first published photo lol

[In2daBlue]

Ninety days is a little optimistic, I think. People are terrible at paying-- this is perhaps the thing that I was most surprised about in professional photography.

Though 99% of the time they will eventually come through.

Yes and no. I come across 90 days post publish date often, actually. I rarely have trouble getting people to pay. It happens, of course, but that is why a good contract, in writing, is important. In all of my years, I have only needed to threaten legal action twice. Both times I ended up paying out nearly 60 percent of the final compensation for the photography on legal fees, which sucked, but it's all part of the game. I think the key is to know the pubs you're shooting for. Both times I needed to threaten legal action I was shooting for pubs outside the U.S. who I hadn't worked for in the past. Needless to say, I didn't work for them again.

But, yeah, collecting payment is a pain. It's all part of the process though.

 

[MonicaEvansPhoto]

everyone is right that you could have gotten a lot of money and i know your thinking its helping out your friend but M&Ms has alot of money so it wouldnt be like talking it from your friend, it would be taking it from them and you deserve it. I think its nice of you to let it go though i mean, its not like you dont have other opprotunities

 

[SrBiscuit]

man, i'm an idiot...lol.

it does make perfect sense, what you all are saying....obviously the ad budget didnt come out of HIS pocket, so you're right...i didn't do HIM a favor, i did his company, and M&M Mars a favor.

thanks for all your replies...belive me when i say i've learned from this...next time i will do this much more professionally.

i know it's silly but i looked at it as such a small amount of effort, with virtually no setup or real challenge in the shot...
but apparently it was good enough for a national ad in multiple publications...so yeah..i blew it.

we need a dunce cap smiley.

thanks again for all the insight...clearly you guys would have handled this better.

now im kicking myself, as this could have afforded me that dang sigma 10-20 ive been dying for.