$1000/year for 1 photo!!?

[CanonSnob]

I'de like to see his photo and see your photo.

sfaust hit it right on.

One more point I'd like to make. The employee that shot the same image for their company is being paid a salary, their computer was provided by the company, their desk, floor space, electric, phone, utilities, all paid for by the company. Health insurance, matching retirement funds, all covered. They don't need liability insurance, nor do they need to hire a lawyer, accountant, or business advisor as its all covered by their employer. They don't need to pay marketing, hire consultants to design web sites, etc.

They probably occupy a 10'x10' floor footprint, where a commercial photographer needs to recoup the costs of a 3,000sq ft footprint. The employee doesn't have to pay or maintain $50K in equipment, and replace it every 3 years when clients demand the latest and greatest.

And don't forget a photographer can't shoot 5 days a week. So they need to recoup all their costs in a 2-3 work week window. The other 2 or 3 days is for running the business, administration, maintaining the digital image archives, writing quotes for new jobs, creating marketing materials to keep work coming in, sending out invoices, paying the bills, taxes, collection agent, and sweeping the floor and putting a new coat of paint on the cyc wall. So when they quote $2,000 per day, its not $10K a week, but more like $4K. Makes a huge difference at the end of the year

So yea, $1,000 probably seems way to much for the employee. But for a commercial photographer running a studio, its not nearly enough.

Just some food for thought.

Stephen
Commercial Website, Blog

 

[henkelphoto]

Sorry I came to this thread late.

As for charging different prices based on customers. Some do, some don't. When I'm doing commercial work, I have a set half/day and full/day rate. Those don't change. But if someone wants me to do a 7am-11pm day, I do charge more than my normal day rate. Whether they want one photo or a 100, the day rate doesn't change, although if they want prints, that will add to the cost.

As for undercutting another photographer, well, it happens all the time. I have a friend who's policy when he's looking for spec work is to see if the photo can be done quickly with little or no specialized equipment. If so, he doens't bother with it, figuring that if it can be done with a simple camera and one lens, he will always lose out to someone's nephew or an employee of the company with a camera (no offense to the OP). What he looks for is complex lighting situations where the guy with a DSLR and a kit lens has no idea what he's doing.

It sounds like the photo in question was a simple building shot that could be done in 10 minutes with a dslr and a wide angle lens. If so, the person who bid $1000 should have expected to be underbid. So be it, I don't think the person spent a lot of time crying over a lost job. If you're in this for a full-time business, you expect to be underbid frequently. That's why you build up a client list based on quality jobs.

Jerry

 

[Nikon Norm]

So it's a $1,000 photograph....................

Photographers expense:

phone bill to receive call from client
car payment to visit client
gas to visit client
time to have meeting with client to hear the brief
travel to location to take shot
depreciation of pro camera equipment ( bet it was not a D50 camera)
travel back to studio location
cost of computer
time for photoshop
cost of CD to burn image to
shipping & packaging cost to deliver CD
contribution to health plan
contribution to retirement fund
rent for studio or office
utility bills to run photo business

We have not even got to Photographers salary yet.

You know I blame George Eastman for this, everyone who owns a camera thinks they are a Photographer.

 

[Village Idiot]

Plus, is it possible to sue for purjery in this case? Some one takes a photo that a company is interested in, declinces it because of cost, and then the exact same photo taken by a company employee ends up on all the brochures, etc...

 

[henkelphoto]

Perjury is where you lie under oath. I suppose you could sue for theft of intellectual property, but then the original photographer would have had to copywrite the photo in the first place. And you'd end up spending months or years and thousands of dollars to pursue a lawsuit that has virtually no chance of succeeding.

Do what most pro photographers do, bid a job, if you don't get it, move on to the next and don't bother taking the company's phone calls again.

Jerry

 

[D-50]

depreciation of pro camera equipment ( bet it was not a D50 camera)

First off I have not used my D50 in years I chose the name after I found this site simply because it was what I was using.
Secondly you can take professional quality photos with a D50 if you know what you are doing. (I actually take offense to the idea that the camera makes the photographer. By that rational anyone with a 5d or simlar
pro-level camera is a proffesional. I have a wealthy friend who bought a D3 just because he wanted the best camera avaiable... He has no idea what hes doing at all, the camera is clearly to complex for him but by Nikon Norm's thinking this person is a professional.

Also you cannot sue because someone took a similar shot as you did. And certainly not for lying under oath.

