Cost per image usage fee?

[SquarePeg]

An acquaintance who is a graphic designer has asked if I want to have some of my photos featured in a calendar she is putting together for a local real estate firm. They give them to their customers and distribute them locally each year. This year their idea is to use photos taken by local photographers. The only criteria is the photo has to have been taken in our city.

She’s used my photos before for the local environment group‘s literature - always with my permission and with no fee - I consider it a donation to a worthy cause. For this she thinks they’ll want to use a couple of my abstracts and one I took of our city from the overlook. They’ll be paying a cost per image usage fee as well as photo credited on the calendar somehow. I have no idea what the typical fee would be for something relatively small scale like this. Thoughts?

Besides the fee and photo credit, are there other things I need to consider for something like this ?

 

[480sparky]

Limit the use to strictly the calendar. All too often, people like to think, "Oh, I can use it for whatever I want 'cuz I've paid for it...."

 

[JBPhotog]

If the graphic designer has done this in the past, ask them what fees were paid for photography usage. There are a number of resources on the gooble, a bit of research may help you determine a fee.

You are venturing into the commercial photography arena and a contractural agreement is in order if you want to protect the rights to your work. You will want to spell out exactly the use of your photographs so no other application of them can be used. For example you may want to include the following in the description section of your invoice (modified for your application): "To supply photography of (local city) scenes for use in a 2020 calendar distributed by (Real-Estate company) to their current and potential clients. License to use is granted to (Real-Estate company) with (insert period of use you determine, I suggest one year so they don't use it again). No license granted to a third party unless by written contractual authorization from (you)."

There are a number of ways to sort through this but I do suggest the terms are conveyed upfront. I have always provided a copy of the estimate with the terms before I undertake an assignment so everyone is on the same page before we proceed. The invoice has the same usage description for redundancy.

 

[Derrel]

If the use is for 1000 calendars or whatever,then that is one thing if the use on the other hand is for 5000 or 10000 or 20000 or more published units,then you should be paid more. Imagine a national Publishing Company paying $50 for a 1-year use but they end up using it for one year and printing 500,000 calendars which they sell at $6 apiece....the photographer will have end up being taken advantage of.