Fee for providing lost images?

[AgX]

A fee should apply. Not for finding them, but for making prints.

Well, that was the business model in the past. To keep the negatives, to profit again on re-orders.

 

[haring]

I agree. It is always great to hear other opinions.... Thanks!

 

[jtk]

A fee should apply. Not for finding them, but for making prints. Maybe you should work on your filing system so it doesn't take too much of your time.

Free prints, free services, free access to files...they're all hurtful to professional photographers. Unethical.

 

[Pieter12]

So right.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Free prints, free services, free access to files...they're all hurtful to professional photographers. Unethical.

Agreed.

 

[Bill Burk]

I would keep track of time, find the images and then multiply how long you took to find them by your hourly rate.
Regarding charging... it depends how much of the search time was your fault (non-billable) versus reasonable effort.
Sounds like some of that time is going to be non-billable in this case. Find out what they're willing to pay and if it's ballpark give it to them for that.

 

[Ron789]

It would take me a half a day to go through all the archives.

Being a professional wedding photographer, you should have a well-organised archive and it should take you no more than a few minutes to retrieve the images.
I'm currently working on a book on a poet who died in 2004. Looking for photo's, I found a photo agency that made several portraits. I contacted the photo agency and they told me they transferred all their historic photo's to a local government archive. I asked the government archive and they immediately sent me the Excel files with the administration of all the archives; no charge. I found 3 photo's of the poet. Next will be to retreive the negatives and digitize them for the book. I expect a charge for that, but retreiving the images has cost me nothing. That is service and professionalism.
Charging your customer half a day work due to the fact you did not create a proper archive seems very unprofessional to me.

 

[haring]

Thanks so much!!!

 

[jtk]

Being a professional wedding photographer, you should have a well-organised archive and it should take you no more than a few minutes to retrieve the images.
I'm currently working on a book on a poet who died in 2004. Looking for photo's, I found a photo agency that made several portraits. I contacted the photo agency and they told me they transferred all their historic photo's to a local government archive. I asked the government archive and they immediately sent me the Excel files with the administration of all the archives; no charge. I found 3 photo's of the poet. Next will be to retreive the negatives and digitize them for the book. I expect a charge for that, but retreiving the images has cost me nothing. That is service and professionalism.
Charging your customer half a day work due to the fact you did not create a proper archive seems very unprofessional to me.

"civil servants" should quietly give thanks to taxpayers for continuing to pay an agency that stops caring for photos for which it had assumed responsibility. After all, that keeps them happily insulated from the lives of people who actually try to create value.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

"civil servants" should quietly give thanks to taxpayers for continuing to pay an agency that stops caring for photos for which it had assumed responsibility. After all, that keeps them happily insulated from the lives of people who actually try to create value.

I think you are confusing the words in Ron's response to support your political views. Agency refers to a private agency/business. The business transferred the photos to a government archive. Perhaps, we really should quietly thank the civil servants who established such an archive and manage it well, even when faced with constant assault on worthwhile government spending.

 

[StepheKoontz]

Being a professional wedding photographer, you should have a well-organised archive and it should take you no more than a few minutes to retrieve the images.
I'm currently working on a book on a poet who died in 2004. Looking for photo's, I found a photo agency that made several portraits. I contacted the photo agency and they told me they transferred all their historic photo's to a local government archive. I asked the government archive and they immediately sent me the Excel files with the administration of all the archives; no charge. I found 3 photo's of the poet. Next will be to retreive the negatives and digitize them for the book. I expect a charge for that, but retreiving the images has cost me nothing. That is service and professionalism.
Charging your customer half a day work due to the fact you did not create a proper archive seems very unprofessional to me.

You are confusing a government agency's work (archiving paid for by taxpayers) and a private for profit business. Archiving and storage of anything costs money, and IMHO there is no expectation that a professional photographer would store images indefinitely. I find it comical people seem to expect someone, who is in a profession to make money, should all of a sudden start doing work for free.

 

[foc]

I might be a little late to this discussion.
I shot professionally for 35 years and negatives and later digital images were all filled. So if a client wanted to re order prints etc, then it was easy to access the images and then charge the normal print or whatever prices. There was no charge for "going to the filing cabinet"

If I had received a request like the OP has received, my first question would be what does the client want to do WHEN I find the images? In otherwords I want to know will it be profitable for me.
As has been said, any professional should have a well organised archive and so it shouldn't take that long to find it.
If you are not that well organised, well........................

Reminds me of an occasion I had a work experience student many years ago. One of their duties was to help file client's negatives. One day I was looking for client's (name began with) A and I could not find them, I knew they had just been filed 2 or 3 days ago. Search high and low but no luck.
Finally, I asked the work experience student did they see client's A's negs.
"Yes,"
"Where?"
"In the filing cabinet."
"No, they are not."
"Yes, they are. The file A was full so I put them in B."

 

[Luckless]

I find it comical people seem to expect someone, who is in a profession to make money, should all of a sudden start doing work for free.

As a professional who maintains a reliable and easy to access archive for minimal financial effort on my part, I find it comical that other professionals expect to keep a well regarded reputation in their industry without one...

Charging a client for real and notable work is one thing. Charging them because you couldn't take five minutes to properly label and file something and now have to spend a non-trivial amount of time finding it, or being able to confirm you even have it, is another entirely.