 

[*Mike*]

Couple little things...

You can sue just about anyone for anything. You may not win, but you can still bring suit. You'd be throwing your money away, and making someone else throw theirs away, and be making yourself an all-around pain in the butt, but you can almost always bring suit.

Oh, and Canon does not consider the 5d a professional camera. It's in their prosumer line. )

 

[castrol]

That video that was posted was pure awesomeness. I would like to link that in
my signature, but the NSFW language in it might get me in a little trouble.

I agree with the "$400,000.00 to open a franchise, but no $1,000.00 to pay for a
photo" that will be used again and again and again and again?

That is $2.75 per day of use out of a photograph that could potentially be seen
by hundreds of thousands of people everyday. Pretty inexpensive.

 

[davidfromoz]

I'm not a pro or anything. My opinion might fly in the face of professional photographic practice. But I believe a photographer should be paid for the work they do.

If you were surprised by the price, and the photographer wasn't paid for the work they did to take the shot then there must have been something wrong with the agreement. If its a win-win agreement then the photographer would be happy with getting paid for taking the photo and you would be happy to pay for the photo if its good because you already decided before the shot was taken. If you decide you can deliver the image cheaper and more easily then nobody loses.

There is nothing special about the image. As you discovered, it can be recreated easily. But perhaps there was real skill in composing and shooting the photo. The photographer should charge for that and you should expect to pay.

cheers,
david

 

[Nimitz]

How about a more basic question ...


This commercial photographer agreed to the job, took the images and THEN discussed price? He didn't have a contract to shoot the image first? I don't shoot commercial so maybe this is the norm but I wouldn't take a gig for a commercial shoot without having the price set ahead of time.

If you're just shooting on spec and approaching clients cold that is one thing but to agree to take a job without an agreed to price doesn't seem like smart business to me ...

 

[sfaust]

Also you cannot sue because someone took a similar shot as you did.

Dead wrong. You can't copy another persons copyrighted work, and thats stated plain as day in the copyright law. Its exactly what the law was written to prevent, and the law stipulates some pretty stringent penalities for willful infringements. The fact it was a working pro charging usage, I would bet its properly registered bringing into play statutory and legal fees as part of the award.

If you are unsure of this, read though some of the summaries of the copyright law on any of the reputable websites. If that doesn't convenience you, there are quite a few public court cases regarding exactly this situation where the original photographers won large awards. There was on about 4-6 months ago written up in PDN (Photo District News).

If you really copied the same image, and that was your intent from the start, thats willful infringement. That allows for statutory damages up to $150K per infringement, the original damages (the $1,000 he would have received), and the photographers legal costs. That could be a very costly mistake.

If you really copied it well, you did your boss a real disservice by saving him $1,000, and putting him at risk for far more in legal costs. The fact that you intentionally copied the work to avoid paying the photographer, and the boss agreed, won't go over well with the courts.

Lets hope either the original photographer doesn't ever see the image, and/or this conversation.

 

[Josh66]

I'm no lawyer, but I'd be willing to bet that there is a difference between "similar" and "copy".

 

[sfaust]

I'm no lawyer, but I'd be willing to bet that there is a difference between "similar" and "copy".

Yea, there is, and it gets argued in court at $350 an hour

But yea, it all depends on how similar the shots are. It doesn't have to be exact, or a perfect copy, to end up in court. If its close enough the photographer feels he was infringed, thats all it takes to get him motivated enough to call a lawyer and file suit. Whether its close enough to the original to win is a whole different matter.

Once you are in court, its costly whether they win or loose. So the key is to avoid having something close enough that the original photographer will 'feel' infringed, rightly or wrongly, and decide to take action.

So yes, you can definitely be sued for a 'similar' image, and people have.

 

[AmericanJesus]

I got bitched out by someone the other day cause I offered to do a job for a guy he almost had signed into a 3k contract for 500 dollars and a reference.

Im so unsure about my own abilities i feel awkward charging people, so i mostly just say "Ill do it to fill my portfolio."

=\ experience is more important to me then money, because i can use experience to help price myself in the future.

Altho New lens!

 

[*Mike*]

If you're really doing a $3k job for $500, then I would hope that you're unsure of your abilities b/c they really are that marginal. Otherwise, you're losing money, undercutting other people, and in general devaluing the profession just b/c you have low self-esteem.

Experience won't help you price yourself in the future. Competence and confidence will.