Magazine photos

[kcp]

Yes—I did a search and could not find the answer to my question.

A local motorcycle shop has contacted me about taking pictures of their custom built bikes for magazine submittals. How do I go about doing this?

1) Do I take the photos and sell them to the shop so that they can submit them into the magazines?

2) Or do I take the photos and submit them directly to the magazine?

3) How much do I charge for something like this?

4) What kind of a contract should be involved with the bike shop?

Sorry for all the questions. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[guitarmy]

If it were me, I would

a) charge the client a job-based price - ask how they will be submitting the images (CD or print), and that will help determine cost. If they say CD, you'll have to supply them with hi-res shots on disc, which means they ostensibly could make as many copies as they want. Which you might be okay with - who knows?

b) let them submit the photos

c) pricing depends on what your market is like, how many bikes, how long you'll be there for, the distribution of the magazines they're submitting to... it's near impossible to give an example of cost without these things in place.

d) I'd draft up a contract that issues them a time-based license to distribute to certain magazines (say, a 6-month license), and include language to discourage them from using the shots in their own promotions etc. Make sure that you maintain copyright to the shots.

Hope that helps.

 

[kcp]

I guess I should have clarified—they would be bringing the custom bikes to me at my studio to photograph, so it would only be a couple at a time, estimating a few hours of my time on a Saturday. Later on, as they complete their custom bikes, they would bring those, too.

I have no problem with giving them a CD; however, I’m worried if I sell them a CD of proofs for a few hundred bucks, that they might use them for promotion/advertising, etc.—like you said.

I suppose I need to contact some of these magazines to find out format and if they pay for photographs. If that is the case, that will change my course of action, because I wouldn’t want them to resell my photographs and make money off of my work.

If anyone else has experience with this, please let me know. I’ll let you know what I find out after contacting some of these magazines.

Thanks!

 

[Big Mike]

Also consider or ask what the magazine will do with the shots. I'm sure, the point is to publish the good submissions that they get. But what if they want to use one of your photos on the cover? That would mean that your photo is attracting business to the magazine. You may want to retain the copyright so that you have some control here.

On the other hand, the magazine may get hundreds or thousands of submissions and they may not want to deal with the extra hassle of photos that are owned by a professional photographer...and won't publish them.

Sorry, I don't have any solutions :scratch: Hopeful somebody will.

 

[kcp]

Sorry, I don't have any solutions :scratch: Hopeful somebody will.

That's ok, Mike. You don't have to solve my problems--but you DID give me great things to think about.

 

[kcp]

Update---still no word from any magazines.

 

[JIP]

I think the best way to handle this is to figure a price that is comfortable for you and charge them o a per-bike basis. Also when you do this sign everything over to them (of course charge them for this privelige) but keep the photo credits for yourself. I think this might be the best way all around so you don't have to worry about handling the submission work or anything except for the photography.