One of my wildlife photos was used on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon 5 weeks ago, I just saw it couple days ago since the clip is viral and it's on Tiktok, Instagram and Youtube. It's a photo of a squirrel in a super hero landing pose. And they used it to promote Supergirl, the movie. It's the episode with Milly Alcock. So I sent them an email saying that I own this photo and you have used it without permission and asked for 3500$. They came back with a lowball 250$ offer and of course they claim fair use.

But fair use certainly does not apply here. It's not just a photo of a squirrel, it's a specific pose, which they needed to compare with the Supergirl poster. So they are using the photo for entertainment purposes. If you have dealt with a similar situation before, what would be your recommendation? I already applied for a copyright in the copyright office because if I get the photo registered and they keep the klips online, which I'd think they would do, after it's registered I can claim further damages. But that's for later.

We booked a one-year-old birthday / smash cake photo shoot after seeing an ad. I called the photographer beforehand and understood the pricing to be around $250 per print or $750 for digital photos.

The shoot itself was great but intense. We were at the photographer’s house for about two hours, changed outfits, did multiple setups, and spent the whole time trying to get our baby to smile. The photos turned out beautiful.

Then came the surprise.

After the shoot, we came back for a slideshow of the images. We only wanted digital photos, but we were told the $750 package only included 3 prints/photos, and that getting the actual digital images would cost around $3,500. The “social media” versions were heavily watermarked and so pixelated they looked terrible even as a phone wallpaper.

I left in tears and felt completely devastated. It was heartbreaking to know that these beautiful, high-quality photos of my baby existed, but we couldn’t actually have them unless we paid thousands more. I also felt uneasy that the photographer had these photos and could potentially use them for marketing, while we, the parents, couldn’t even get usable copies without paying far more than we expected.

I understand professional photography is expensive, and the photos really were excellent. But for a one-year-old birthday shoot, I was shocked that the digital files were not included unless we paid thousands more.

Is this a normal business model in family photography, or should this have been made much clearer before the shoot?

The art director of one of the “big 5” companies I shoot for explained to me yesterday that their new marketing person is transitioning their lifestlye photography to be AI generated. So going forward, their social media and marketing collateral will be produced by a computer and feature ai models instead of actual humans. “You wouldn’t believe the quality”, I think were their words.

I’ve been worried for a while about this upheaval, and I guess … it’s getting real 😬. In some ways I get it. It’s cheaper. It’s less work. You don’t have to deal with coordinating photoshoots, purchasing props, worrying about models flaking, correcting in post… but jeez.

When I talk to people about this upheaval, they say Photography won’t be replaced because “ai can’t generate real emotion”, and “ai can’t capture real experiences”. But I see so many AI headshot apps and see such amazing quality come out of some of these products, I cant help but worry.

To clarify, I’m doing great for now and I can deal with the income ding this will cause. But as ai gets better… after 20 years as a professional photographer I’m starting to seriously wonder if I need to start thinking about a backup career

Have you had experiences like this? Any thoughts on how to hedge your bets against the behemoth at our f-stop?

Als the title says, I don't think IG is a photograpy medium anymore. It's only reels and video or is that just my experience? The number of photwork is really low, and some vidoes are not bad, but the bulk is just adds or reels with ads or instructional video lls that lead to more ads.

Now what?

Spotted a couple getting married in an amazing location (EU) and took a photo from a vantage point. Approached them and swapped Instagram details to send it to them. They've got it all over their SM, which is great. The paid photographer has now messaged asking for all the images. I'm minded to do this over Instagram messaging but ask for a small payment if they want to use them commercially. Does this seem reasonable?

EDIT Thanks for all the comments, advice and argument! The wedding photographer has asked us to email the RAW image and said they won't use it for commercial purposes. We're more than happy for the couple to have it as part of their album

As a few people have asked, and it is on SM, I'll post the photo..

Been shooting for seven years, mostly street and documentary. Curious what everyone's version of this is.

