PBB - Photography Business Basics

[KmH]

A photography business is a vehicle for making money from your intellectual property (photographs).

Most photographers start a photography business because they enjoy doing photography.

Many photographers today start a photography business before they have learned the fundamentals of photography, and before they have learned how to implement sound fundamental business and marketing practices. Photographers who don’t learn and implement sound photographic, business and marketing practices will likely not make any money.

Photographic images (intellectual property) are a photography businesses only product. Those photographic images may be printed on paper, magnets, canvas, coffee cups, printed in a lovely album, or be sold as digital files on a CD, but those are just different ways to display the only product the photographer produces, photographic images.

How to determine your prices

So photographers produce intellectual property, and for that intellectual property to produce income it has to be sold for more than what it cost the photographer to produce. In addition, that property has some value attached to it because of who the photographer was, and some usage value to the customer.

In summary, the 3 keys to effective pricing are:

1. knowing what your production costs are (cost-of-doing-business and cost-of-goods-sold).
2. understanding how much value your reputation adds to the product
3. the value of the customers intended usage of the image.

Those 3 things + your profit margin = your pricing.

There are 3 main categories of usage for photographs: Commercial, Editorial, and Retail.

Commercial photography is used to promote and sell products, services or ideas.
Editorial photography is used for journalism or education.
Retail photography is commissioned or purchased for personal use.

Make note – The difference between the 3 categories listed above is how photographs are used, not that they might be different types of photographs.

Protect your intellectual property

That brings us to copyright.

Copyright is what gives you ownership of your intellectual property. Copyright gives you a legal monopoly over the use of your intellectual property.

Anyone, be it a business, magazine, or a person, must get your permission (a license) to reproduce your images, be it reproduced physically, like a print, or electronically like copying one of your images off the Internet.

Be aware, what legal protections your usage monopoly (copyright) have, are very limited if you do not register your image copyright with the US Copyright Office. It’s simply amazing so few photography business owners register their copyrights. Failing to register your copyrights could result in lost income. Income is why people start a photography business in the first place, isn’t it? That is also known as “leaving money on the table”.

Earlier I said, “Photographic images (intellectual property) are a photography businesses only product.” Ironically, photography businesses don’t often sell what it is they actually produce - photographs.

What a photography business sells is use licensing (or just licensing). Licensing lets you maintain control and ownership of your images by only granting a customer limited use of only that portion your copyrights they need.

A photographer’s customer arranges for a license in one of two ways. They commission the photographer to create images specifically for their use (assignment photography), or the customer licenses an image the photographer made previously (stock photography).

 

[Rekd]

Just something off the top of your head? :thumbup:

 

[KmH]

You bet, just a passing thought.

It's all stuff I've said before here on the forums but all pulled together in one place, and presented with more polish.

 

[wtdeane]

Copyright... what a topic. Sadly, the only way it has meaning is if you can enforce it.

Thanks for the interesting read.

 

[KmH]

What's sad about it?

Enforcement of your copyright does not always mean winding up in Federal court.

Most infringement issues are settled long before it's necessary for the court to become involved.

 

[pbelarge]

By putting this information in writing and out on a photo forum really just creates a searchable location. This helps one to find a start to the beginning of a business for those who are really interested in trying to do this properly.