crediting assistants/portfolio

[forrest.berkshire]

I categorized this in the legal questions department, although it might not

necessarily apply, it is the closest I could find. This is more of an ethical

question.

 

I was wondering if/how people deal with assistants' shots in their

portfolios/wedding galleries. I do not always use the same assistant, but I

always have a second shooter who I pay while covering a wedding. Often, they

are the ones grabbing candid photos, especially during the portrait sessions,

that are quite good and would make a nice addition to one of my galleries to

show potential clients.

 

I do not want to misrepresent authorship, nor do I want to infringe on their

work. However, they work for my business during those sessions, so it is

representative of what I produce for my clients. I own the copyright, and they

are working for me (they are granted permission to use their work they do for

me for their own self promotion, as well).

 

How do the rest of you deal with this? Do you add something alongside the

copyright image directly onto the photo in a (Flash-based) gallery? Do you add

a general nore at the bottom of a gallery just listing who assisted you and not

worrying about identifying each photo's authorship?

 

I really need to update my galleries on my Web site, since they are old and not

representative of the quality of work I am now doing, and wanted to figure out

how to deal with this.

 

Thanks

[william-porter]

A thoughtful question, no doubt much appreciated by second shooters.

 

The creator's/photographer's name can be stored in the or IPTC info, embedded inside the image file. And with any good post-processing software like Lightroom or Aperture, you should be able to add this info at the moment you import the photos. You could also tag the photos with keywords by shooter.

 

Who gets the copyright for the image is probably dependent on whether the second shooter is considered to be doing work for hire or is an independent contractor. But I'm not sure about this and will be curious to see if anybody really knows.

 

You could also add something to the file names when you export, say, the initials of the shooter. So my photos would be exported as wp-20070913-0001.jpg, and yours would be fb-20070913-0008.jpg.

[forrest.berkshire]

Thanks for the reply William. I always add the author in the metadata through Aperture, but for my portfolio work I don't like to have that displayed or my filenames. Keeping track/seperate for my purposes is not the problem, so much as making sure I do not misprepresent my work or slight a talented photographer working for me.

[bill dunston]

When potential clients view your portfolio, I don't think they really care whether you or a

hired photographer took the image. They just want to know what to expect if they hire you as

their photographer. As long as the images displayed, whether on-line or in an album or

whatever, represent your work accurately, I don't think any attribution to another

photographer is warranted. After all, you do own the copyright.

[idobelieve]

This topic is EXTREMELY interesting to me as I currently have a photographer I used to 2nd for displaying a large amount of my work on her website without my copyright and definately without my permission. It is a very sore subject for me but I have chosen to not rock the boat.

 

So, I have learned a fair bit as far as the legal side is concerned. A contracted 2nd photographer retains copyright of the images that they shoot unless they specifically give them up (in a signed contract). An employed 2nd photographer, as in they are your full time paid employee, does not retain copyright of their images. You can see details of this here http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ09.pdf

 

If you do own the copyright then you can theoretically display them as your own. Personally, I don't think that is ethical. I currently work as 2nd and associate for a photographer who displays my work on his site in a specific gallery that is credited to me.

 

In your case I would say first, it's good of you to think about it and not just disregard your 2nds efforts. Second, how about coming up with a few ideas of how to use them and then talking to your 2nd about it to get their perspective.

[surfidaho]

If the second shooter is someone I hire on a regular basis, I display the picture, the name of the person who took the picture, and the company name. It's always best to give credit where credit is due.

 

If the second shooter stops working for me, I pull the picture.

 

Later,

 

Paulsky

[david_schilling___chicago_]

In my online galleries posted for family/guests to view and purchase I don't make any attempts to identify who took what. On my website, all the images are mine and I simply do not use a 2nd shooter/assistant shot for my folio or the website pages. If, for some reason I post an image to the web taken by a 2nd shooter, there will be credit information that accompanies the image. Sometimes I'll actually add a simple logo to the image with the 2nd shooter initials. Like here: http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00Fyth I've also had posts like this come up when one of Megan's clients "googles" her name and sends me an email because they are have lost her contact information and want to get in touch with her... a couple of times they were trying to reach her to ask her to shoot their wedding.

[joseph_leuzinger]

Since you own the copyrights to the photos, you should be free to include them in portfolios and sites. The photo's are representative of work that a customer will receive should they hire you and your group to photograph thier event. Your customers will be hiring your company to photograph thier event not just you. Including work representative of what assistants take while in your employ gives further explanation of what the client will receive.

 

Whether you wish to give credit to the specific assistant is to your discretion, as long as you are not personally taking credit for photos taken by an assistant.

 

As far as ethically; the client only cares to see images representative of what they would receive should they hire you and your group, the assistant should be aware that if you own the copyright that you are free to display the work.

[jaimie blue]

Forrest, I am glad you are thinking about this because I think it is a serious issue. Not implying you, but I do not see how any artist can use any artwork by a different author without citing credit, whether copyright is with the studio because it is a employee or copyright with the second shooter because they are contracted. Ethically, I would never be able to sleep at night putting up shots of someone else's work under my name. I think a photographer could have a website and ad the word studio after their name and make it clear that other photographers shoot with them and in those cases give photo credit to those photographers.

 

Michelle I think I remember your post about this if it was you and I am sorry that you chose not to do anything about it especially since you are clearly hurt by it.