cost of my work?

[Steve Smith]

and most importantly, that you retain copyright and laying out the license that you grant with the prints you supply. Doesn't matter if it's your mother or brother or whatever as customer, rights need to be nailed down (duration, resale, sublicensing, replicas/backups, display, etc) precisely even if you're ultimately generous in what you grant.

When I do photography for friends, I sign all rights over to them. I can't see the point in keeping hold of the copyright to images which can never be of any value to me.


Steve.

 

[polyglot]

When I do photography for friends, I sign all rights over to them. I can't see the point in keeping hold of the copyright to images which can never be of any value to me.

Steve.

Fair enough too. I retain copyright but grant unlimited non-commercial use.

 

[Worker 11811]

Copyright is virtually intangible. You can't see it or touch it. Copyright is more like a property or an attribute of an image.

As such, it is important for you to make clear your intentions regarding the copyright status of every image you create.

95% of all work that I produce is tagged, "No use without permission." However, I let the definition of the word, "permission" be a little bit fluid.
For close friends and family, permission to copy an image is almost implicit but not to sell or for commercial use.
For ordinary friends, permission is not implicit but is almost always granted if asked for. Again, not for sale or commercial use.
For anybody else, they need to contact me BEFORE doing anything with the image and the two conditions I ask for are attribution and non-commercial use.
On a few occasions, I have made electronic/digital art via computer that I have released under the Creative Commons "Attribution/Non-commercial/Share-Alike" license. Those images are clearly marked in the EXIF/metadata and watermarked in the image.

On one occasion, a friend at work copied one of my pictures and I found out about it. I wasn't mad, per se, but I did kind of poke him in the shoulder and said, "Oh, c'mon! I would have copied that for you if you asked me!"

Just because you give a picture to a friend doesn't mean you give up the copyright.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

I've done a few sittings like this, and I too refuse to take any money beyond my costs. Had I had a professional portrait service, all would be different of course.

It's fun to do, good practice, and if you pay attention and do a good job, it's rewarding too.

I make them pay for film, chemistry, water, paper, electricity, my time, presentation materials, CDRs, albums, etc. All of it. Then I make it up to them to throw in some tip, if they're happy.

I have an event like this coming up this weekend. Two rolls of Portra 800 120 and one roll of Portra 160 35mm, processing, scanning, CDs, prints, etc - I make the lab scan all of the frames, and then I pick the five I'm most happy with and make high res scans at home. Depending on what you charge for your time, and how much you want to get in return on your investment in software, computers, scanners, darkroom supplies and equipment, etc, it can vary from 70-80 up to several hundred dollars what your cost is. It matters whether you have an Epson V700 scanner or an Imacon Flextight, for example. Or if you have a Pentax K1000 or a Leica M7 with a $5k lens on it. Etc.

Establishing exactly how much you spend in materials and time will help you a lot in setting a fee for your services.

 

[Steve Smith]

Just because you give a picture to a friend doesn't mean you give up the copyright.

Unless you want to.


Steve.