Disposal of Wedding Negatives

[stephen_doldric]

<p>I love the idea of charging $25 a set and then mailing them anyway. The people that pay $25 will offset the rest of the mailing costs..... However.. good luck finding these people after 30 years. Its rare that most people stay in the same house, parents are still with us, etc. Its going to be a huge effort and probably not very fruitful. Plus its a lot of labor on your part without any real compensation.</p>

<p>So... Given that you want to get rid of them, but are hesitant, maybe its not quite time. Consider moving them to lower quality storage. Someplace you don't have to pay to store them. Like you basement on a high up shelf or somewhere out of the way to you. They will either take care of themselves over time or you will feel better about it.</p>

<p>You have real history as well. Too bad you can't find a place to donate them too, like a local historical society or library that would assume rights to them and archive them for you. In 100 years they will be worth a lot more to future generations.</p>

 

[kevin_mora]

<p>Well, I am a lawyer and a photographer. While each jurisdiction is different and has its own laws (hence, I am not providing you with legal advice, so don't sue me for malpractice), I would say that you can get rid of them. People have a certain amount of time to file a claim for some wrongdoing, statute of limitations. Most are only 5-10 years and if you have photos going back to the 80s, then you are well beyond that actionable period. Another way to look at it is as a record retentions issues. Most governmental and private bodies have record retention policies of 5-1o years, again, you are beyond that period. To be safe, you could try to contact them, but that would be quite cumbersome. I say, they are yours, you are clear of any lawsuits, and your contracts required that you provide prints, which you did. Do what you want with them! And for future contracts, do what I do, and include a provision stating that you will keep the digital negatives for one year, that way there is no future concern about how long you have to hold them.</p>

[todd_k.]

<p>Go for it. If there is value there, don't throw them out. <br>

Find out what it would cost (on average) to have them scanned commercially. Think scan cafe or a local lab that needs the work and will give you a volume break.<br>

Give them three options.<br>

1. Charge $35 for the negs,<br>

2. $35 plus the cost of scanning and few bucks for your time. <br>

3. The dumpster<br>

Here is how you make it work. <br>

Hire a teenage girl, stick here in front of a computer with facebook pulled up (to track them down), the client info, and tell her she gets a $10 per buyer commission. <br>

I would be shocked if the 60% who are still married did not buy the disk, especially if you can keep the c the scans cheap. You could walk away with 12K plus and she could earn 5K+ for a few weeks of work. </p>

 

[hayden_judd]

<p>Hi everyone, I'm coming in late on this one, but I may have a solution to help you. My father was a wedding photographer dating back to the late 60's and he has a vast collection of 135 and 120 wedding negs he wanted to dispose of. I have talked him into letting me try and sell them off for him. In the next month we will be launching a website aimed to help photographers sell off old photos (wedding, portrait, commercial etc). This was primarily setup to sell this one load of negs from my Dad, but I quickly saw the potential in allowing it to be used globally (I manage a web agency here in New Zealand). I am just working on a price structure now, but I'm hoping to make it very reasonable as it will be a long tail venture, based on volume. Benefits will include excellent Search Engine optimisation and Social media. You will be able to scan a few photos, and upload details to the page, and then use this as a portal to push out the information, allow the users to see what you have available, and then contact you directly. Please get in touch here if you are interested and I can send you more information.</p>