Freedom In Photography
As part of planning our wedding next year, the lovely Janet and I have begun looking into photographers. It seems that at least some photographers apply the same dodgy lock-in practices as software companies do by holding onto the copyright of the pictures they take at your wedding and forcing you to go back to them for reprints.
Apart from the fact that I'm somewhat uncomfortable with anyone owning the photographic memories of our wedding, the terms and conditions from one particular photographer are just ridiculous. This particular photographer will quite happily provide you with a DVD of all the photos they take in high resolution – you just have to wait two and a half years after your wedding and pay an extra $750. I'm not sure what happens if he happens to be hit by a bus in those two years or if for some other reason he goes out of business. As we left our meeting with this photographer I felt quite uneasy about this terms – just feeling that something was wrong, however as I thought more about it, I thought of more and more situations where it would really come back to bite us.
We plan to go live in the UK for a time, and if we happened to move over there and want another picture of our wedding to hang on the wall, we'd have to call back to Australia and have it printed over here, then shipped to us in England – not to mention paying ridiculous prices for the extra copy. If we owned the copyright and had the negatives or full resolution digitals, we could just go to any printer to get copies.
There's no indication in the conditions of how long our photos will be stored and made available to us for reprints. If in twenty years our house burns down and our wedding album is lost, there's no guarantee we'd be able to replace it, even if the photographer is still in business because he may have deliberately deleted the photos or just lost them because his backup strategy wasn't good enough. If we owned the copyright and had the full resolution originals we could just have it remade – particularly so if we had all the layout/design work that went into the actual album as well as the pictures.
It sounds like the best approach will be to pay a photographer to come and take the pictures, thus making it a work for hire so that we actually own all the copyrights. It will be interesting to see what the cost difference is, both up front and over the longer term.
I just have to wonder how many people have been caught out by things like this.
April 17th, 2006 at 5:22 am
We got married last year and ran into the same situation — the wedding photography industry is really holding on to some outdated business models and ideas. One of the reasons we chose our photographer is that for a reasonable price he gave us a DVD with the original, full resolution, digital copies of all our pictures, and the copyrights to them.
We could then post our pictures on sites of our choice (Flickr, Yahoo, Ofoto, whatever) so that our family, friends, and guests could purchase copies for the going online rates of approximately 29 cents per picture. We also get the benefits of digital backups of our pics, etc. It worked out very well, I recommend you do the same if possible.
April 17th, 2006 at 9:39 pm
Its leftover practices from analog film days. There isn’t much that can be done when everyone held to the same practice and they kept the negatives. That was the case when I got married 10 years ago.
Nowadays with digital photography and online photo distribution some photogs are more open. You might want to check out some amateur photogs (life sh1ft.org) who work this way.
May 9th, 2006 at 7:35 am
If your house burns down, along with your album, wouldn’t the originals also go up with it, if you owned them?
May 9th, 2006 at 7:44 am
Lori,
That’s why you keep an offsite backup of the digitals. Since you have the right to make as many copies as you want you can send them to friends overseas, give a copy to your aunt down the street etc, or upload them to an online backup service etc.
If all you had were actual negatives, you could still have them digitally scanned in high resolution and do the same thing.
June 28th, 2006 at 12:54 pm
What about a freelance photographer? I can recommend a good one named Paul who will be in Bris at the time of your wedding and who has no such issues with copyright etc…
:-)
April 29th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
[...] be moving to England (I can’t even find a mention on his blog other than in a post about wedding photography), but I can clearly remember my reaction. Whether Ephox starts a European office or not, [...]
May 5th, 2007 at 1:27 am
These days many photographers will happily part with their high-resolution files; however, let me explain just one reason why many are not comfortable to do so – and these are more often than not, very high-end photographers and this often has nothing with trying to make the ‘extra buck’ after the wedding.
Currently, in an over-saturated market, many photographers rely on recommendations for their businesses. When you part with your high-res files you lose every aspect of quality control that you apply to your reprints and thus how you’re perceived by others who see your images once they’ve left your hands. Are they no cheaply printed on low-cost mass-produced home printers? Are those printers colour corrected to match the monitor on which Mr Amatuer photoshop has adjusted them with? Does the client even know what colour space the files have been provided with and thus which labs to use or not to use without having the files converted to a generic colour-space or one which the lab prefers to use? So much work goes into colour-correction that it’s soul-destroying to see one of your images printed horrifically and it does nothing but damage your reputation as a photographer. The people that see these images are going to naturally assume that you [the photographer] aren’t half as good as the guy who took their other friends photographs – which look great in comparison! Of course, they’re hardly going to tell the happy couple that their prized wedding images look crap :)
I agree it’s a more comfortable prospect having control over the archiving of your images. For that reason we’re more than happy to sell our high-res files but we do so only after ensuring that the client knows exactly what they’re buying and with the knowledge that they’re unlikely to get quite the same results that they see in their album. Suprisingly, we have had clients that come back to us for reprints even though they have the high-resolution files.
