Jim - I appreciate the advice, thank you. Regarding old-and-busted-business-models, I think it’s clear I wasn’t referring to the general concept of getting paid for what you do. Clearly that would be bonkers. I meant it in regards to microstock specifically, and admittedly it didn’t particularly fit in with the discussion - it had been rattling around my brain for a while, and kinda slipped its way in. Again, thanks for taking the time to comment.

Please try not to be quite so cavalier about “old-and-busted business models”.

It may have only taken you 1/100th of second to shoot that picture, but you had to spend some time to go to that event. You may of even had a tube fare. For some reason you had to be inspired to take a picture of the Scientology tent rather than shooting all the other things you could have been shooting at the same time. And for some reason the publisher likes your picture better than the other 45 pictures on Flickr. (By the way there are no Scientology tent pictures on either Gettyimages.com or istockphoto.com.)

Whether you’re an amateur or a professional you deserve to be compensated for your efforts if someone wants to use a picture you took for commercial purposes. If I were you I’d ask the publisher how many copies of the book they intend to print and the retail price they intend to charge for it. These are questions any publisher would normally expect to answer. Assuming they are not going to print hundreds of thousands of copies of the book a reasonable price for such a usage would be $150.00. If you want to give him a break ask for $100.00 or $75.00. If he says the price is simply more than he can afford, point out what he expects to earn in gross sales of the book (gross units sold times price per copy). Maybe he is getting the people who run the presses to work for free. Maybe the people who manufacture the paper are giving it away because he is such a great guy.

It seems to me that the real question you have to answer for yourself is how much you want to be exploited by someone who is using your picture for commercial purposes, and who will put more money in his pocket if you give him the picture for free. Also, given the subject matter your next to last paragraph is very relevant. Are you for or against Scientology? You probably should ask some questions about the context in which your picture will be used.

And yes, I am a professional photographer. I earns part of my living from licensing rights to the images I produce.

Jim Pickerell
jim@scphotos.com

2. Can the book be categorized as editorial? If not and you don’t have permission (releases) from those recognizable faces in your photo they may bring an action against you, the photographer, for unauthorized publication of their likeness in this publisher’s book and infringing their anonymity. There was a case a while back in Quebec and a girl’s unauthorized photo was published in an art magazine, some schoolmates found it and teased her. She sued, and won (small amount - I think $1000 from each photog and publisher) but they had to share court costs which would presumably be quite substantial.

Today, the general manager of a venue rang me to ask if the could use two photos of a wedding I shot there. She started out trying to be cheeky. I told her that I charge for my services on principle. Then I suggested that they might want to promote me as a recommended photographer to push down the price. When the manager agreed to that, then I said they could use each shot for ten pounds. Straightaway, she asked if she might be able to use some more images at that price. Result!: free advertising, payment, and more business.