Jo O'Brien

^{Disclaimer: This is not legal advice or even professional advice. This is some stuff I’ve learned along this funny little thing called life and may not apply in any way to your current situation. At worst, it’s my opinion, at best it’s some ideas for you to think about. If you need real proper advice, go see your solicitor.}

I’m of the opinion that photography should make me money, not cost me money. So far, I have been successful is making more from a photograph than it took me to create. Here is my list of not so secret tips and advice on covering your arse and saving your cash.

When To Pay

There are times where spending your hard earned money is the right choice. For example to obtain goods or services you can not find for less (or free) elsewhere. Or when you have done all the maths yourself and you feel you are buying into a good deal. But there are also some pit falls to watch out for.

Art Direction, Ideas and Intellectual Property

My rule of thumb, if I am paying to shoot, I should have full rights to everything I take. No ifs buts or maybes about it.

If you shoot a commercial, the art direction team put together a shoot and then hire a photographer to take photos of what they and the crew have created. They pay for lighting design, they pay the models, they pay the hair stylist, they pay the guy who makes the coffees- and they pay the photographer.

Some businesses operate under a similar model but suck money out of photographers in the process. As part of a ‘workshop’ or ‘event’, several photographers rock up with their cameras and take photos of a scene. Often they have little or no control of the setup, can’t communicate properly with the models and will walk out of it with similar images to everyone else who attended! In the worst cases they have restricted rights regarding how they use their images. So is essence, they have paid for something that out in the real world, would be making them money. Sorry if it sounds confusing, the concept completely baffles me.

When you are shooting someone else’s ideas and have restricted publishing rights or have little influence over the set up, posing, lighting or set design, (in my opinion) you should be getting paid by them. After all, you are doing them a favor by taking images of their creative work.

Classes or Tuition

Wanting to improve you skills and knowledge is a great thing. And there are numerous classes, mentors and workshops available for you to choose from. If you are going to pay to attend these, make sure you are getting what you pay for. Before you hand over any cash there are a few details that you should have to help make your decision.

Class Size: The more people attending, the cheaper the class should be. If there is a practical component, I usually wont accept a class bigger than 10-12
Location & Time: no point signing up for an ‘on location’ workshop only to find it is out of your way. Also as a safety issue, you should always be able to tell a trusted person exactly where and when you will be shooting.
The Teacher: You should be able to find and contact the person facilitating the class to verify their experience and ask questions. It not always convenient for a facilitator to take calls from a whole class, but you should be able to send them an email and get a reply without going through a middle man.
Contracts: Ask if you will need to sign any contracts and insist upon receiving them before paying.
What do you get: do you get class notes to take home? Exactly what does the course entail? What can you hope to know and have learned at the end of the course?

Contracts

These are a great way to waste your money. They also happen to be very important.

First and foremost contracts exists to make people money or stop people from making money. So before signing anything, read it a few times and make sure you are aware of what your actions are costing you. If you need to get images approved before sale or publication, you could be agreeing to never publishing or selling any images taken if none are ‘approved.’ It is completely reasonable to request changes to a contract or write your own and offer it instead. Don’t sign away potential income!

You should always be able to take a contract away and show it to other people for advice before signing it, and especially before paying for anything. If you are not given this opportunity, my advice is to avoid it with a ten foot pole. And then there are the bazillion poorly written contracts that mean very little or nothing at all. It’s actually quite funny to me sometimes, what people will put on paper.

Useful Links

Australian Competition & Consumer Commission
Scam Watch

Photographers – What are you paying for (part 2).