Are You Stealing From Your Photographer?

I feel like it's sort of wrong if you agreed not to copy the photos.  What my hubby and I did for our wedding photos was to order the digital disk and made sure that we can print as many as we can.  Then we printed our album and prints at Snapfish which is cheaper than the photographer's fee.  Our photographer is happy with the fee we paid him for being at the wedding and we did all the printing and album arrangement on our own and saved a bundle.

Our wedding photos are irretrievably lost.

Our wedding photographer, like most, held the negatives to his photos. As poor college students, we couldn't afford to buy them (at the time, it was barely within our reach to have a professional photographer in the first place), and by the time we were better established and able to buy the negatives (which would have cost 2x more than what we'd originally paid him), his studio had moved, or closed, or SOMETHING, taking our photos with it.

I don't for a minute think that this is a fair situation. We paid him hundreds of dollars for one hour of his time (we were only able to afford two 12-shot rolls). Isn't that fee his compensation?

I haven't thought about this for a long time, but it made me very mad when we discovered that there was no way for us to purchase our photos (and even if we found him now, we're long past the "deadline" for how long he said he'd hold the negatives).

As a small business owner that has to constantly adapt to changing markets, I think the key here is photographers trying to hang on to an old business model. My wife and I hired a photographer with a photo journalism background, and paid quite a lot for it. But we paid for talent, and got amazing pictures that captured the moment of the day that we could digitally use in a variety of formats. Who cares about their photo printing abilities anyway. The results we got were fantastic. We never intended to print very many pictures in this new digital age anyway. In the new digital age of cheap production, a photographer who wants to charge $600 for an hour of sticking a kid on a velvet sheet and squeaking a rubber ducky, and then charge 20 or times what it costs for prints, will probably be out of business in a few years. Adapt and prosper, or go under. Just like any other business.

I have managed a photo lab and we had a very strict policy on copyrighted photos- if the paper the shot is printed on says "Professional" it is copy righted. The photo labs are the ones who are liable if they print the copyrighted material.
I also dropped thousands on my wedding photography (this did not include any prints or albums) only to drop hundreds more to get a written release for digital prints so I can make copies for whomever wants them. Don't get me wrong, I love my photographer and it was our choice to spend what we did, but I can see where someone would try and cheat the system.

I am an amateur photographer who mainly got into photography to save myself expensive photo fees. With five kids it makes sense...

However, that said, I don't feel good about copying other photographer's work.

I recommend joining a camera club or finding a student photographer. My most favorite images came from a student photographer who shot them for $150 and gave me the negatives...

Personally I charge $150 for a sitting and then give the customer the digital negatives reworked for the sizes they choose to print. I also tell them where to go to get quality prints.

Just like istock photo has changed the way stock photography goes, the photography industry will change - in time...

http://thelegacylady.typepad.com/lamoreaux_originals/2007/11/fall-photos...

If you want photographers to change their business model, then the first step is to do what you're doing for your upcoming party -- hire a photographer who will give you the rights to the pictures. This way you are entering the digital age without stealing from your photographer.

Your photographer who wanted to retain control of her images, to insure that only high-quality prints were made from them, has a good point. Your lower-quality reproductions of her work are bad advertising for her. When people see those, they don't know if it's because the Walgreens scanner is off, or because the original photographic work was of low quality.

Does anyone have a feel for if photographers have raised prices for the sittings, as a response to people ordering fewer prints (and making their own copies)?

As a professional photographer, I thought I'd chime in. I live in Southern California where there is definitely no shortage of photographers trying to make some money (part-time or full time). Almost all of my clients are referrals, so I don't get many people coming to me as price shoppers. As someone who came into this profession primarily because of the digital era, I know that there are so many out there that charge so little just to get a job. For me, I charge what I feel my work is worth compared to what others are charging in my market. I currently charge $450 for a sitting fee which includes one 11x14 print and a disc of 600px low resolution jpegs. Large print orders must come from me. I still retain all copyright of my images and so far it's been ok. Of course, if the market dictates that I change my practices, of course, I will re-evaluate. We'll see what happens.