 

[AgX]

You are confusing a government agency's work (archiving paid for by taxpayers) and a private for profit business. Archiving and storage of anything costs money, and IMHO there is no expectation that a professional photographer would store images indefinitely. .

But what can a customer then expect, if nothing by means of contract has been agreed on by both parties?
In Germany there is a court decision from 92years ago, that a client who does not get the negatives handed out can expect them to be archived, and that the photographer must not destroy them. I do not know the original decision, but consider this far fetched. But that there has not been a newer decision on this matter shows that both parties seemingly find an agreement. Otherwise a court today likely will establish the time when at average interest at reprints fades away and regard this period as usual or establishes the business typical periods of archiving.


(As a sidenote: there were court decisions on the urged handing out of negatives, and all confirmed that the photographer does not need to hand them out, unless agreed on such.)

 

[BrianShaw]

When I last hired a wedding photographer, many years ago, the contract clearly stated that the negs would be archived for 5 years to provide for reprint orders. Almost to the day, 5 years later, I received a solicitation to purchase the negs or they would be destroyed. I really appreciated that kind of contractual clarity and follow-up b

 

[AgX]

Yes, a very good example.

 

[Pieter12]

As a professional who maintains a reliable and easy to access archive for minimal financial effort on my part, I find it comical that other professionals expect to keep a well regarded reputation in their industry without one...

Charging a client for real and notable work is one thing. Charging them because you couldn't take five minutes to properly label and file something and now have to spend a non-trivial amount of time finding it, or being able to confirm you even have it, is another entirely.

If one is a successful professional, there is a lot of work done over 9 years and archiving those files or negatives takes space, care and expense. It is only reasonable to be paid to access the archives after a set period of time. When I worked in advertising, all elements that were shot for commercials, from negatives to final cuts, video tapes and audio, were archived by an independent firm that maintained climate-controlled, fire-proof vaults. Beyond the cost of keeping those items, they charged to retrieve them.

 

[StepheKoontz]

If one is a successful professional, there is a lot of work done over 9 years and archiving those files or negatives takes space, care and expense. It is only reasonable to be paid to access the archives after a set period of time. When I worked in advertising, all elements that were shot for commercials, from negatives to final cuts, video tapes and audio, were archived by an independent firm that maintained climate-controlled, fire-proof vaults. Beyond the cost of keeping those items, they charged to retrieve them.

Correct. SImply maintaining files of any type in a cataloged, climate controlled environment costs money. Unless in the original contract it states the photographer would archive them indefinitely (or for a set period of time) and these costs were included in the original contracted price, there is no expectation for that to be a no cost service provided almost a decade later. Like someone else said, are they even interested in paying for prints or anything that would be profitable to the photographer?

 

[Truzi]

It's all been said by others, but basically...

You should not charge to merely find the photos.
1) The charge should be what you would normally charge for "reproduction" prints, providing digital files, etc.
For example, one-offing a few 8x10s a few months later will cost more each than when originally bundled as a package.
Of course this should be your current reproduction price, not what it was at the time.

2) If the photos are over a certain age, perhaps add a nominal retrieval fee - a very small fee.
It can be a flat-rate or a small percentage of whatever #1 comes to.

If this sort of request rarely happens, perhaps only charge for the "reproduction" aspect and consider the retrieval part worth the good customer service/referral/reputation you will earn.

 

[MattKing]

A lot of businesses have off-site storage of records that may be of use for clients or customers.
It is entirely appropriate to have a standard charge for retrieval from those locations.
It is not appropriate to charge for identifying where those records are stored - i.e. figuring out where you put your own files!

 

[beemermark]

If you were a really nice guy you would do it for free. Of course if you were that nice you probably would have shot the wedding for free. Only you can determine how much your time is worth. As an Engineer who owned his own business once upon a time I had a per-determinded price per hour on my time. Since you don't even know if you can find the negatives after 9 years I'd suggest something like "I'm not sure if your files are retrievable after this amount of time since files are deleted to free up digital space. However, for $xxx I will do a preliminary search to determine if they are retrievable. If I find they are retrievable, I will give you new pictures for $xxx". The idea that you should keep negatives/files forever is ridiculous.

 

[AgX]

If you were a really nice guy you would do it for free.

I do not get this point of yours. Retaining negatives or files at least was the/a common business practice. It yielded the photographer control of the prints and a second time a profit.

Thus of course not only the material costs, but also the added cost for retrieving the negative and setting up print controls for maybe just one single print, and a profit, had been calculated already into the price for a reprint.

 

[mgb74]

"civil servants" should quietly give thanks to taxpayers for continuing to pay an agency that stops caring for photos for which it had assumed responsibility. After all, that keeps them happily insulated from the lives of people who actually try to create value.

How true. Those damn civil servants who waste our money (and their time):
making sure our food is safe to eat
monitoring our air, water and soil to prevent pollution
teaching our children
conducting basic research into diseases that no private company would fund

I could go on, but you get the idea.

 

[jtk]

I think you are confusing the words in Ron's response to support your political views. Agency refers to a private agency/business. The business transferred the photos to a government archive. Perhaps, we really should quietly thank the civil servants who established such an archive and manage it well, even when faced with constant assault on worthwhile government spending.

 

[jtk]

The photographer didn't go into business to provide a service. That wasn't his job.

If a citizen wants to find photos in a government system s/he or his/her lawyer will look for it if she/he isnt willing to pay the photographer handsomely for new prints, assuming the photographer is willing.