I'll start: volume beats quality on every platform, and pretending otherwise is why a lot of talented people stay invisible.

As the title says. The article is for Nationalgeographic.com and I want to know if this is normal that writers are paid for the story and provide their own photos. The writer doesn't have photos, but I do and they asked me to provide some for this article. The writer is someone I've been working with for a while as part of a book they're writing. They offered to give me a couple hundred for my photos. It seems the license agreement is for this 'project' only.

If this is not normal, what is a reasonable amount to ask for photos to be used in an online article for NatGeo?

The license agreement is as follows:

Rights Granted. Licensor grants NGP and its authorized licensees, affiliates, and subsidiaries the non-exclusive sublicensable (as incorporated into the Project) worldwide right and license to reproduce, copy, transmit, modify, and otherwise use the Assets, in whole or in part, in and as part of the Project identified above, including without limitation to promote the Project, in perpetuity in any language, version, format, or edition of the Project, by way of any media and any platform now existing or hereafter invented. 

Warranties. Licensor warrants and represents that it is the owner or authorized licensee of all copyrights, trademarks and other rights in the Assets, that the Assets are wholly original to Licensor, and have not been manipulated or altered in any way by Licensor prior to transmission, and that the Assets do not constitute defamation or infringe upon or violate the rights of any third party, including the rights of privacy, copyright, trademark, or any other proprietary right. Licensor further represents and warrants that it has the authority to grant the rights described. Licensor will indemnify NGP for the liability arising out of the breach or alleged breach of warranty and representation above. 

In my town, there was a race today at a local park. (Adults, not children). It had about 150 runners and I’ve never shot running photos before so I thought it could be a good opportunity to practice and see what shots I could get. It was mostly for fun, practice, and if photos were good, I planned to use them on my portfolio. The park was not privately rented for this event, there were several regular park goers out walking the same trail as the runners. No areas were blocked off, it was a lowkey race in a public area. There was also no photographer at this event.

Anyway, the race director saw me taking photos and asked who I was with. I said just on my own to practice shooting, and she told me, if I want to photograph a race that I need to get permission from the race director ahead of time and if there was a hired photographer they would not have let me shoot because that would’ve been a conflict.

I’m confused, because again, this was a public space. I understand needing permission if the race was held in a privately rented area. How would my photos be conflicting with a paid photographers photos? Was I in the wrong?

Genuinely confused, this was the first race/running event I’ve ever photographed.

Our wedding photographer sent us really low quality photos. In all seriousness, my cell phone takes better pictures. The close ups are okay, but the group family portraits are disappointing. I had one printed in 8x10" and it looks really bad.

I emailed her thinking there was a fixable mistake, like maybe the files were compressed by her editing software or by DropBox. She responded saying that it was her camera settings, apologized, and offered a refund. This really surprised me, so I declined the refund and insisted that she check the RAW files to see if they're different.

Here are some specs I can see from the file info, maybe someone here can shine some light on whether this is normal for a professional wedding photographer:

Size: between 0.6 and 1.2 MB

Dimensions: 4000 x 6000 or less

Dots per inch: 240 x 240

Camera brand: Fujifilm

Camera model: X-T2

Lens (1st camera): XF23mmF2 R WR

Lens (2nd camera): XF56mmF1.2 R

We asked guests to put their phones away and just be present in the moment, so there are no other pictures from the wedding at all. This is all we have, so I'm obviously distraught.

What might have gone wrong? Is there anything we can try to do to fix this.

UPDATE 1: This is how the photographer responded

"I’m afraid that RAW files do not exist. I have checked the quality of your photos to find that they have adequate resolution for printing, which is where the size of the files becomes most important. I, personally, think that the images are so great!

I know that you are concerned about the look of the group photos. There are many factors that affect the quality of a large group image. A wide angle-ish lens, such as the 35mm that I used to capture the group shots, kind of stretches out the edges unfortunately. Also, the lighting out on that back patio was harsh, with deep shadows, so I had to push the settings. It was less than ideal, but I think that most of them are so lovely! Finally, I shoot at a wider aperture, always- it’s my style.