But it is interesting to hear all of the different point of views on this topic.

The photographer that did our wedding photos printed them on professional paper and charged for each print on top of his fee for doing the wedding. This was also before digital photos were common. We got our photos and then relatives ordered what they wanted. Our photographer never followed through on printing and sending those paid orders. Then he disappeared never to be found again.

My MIL really wanted at least one picture from our wedding. She is big into photos and extremely sentimental. We tried copying one of ours for her at Walgreens in the photo machine and got the photo police treatment. I find our situation far worse than anyone making their own copies.

For this very reason our son's senior picture will only be done by someone willing to give us the digital files and ownership of the finished work.

The ownership of prints is an old business model and needs to go away. This is vastly different than a photographer owning a photo they did themselves of something like a landscape and selling copies.

I have photos of me that were taken when I was 3 years old from my daycare. They were professional photos done over 20 years ago, and the photographer who did them has since passed away. I didn't feel guilty trying to get a copy of them to keep since my parents still want to hold on to them. The Wal-mart employee refused to copy them and tried to make me feel guilty. But, it's obviously a farce when the photographs are so old and there is no way to get a copy of the negatives anymore. I'm just going to scan them in so I do have a copy of them for myself.

20 years ago means nothing. Copyright is in place for 50 years past the persons death. I am glad they refused you and anyone else that gets refused!

As anyone reading the comments can attest, this is a particularly thought provoking article, as evidenced by the wide range of replies on both sides of the issue. The best advice, I can think of, is to remember that when you hire a photographer you are creating a contract. If you would like to have more rights than the photographer includes in their boilerplate, just ask. Either the photographer will be willing to work with you (increased rights on your part will most likely come with an increase in cost) or you take your business to someone who is willing to come to an agreement about what rights you will get and what rights they will retain.

I am including the following link just for information regarding what types of questions would be good to think about. The info was originally designed with the photographer in mind but it should help consumers also.
NPAA: Copyright Questions & Answers

As I see it, the thing about photography is that it tends to be a place where 'art' and 'service' overlap. A photographer has all of the experience in the craft, and some of them also do photographs to display in galleries, sell to stock photo groups, etc. But they are also providing a service, doing something in place of and at the behest of the consumer, just like a plumber or a lawyer.

In the 'art' model you expect that only the artist can license (permit) reproductions of the work. The consumer buys one or more of the reproductions. The fact that many different consumers might be interested in the piece will cause the artist to make sure the originals are protected for the very long length of the copyright. The artist also needs to guard against derivative imitators that will make his reproductions useless.

In the 'service' model you expect that the customer is buying the time of the contractor and the materials needed, so the customer walks away owning the product. (I think there is a similar concept of work-for-hire for certain things patented in the course of doing your job. The patent rights can go to the company, not to the employee, so the employees can't extort things from the company just because their names are on the patent.) The consumer is responsible for maintaining the product, since it belongs to the consumer.

I think a lot of consumers think of their photographers as contractors, and a lot of photographers think of themselves as artists. Also, it seems like some photographers (not all, just enough that most people have at least one nasty experience) try to charge like *both*--really high sitting and touchup fees (service) and really high fees for running off prints (artist). This means that people need to talk to their photographers and work out a balance they both can live with. There are a lot of really good people out there who are willing to work with your goals, you just have to ask around.

WIth virtually no certification or regulation, Wedding/Portrait photography is the ultimate expression of Free Market. Don't like the copyright conditions of a photographer? Find another. All the good ones have websites and all it takes is some time behind Google to find the perfect fit for you.

For better or worse, photographers charge what they do to maintain a profit margin that allows them to pay rent, eat, put their kids into college, and save for retirement. Great photographers can be like ballplayers ... show me the money now as the talent will evaporate.

