can't be sure that you wouldn't write something negative to me or about me personally! It is the only way I make a living... so I hope you'll understand my caution for now.
Lady, as a graphic designer and professional image editor for 23 years now, I can tell you that at the very most only 1 out of every 10 or 15 photographers/designers/developers are worth anywhere near what they charge. Which side of the line you fall on, I do not know, but this gentleman has a VERY valid point. Photographers are unique in their approach, and often not at all forthcoming. If you pay a designer to design a logo, website, ad, t-shirt...whatever, you are not then forced to pay to actually USE that design. When you pay a website developer to cut down and code a site, you are not then forced to pay them to USE that website content. You own the design. You own the site content. What is it about photographers that makes them special? I understand that their equipment is expensive. Guess what, my equipment is expensive. Do you have any idea what professional design software costs? Fonts? Hardware? I've been watching this professional photographer game being played for years now, and I've seen many people have THEIR time wasted and money taken after they paid for a photo session that they believed was for the ownership of photographs, only to have the shots held for ransom by some picture clicker who thinks they're the Leonardo da Vinci of the photography world. Be up front with people and explain to them what they're paying for so that they can decide if it's worth the cost to them BEFORE they have handed you money and a once in a lifetime event has taken place. It may be that someone else doesn't think your time is worth nearly as much of their money as YOU think it is. Don't keep your mouth shut and let them assume something just so you can get a little money in your pocket. Some of the photographers out there really need to get off their high horse and get with the program. The way that they're doing business is nothing short of a SCAM. I've seen way too many out there who are little more than hobbyists justifying their laziness/lack of employment to their spouses by calling themselves "photographers", and every single one of them runs this ridiculous racket. "Cheap wedding photography! Cheap baby pictures!" Then when it's time to get the pictures some poor sucker finds out they have nothing, and the photographer starts spewing some nonsense about the price of their "art". It's despicable, so don't try to justify it. If someone wants to pay you to take pictures, tell them what it's going to cost them. If they agree, do the shoot and then give them their pictures. If you're good enough at what you do, you'll make a living being a photographer. If you have to have a shady business model and do what amounts to a bait and switch while holding someone's daughters wedding photos at gunpoint to make a living, well then...you're a crook.
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