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How much to charge for a photo?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Rhody31, Jun 13, 2013.

  1. Rhody31

    Rhody31 Well-Known Member

    Thanks for all the advice.
    We agreed on 20. I wrote a simple agreement saying the photo is for personal use only and any commercial use would be a violation of the copyright. This was a mom who wanted a pic of her kid, so I'm not super concerned.
    I'm at the point of my photo career where I'm flattered someone wants to buy them.
    I did get paid by the paper, which is why I was surprised they let me own the photo. In my past experiences, whatever photos ran in the paper belonged to the paper.
    Thanks again y'all.
    Oh, and here's the photo, edited with the photog in the backdrop out. Paper ran it tighter and cropped most of the stuff on the left.

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 15, 2014
  2. HejiraHenry

    HejiraHenry Well-Known Member

    Lovely moment. Good for you. And thanks for sharing.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 15, 2014
  3. Pilot

    Pilot Well-Known Member

    Yeah, be sure this parent doesn't sell 1,000,000 copies of your photo of her daughter. I'd have her sign a contract, and be sure to have your lawyer there.

    Seriously, $20 is just right. Obviously she's not going to profit from it. Who in the world wants a picture of her daughter?

    It is a very nice photo, though. Nice job.
     
  4. Songbird

    Songbird Well-Known Member

    Since we're sharing happy-happy joy-joy shots:

    Girls hoops coach jumps into assistant's arms as team wins first of back-to-back New Hampshire state titles. Funny thing is he was weirded out about the shot afterward. Someone made a comment and I think the coach felt there was a gay vibe about it that he didn't like.

    [​IMG]


    Johnny hits first home run of his LL career during a 3-pitch tournament in Lebanon. His eldest sister won 12 or 15 N.H. track titles and the middle child was a strong athlete. All-around great athletic family:

    [​IMG]


    One of my favorites: These 4 Hanover hockey players led the team to back-to-back Division 1 state titles and they combined to score 650-something career points. This is after the second title awaiting the trophy. It appeared as a double-truck in Varsity Magazine, too. They went on to play at Yale, Wellesley, Dartmouth and Middlebury:

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 15, 2014
  5. slappy4428

    slappy4428 Active Member

    Couldn't have been the pink shirt and legs around the waist, could it?
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 15, 2014
  6. SoCalDude

    SoCalDude Active Member

    You can probably get a few hundred from her orthodontist.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 15, 2014
  7. Smasher_Sloan

    Smasher_Sloan Active Member

    I think Hustler used to pay $50 for Beaver Hunt photos. That established an industry standard at the time.
     
  8. Football_Bat

    Football_Bat Well-Known Member

    If it was my photo, I'd charge, but very few are, so I don't particularly care.
     
  9. schiezainc

    schiezainc Well-Known Member

    Rhody,
    I had the same thing happen to me with that paper. I was equally as confused and my image wasn't nearly as good as yours.
    I went to our mutual friend's Rhode Island sports photo website, took a look at his prices for prints, knocked my price down a buck or two and made $35 on three prints of the same photo (two 8x10s and a 5x7) which cost me all of $13 to print up at my usual stop and mail it to them.
    So I essentially made $25 for 10 minutes of my time spent picking up the prints and mailing them out. It's not too bad if you can manage it. :)
     
  10. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    Rhody, you said you are surprised that the paper "let you own" the photo. You should really change your way of thinking. You *do* own the photo.

    Unless you sign something giving away the rights. .... I understand that newspapers have a lot of leverage with freelancers, photographers, etc. It's a crowded market and pay ain't all that great, because the work you do is a commodity. And they might want all rights in exchange for crappy money. But it's still YOUR choice. Unless you sign something giving away the rights to your work, it's yours. You shouldn't be apologetic about that. Occasionally you are going to run into these situations in which you can make a little scratch on the side, and just like your leverage may not often give you much negotiating power, in those circumstances there is nothing wrong with using whatever leverage you have -- the way a newspaper will use leverage with you, if it can.

    In this case, you handled it exactly right, in my opinion. These are people who wanted a nice photo of their daughter. You shouldn't have demanded a crazy fee -- they may not have paid anyhow. It's a little extra money. But when dealing commercially? Don't feel like others own you.

    As someone who has negotiated many times with individual photographers, the smart ones use whatever leverage they have and get what they can. If it's the one shot that goes with what we are publishing, and they know it, they have pretty good leverage. If I might be able to go somewhere else and find a similar shot, I can negotiate them down, or else I will buy elsewhere.

    Life is a series of negotiations. You should always know the leverage you have and use it accordingly. It makes me sad if feel like someone else automatically dictates terms to you -- they "let you own" your photo. You own it. You might not have a ton of leverage with them, and you very well may have to sign over rights to them if you choose to work for them, but it is your choice. And honestly, until you negotiate, you never know if you have leverage you didn't assume you had. If you never signed that thing giving them the rights, start from the standpoint of, "It's my photo. I am giving them one-time usage." For what you may have gotten paid, does that seem fair to you?

    When I wrote for magazines on a freelance basis (ages ago now, so I understand the market has changed), I usually got contracts that a) gave them full rights to my work, and b) left me with all the liability if there was a libel suit (which as an aside was a bit silly, because if anyone ever sued for libel, they were going after the publication, too, regardless of what the contract said). I imagine it may be harder to negotiate these things now, but I usually at least had the conversation and made a choice. "Is the paycheck going to be worth giving away the rights."

    I was sometimes able to retain the ability to resell the story, and I often got them to change the language leaving me hanging in the wind if there was a law suit -- which was ridiculous if they are taking all rights and treating you like you were "work for hire."

    I doubt it ever cost me work (the worry is that you are the pain-in-the-ass freelancer who it isn't worth using), because I did a lot of work for one national publication that worked with a slightly modified contract for me. Their attitude was "90 percent of writers will just sign the thing, so we might as well make it as favorable for us as possible, and see if they just sign and send it back."
     
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