I agree with everyone who says to shop around for the photographer who will sell you the digital images to print yourself. The hard spot I found myself in when choosing a wedding photographer was a specific photographer who told us that no one who was attending our wedding was going to be allowed to take pictures of us while they were. I am glad we were told up front, because I was not prepared to tell anyone on our wedding day that they would not be able to take our pictures! Review the contracts, as the right questions, and you will all be happy with the outcome.

I walked into the software store, and bought a copy of Microsoft Office 2008. I paid a LOT for it, frankly, but the store was happy to take my money. Got it home, and some people said, wow, that's nice, can I get a copy?

So I burnt them a disk of it, got a serial number off the internet, and even though it's not 100 percent kosher, all my friends have pretty nice copies of Office on their computers.

Do I feel bad? A little, sure. But Microsoft seemed happy with the money they got from me. I mean, why would they charge so much for those extra licenses anyway? Why not just charge up front however much it would take to cover me for as many copies as I need?

I mean, in the end, it might be 'stealing' in some small sense, but it's Microsoft, for gosh sakes--it's not like I'm stealing from some small business where I know, and have a personal agreement with the owner or something!

I found a suit that I really liked; way better than the cheap ones I could afford. But I figured it was only a few dollars worth of fabric, and the the designer only had to design it once, so I just stole it. That's being frugal for you!

I am being facetious, of course. If you don't like the deal a photographer offers you, don't hire them. Don't sign a document saying you'll honor their copyright and then turn around and steal their work. Not worth the money to you? Fine, take the pics yourself... But stealing is stealing, and is taking bread off the table of someone who spent years learning their craft.

You're not frugal. You're a thief.

Yes. It's stealing. Yes. There are photographers who will sell or include digital files for you to print on your own, within the terms of a limited license. The latter would be the way to go if you want to print your own files legally (and ethically, with a clear conscience).

It's definitely a dilemma for professional photographers such as myself. As much as we hate to accept it, the reality is that the average Joe is far less discerning artistically than we would like to believe. I market myself to and strive to work with clients with more refined tastes in photography, and those folks do not need an explanation of "quality control" because, well, they "get" it. They'd be just as appalled at the idea of paying good money for high quality artistic photography only to have it printed by some subpar consumer-grade printer as any self-respecting, competent photographer would be to have such crap traveling around with their name on it.

It's not a character flaw not to have an artistic eye, by the way. I don't think people who can't discern such things are bad people or worthy of my disdain. I just don't care to work with them, because we're not a good match as far as the photographer-client relationship goes.

That said, there's no fool-proof way of "qualifying" clients, and occasionally I end up getting by screwed by someone I never would have guessed had it in them.

My old roommate was a professional photographer. She mostly did weddings and senior portraits.

One thing you may not realize is that if they have a studio the overhead is enormous! My roommate was very fair in her pricing and gave people really good deals, but guess what? She had to close her doors because she wasn't making enough money. She was always booked and although her prices were fair they weren't that cheap.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you want the services of a professionals photographer to be available to you in the future (the business is changing so it may not be there in the same incarnation in the future) then you should expect to pay for it.

Of course I agree with what has been said about negotiation. Photographers will usually negotiate with you. If you want a disk of the photos taken then talk to them about paying a higher sitting fee and doing it that way. Talk to them before the pictures are taken, you'll have more leverage that way. I bet you most wouldn't say no.

Discerning clients look for quality above pricing when choosing a photographer to capture life's special moments. And professional photographers must price their skill sets and output in accordance with competitors in their markets in order to remain in business and support their own families' needs.

A professional photographer's charges take into account years of education, training, experience, and the high overhead costs of running a small business in a very difficult economy. These costs include business insurance, health insurance, advertising, salaries, employee benefits, office/studio rent, utilities, commercial phone lines, high-speed internet, software upgrades, digital gear, and much more.

Extremely expensive camera bodies and digital backs, computers, hard drives, and printers will need to be replaced every 3 years to remain competitive in the marketplace. This is because digital capture technology is still in its infancy, and its professional-grade hardware becomes obsolete much sooner than did the necessary 'film' capture equipment of the past.