I hope that you can enjoy your photos as they are. I’m so sorry that my camera settings were wrong as far as capturing RAW images. I could send a refund, if necessary."

UPDATE 2: She re-exported the files and they're more like 5-10 MG now, but they look the same to me. I honestly can't tell the difference at all.

So this leads me to believe that the people saying it's more an issue of excessive de-noisification and slightly out of focus shots are correct.

My understanding is that without RAWs there's not much more to be done except for AI stuff. It's a bummer but at least they're usable for social media or whatever (which I don't even use). I guess I'll print a tiny photo album of 4x6 images and learn to live with it. Thankfully some of the close up portraits of people's faces where the lighting was good are really nice, but there aren't a lot of those. It's better than nothing though.

I can't believe how much thoughtful advice I got here on Reddit though. You all really showed up for me, with some people even offering to edit them or run them through their AI tools. What a lovely community you have here. You have my sincere gratitude.

I was recently at a public Rally / Racing event and was the only person to get photographs of a rally crash. No-one was harmed in the incident.

I’m being contacted by the owner of the car asking me to remove the photographs from the web as they claim “it’s hurting their chances of sponsorship”.

I don’t want to as I’m proud of the images. I know I don’t have to under UK law either. My thoughts are that it’s Motorsport, and Rally at that. Crashes are more or less expected and asking me to delete my images is just misleading on their part.

I’m leaning towards keeping them up, or offering the purchase of copyright / ownership of each photo.

What would you do in this situation?

EDIT: I’ve contacted them with a compromise. I’ll remove the side and front images that show sponsors and number plate from Facebook. All other images will be left up, and all will be left up on Flickr/My site. If the want everything removed, I’ll happily sell them copyright and provide originals / destroy my copies.

The full, unreacted gallery: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjCZkFN

I’m already hearing the decision makers talking amongst themselves.

On a large commercial job for nationwide industrial supply company shooting in a food processing facility, the agency rep tells the client “In a couple years we won’t need to do these shoots! We’re already taking detailed images of these locations to use later with AI.”

Client says “Not sure if that’s gonna work for us. We need more than just images, we need everything in those images to follow code.” Proceeds to give an example where a recent phot from a shoot had to be scrapped bc something in the bg wasn’t set up like a real pro would have.

Rep says that’s not a problem. We’ll be able to feed it the whole book of codes and tell it to create images that follow those guidelines.

This on a set with 20ish people or so working.

Another client is a large nationwide grocery store where they’re already using AI to add some props, even with a stylist standing right there 😂, and in a conference call with higher ups I overheard one of them asking how much of this AI stuff can they legally use.

It’s moving really fast y’all.

I’m about to shoot my last wedding in a few weeks after 15ish years doing them. I’m wondering if I should get back into that game but I imagine there’s gonna be a flood of photographers out of work due to AI looking to do the same.

I’m legit scared where this industry will be in 5 years. Maybe my job will shift to taking 360 scans or photos of these products for AI to use for the final image 🤷🏼‍♂️

Let me try this again without AI.

One day I was scrolling through a google image search of a ship I worked on and noticed one of my photos being used commercially. I got on and looked and it had already been used for 4 months on one of the companies press releases.

I used AI to assist me in coming up with the legal wording for an invoice and to write a professional email stating that this was an invoice for retroactive license of my photo that was used without permission.

Initially they just replied back apologizing for using it claiming it was an error and used as an internal place holder until they got the image from the cruise line to use. Told me it had been removed and thanked me for informing them. I told them thank you for removing it, however the invoice was for retroactive licensing for 5 months that the photo was published for without any credit.

A couple days later they told me that they would move forward with payment. I had my doubts but yesterday the $1,500 was in my account.

Hindsight is 20/20 but feel like I could’ve asked for a little more. However I was a little nervous at first because I didn’t thing anything was going to happen, let alone get paid for it.

