Before you have further conversation with her, please go to and study
the resources on the editorial photographers web site. Now.
$200 a day is way low. Your creative fee starts at $600/day.
You also charge her expenses, and to arrive at them do not forget to
calculate mileage spent every time you go to and from both the event
and the film processing place. Mileage in the US Tax Code is
deductable at somethng like 36 cents/mile, but gasoline has just gone
out the roof, so you need to bill at around 60 cents. Remember your
car also costs insurance, some taxes and depreciation. All those go
into car expense calculations.
Many people are charging around $35/roll nowadays, whether you shoot
film or digital you need to include another day rate to cover time
spent processing the images - downloading, color correcting,
registering with the Copyright Office, the fee for registration ($30
per submission), the CD you give her or the cost of transmitting to
her.
She gets one time North American print rights - she will want to take
your copyright from you for the paltry $200 and not wish to pay
expenses at all. If she tries that, explain that you don't transfer
copyright for less than $300,000 per image unles you re an employee
with benefits and retirement. Your copyright is your future and she
may have one time North American print rights. If she goes along,
which she won't without a great deal of argument, you then go back to
the Editorial Photographers web site and download the contract forms,
which you then modify for this distinct situation and fax to her. If
she signs them and faxes them back to you, you accept the assignment.
Then you do the very best you are able with many many rolls of film,
shooting everything in sight.
After that you present the contact sheets or very small JPEGS - about
2.5"x5"at 72 dpi and she selects the imges she wants - either slides
or digital files. Magazines are beginning to figure out how to add
digital workflow to their image selection process but many regional
and local magazines still only know how to work with pages of slides
on a light table. Each slide goes out with a label detailing your
copyright and contact info - 6 point on the tiniest labels you can
buy at Staples, 80/page. Another label contains
date/location/caption info and whether there is a release for the
people in the image. Of course, you've gotten a large number of
releases, as many as possible while you were at the event.
After you have prepared your delivery memo and bagged up all this
stuff and bagged up your copyright registration package according to
the instructions on the Editorial Photograhers web site, you go to
FedEx and ship the package to the copyright office. About a week
later you ship the package to her.
About three weeks later she tells you which images she's interested
in and you send her the original slides or the size digital files she
needs - around 300dpi by full page size is most useful.
If she's in a hurry, you help her along by sending her the contact
sheet at the same time you send out the copyright registration
package, but most magazines are 6-8 months ahead, so she really
needn't be in a hurry.
that's a beginning.
The first step is to calculate your cost of doing business and know
what you really need to be paid. The second step is to hone your
negotiation skills to get what you really must have from her. After
that it's all either paperwork or the fun part - shooting the event.
If she actually thinks she's paying you $200 for the event, you may
have to walk away from this possible gig. If you take the $200 and
transfer of copyright, you're valuing yourself way too low and making
it difficult for any other photographer to get a fair fee for this
work.
Another long, realistic missive from ogress Emily!
--
Emily L. Ferguson
mailto:elf@cape.com
508-563-6822
New England landscapes, wooden boats and races, press photography
http://www.vsu.cape.com/~elf