And the current ease of scanning and copying photos (© stealing) from a small business owner (the photographer) only makes this industry a more fragile and risky venture when clients choose to flagrantly disregard the terms of the contract they've entered into with their selected photographer.

Just because there's already a Mercedes plant built in South Carolina doesn't mean that they should give you a car for free just because you want one... or that they should have given you all the E-Class options you "really wanted" since they "seemed happy" when you paid for them their base model.

Choose the most skilled photographer you can afford based upon the quality of their work and the terms of their contract. Then honor your end of the deal.

Because stealing, as always, is a crime.

thank you stacy! that was excellently said.

And to sum it all up:
The bottom line is you get what you pay for and a contract is a contract.

Simple as that.

If your contract says you pay for prints, then you pay for prints.
If your contract says you have rights to the digital photos, so it goes.

I was married a year and a half ago and decided that I would not hire anyone who would not give me the rights to the pictures they were taking of me. And so it went and it was wonderful.

It all really comes down to the market. Decide what you want, find someone who offers it at a price you like and strike a deal.

Don't sign something, then break the deal behind the other parties back. That's low and pretty much makes swiss cheese of one of the most important things you have, your integrity.

For the record I am a for profit photographer, but if I was I would sell my services by the hour, not by the print. Just my .02 cents.

"living large on a small budget"

I believe that tagline says it all.

I believe it's already quite clear that you did indeed steal from your photographer. You broke the law plain and simple.

Perhaps next time, instead of maybe playing by the photographer's rules, you should just take the photos yourself. You obviously do not place any kind of value on this profession or the people who make a living by it. Or rather, you do...but you don't want to pay for it as others have already stated.

If you or your friends could take the same amazing, high-quality photos that the professional photographer took you would not have a need for her services. But she was recording a milestone event for you...one you obviously wanted in the hands of a professional. Not one you wanted left to chance with friends and family members and their point & shoot cameras.

I am so incredibly frustrated by some of the opinions expressed in not only the blog post but the following comments that I don't even know how to respond. Thankfully others have been able to clearly articulate my feelings on the matter.

Shame on you.

"And of course, there was the anxiety about getting busted. Last year, we went through the same routine, and we were confronted by a Walgreen staff member who told us they woudln't reproduce the prints because they were obviously professionally done. This year, to our relief, no one called us on our transgression."

Truly sad........

Jonathan,

Ironically, it turns out the pricing model you agreed to with your wedding photographer saved you some money. So your photog, who you didn't care for, is getting what he/she deserved: none of your money for prints you don't want.

Everybody got what they deserved: You didn't get the photographer you wanted because you did not research him well enough by say, interviewing past customers or thoroughly reviewing work he produced for other clients. Your photographer didn't make any money off of print sales because you didn't like them.

HOWEVER, if you would have entered into a service-centric contract where you paid the photographer a flat fee to shoot your wedding and get all the originals (probably 3-4 times as much as what you paid), you would have spent more up front and ended up with a bunch of negatives of prints you don't like. Instead you minimized your losses and learned a valuable lesson: research your photographer before you hire them. Any photographer that's worth what they charge will be happy to prove it to you with copious examples of their work.

Oh, and by the way, photographers are hired every day to produce images the client owns, copyright free -- it's all in what you negotiate. Why agree to terms you don't like? Just walk away. Photography is an incredibly competitive profession, and I can assure all of you that you're more likely to hire a photographer for less than they are worth instead of the other way around because of the number of people trying to make it in this business...

I will NOT hire a photographer who won't give me the original files. Why? because I am paying them for their time, not for them to hold an image of me randsom. Who knows what's going to happen to him 5 years, or 10 years from now. people have fires, floods, theft, etc and owe it to themselves, their kids, and future grand kids to keep original digital files. Especially since digital files if kept up will be exactly teh same 200 years from now that they do now.

