Editorial Shoot Rates

<p>I was just hired to take a portrait for someone who won a contest in a magazine. The photo will be full page and will go along with an article about the winner. I was first told they would only need one photo and that the magazine's circulation was small, about 1,500 for that issue, on average. The publishing company is rather large and publishes quite a few magazines, but each magazine is a specialty magazine, therefore all probably have fairly small circulations. They also have websites for each.<br>

I told them $300 for the shoot, post-processing, and disc with a couple images for them to choose from (under the impression they only wanted one photo). They said that was fine and sent me a contract. The contract says they will pay $300 for a disc with ALL the images from my shoots, even the duds, and they will gain the rights to all of them for print, advertisements, electronic media, etc. with no additional pay.<br>

Now, I am completely knew to this. I have never done anything editorial. I have no idea what people usually charge, but I did a little research and saw people usually charged anywhere from 175-500, but that seemed to usually be for only one image. Am I completely wrong in thinking that I deserve a lot more than $300 for the rights to ALL of the images from my shoot, even if they do decide to only publish one?</p>

<p>It is pretty routine for national magazines to offer at least $500 for a day--doesn't matter how many shots you do or if it only takes 10 minutes to do it (I had friends who often did more than one job per day for different magazines). It is also--or was--common that they only got one time rights for the use of the images. The payment for space usage depended on the magazine and if they did pay space usage, your upfront fee and expenses were subtracted from the total space use fee (you always got your fee and expenses at a minimum) to determine any extra fees payable.</p>

<p>You don't have to accept the contract, you can let them know--hopefully you communicated it in writing--that their contract doesn't reflect the deal you made with them. Often you get a boiler plate agreement and so if you go back to the person you negotiated with, in a professional and pleasant manner, they will probably tell you to cross out all of the extra stuff and fill in the specifics--I have had this happen on very big jobs, it isn't uncommon.</p>

<p>(Many magazines do now seem to think they can do anything they want with images you shoot for them but I know they wont stick to it if they want you to shoot for them, they back down very quickly when you balk at anything other than one time use! There is a risk if they know there are others that can do what you do and will do it on their terms. But you have to be firm and take the risk, most times they don't really expect to use the images for anything else and it isn't worth their time to find someone else. They just aren't willing to pay for the rights they want. Obviously, in the last several years, one time use also means publishing it on the web as well, and that is reasonable.)</p>

That is kind of what I was thinking. I emailed them back, but have yet to get a response. Now we play the waiting

game. Haha

<p>John is mostly correct. Editorial rates tend to be fixed regardless of whether they use one or more of your images, but it's rather rare (at least in my experience) for them to require the rejects.</p>

<p>Of course, there ARE publications, such as National Geographic, which require EVERYTHING (including test shots to clean your sensor!) completely untouched and unedited, but I very much doubt this is the case here.</p>

<p>Of course if you turn up and just take two shots........ ;)</p>

<p>I think it's reasonable that they would want more than one or two images from the shoot. They may simple prefer a different expression, composition or other variation rather than the one you decide is the best shot. This would be no different than sending a client a contact sheet in the old days and letting them choose which shots to be printed. Keep in mind that they have considerations like cropping on the page, or where they might want to drop in type over the image, etc. You need to give them a variety of shots to choose from to allow for that. I would not give them duds -- blinks, out of focus, wrong exposure etc. -- and I dont' think they're really asking for that. As for usage, you need to clarify whether they are really asking all rights for everything forever, or whether they simply want to be able to use the image they are going to use in the magazine on their web site and in advertising or other promotion they do to help sell the magazine. Also the time frame and number of uses. Whether $300 is reaonsalbe depends on a lot of factors, including how much trouble you're going to to create the picture. For a newspaper style headshot or a conventional studio portrait that takes half an hour, it might not be bad. If you're talking something elaborate, going on location, more time and effort, that could be different.</p>

<p>Also, they may be aware that you may, for example, not have enough experience in working editorially so they cannot trust your judgement with respect to cropping and framing. Whenever we shoot such portraits, we always make sure we (a) shoot two sets of each, one portrait and one landscape, (b) we leave plenty of room on either side of the subject for titles and copy information and © we shoot different environments suited to the subject because you never know which direction the interview will take and what points the author or editor will want to stress or illustrate.</p>

<p>Trust me, there is reason behind their request...</p>

<p>I would allow for unrestricted usage of up to three images.</p>

<p>I never provide all the images from a shoot- not even to A&F-<em> and I only average ten or fifteen frames for each one used to begin with.</em></p>

<p> Given the parameters you have provided and with a copy of the magazine in hand I would shoot exactly what is required specifically tuned to the aspect ratio of the page size - both for a single page image and double- and the general editorial bent of the magazine- e.g. sports, artsy, sexy, family, religious etc.. </p>

<p>Keep in mind you are selling the person that won so within the confines of being editorially correct for the publication, work for the winner. Obviously so much is dependent on what your subject is and maybe what the contest was for... </p>

<p>I would allow for unrestricted usage of up to three images. Allows for a different shot to be used in the table of contents.</p>

<p>I never provide all the images from a shoot- not even to A&F-<em> and I only average ten or fifteen frames for each one used to begin with.</em></p>

<p>Given the parameters you have provided and with a copy of the magazine in hand I would shoot exactly what is required specifically tuned to the aspect ratio of the page size - both for a single page image and double- and the general editorial bent of the magazine- e.g. sports, artsy, sexy, family, religious etc..</p>

<p>Keep in mind you are selling the person that won so within the confines of being editorially correct for the publication, work for the winner. Obviously so much is dependent on what your subject is and maybe what the contest was for...</p>