Bride wants ALL photos taken...

<p>I shot my first wedding for my best friends sister last June and unfortunately there was no contract. The bride and groom paid $1000 for my services plus my travel fees (from Alberta to Ontario). The coverage was 3 full days of BBQ's, Golf and the of course the wedding day. I included the CD of about 350 edited/re-touched images. The bride now wants all 2500 images. What do I do?</p>

<p>You think very seriously about not taking any more jobs without a contract. Then you give her the rest of the images. </p>

<p>What did you tell her she was going to get?</p>

<p>Simple enough. Only show your best work and stand your ground. Run the files you want to show through Aperture (although Lightroom should have the same feature), export them while giving the files new names so the client will be none the wiser with regards to files being deleted.<br>

For future reference: don't shoot without a contract and don't specify number of photos taken.</p>

 

<p>In any case, this is a common problem, particularly with new wedding photographers. First, never tell a client how many you actually took. It is only natural that he or she will want everything taken, and consider it his/her right to have everything taken--particularly if money exchanged hands.</p>

<p>Second, always have a contract, even if you are doing something for free, and in the contract, give the client a range for the number of images given. Then meet or exceed that range.</p>

<p>Third, always renumber your final images given, so that there are no gaps.</p>

<p>As for what to do now, if you didn't tell her what she would get, I'd give her everything, chalk it up to experience, and in the future, do as described above.</p>

<p>Cut it down the middle. 350 images seems a little low for 3 full days. 2500 is too much on the other hand. Give them more (they don't have to be fully edited if you are OK with that). Then use what you learned to do better next time.<br>

The renaming files and not telling them how many you captured are also key points.</p>

<p>Shae, the law in Canada is that if someone pays you to create photographs, then <strong>they</strong> , not you, own all the copyrights, unless otherwise specified.. In the future use a <strong>contract</strong> and then nothing is left to chance.<br>

The law is different pretty well everywhere else, but here, in Canada, you need to know and specify, your legal position. Regards, Bob</p>

<p>Thank you so much! lesson learned!</p>

<p> </p>

<p>That would be very odd for the Canadian copyright act to allocate rights that way. Here is a summary I found on the web. Is it wrong?</p>

<p>

<br>

Photographs<br>

There is a separate provision for the copyright of photographs. According to s. 10<a rel="nofollow" href="http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/C-42/section-10.html">[6]</a> of the Act, the author of the photograph (and hence owner of the copyright) is the person or corporation who was either 1) the owner of the initial negative or other plate at the time when that negative or other plate was made, or 2) was the owner of the initial photograph at the time when that photograph was made, where there was no negative or other plate. In contemporary terms, this means that the author of a photograph is usually the person who owns the film in the film camera, or whoever owns the digital camera.<br>

Where the author is a person or a corporation whose majority shareholder is the photographer, s. 6 applies, and the term of copyright for the photograph is the life of the author plus 50 years from end of the calendar year of death.<br>

Where the author is a corporation, the term of copyright for the photograph is the making of the initial negative or initial photograph, plus 50 years.<br>

[end quote]</p>

<p>Take a look at this link to CAPIC......you'll see the nature of the issue.....</p>

<p>http://www.capic.org/copyright.html</p>

<p> </p>

<p>From the current act:<br>

http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/showdoc/cs/C-42//20091006/en?page=1<br>

"<br>

 

<p><a title="Copyright Act 13. (2) Engraving, photograph or portrait" name="codese:13-ss:_2_" href="http://laws.justice.gc.ca/fr/ShowDoc/cs/C-42/bo-ga:l_I::bo-ga:l_II/20091006/fr?page=2&isPrinting=false#codese:13-ss:_2_" title="Copyright Act 13. (2) Engraving, photograph or portrait" >Engraving, photograph or portrait</a></p>

<p > (2) Where, in the case of an engraving, photograph or portrait, the plate or other original was ordered by some other person and was made for valuable consideration, and the consideration was paid, in pursuance of that order, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, the person by whom the plate or other original was ordered shall be the first owner of the copyright."</p>

<p > </p>

<p >IOW the paying client owns the copyright in Canada, not the photographer, unless subject to contractual provisions.</p>

<p > </p>

</p>

<p>Interesting... very interesting! I guess this is one of the odd occasions where I find myself happy to have not been Canadian for two generations.  That seems so very contrary to the Berne Convention... which I believed to have been signed by Canada.</p>

<p>p.s. Bob Sunley... thanks for the translation. My French is very weak -- practically non-existent anymore!</p>

<p>Firstly, if you shoot 2.5k images, why only 350 delivered?</p>

<p>In this situation, I would begin by explaining how you feel about the quality of your work, then that you cannot in good conscience give every image as some are OOF, badly exposed, flash did not fire and so on. I would anticipate that to leave about half of what you shot as deliverable.</p>

<p>How did she know you shot 2500?</p>

Did you tell the bride you took 2500 images? Perhaps show her about 800 if you didn't tell her you took 2500.

