OUR OPERATIONAL & FEE POLICIES

We are pleased that you may wish to consider engaging our location, studio or stock photography services. So that you can better grasp our operational policies and fee structure, we would like to explain our usual working methods. If you have any questions let's discuss them before we begin working together. We do not, in normal practice, sell the pictures we produce. Rather, we LICENSE USAGE RIGHTS to those pictures and retain the copyright. What we are selling, simply stated, is 1)the TECHNICAL AND ARTISTIC ABILITY TO ILLUSTRATE AN IDEA PHOTOGRAPHICALLY and 2)THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE OR USE THOSE PHOTOGRAPHS IN A GIVEN CONTEXT. When pricing an assignment, there will be fees including combinations of A CREATIVE FEE, POST-PRODUCTION FEES, and USAGE FEES, plus EXPENSES. The fact that expenses are included in the total cost does not entitle you to any specific rights to the resulting photographs. All usage is subject to negotiation.

Some of our commercial products, such as Real Estate photography, have fixed pricing and licensing. Whether we are discussing assignment work or the use of our stock photos, our fees are based on the rights you buy, so we need to be specific about how you want to use the picture(s) before any fee for the usage is established. We are willing to sell almost any rights to the images (we usually retain, at minimum, the rights to use the images in our own self promotion). Most of our clients find that it is to their advantage to purchase only the rights they need in the first instance, and to come back later to purchase additional rights as the need develops. Naturally, we take into consideration the original usage when pricing additional uses, particularly if the first use was an assignment. No use of our photographs is authorized until payment in full has been received .

Once the fee is negotiated and the work delivered (sometimes, in the case of stock photo usage, this happens in reverse) we will send you an Invoice indicating the Copyright License granted. The fees and the specific use rights for which you have contracted will be clearly stated on the invoice. Uses that are not clearly defined on the invoice are not authorized; those specified on the invoice are authorized only after the bill has been paid. Other uses must be negotiated in advance of the usage.

We are willing to consider specific needs and concerns of our clients and try always to be flexible. WE UNDERSTAND BUDGETS AND VALUE LONG-TERM BUSINESS. If there are modifications you might wish to have included in our agreements, please bring them up for discussion. THANK YOU FOR DOING BUSINESS WITH US.