Photography Ethics Question

[osumisan]

I am a hobbyist photographer with an ethics question that I need advice with. For many years, I have shot action photographs of my daughter and her friends as they have grown up and have coached many of these girls. They are considered friends and their parents are family friends. Now that these girls are in high school, there is a current team photographer that has asked me not to give my photographs to my players anymore because it is hurting his year-end photograph DVD sales. He is not a professional either, just a hobbyist as well.

Does my relationship with 'my players' trumph his right to sell his photos to these same players that he doesn't know? I suggested to him that the current group of players do not want to purchase a photo DVD and maybe I can help him offer more products that these players are not used to (posters, mugs, blanket prints, etc). He has resorted to suggesting that he will step down as team photographer it's not worth his while anymore; which is not what I ever intended.

Can I get some experienced photographer's opinions on this matter. There are more details, but I painted the basic picture above.

Thanks for your help,
Jon

 

[Forkie]

Is there no way you can work together for mutual benefit?

 

[usayit]

You have every right to take photos. The photos are your property and you can give it away.

He has no right to stop you.

Its as simple as that.


No way to tell intention nor attitude but his actions seem audacious. If his photos are not good enough to offer something to his "clients" that you cannot, then he should move on. Then again... if you just want to be nice, you could try to work something out.

PS> Once he is asking for money in exchange for a product, he is no longer just a hobby for him.. its a business. Business is business... don't get con'd into feeling "sorry" for him because he is just like you... a hobbyist.

 

[osumisan]

Thank you for the quick replies:

Forkie: I suggested that I can help him enhance his 'business' by helping him expand the products to sell. I am not looking for any money, it's just fun for me to shoot and I like sharing with players. He says he is not interested in offering anything more than his photo DVD. Perhaps by offering a different product, he might make up the lost revenue. His position is that if he can't break even with his sales, he will stop shooting. My positon is I am not even close to breaking even but enjoy the hobby (plus my photos are much better than his).

usayit: My intention is to be nice for he is offering his time and skills as a benefit to the team (and himself). He is giving me guilt by telling me I am taking money from the school by my actions. My best solution seems to be to stop sharing my photos with the players that I don't already know so he might still make those sales. But I warned him that each succesive year, more of his shrinking customers are graduating and more of my players are coming up from middle school. I do, however, feel it's my right to continue sharing with the players who have been receiving my photos for years. Not an easy situation for I do not want to be unethical to the craft of photography.

 

[jowensphoto]

That other guy is being a douche.

You offered to help in out, with no expectance of earning money -- he declined.

He's not officially hired by the company/school, so you have every right to keep shooting.

My opinion: your work is better than his. Nobody's going to pay for his crap when they get better quality for free from you.

 

[2WheelPhoto]

You're making him feel as though he wasted his investment capital at bestbuy when he bought his stuff

 

[usayit]

You shouldn't feel guilty or worried about being "unethical". Ethics has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Yah.. I agree. He is being unreasonable. You have done MORE than could be possibly expected to offer a business opportunity for NO additional expense to him.. your free time. He turned it down. He has a terrible sense of business.... strong arming the public to pay for services they don't have to is one part of business (at least here in the US) that pisses me off. Offer a good quality product rather than polishing a turd and forcing it through retail.

Its time to move on, ignore him, and continue to have fun. If he continues to prevent you from enjoying your hobby, put your pictures online and pass out business cards pointing to your website where they can download the photos for free. I recommend vistaprint.com for a free box of business cards.

 

[cgipson1]

Unless he has a contract with the school, with an exclusive photographer clause... he has no right to ask you not to shoot or to share! Even then.. the school usually won't stop family (at least with point and shoots... pro gear might be another story)

 

[JSER]

Tell him to take a long walk off a short pier

I spend a LOT of time taking surf photos, at Widemouth bay, Devon and put them in the car when I go, people are FREE to download them from my photobucket site at 6x4 or I am happy to send them the full file for a "tip" say £1 some give me £5 one gave me £10 wow, but if a pro came and said can I stop as he wants to do it as a pro I would politely say get................

 

[KenC]

Agree with everyone who posted here - you should feel no need to stop what you are doing. If he can offer something you are not, then perhaps he can induce people to pay for it, otherwise he is not much of a professional. Even if he had some sort of "exclusive" arrangement with the school, that probably would only guarantee that the school would not hire anyone else, not that the school would prevent parents, coaches and others with connections to the kids from taking pictures.

 

[robolepa]

I agree with everyone else about the other guy being a huge turd, and that you shouldn't feel bad about continuing to provide your photos to the team for free. What he fails to realize is that even if you weren't currently giving your photos away for free, his high school sports photographer career would still be doomed. If they are used to getting higher quality photos for $0.00, there is no way in hell they're going to suddenly start forking over cash for photos they don't like as much. And it won't matter if he's hawking DVDs, mugs, or t-shirts to them. The end result will still be the same - him in tears - and there's not a thing you can do to help. All snarkiness aside - let's pretend he's not part of the scenario at all, that it's just you. Up 'til now, you've been very, very generous, donating not just your work, but your time, and your equipment. So one day you decide to start charging a nominal fee for the photos that you once gave away for free. You're not trying to finance a house on a lake with the the money. You're charging just enough to help cover a portion of the costs. I could be wrong here, but I think the results would be identical. You're not going to get those parents/kids - whomever - to pay for something that they've come to expect for free. If you had charged for your photos from the very beginning, they wouldn't think twice about shelling out a few bucks every week for pics of their kids. You probably still wouldn't be able to finance the lake house with the revenue you'd generate, but there would definitely be a positive cash flow. I've told more than one person in the past that before they even put their camera up to their eye they need to decide whether they're going to charge, because there'll be no turning back.

 

[480sparky]

Unless he has a contract with the school, with an exclusive photographer clause... ......

How can one be forced to abide by a contract one is not a party to?

 

[The_Traveler]

Agree with the above.
I can't predict the future based on hypotheticals but ........
I don't understand his 'break-even' comment.
His equipment is sunk cost and, since he doesn't have a business, he shouldn't have fixed recurring costs.
When he stops shooting, he stops incurring even travel costs.

Except for not having the end-of-year dvd, there's not loss to the kids.

 

[jowensphoto]

Unless he has a contract with the school, with an exclusive photographer clause... ......

How can one be forced to abide by a contract one is not a party to?

I believe it would be the school's responsibility to enforce this, not the photographer's. If that's the case, they'd also have to ban any and all cameras except for that of the official photographer.

 

[tirediron]

Unless he has a contract with the school, with an exclusive photographer clause... ......

How can one be forced to abide by a contract one is not a party to?

One can't, however, if the photographer has a contract with an exclusivity clause, then the school would be forced to demand everyone else stop shooting.