What other business do you know that could get away with charging for their time and still telling you what you can do with your own image? I think it goes back to the old days where photography was a mysterious and untouchable profession and the cameras the consumers had access to were either very expensive or not good at all. Those days are over. Just look at Flickr.com and see how many amatuers take pictures using prosumer equipment that rivals that of the pros...if not better.

why would someone pay to have extra pictures of aunt sally and uncle wally at the wedding when chances are, 80% of the party brought their own cameras? Taking the pictures of the bride and groom may require alot of talent, but that's where the scale tips towards the consumer's favor.

So instead of being greedy and wanting to sell a bunch of overpriced prints, charge a little more for the originals and cover your cost of doing business and sleep easy. Chances are if you're honest, the couple will come to you for the professional prints.

When you're already charging $2000 for the job, doesn't that cover your 8 hours plus another 4 hours that you spend in front of photoshop? Compare that to a contractor who has to pay for material, dedicated vans and trucks, and still get the same 2 grand for the week.

And don't give me that "i spent 10 grand on my equipment" because you'd make that up in a month of doing weddings and chances are you don't spend 10 grand every year so most of your equipment has already been paid for.

So why should you get paid double? what makes you special? If you were getting 10 bucks an hour and doing this i'd get why you'd be mad, but you don't. and why not charge the 25 cents a copy that it costs you? why charge 5 bucks a picture that's already been paid for? I know why, GREED.

If you want to be greedy, just charge more and give up the prints. It's someone else's life, not your art. If you want art, go take a picture of a flower, a sunset or a nude girl.

to leta... what do you do for a living. I'll come do it for free and we'll see how you like it. Of course you'll tell me how I don't know anything about your profession, but since you don't have a clue about mine... yet have the audacity to call me "Greedy"... that shouldn't make much of a difference to you ehy?

"Houston rocks" - you should pay the price you want. You aren't obligated to sign a contract with anyone. Photography is a tremendously competitive business.

There are two issues here, both of which you (and the original writer of this article) are clearly completely ignorant of. More precisely we're talking about breaking the law in more than one way, but this is not why so many people are upset - there is nothing wrong with breaking bad laws... We're talking about something different.

First of all, we have contract law. This is the oldest type of law on the planet. It's also something with more meaning than the paper lawyers throw at each other all day long. When you engage the services of a professional photographer, you sign a contract. A contract is a meeting of minds. It's a testament to the agreement of both parties and as such it is a very serious, very important thing. No one made you sign on that line. You did. And when you break that, you break the must fundamental thing that differentiates human beings from animals: the ability to look another person in the eye and make a promise.

I want you to think about that for a second. Your discussion of fairness, of greed, is completely inane. A contract, by definition, is an agreement between _two_ parties... Breaking a law is one thing, breaking an honest trust with a fellow member of the human race is another.

Secondly, we have copyright law, and intellectual property law in general. I think most sensible people are well aware of the fact that copyright law was written for a very different set of economics than exist today. The problems with it are far-reaching and unlikely to be solved in this blog's comment thread. However, while most will agree that the reach of copyright law may be excessive in this age, most will also agree that an individual deserves to be compensated for their efforts -- at least in some small way (if not 50 years after death...). You argue that because you commission the artist, that you direct them to a particular location, or set of subjects, that it is your own intellectual property that is being taken from you. That you have the rights to creations they made at your request. That is, to put it mildly, an arrogant and conceited perspective.

You view a request for compensation as an indication of a greedy disposition. You argue that someone is trying to take your own property from you. It is as easy to argue that it is your own greed, not the photographers that provokes your diatribe.

We aren't just talking about copyright law here - a nebulous and controversial subject on any day - we're talking about fundamental principles of honesty between human beings. It's as simple, and serious, as that.

Not all is profit. I just ordered a wedding album for the studio.
My cost? $884. Subtract that from your 2000 figure. Once you figure in the cost of wedding albums...the yearly salary would be closer to $25 or $30k.

After my costs this year, I made about $25,000. I photographed 20 weddings. I hope it makes you feel really good knowing that you are stealing from people like me, who live a modest lifestyle and who also have children to support at home. Photographers are really not any different from the rest of you.

