Photos for Promotions

[wagner]

At the race down in GA that I helped to cover I got to talk with the track manager at Norwalk for a while. We were interviewing him for dragzine and in the flow of the conversation he asked about when I had been to the track. He then asks if they can use some of my photos and videos from events I have been to there.

 

 

If the talk of payment comes up where do I even begin to price these at?

[10phone2]

I would consider giving him a few for free in order to build a possible business relationship down the road and expand into a new market by him spreading your name around down there.

[mrs.cos]

Check out Getty Images to learn what your photos are worth.

They will help you price out what you should charge per useages.

 

http://www.gettyimages.com/Corporate/LicenseInfo.aspx

 

Find out what the planned useage for each image is, how many printed versions (a run of 10,00 brocures, magazines) yadda yadda.

 

This guy brings up a lot of good points

You absolutely should be paid. And not only that, you absolutely have the right to protect your work. There are dangers associated with offering "free use" of your work, as once you do, you can never really tell how far your work may be distributed "for free". The company you license it to may turn around and license another company to create some design with it. Once its out "in the corporate wild", you could lose control of it entirely.

 

As for "not having a budget", doubtful. I worked for a company that did a lot of graphic design for a couple years. I hated the company as they practiced ethically and morally borderline and often out right wrong practices on an all too frequent basis. One of their tactics was to search for photography online and when they found something they liked, they would send out a sob-story email like the one you got. They leeched more work off of more desperate and unaware photographers than I could count. Whenever they couldn't get something for free, they would either offer money, or find something not free and pay for it. They certainly had a budget for such things, and a large one at that.

 

Your work is you. It's your style. It's an expression of you. It should require compensation for use. Don't let the snide, underhanded tactics of a greedy corporation leave you without control of your art or the compensation you deserve. Ask for reasonable compensation, and make sure you supply a proper commercial use license to limit how far they can "internally distribute" you work, so you don't lose control over who actually has what rights to it.

 

So, to your specific points:

 

Simply ask that they pay for its use, and be clear, in writing with a proper license, about what "use" means. Don't give them freedom to use it as they please. Make sure they use it only for the specific case they need it for right now. Make them pay you again for additional use for different purposes. Alternatively, ask for a LOT of money for the right to use it as they please for as long as they please (Perpetual, limitless.)

 

"How much" is pretty subjective. Its something you could determine based on the company and their intended usage. You could simply put together a standard price list for your work and various usage scenarios. Factor in your effort, how much value you would give the photo yourself, and how much use the company expects to get. If they only expect to use it in one specific case for one specific thing that may have a limited timeframe of existence, you might ask for a lower price. If they expect perpetual usage rights without limitation, and/or the right to license its use to someone else who may use it in work done for the company, you should ask for much more. Perpetual usage is the holy grail of usage rights...it really shouldn't come cheap. How "cheap" or "expensive" depends on how you think your work compares to top notch professional work. You'd probably need to do some research to figure out where your work might fit on a "pricing scale". If you have never sold anything before and think you might have a hard time selling it at what you would consider a fair price, consider lowering your prices a bit until you have an established reputation.

 

Entirely up to you. Depends on how you want to sell your work, either on a case-by-case basis, or as a key part of your professional work as a photographer. If the purpose of your photography is to provide high quality stock photos for fixed prices for specific terms of usage, you probably want to create a web site that has examples of your work and your price list. One thing to note...NOT having a price list is often beneficial, as you can negotiate price on a sale by sale basis. Some companies may be willing to pay more, some are going to be rather stingy. If you are just starting out, you might find a lot of value in keeping your prices fluid and learn what the sweet spot is that sells the most work at the highest possible price. Once you have established an average, you'll be better equipped to produce a readily available price list.

 

Absolutely. The amount you might get for photography today is subjective, and less than it was a number of years ago, which was itself significantly less than a number of years before that (before the age of ubiquitous, cheap digital stock and oppressive bullies like Getty Images and co.) A few years from now you may find that its harder to get as good a price as you might want today. Sadly, the state of affairs with for-pay photography is there are too many cheap photographers who just want a microsecond of fame and recognition, and are all too willing to give their work up for free. That has put some severe downward pressure on prices for photographic work. You can probably reverse that trend for your own work if you establish yourself as someone who produces very high quality photography worthy of the price. However yes...it is realistic to think that people and companies will pay for photography these days.

[mrs.cos]

I would consider giving him a few for free in order to build a possible business relationship down the road and expand into a new market by him spreading your name around down there.

 

NO.

 

While this sounds like a good idea, its not.

Your time, your equipment, your ART deserves to be paid for. Thats the problem with the photography world right now, to many people giving it away is cheapening how much time and effort goes in to getting "the shot".

 

I promise if you went on any photography forum and said that, you would get laughed into yesterday.

 

Prime example

 

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7169/6643032477_66cfde014f.jpg

This Image Is Not Free by Extra Medium, on Flickr

This Image Is Not Free

 

So this was the first sunset I captured in 2012. It cost me $6,612 to take this photo.

 

$12 in gas to go from work to this spot and then home. The camera I took this with cost $2500. The lens was another $1600. The Singh Ray Reverse Neutral Density filter was $210. The Lee Wide-Angle Adapter and Foundation kit was another $200. The Slik Tripod was another $130. The shutter-release was another $60. When I got home, I uploaded it to a computer that cost me $1200, and then I used Lightroom 3 which I got for $200. I then exported it and tinkered with it in Photoshop which costs about $500.

 

12+2500+1600+210+200+130+60+1200+200+500= $6,612

 

So if you’re a magazine, website, corporation, sports team, or advertiser who wishes to use this photo, please don’t come and ask to use it for free, or in exchange for credit or "exposure". You found my photo so obviously I have "exposure". You have an advertising budget, and this is what it's for. You obviously don't expect your writers to work for free, or your secretary, or your boss. No one is going to publish it for free. Just because the picture is digital doesn't mean it was free to make.

 

As someone mentioned, THIS single photo didn't cost me $6,612, but if you wanted to create it, from scratch, that is what is involved. So I consider it the replacement value if it's stolen, or how much my lawyer will send you a bill for if it's found being used without my permission.

 

If you give your photo away for “credit” then the best possible scenario for you is someone will see your photo, contact you, and ask if they could borrow one of your photos…. for credit. Try this... next time you're at dinner, tell your waiter you'll tell all your friends how good the service was if he gives you dinner for free.

 

It feels bad finding your photo stolen and being used without permission. But it feels worse when someone asks to use it for free.

Edited March 4, 2013 by damreds

[Duff1647545513]

I completely agree photographers should be paid for their work, but saying that one image cost $6,600 to take by adding up all equipment costs is ignorant in my opinion. If that image is the only photo that person used all equipment listed for, then it would be accurate, but I'm sure that stuff was used on other photographs as well. With that logic, it would be like someone buying all necessary equipment to start a clothing line (let's just say $50k for this post), running it for a couple years charging people for their clothes then printing a fucking sweet shirt, but say it cost them $50,000 to print that single shirt.

...... just my thoughts on that, it bothered me. You have to spend money to make money.

 

Yes, you should get paid for all of your work though

[mrs.cos]

His blog posts goes on to talk about that, the point of his post though is, just because cameras are digital doesn't mean it's free. That is a growing problem in the digital photography world.