hobby getting out of hand - advice

I have accidently provoked a bit of a personal crisis and would like

some advice from the knowledgable photo.netters who have been there.<p>

 

I am discovering- unintentionally- that one can break into what I'm

told is a highly-competitive nature photography business by becoming

overly specialized on a particular subject. In my case, the subject

is ants. This specialization flows naturally from my "day job" as a

graduate student in entomology working on ants. <p>

2 years ago I bought a cute little Nikon Coolpix 995 with the thought

of getting a few of my own macro insect photos to use in presentations

and just for general field research. I had no photographic sense

whatsoever, but what fun! I was hooked. I begin to spend too much

time admiring <a

href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/presentation?presentation_id=188714">Mark

Plonsky's</a> fantastic work on photo.net. I put up a web site (<a

href="http://www.myrmecos.net">www.myrmecos.net</a>) to share photos

with some of my fellow entomophiles.<p>A year later, I'm broke and

holding a Canon d60 with an MPE 65mm 1-5x macro lens. I'm in ant

photography heaven. Google's image search picks me up. Email

starts trickling in. Teachers want to use images for classes. Great!

Perfect use for them. A pest control company wants an image for a

mailing. Ug. I turn them down, not wanting to give the photos away

for commercial purposes, and not wanting to deal with the

legal/financial hassle of selling.

<p>The email flow persists. I hesitatingly sell photos to several

european popular science-type magazines. U.S. magazines begin to

call. Textbook photo editors, too. And a big surprise- a month ago a

major natural history museum decided to feature several dozen of my

images in a public ant exhibit, due to open shortly. I've done no

marketing, the

interest seems to have far more to do with the technical nature of the

photographs I take than with any inherent photographic genius (heck,

at this point I am still learning how to use the darned camera.)

Being a specialist in what I do in entomology, I can put species names

on most of the critters I photograph. Photo editors looking for

images of particular species or behaviors find me in Google. Often

I'm the only source they've found for what they need. Recently I get

10-15 emails a week regarding my photographs, most are educators or

scientists asking permission to use them in presentations, but on

average 1-2 a week of those are interested exchanging money for

images. <p>Here's the problem. I am not a business-minded person.

I'm just a guy who likes bugs and put up a web page. I don't usually

give my photos away- I don't want to establish that precedent- and I

don't want to undercut serious photgraphers. I am also busy with lots

of non-photography work. The requests seem to be accelerating. I

have no intention of going pro (why ruin a perfectly good hobby?), but

I'd like my images to be out there and it'd be nice if my lenses could

pay for themselves. And I'd really, really not like to go into panic

everytime someone starts to negotiate a price for an image. I haven't

even the slightest idea how to make up an invoice.<p>What I am looking

for with this post is advice. Specifically, what books on the

business of photography ought I be reading? On the legal aspects?

Pricing? Is there any simple business software that I can use to get

the logistics under control? Any common pitfalls I should look out

for? And, if any of you have the time to peruse my <a

href="http://www.myrmecos.net">web page</a>, is there anything there

that could use improvement? (keeping in mind that the primary purpose

of the site is NOT commercial)<p>Thanks,<p>Alex

<a href="http://www.hindsightltd.com">Hindsight Software</a><p>

<a href="http://www.fotobiz.net">FotoBiz</a><p>

<a href="http://www.pickphoto.com/nspp.html">NEGOTIATING STOCK PHOTO PRICES</

a><p>

Sounds like the best approach for you would be to set above-market prices for your photos and then publish those prices somewhere on your site. Find out what comparable images sell for, and then add a premium that's based on what it's worth for you to put up with the hassle. I suspect most of the inquirers are trying to get images cheap, so you can make a lot of them go away by charging a lot. And if somebody buys anyway, you've made some good money.

Alex - You've got some very nice stuff there and I would encourage you to sell it as opportunity presents itself. Yes, it could become complicated, but it shouldn't need to do so.

 

Generally, images get priced based on how they are used. There are a few good resources for determining pricing, but Fotoquote and Hindsight's Price Guide are both good, software-based tools. There are books as well, but I'm of no use for recommending them. For this kind of image, a few categories of image purchasers will be much of your market, e.g., science textbook publishers. The price guides will help you determine pricing by who uses them and how.

 

Hindsight, as recommended above, has a great tool for managing stock images, but it's not a simple tool to learn or use, and it may be more than you need. That said, it can relatively easily automate all of the tasks you need to pay attention to, including Delivery Memo's, stock submissions, and more, and can even take care of financial stuff reasonably well. I have worked with Hindsight and recommend it, but I'm not sure whether you need it or not. If your image files are in good order, and you can take care of other business correspondence tasks easily enough, you may not need to.

 

If you'd like to pull in some money with the robust set of specialized images you have, you probably should put something on your website detailing how you'll work with folks and how they can request images from you. By explaining there how you deliver images and what they are available for, you can probably reduce the number of ad-hoc, long email messages that you have to write. In your case, you're probably looking a digital delivery only, no exclusive contracts (don't want to track restrictions if you can help it), and a few other steps you can take to simplify your life. Hopefully, by using standard delivery memo language and resisting anyone's attempts to get you to use their language, you can reduce legal hassles (at least until someone really throws money at you).

 

Another option for you is to use a stock agency. However, you usually get less control over how images are used and (obviously) you get a lower percentage of revenue in exchange for not doing any of the admin.

 

Hope that helps a little. Let me know if I can do anything else.

 

Enjoy.

Perhaps, after appropriate research, you can outsource these efforts.

Any chance you have a 'retired' business man or woman in your area?

 

 

 

He or she might have a good time organizing your 'ants' for the market using their experience, giving them something to do, and allow you to continue photographing -- and let someone run the business end on a part-time basis.

Thanks everyone for your thoughtful replies. I do like the idea of finding some experienced part-time help. Being in a big university town, I could well find a student with the right inclination. And putting up some relevant image use/pricing information on my website is an idea that is long overdue by now.

Alex, completely different subjects but our stories have some things in common, with one big exception - you are making money without trying whereas I'm not making it quite as fast as I would like!

 

You mentioned "legal aspects" twice. What is the issue? Have the ants not signed model releases?!

 

Seriously, it might be worth investing in software which will give usage fee recommendations when you input the parameters. Personally I have found "Pricing Photography" to be a useful guide though quite often the price will be as much a function of the budget (often low for religious bodies) or what has been paid for other images from (say) stock agencies. Could I have made more in any of these one-off negotiations? Possibly, but probably not a whole heck of a lot more. Am I satisfied with what I got in those instances - YES, absolutely. Did I lose any business because of price - yes, but they were looking for something for nothing and I was not about to go there.

 

You should not think of it (initially at least) as "going professional" just think of it as setting up a piggy bank to save for the next generation of Canon when you are ready for it, that way you need not be intimidated by the business aspects.

 

Going forwards, if the work involved in handling the business aspects becomes more demanding than you would like, you could think of hiring someone to handle just that work more or less on a percentage basis or you could strike up a deal with a stock agency and just refer all enquiries to them but the cost of the latter is not going to be insignificant and it is probably a totally unnecessary additional expense.

 

In any event yours are problems which many photo.netters would kill for so do not complain too vociferously!

 

Neil

 

<a href="http://www.stainedglassphotography.com" >Stained Glass Photography</a>