Contract?

[sarallyn]

EDIT: found a good contract to use as an outline.


In order to gain some experience with portraits of people/pets, I'm going to offer inexpensive photo sessions. I would go to the people, take pictures in their home/at a park, etc, then ship them the prints once I develop them.
I'm pretty stuck on charging $50 (plus gas) for 25 separate 4x6 prints. I'll keep the negatives and charge a few dollars for enlargements.

So, if I'm going to do this, do I need a contract? Something that says that I have full rights to negatives and such?

Again, this is just so I can gain experience and be able to put it on my college application. Nothing professional, but I don't want to get sued.

[Ads]

[sarallyn]

poo, I should've put this in "general shop talk"

[tirediron]

My legal advice? Don't get legal advice from an on-line forum. Spend a hundred dollars for a 30 minute consultation with a real lawyer, find out what you need to do and go from there. (But yes, I would suggest that any time money is changing hands, there should be a contract of some sort).

[JerryPH]

My legal advice? Don't get legal advice from an on-line forum.

Amen. Especially since it is an international forum.

Laws change not only from country to country, but can also change from city to city. It would be unwise to use legal info from here expecting it to be correct.

[Mike_E]

I would suggest that rather than charging you find a women's shelter or some other venue to do the work for free.

They will appreciate it and you shouldn't need anything more than a model release.

No you won't make any money but you won't have any issues about what to charge for them.

[sarallyn]

My legal advice? Don't get legal advice from an on-line forum.

That's probably good advice, hahaha.

Mike_E - that's a really great idea. I'm really focusing on pet photos, too, so I was thinking of going to some pounds and taking photos. I don't know if I have a woman's shelter anywhere near me, though.... or any homeless shelter.

[William Petruzzo]

Hopefully I don't get eaten alive for this.

I think If your into moderate risk taking, you might not need to worry about it at all right away. If you approach people with the understanding that your figuring things out, most are understanding. Also, odds are the people who you deal with initially will probably mostly be people who are already connected to you by just one or two degrees of separation. Plus, if you're only charging 50 bucks, the biggest damages you could expect to incur would be returning the 50 bucks. I mean, realistically, someone could sue you, but it wouldn't get far once the situation became clear to the court.

Than again, anything could happen. But in a totally sober reality where people take risks every day (i.e., getting in a car, or climbing a ladder), the risk might be worth it. Especially if the benefit is gaining some good experience and confidence and not getting discouraged by legal stuff too soon.

This is the way I got started. Maybe I was just lucky not to get into hot water, but I for me personally, I know the risk was worth it.

Just my two cents.

[sarallyn]

yeah, there's that, too. that's always a big possibility.