a Second Shooter

<p>OK, before we start,I have nevr been a second shooter, all I know for pricing i what I hear that is why I am coming here to the experts, lol.<br>

I have a wedding coming up here soon Nov. 14th to be exact. It is a large wddign so I feel I need a second shooter. We are talking 250+ people...<br>

Anyways, I made the mistake of asking a "friend" who is a photographer, if she wanted to make a few bucks and be my second, I was planning on paying her 50-75 dollars an hour she does not even have to use her equiptment,edit anything etc.. all she has to do is show up and take pics of what I tell her to.<br>

Anyway when I asked he she was stoked about the job since she is not getting much work. No today she comes to me and wants me to split the amount I am charging the couple with her 50-50. I explained toher I was only offering an hourly rate. Then she started in on that I would have to buy her copyrights to the pictures or I could not sell them to the couple.<br>

Now, from my understanding, when you hire a second, they come to work for you under your company name and they dont have rights to the pictures. So if that is the case it should not matter to her what the couple and I have agreed to for their package or the cost of it.<br>

If I am wrong please explain....</p>

<p> You call the shots. 50-50 with a 2nd shooter is unheard of. My advice, dump her now, tell her you want someone with their own equipment (how is she getting jobs w/o any gear?). This time get someone with some experience.</p>

<p>All of the above is negotiable, and the negotiating was finished when she said "Yes" the first time, thereby agreeing to the conditions that you had set in place for the position.</p>

<p>Oh boy. Go with what Luis said. You got the wedding gig, you pay the studio fees and post work. Looks like she didn't understand the negotiation in the beginning, so don't worry about it. I pay an assistant a little more at weddings, but she works hard and does her own post work. </p>

<p>Thank you everyone!<br>

Luis, she does have her own equiptment, only mine is better so I would rather her use it. I agree that when she said yes that should have been t, but I did not know if I missed something about the rights and all. None of this woul nothave been an issue if we ee not friends for 22 years now.<br>

If it would have been a person whom I was not "friends" with, I would have told them none of their bussines in the first place when she asked me what I was charging the couple. If I would not have told her, she could never have came up with more crap.</p>

<p>Everyone is right, she could have negociated the price, but did not, so now I have to find me a new one.</p>

<p>Thanks again!<br>

Robin</p>

<p>Robin,<br>

" Now, from my understanding, when you hire a second, they come to work for you under your company name and they dont have rights to the pictures. "<br>

Are you serious ? you are aware that the person clicking the shutter release button on the camera is the legal owner of the photograph taken, regardless of who is the owner of the camera! I hope more photographers will stop exploiting their assistants, instead of contributing to the theft of creative rights that we see so much of these days.<br>

If your so called "friend" is a professional photographer, you should propose a better deal for her, or just find some newbie amateur to do it in place of her. At least they could get some experience out of it, and it would justify your rates a little better...<br>

Even if you set up the deal with the couple getting married, and are editing all the pictures yourself, you should offer her a better deal for her rights and the job.<br>

My 2 cents. - Ravn</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Are you serious ? you are aware that the person clicking the shutter release button on the <a href="../business-photography-forum/00UYM8#" target="_blank" >camera</a> is the legal owner of the photograph taken, regardless of who is the owner of the camera!</p>

</blockquote>

<p>ummm.. yes, he's serious. I work for a photography studio, and it makes no difference if I'm shooting my camera or theirs, the copyright belongs to the studio, not me. I'm under work for hire, as are most second shooters in a wedding business. If the business hires a person to shoot for them, and has a contract that says it is work for hire, then the person who took the photo, regardless of ownership of the camera, has no copyright on that work. The primary business whose name the business was contracted under owns the copyright, given that an agreed upon contract has been drafted.</p>

<p>Robin, I would politely withdraw your offer for work. Simply state that this is what you are willing to offer, it is a work for hire, that you could grant her reproduction rights for her portfolio (if you wanted to), but that you would own the copyright. You are offering to hire her as work-for-hire at a set hourly rate, not offering a partnership on the wedding. If she was unwilling to work under these conditions, I would tell her I'm sorry, that is not what I am looking for, sorry for any misunderstanding, and you'll be finding someone else.</p>

<p>Robin - however you feel about your friend, your loyalty is to your clients, and from the tenor of your friend's comments re paying to get images off her, walk away and keep your business reputation intact.</p>

<p>Ravn - with respect, your 2 cents are totally worthless I'm afraid. All you have offered is an ill-informed rant. It may be the way you WANT it to be, but I regret thats not actually the way it is. You need to do some research and find out exactly what the legalities of professional work of this nature are.</p>

<p>Copyright ownership pretty much always belongs to the original author unless there is an established "work for hire" or similar contract relationship. That's easily established with a proper employment contract and can be an ugly mess if the employment circumstances are casual and under-documented. Studios or "pros" who hire out casual helpers without getting the proper paperwork done are setting themselves up for later disputes and have a good chance of having copyright problems. Likewise the "helper" probably will have created a conflict and still not have any "release" language that would allow them promotional use of the images so they may well be S.O.L., as well.</p>

<p>Regularizing the contractual relationship may also be helpful when it comes to tax time or if there is a problem where liability and insurance coverage is important.</p>

Count yourself lucky that you found out what a jerk this person is before it became a catastrophe.

<p>Personally, I think your friend is being ridiculous. Considering all she needs to do is show up, take some photos and go home, I would take the hourly rate. If she has years of experience and is really good and feels she is worth more, she should have stated that up front. Asking for half your fee is just being greedy since you own the company, pay the bills, own the equipment AND are doing the post-processing. As far as the copyright, I would agree with the others about the contract. I am an engineer by trade and when I sign on with a new company, especially when I've done contract work in the past, I almost always have had to sign a waiver stating that any new designs are owned solely by the company. So, if I "invent" something on their time, I can't go out and get a patent on it. That doesn't mean some negotiation can't be agreed upon if I were to design something made the company millions of dollars in profit. But, I would have no rights to it. I would assume the copyright law is very similar. Of course, I would research it first.<br>

DH</p>