I love the perception that we are overpaid and greedy. Beautiful.

You guys sound like the recording studio who still hasn't figured out that slumping sales is not because a few people steal music but because the value in the product is not high and people WANT digital.

It's very simple. prints are dead. Aside from the frame and 5-10 shots for an album, people can do what you do very easily with point and shoots or various flavor of pro-sumer cameras. The old days of having to stay in the red room developing pictures are gone.

Now you can kick and scream about how much more you want to make after the initial sale and just tempt people to cut you out completely and shoot their own weddings (how hard can it be if you rent a few fast lenses and a strobe? It's not brain surgery to go clickidy click and get the parties together) or you can offer to give them selected originals for each print they order or the whole thing for a fair price. how hard is that?

think about it art school girl, are you going to be around in 10 years when you're already this angry about your line of work? what's going to happen if you move or they move and lose their pictures and want copies? are you that full of yourself to hold a piece of someone's most special days as hostage for ever even if you never sell a single print?

Just get over yourselves. I gave a 5 year old a point and shoot at a party and ended up with 50 really good pictures where everybody was smiling and in focus. hand a couple of 5 year olds a point and shoot and that'll cover all your candids and guest pictures and destroy your business plan....that's probably why you don't wnat others to take pictures at weddings.

Of course if you just give the people what they want, you'll get paid, they'll have "professional" pictures, and everybody is happy.

"It's not brain surgery to go clickidy click"

Tell that to the people who come to me after they get their wedding photos back from Uncle Bob or an amateur. Many cry because they are so disappointed with their photos. It's a one-time event that can't be recreated.

Professional photography wouldn't even exist as a career if it was only a matter of pushing a button.

I think alot of professionals that are on here (who charge by the print and refuse to give out the originals) have the mentality that they can't be replaced and so customers are left with no choice to hire them if they want quality. Thats the famous last words of any business because the fact is if you don't change your business strategy to give customers what they want and need, they will get it.

I see many of you on here chuckling at the thought that an amateur with a camera could possibly take pictures that come out anything close to what you do. You might want to think about that one again because I know some damn good photographers who just do it as a hobby and have a scientific (ie. non artistic) backround so they could probably explain more about focal lengths and depth of field and any of your other buzz words better than most pros could even do. It's not just uncle bob with an ego and a Rebel camera. There are some serious amatuers out there who can do just as well as you.

Don't get me wrong, their time is valuable too so they might not WANT to do it, but if they had to (ie. as a gift to a poor couple who only has a $800 to spend on pictures while starting out) they could. That doesn't stop at weddings either. How much business do you think you're losing in the portraiture market when expirienced amatuers can take great pictures and hold on to them. Would YOU pay someone $600 for a photo session only to get a few copies? It's not like a wedding so if you mess up a shot, just try try again. I took 500 shots at a little family gathering and 30 of them are in frames. I don't have anything to prove so I just deleted the rest.

Even in the high-end market of people who live in $5 million houses, if you don't deliver what people want, they're going to go with another guy. In big cities you can throw a stick and hit dozens quality photographers. Of course each one thinks he's the absolute best but egos really do sink ships.

It's not stealing when it's a picture of MY son. This law is so messed up. I have digital backups of all my family pictures whether they were taken last week or in the 40's. Do you think the guy who took those pictures in the 1940's has a to take that copyright to the grave with him too?

"It's very simple. prints are dead. Aside from the frame and 5-10 shots for an album, people can do what you do very easily with point and shoots or various flavor of pro-sumer cameras. The old days of having to stay in the red room developing pictures are gone."

Heh. The poster who linked to the gallery of "superior" photos they took themselves proved my earlier point that some people just have absolutely no clue or ability to discern between a good photo and a crappy one. There's no accounting for bad taste. I'll continue to market myself to and work with clients who know and appreciate the distinction between mediocre snapshots and high-quality, professional photography.

It's not brain surgery to sing a song, either, but most people can tell the difference between Mariah Carey and the American Idol wannabes during the audition rounds who *think* they can sing like Mariah Carey but mostly make our ears bleed.