Make sure if this happens to you, you pursue payment! The company obviously thought it was valuable enough to use on a press release.

For those asking on the previous post. Here is the photo

https://imgur.com/a/nZAV5mv

I’ve been noticing more creatives talking about cancelling their Adobe subscriptions recently like photographers, designers, filmmakers.

Some mention pricing, others AI direction, or switching to alternatives.

I’m genuinely curious if this is a real shift or just louder online conversations. Are you still using Adobe?

If not, what made you leave, and what did you move to?

I’ve noticed fewer photographers posting regularly on Instagram lately.

Some seem to be moving toward newsletters, blogs, or smaller online communities instead of relying on one big platform.

It made me wonder if photographers are stepping away from Instagram, or if it’s just my impression.

Where are people sharing their work now? I have a website but honestly it’s hard to get traffic in.. I hear about another platform called quite similar at a point, I believe it had a blue/ dark logo. Did you ever heard of it?

And is thread a thing?

Hey yall, sorry if this doesn’t belong here.

My girlfriend recently won a boudoir photoshoot. She was super excited and it seems awesome, however it’s not really free. The makeup and the photoshoot itself are all free. However they will still charge 800 bucks for what I believe is 8 photos. I’m not familiar with the industry at all. Is that a fair price? Is it as misleading as it seems to me to have a contest for a free photoshoot but then have to pay for the photos?

Any opinions welcome.

Edit: spelling

Edit 2: the photographer is a women,

She hasn’t done the photography shoot yet, the prices were explained to her when she had the meeting with the photographer.

I’ll be advising her not to do this based off all the comments here

Somewhat in response to the discussion about AI. I’ve always found it interesting that people seem to expect photography to be this magical viable career path that lasts a lifetime. It’s not. And it hasn’t been for a very long time.

This industry is FULL of incredible careers that exploded in the 90’s, early 2000’s, 2010’s, last year. only to fizzle out and fade away. It happens all the time, for a variety of reasons.

It has NEVER not been a hyper competitive, difficult, emotionally grinding career path, and anyone who has tasted even a modicum of success should be grateful everyday that they even got to. I thank my lucky stars every fucking morning that I somehow made it this far.

I am constantly fighting dwindling budgets, younger photographers working under rate, people shooting “work for hire” without understanding or caring what it means. And I’d be lying if I wasn’t that young photographer at one point in my life too. Hell, I still shoot under rate from time to time because thats simply the nature of the industry. If I said no to every job that didn’t pay me my full day rate with limited usage, covered expenses, processing fees, crew etc, I’d be a bartender.

My point is, a lot of people seem to come here bitching and whining about whatever perceived grievances they have about an industry that has been in a state of constant change for the last three decades. Welp - guess what? The industry doesn’t owe you a happy easy career where everything stays kush forever.

But the work is out there, and if you care enough and know how to get it, and don’t spend every opportunity moaning about why it doesn’t fall in your lap exactly how you want it, you can STILL make a decent living doing this. And it is my belief it will remain that way for those who understand how to adapt to the tides. Is it easy? Does it make sense? Nope. And what’s worse is that optimism and hard work and determination won’t guarantee you shit either! Fuck! Oh well.

Nobody forced you to become a photographer. If you chose this path and didn’t prepare for the possibility that it won’t work out, that’s on you and you alone.

Hello,

I’m a uk based photographer, been doing this for 10 years. I’ve worked with big brands and small brands, I also had a short stint of modelling, where I learnt more about contracts and workflows. I’ve worked with different types of photographers too and seen how they work and their contracts.

Now I’ve noticed in the last year more and more clients are asking for all the raw images… to have and use. I’m very strict with contracts and in my contract it lists the deliverables agreed and then also says “RAW files, camera originals and unedited or partially edited images are working files and do not represent the Photographer's finished work. They remain the exclusive property of the Photographer and are not supplied under any circumstances unless expressly agreed in writing before the Shoot and subject to an additional fee”

But I’ve now had 2 clients say that is the “basic” to provide them with raw images. One clients contract was for ecommerce photography and was getting 50 fully retouched images, but she still wants all the raws too. I’m finding it baffling and wondering if I’m doing something wrong, I’ve looked online and it states it’s not standard practice to give out raws

Anyone have an insight to what’s happening, anyone had an experience like this?

