Creating your first contract as a wedding photographer? My first tip is to hire a law professional to review your contract. While over a decade of experience in the wedding industry allows me to give you some tips based on my experience, a wedding photography contract is a legal document between you and your clients that outlines expectations, responsibilities, and deliverables.
The Grand Wailea Hotel in Maui is looking to hire a Chief Creative Photographer who will receive a three-month residency at the hotel, daily food and beverage stipend, and $10,000 to capture imagery of the recently renovated property.
Architectural photographer Mike Kelley, who might be best known for his viral photos of Airports around the world has released a $100 contract template for professional photographers working in the architecture, design, and real estate markets.
A Melbourne-based photographer is being called out online after a photo of his model consent form was shared on social media. The form includes several unsavory clauses, including a "sexual arousal" clause and an agreement to "participate in sexual activity" if the model feels "comfortable."
An Ohio wedding photographer found herself in an awkward situation earlier this month when a couple she had been hired to work with demanded to be "relieved" from their contract, accusing her of being "unstable" for posting something in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Photographers, beware: if you're ever contacted by a big brand on Instagram or any other social network with a request to "share your photo," make sure you read the fine print of any terms you're shown. If you don't, you could easily be agreeing to give away unlimited usage of your work.
You can't make this stuff up. Scrolling through Facebook last night, we ran across a screenshot of an email sent to Reddit user justinwheelon on June 4th. The couple, clearly planning ahead, asks if the photographer could add "a clause that guarantees us a refund should we ever get divorced."
So you’ve spent years honing your photography skills, perfecting the art of puppy fashion photography. You’ve set up a website to share your marvelous work with the world, and one day you’re contacted by a corporation who wants to use one of your photos in its ad for doggie perfume. You’re thrilled; you’ve worked and hoped for this day!
Here’s a simple, fair, and free-to-use wedding photography contract that includes payment schedule, harassment, privacy, deliverables, and cancellations—in other words: everything you need in a professional service agreement—because Christmas!
As photographers in the United States, we hold the majority of power when it comes to our images. We automatically own the copyright to all photos we take, we are the ones who register our photos with the U.S. Copyright office, and we are the ones who license our images to clients, publications, and even the models in the photos.
That copyright, in addition to the model releases we obtain from our photographic subjects, allows us to have a substantial amount of control over what we can do with those photos. This can sometimes create a moral ambiguity as to how we decide to publish those photos, blurring the lines between what is right and what is ethical.
TIME's latest contract for photographers has been at the center of controversy for about a month now, and many photographers are still refusing to sign it as they campaign for more favorable terms.
Is TIME screwing photographers? Answer: Yes. But what are you going to do about it?
There's currently a heated dispute going on between two photographers over the issue of a signed "no compete" contract for teaching photography.
Actress Kate Winslet is taking a stand against unrealistic beauty retouching in the ad industry. In addition to speaking out publicly against the practice, Winslet has even included a "no retouching" clause in her modeling contract with cosmetic giant L'Oréal.
If you're a concert photographer looking to shoot Janet Jackson's Unbreakable World Tour 2015, you'll have to agree to some extremely strict terms for permission to do so. First, you'll only get 30 seconds total to shoot. Second, you agree to sign over all copyright to your photos.
Guitarist Dweezil Zappa, the son of Frank Zappa, recently took to Facebook to respond to critics of his strict concert photography contact.
Taylor Swift's concert photography contract recently came under fire for being overreaching and for threatening to destroy photographers' equipment, leading some publications to boycott the contract and obtain photos by other means.
It looks like change has resulted from the controversy: Taylor Swift's concert photo agreement has been revised to address concerns that were raised and to be friendlier toward photographers.
When working with paid subjects in shoots, it's always important to have written contracts and signed releases to prove that you have permission to do what you wish with what you capture. Here's what can happen if you rely on verbal agreements...
Last year, a video of a woman being catcalled more than 100 times while walking around NYC for 10 hours went viral online, amassing over 40 million views. Now the woman is suing the creator of the video for $500,000, claiming that she never gave written permission for the video to be used before it was widely published and promoted.
The Washington City Paper recently decided to boycott the Foo Fighters' restrictive concert photo contract by buying photos from fans instead. Now a different paper is protesting that same contract in a much different way.
This past weekend, the Quebec newspaper Le Soleil decided to send a cartoon sketch artist to cover a Foo Fighters' concert instead of putting a photographer in the media area.
Want to learn from Lynda's paid photography and videography tutorials for free? It turns out you can at many public libraries around the country. The popular online learning company recently began to team up with libraries to provide patrons with high-quality training resources at no extra charge.
There's a revolution brewing in the world of concert photography. After photographer Jason Sheldon penned a viral open letter to speak out against Taylor Swift's concert photo contract, a major Irish newspaper decided to boycott photos at Swift's recent concert. Now a Washington newspaper has followed suit with another major player in the music industry: the Foo Fighters.
The Washington City Paper says it won't be sending a photographer to this weekend's Foo Fighter concert due to the fact that the band's contract "sucks." Instead, the paper hopes to buy photos directly from fans who attend the show.
At least one major newspaper is taking a stand against Taylor Swift's concert photography contract, which has generated quite a bit of discussion in recent days over its 'restrictive' and 'unfair' terms. The Irish Times, Ireland's second most popular newspaper, explained today that it chose to leave out photos entirely rather than sign Swift's contract.
Yesterday, photographer Jason Sheldon published an open letter to Taylor Swift, accusing the singer of being a hypocrite by accusing Apple of treating artists unfairly while herself handing out heavy-handed contracts for concert photographers to sign.
It turns out Sheldon's contract was a bit outdated: the latest version goes a step further by stating that photographers who violate the contract can have their gear destroyed on the spot.
An apartment complex near Orlando, Florida, is receiving a torrent of bad publicity after one of its tenant contracts was published online. The document forces tenants to agree to a $10,000 fine if they post a bad review of the complex online, and it claims copyright to all photographs taken by tenants in the complex.
Update: There are new developments in this story. Please see below.
There's a dispute going on over in Texas that shows the importance of getting your contracts right as a photographer. A pair of Dallas newlyweds are going public with their disagreement with wedding photographer Andrea Polito over an album "cover" charge that Polito is asking for -- a charge that doesn't specifically show up in the contract.
In the age of the Internet, with sites like Yelp often being the first stop for anybody looking for a service (say, photography) they've never used before, it's no surprise that pros are trying to keep their star ratings as high as possible.
What is surprising is the news that some photographers are keeping their reviews positive by threatening to sue anybody who writes something negative.
How do you solve the problem of professional concert photographers snapping unflattering photos of you during your live shows? One way is to ban them completely, and that's exactly what Beyonce is doing with her latest concert tour. Policies like hers may be growing in popularity among artists who want to control their image, but the policy is still causing quite a hoopla.
If you're looking to make money from your photography, it's important to have the correct legal forms signed by the correct people, whether it's releases by models that pose for you or contracts with gallery owners who will sell your work. To get you started in figuring out what your contract needs to say, legal contract service Docracy offers samples of some of the most common and important legal forms that photographers use.
Texas wedding photographer Allen Ayres was recently contacted by an advertising agency that wanted to use one of his wedding photographs for one of its pharmaceutical clients. Ayres had in mind to ask for $1,000, but wisely decided to ask for advice over at Digital Wedding Forum.
Hong Kong model Angelababy lost her contract with Panasonic after leaking …
Early in 2011, there was a brouhaha after newspaper photographer Jay Westcott …