I hope that explains some of the reasoning in this industry. I acknowledge that it’s not always going to be the case but believe me, it’s one of the biggest concerns for many a modern-day photographer.
Ciao
Andy
May 5th, 2007 at 1:30 am
Darn, forgot to tick the ‘notify me of followup comments’ box.
Cheers
Andy
May 5th, 2007 at 9:53 am
Hi Andy,
I can completely understand those concerns and had a number of photographers explain the color correction and quality processes they go through, however I don’t see it as a valid reason to not hand over copyright. If the photographer is concerned about third party reproductions being of lower quality, they should take the time to educate (with examples) their clients on why the color correction and other processes are so important and why the photos that they produce will be so much higher quality.
I also have to note, having spoken to an awful lot of photographers, not one of them raised this as a concern, nor would I think it reasonable to assume that this was the motivation for any of them. They were all either happy to hand over the copyright or they were pretty clearly in it for the extra cash. The only other reason to want the copyright that became apparent was so they could use the images for promotion (for which they could just get a release).
If the photographers have failed to explain why they want copyright clearly and accurately, they’re not upfront and honest enough and they need to rethink how they present their business. Part of managing client relationships is taking the time to explain important concepts like this. Sounds like you have at least started along that route so that’s good.
May 5th, 2007 at 9:59 am
Oh and I should note that it’s absolutely impossible to judge a photographer by their website so I wasn’t intending to comment on Andy or his particular business. You’d have to meet face to face with Andy to be able to be able to decide if their website is marketing spin or reality. Any type of creative arts business is going to have a website that looks sensational and says just what you want to hear – it’s what they do for a living. Meeting with them face to face will actually tell you about what they’re like. I will say though that it’s great to see Andy taking the time to explain the photography business here even though I’m completely outside of his target market and this particular post really isn’t seeing that many people come by.
There are some really great open, honest and passionate photographers out there, and there’s a lot of really dodgy people out to screw you.
May 5th, 2007 at 9:54 pm
Adrian,
I agree with much of what you’re saying as you’ve obviously had experience with some photographers in these respects. I do feel though that I probably represent the views of a huge amount of photographers in this industry. To put it into perspective, last financial year we spent £234 (UK) on advertising. The massive majority of our work is coming from referals which demonstrates just how valuable that avenue is to us. If our clients are showing others badly printed images (and I’ve seen many, many examples of this) then we’re simply not going to cut it. We try extremely hard to educate clients who buy high-res images. But when many a photographer doesn’t even understand it, you must appreciate we’re on a hiding to nothing. We even have Labs in the UK who don’t have a clue what they’re doing!!
We never hand over copyright. Why would we? Copyright can belong with us for life without any penalty to the client. We can still give them high-res images to print as they like or share with friends, make webshows etc. All we prevent them from doing is saying “we took these images – they belong to us” and subsequently selling them to magazines etc. Similarly, we never ever use their images for any kind of marketing without their agreement. It’s absolutely fundamental that regardless of whether you own copyright, you cannot use an image of someone else for personal gain without their permission. Whilst many still do, they do run the risk of having to pay damages should the subject find out and pursue a claim. Obviously laws vary greatly from country to country but this is quite commonly the case.
Also, we rarely meet clients face-face. We are primarily serving ‘destination clients’ and it’s simply not practical to meet up before a wedding. Everything indeed does depend on your website and subsequently the interface you build up with a client through emails or if necessary phone calls. Again, recommendations help hugely here.
I agree there are many absolutely horrible photographers out there who are in it completely for the quick buck. Interestingly, many have absolutely horrible websites as well :) There are even more who are very serious about their work and their reputation – I’m sure.
August 21st, 2007 at 9:37 am
Photography is incredible addicting, especially buying gadgets, tripods etc. ! It also requires a decent amount of practice to get really good at it. My advice is to hire someone professional for special events..
May 29th, 2008 at 4:42 am
I am a freelance photographer and I do mostly adventure shoots on boats and that whole water world experience,outdoor sports and weddings come as my last interest…..when I shoot I simply hand over the digital cards(or film rolls) to the client,who does whatever he or she wishes and then they return the cards…formatted….that way they own the photos…never a problem of copyright…..sometimes I ask for certain shots of the shoot and usually the card is returned to me with just the requested shots….I enjoy this way of doing business…..I SHOOT….they get the cards…they do what they want….I get the cards back and get paid…..this way I get a lot of repeat work….word of mouth how I do my shoots has brought most of my business to my door…….never had trouble…everyone is happy.