Indeed. Just like some people are tone-deaf, I honestly belief some people are art-blind.

The business math on this post is horrible! Photographers need to look at this the same way the music industry and countless other industries have. Like the above poster said, PRINTS ARE DEAD. Yea, shure it's stealing. And so is driving 1 mile over the speed limit. And when you go to a coffee shop, I' better never see you reading a newspaper somebody left on another table. Photographers, you can't stop people in the long run. And if you try too hard to stop people, many will begin to go elsewhere. Hey, maybe you guys should start another dying tradition and start a union. As long as you can make a living doing it like you are doing it, brother press on. But keep an ear out for the canary in the coal mine. I applaud your ethics, but get real! The business model is changing. Cameras are getting cheaper and cheaper, people want to manipulate their own photos in Photoshop, print their own photo albums from Shutterfly, etc..... It's about skill, not production. Find a way to charge for your skill. People will be willing to pay for that.

And by the way, $1,300 a month to live on? Come on! What do you do the other 5 or so days of the week? How about deductions for business expenses? If you are going to stand high on your pedestal, be honest about the situation. I teach a class at a gym 2 nights a week, and that only pays me $40 per class! It's a wonder I'm able to eat.

Go-to customers. Um yeah. Strip club clients and photography clients are not even in the same ballpark. I wonder how many of my clients I could convince to pay for professional portraits every week or even every month. Not very likely.

The people who hire us don't have the time to make their own photography products. If they do have free time, they don't want to sit and crop prints and design albums with it. They come to us because they have the luxury of being able to afford to pay others to make those products for them.

If you prefer to diy, more power to you. If you don't like the prices of professionals, please diy or go to Sears studios where you can get print prices that make sense to you.

If you don't value photography, it's simple. Don't hire the photographer who charges more than you're willing to pay for their work.

It is unethical to hire an expensive photographer only to steal from them.

I am so thoroughly disappointed in Wise Bread for pulling this post. Thankfully, I got to read it in my news reader before it was pulled, but others might not be so lucky. Leaving the comments vilifying the author up without the actual text is tacky, for one. The variety of comments illustrates that whether it is in fact right or wrong to do what the author did, there is a dialog between photographers and those who employ their services that is not happening.

I don't think you could call me a professional photographer, but I think you could call me a photographer. I've done a handful of portrait sittings, a wedding, and a smattering of other work for paying clients. I find the nominal-fee-for-sitting plus hugely-inflated-fees-for-prints model to be distasteful, because it feels dishonest: it's like telling my clients that the real value of my work is in the piece of paper, and not in the composition on it. Because of this, when contracted I charge for my time - during consultation, shooting, editing, and any package preparation. If there are concrete products (prints, DVDs, etc.) I charge for materials at a competitive rate. Then, at the end, I provide the finalized digital files. That's what they're buying. The images. And I feel that's honest. I feel that's a business model that's more appropriate, particularly given the low cost of reproduction these days.

Ultimately, though, I'm not upset because I agree with the author. I'm upset because redaction is for newspapers. This is the internet. If you believe that you're wrong, somehow, make a visible edit or addendum. Making the post just disappear is bad net-business.

Bring the post back. Leave the replacement text as an edit. If it's appropriate and genuine on the part of the author, she can apologize; if not, a statement indicating support for her original statements would be appropriate. If she's made any sort of arrangement with the photographer to compensate for the duplicated prints in order to comply with law, that would be appropriate to mention as well.

Let the conversation continue. Please.

I agree with Erica. People feel cheated if they already thought they've paid for the photographer's time and find out he's really making his money off prints instead. Whether they actually paid for the photographer's time is a different story but this shows how flawed this business model is.

On the other hand, if the photographer charges enough for their time and gives them the digital negatives with the advice that "You can take these to Target to get printed if you want, you've already paid me for my time, but if you let me print them they will cost a little more but be printed on high quality paper/booklet/frame and cropped and adjusted correctly", chances are the customer is going to at least get the more expensive larger prints from you because they know they can't do a good enough job themselves.