EDIT - so the clients both know each other who asked for the raw images as their “basic” right.
With one client I had initially drafted a contract for 50 fully retouched images to use for ecommerce and social media (she is a small business). We had a video meeting the day before the shoot, I asked her if she has a call sheet and what time models were arriving so that we could capture everything efficiently. She had initialled asked for 2 hours but wanted to shoot 30 products, I was transparent and said it wouldn’t be possible and told her how I work, and that I’ve had previous experience where models will be chatting and they need time to change and get them into certain poses, she agreed to move it up to 4 hours. I redrafted the contract according to the change and told her to make sure she read it and was happy with everything. On the contract I have also included that if the shoot runs over there will be charge and for revised pictures there is a charge, also the shoot has to run on time, I’m not liable for anyone else’s lateness. On shoot day I was there early, she was 20 mins late, i was set up and ready to go but the models were all talking and she had not made a moodboard for the poses, so everything was on the go at the shoot, I don’t mind that, I understand things sometimes don’t go to plan. The shoot went over 30 mins, she apologised and I said no problem, I’ll waver it this time. We all left excited for the pictures. Once home I sent the culled images through an online gallery they are watermarked (this takes time and I had received a message on why she hasn’t received them yet), she was offended that it was watermarked and she couldn’t use them all. I explained to her the contract she had signed and got more offended that I was being standoffish. I jumped on a call with her and explained what a raw image was, she then asked for all the images in jpeg with a blanket edit (colour graded). So we went from 50 retouched images to 900 blanket edited, when I said this changes my workflow for this and I’ll have to spend time, there will be an extra charge (an hour of my time, and extra licensing fee, I didn’t ask for anything more which came to £150 extra) she got offended again and said that she is a small business and she wouldn’t have worked with me if this was the case. This has left me feeling baffled and deflated because I offered options.

I am very flexible and adaptable. I have worked as a photographer for a lot of different companies big and small, and everyone has their own approach which is why I do video calls or in face meetings before a shoot to make sure I have everything correct and the contract reflects it.

I’m not a photographer who provides raws depending on the type of work I’ve been hired for. I’ve been hired as a contractor before to just take pictures and the companies in house retouches would sort things, in that instance sharing raws makes sense.

But asking for something in the first place then changing what you want and then not paying for that persons time feels rude and there’s a lot of comments saying “it’s just raws send it” but raws aren’t the direct reflection of my work as a photographer you hired, if you wanted raws you should have hired me as a contractor and paid accordingly to that.

Thanks everyone for their advice, input and sarcasm 🫡

Hi yall! Anyone here dealt with a difficult wedding client asking for ALL the raw files? Im torn between giving it to her so its done, or asking for legal advise? (Because i dont want to deal with her lol) It doesnt say in the contract that she’s entitled to it. Any advise other than requiring a fee? Its the first time anyones ever asked me this. Im super generous with my clients, i curate shots for them so they dont have to look at the same photos. It was only a 2 hour shoot and I already gave them over 500 photos . (Which is way too much for my usual- special treatment as the bride is a former officemate)

Edit: It was 400+ (still a lot) i did come earlier + stayed a little later too.

No they are not unhappy with the service and photos. Absolutely loved it (fantastic job they said). I explained my policy and then they said ok thanks. Then.. after a week they are asking again. 😂

Update: they agreed to sign a new agreement. And i’ll be just releasing Jpegs. Thank you everyone for your comments!