<p>Nadine's advice is spot on - I also think this is one you'll have to chalk up to experience. As you now know, you should never agree to do any work for anyone without a contract.</p>

<p>As an aside, 350 images for a 3 day shoot is perhaps on the low side. I would normally deliver something like that for a single day wedding. In fact, I recently did a 3 day shoot myself and the edit came to just over 900, even being very tough on which images made the cut. This might account in some part for why the bride feels she's missing something.</p>

<p>350 edited pictures for a 1000 dollars is a lot of pictures. You can tell her that 2500 frames is what you needed to get 350 good ones, and the rest is below your standard, or tells nothing important that the other pictures does not tell. For a 1000 dollars it is impossible to deliver more. You can also tell her that there might be something you considered as uninteresting that she likes, and invite her to sit on your computer and browse herself. Tell her that finishing of ekstra pictures will have a cost pr picture. <br>

In Norway it is not common to give out all pictures, and in Norwegian law what is common is listened too.<br>

Tell her that giving out thrashpictures is bad for your reputation.<br>

She will probably not be a problem , but she is curious about if there are something nice you didn,t show her. Maybe an overexposed blurred picture that has something, that you rejected.<br>

Of course you can give her everything, but then she should pay you for some more days of editing. You are not a pro, so it is not bad for your reputation anyway. I charge around 200 dollars /hour for photo and 120 dollars /hour for editing and retouch. So for me a lot of editing pays good, but I need 3 to 30 minutes for each picture. </p>

<p>First of all, what in the world are you doing charging $1000 for your first wedding? I am hoping that your answer will be that you were a second for a legitimate, great wedding photographer (or several) for a couple years and now are striking out on your own. But I fear, based on your predicament that you aren't.<br>

Second, 350 is ridiculous for an entire weekend of shooting. That's like a really long portrait session. Obviously the bride knows about the 2500 images because you or your sister told her (bad idea), but if I were her, I would want them too. If you tell me that you took 2500 images and only gave me 350 for $1000, I would be pissed too. <br>

I have a rule about deliverables in my office, I pay my new seconds squat until they can get 80/20 deliverables, which means 80% of the images they shoot are useable and therefore viable to deliver to the client. That doesn't mean I give all those to the client, but I could. When we shoot a wedding (let alone several events over a weekend) our average time on the wedding day is 9 hours. We shoot around 2000 - 4000 images (two photographers always) and deliver 1000 - 1500 images to the client via online proofs. <br>

If you don't have 1500 images that are suitable to give a bride after taking 2500, then you shouldn't be getting paid yet, period. Sorry to be harsh, I'm sure you're a lovely gal. I don't see the craigslist photogs as competition for me, but I think it's really crappy that brides are getting the short end of the stick with photography, because there is no standard for photographers anywhere. </p>

<p>Kenzi Kay. Delivering 1000-1500 images- how many thousand dollar is that? Is it unfinished jpg-files?<br>

A 1000 dollars for three days shooting and some more days of editing is definitively low-budget. I guess the dollar pr. hour is below unskilled assistent-rates in other branches. Low budget should implicate low volume and mediocre quality.</p>

 

<p>Erlend - 1000 USD may be low budget to us but it's a mortgage payment, car payment & utility bills or whatever for most folks. Yes, brides should do their research but anybody charging in the 4 digit range better know what the heck they're doing and don't apply "low budget - mediocre quality" (I know this doesn't apply to those just trying to make a quick buck). And yes, if only 350 out of 2500 are usable, something is definitely wrong.</p>

<p>If I want to deliver 350 images I make a lot more exposures to ensure the quality. To edit, finish and retouch 350 pictures is a huge job. About low budget- a lot of photographers does work extra in health care, and it is absolutely wrong to charge less as a photographer if you are a serious photographer.<br>

To deliver 700 pictures in stead of 350 means days of editing. Who shal pay for that?</p>

<p>Katrin, in Norway it is not normal to buy two weeks of work for wedding photography. 3 hours of photo, and 1,5 days of editing and retouch is more common. That 2 week-job Jones did would have cost more than 10 000 dollars here, done by a pro. ( I guess he finished 35 pictures a day). </p>

<p>Why not let the bride look at all 2500 unedited pictures (that's a question, not a suggestion in the form of a question)? My guess is that she wants to make sure there aren't any pictures she really likes or of guests that aren't in the initial batch of 350.</p>

<p>Yes show her the pictures allow her to take what she wants Since there was no contract it really does not matter the quality. Give her files just large enought to print a quality wallets! Everybosy here is talking of if you were a proffesional you would have done this and or this. Really, are you all serious I have shooting for years and have seen some really good shots from people that have been shooting less than a month and they are consistant. Does this make them proffesional? No it makes them an artist like us all with different views of what we feel is beautifull. I personaly will not pose people I want to capture them not what I want them to be. I will shoot 350 shots and get 80% that are good of that maybe 50 will be significant and something that I am proud of but that is me. I dont want to spen hours and hours editing and cropping and basically manipulating the moment into something that it wasn't. We all do it but I don't like to do it. I am knew to this site and will soon start displaying some of my work but am hesitant based on this conversation thread. The poor soul was just asking what they could do about the current situation if anything based on the expierence of others, and this thread went every other direction with the exception of the very first comment. Advice was needed not critics.</p>

<p>Patrick or Alisha--I assumed Shae is an aspiring wedding photographer, and she did take money for the job, so comparing her situation to a professional wedding photographer, as far as what she should or shouldn't do, is appropriate, I think.</p>