You get paid and they get what they want. Why is that so hard? What is this obession with taking negatives to the grave with you?

well the lady in the story admitted she paid $600 with prints...I'm not saying it's going to be easy to have a business model- if it was, everybody would be in business, but one thing i've learned in my line of work, people like to get packages so you could say something like "with this package, If you order this many prints from me at this cost, I'll include a CD that has the originals in it also. If you just want prints, it's $xx per picture ". Offering them the CD at least gives many of the ones who were thinking of scanning the pictures to think twice and want the higher quality originals.

Firstly, I think it's hard to disagree with the argument running through this thread - namely, that there is a large market out there, so you are free to find a photographer that suits your budget and expectations for product. Once engaged in a contract with that professional, you are obliged to honour it; anything else is not merely illegal, but immoral.

I'm posting to talk about a specific issue, though; I'm a semi-pro who shoots about 10-15 weddings a year. I have shot portrait sessions before, but I found the fight against the established model to be too hard to overcome. With weddings, I charge an upfront fee, then am happy to sell the negatives or charge an extremely reasonable fee for reprints - the cost of printing plus a nominal markup to cover the costs of the extra time, but no more than a few percent. As far as I am concerned, the customer has a clear choice - employ me at a reasonable rate to take care of their printing needs (which affords me a small profit commensurate with the effort), or buy the digital files from me, whereby I put a reasonable price on the product, of which the customer is fully aware before engaging my services.

I have attempted to apply this logic, which appears reasonable to me, to portrait photography, i.e. charging a higher fee for my time and expertise for the session, and then providing printing services for a price close to cost. However, I repeatedly found that people balked at my proposed fee; the market has evolved so that the customer, under these circumstances, expected a low cost, or even free, sitting, then for the photographer, or studio, to recover costs and make profits on the prints, the prices of which are frequently opaque before the sitting. As a result, people perceived my prives as being extrotionate, despite the fact the total cost of the package would be many hundreds of pounds less than if they walked into Olan Mills, or any other photo-by-numbers high street chain. I found that I was unwilling to follow the market model, as I have no interest in upselling something after I've promised something else. Therefore, I have dropped out of that particular market to let me concentrate on what I consider to be a more honest way of doing business.

So, in response - the model is there, and consumers are more than free to test it and find a reasonable alternative - photographers will come round to whatever is sustainable according to what the market dictates, or stop if they can't stomach either the change or the existing practice. Do some research, and in a market of so many providers, you're sure to find someone that meets your needs. Just do the right thing and honour the contract that you sign.

Thief. Thief. Thief. Thief.

If it is decided and agreed upon that my actions were thievery, then so be it.

Although, it certainly wasn't my intention to be a thief; I thought I was doing something that needed to be done. I won't shy away from it though. Only you (each person reading this) can decide if thief is how I should be labeled (along with speeder, j-walker, etc). But now that I understand more of the details about copyright infringement (of written words rather than photographs, which I know a fair amount about), I will need to make a decision about how I think I should respond to my actions.

That's exactly right Raist. Under the theory espoused above (photogs should only get paid for the session time)....writers would only get paid for the time it took to write the book. According to popular opinion, reprint sales are undeserved.

If you want to be paid for what you created - you are greedy.

People will pay $5 for a cup of coffee, but balk at paying $5 for a print from a professional photographer. Because photographers are greedy. uh-huh. Most of my colleagues are living modestly. I drive a 2000 Honda and make $1300/month doing wedding photography for a living.

Yes, I am thrilled when I get a $500 print sale but that's rare and when you average the salary out for the year after costs, it is rather low. Yet, due to common misconceptions people want to steal from people like me.

Above poster said it was preposterous that a photographer could make only 1300/month. Why is that? What do you think we do in the winter months? I specialize in weddings....November- February= 4 months of no pay. Believe it and consider it the next time you think about stealing from a photographer.