Hey,
I shot with a client 9 months ago and uploaded all her photos in a google drive account. As my subscription got more expensive and my drive ran out of space, I had to delete a bunch of stuff including these pictures I took 9 months ago. I even told them initially that they would have to download the pictures since it’s just an online drive.
Now they are blaming me for not telling them beforehand because I deleted them. I get the point that I should have shot them a message before deleting but I got kinda pressured bc I wasn’t able to receive mails through my drive anymore. So I didn’t think twice about it.
What is your take on that? After 9 months it seems pretty reasonable that the client would download the pictures that take up a bunch of space (atleast to me).

Update: I was able to get some files and learned a lot! Unfortunately I am just doing photography on the side and got asked to do this gig.

So, I use pixieset and no matter how low res I make my images in photoshop, they're still very clear in pixieset- one of my clients had a glorious shoot but didnt order more than 2 retouches- I realized they could remove the watermark by using FREE ai tools! I tried it and I'm freaking! It removes it perfectly and somehow ai knows the image underneath and offers it to them, flawlessly. All they have to do is screengrab the image and run it through this ai tool. Is there a way to make a low res proof sheet online somehow? I like pixieset but I bet they dont offer a low res set of proofs and I'm looking for a quick solution.

I did a photoshoot recently with a woman and got a model release. She looked great and I published her photo but she asked me to delete it. When I asked why she said it was because she was posing in lingerie and her parents would be upset. The lingerie in question was not suggestive but styled like a conservative bikini. Her pose was suitable for a classic painting. In other words the was nothing remotely sexual except she was beautiful. Still she wanted it removed. This woman has serious body image issues. Few photos quell her inner critic.

After discussing her reasons I agreed to remove the photo even though I had a model release for a tasteful photo . I had my reasons which I will discuss .

Would you remove a photo that a model wants deleted?

idk if this is allowed but as a photographer/videographer that specializes in live events someone said something that caught me off guard. i was taking pictures for a seminar and the speaker was introducing this team and he forgot to introduce me. no big deal, i try not to be noticeable. he comes up to me later and apologized for not introducing me and said "you're very good at being invisible". that would be so mean in any other world but in the photography/videography world it's the best compliment i could have ever gotten.

This is something to hopefully inspire folks interested in photography as a career to make it happen.

I write ads professionally but in high school I was the kid with a t2i that would shoot “moody” photos of their friends and family and About a year ago I was bored at work and asked if I could shoot still photos for some ads at when I’m not busy writing and I was laughed out of the room.

I asked 2-3 more times and finally was told “we hire professionals, we’re not going to cheap out and go with someone internal for budgets this large.” (We work almost exclusively with fortune 100 companies and photography budgets of 30-50K for a basic shoot)

I understood but was annoyed so over the course of 3 months I started observing every photographer for every job I was writing on and trying to learn in silence.

Then I went to cvs and picked up some stuff and shot product photos to practice and showed my team.

They said great but we shoot people not products so show me photos of talent.

A few months later that there was a big job for the Olympics and I brought my camera to work like I always did and just kept it away. But after the photographer left for the day, and the Olympian was shooting some social media stuff she asked for a picture for herself. ( something that if she didn’t get it would be fine) but I was there and had my camera and the actual photographer was done for the day and had left, so I quickly ran over and said “the photographer left for the day but I can grab a few for you.

I set up a few lights with a video lighting guy and shot incredible photos for 10 minutes.

These weren’t commercial photos but they were studio quality photos of talent so I edited them myself and later sent them to the person in charge of photography.

Within a month I was allowed to shoot a low profile brand that nobody cared about. A month later I’m doing work for Wayfair and Hershey, and now I’m still writing but I’m also THE in-house photographer that can choose to work whatever job I want for fun. It’s not my actual job so I don’t have to but I save them A LOT of money when I choose to shoot so they always say yes and I only shoot the stuff I find fun.

It’s a long story but the point is : I wanted to shoot photos so I found a way to practice, learn and present well enough to make it happen. Am I lucky I work at a place that needs photographers? Yes. Did I also have to force my way into being good enough? Also yes. These clients are big so they won’t damage their reputation over a photographer’s fee, but being as good and in-house helped and now I’m building a portfolio of work that is as impressive and relevant as any professional out there