Commercial Sessions: Work created for use by a business. This would include any work created for mass distribution and or sale. These also include use for Advertising, Marketing, Public Relations, etc.

I may make an exception for the use of the images for any self promotion at public as well as at "pay-per-view" web sites as long as images are not sold, printed or otherwise and that only low resolution images are displayed. Images for these uses may be classified as Portrait sessions and billed as such.

Contact me for a quote regarding your project

A word about copyright

The Copyright Act protects photographers by giving the author of a photograph the exclusive right to reproduce the photograph. This includes the right to control the making of copies.

It is illegal to copy or reproduce these photographs elsewhere without the authors permission, and violators of this will be subject to its civil and criminal penalties.

To obtain copies of professional photographs we urge you to contact the photographer/copyright owner. Photographers are happy to discuss options for reproducing photos with you. Having difficulty in determining who the copyright owner is or how to locate them? First check both the front and back of a print for a copyright notice; if it is a school, sports or similar type photo you may want to contact the institution where the photo was made. You can also contact PPA's Service Center at 800-786-6277 for help in locating a professional photographer.

A glossary of photogher terms

Creative fee
This is the fee that a photographer charges for concepting and creating images and takes into account creativity, experience, degree of difficulty, specialized equipment, and perhaps usage (although usage may be a separate line item). This term reflects photographer's desires to be paid based on our experience, our ability, and on the benefit gained by the client from using the fruits of our creative processes, rather than simply on how long we work.

Day rate
An out-of-date term that use to signify the minimum amount a photographer would be paid when shooting for a client, with additional money owed if multiple images were used or if images were used particularly large (see "space rate"). The term has come to mean the flat rate that photographers are offered for shooting for a publication, and disregards experience, ability, degree of difficulty, and benefit gained by the client. When being paid solely for our time, it can also lead to arguments over full and half days, and even hourly rates. Most day rates are barely enough to cover our CDB (see above), never mind make a profit. As professionals, we should be compensated for our creativity (see creative fee above) and for the benefit gained by our clients from using our images (see space rate).

Exclusivity
A description of rights granted which refers to your ability to re-license the image to another client. If you grant your client exclusive rights to an image, you are agreeing not to re-license that image to anyone else. Exclusivity can have limitations of time, geography, or topic, for instance, but in all instances any grant of exclusivity should receive additional compensation.

License (noun)
Because photographers as copyright holders have the sole right to control the distribution of our work by, "sale, lease, rental, or lending", a license is a contract which grants the right to use an image in a certain way, in a certain place, for a certain period of time, to someone else. A license should specifically state how large the image may be used, how many times, in what specific media format(s), and for how long. It should also state any exclusivity (see above) restrictions, or should state "non-exclusive". All rights not specifically granted remain with the copyright holder, and a clause to that effect should also be a part of any license.

License (verb)
To license an image is simply to grant a license (see above) for its temporary use. As photographers, we should license images for use, not sell them outright.

Model release warranties
A warranty (see below) that, in effect, asks us to guarantee that the client will never be sued for using an image of a person or thing. As with any guarantee that is beyond our control, this is an unreasonable request. As part of a contract, we might reasonably be asked to provide a signed release from the subject on request, and even to testify on the client's behalf should a case go to trial (provided we are compensated for our time), but we should not be asked to warrant that over which we have no control.

Space rate
A rate of compensation tied to how much space (1/4 page, full page, etc.) our photos occupy and preferred by photographers as compensation is directly tied to the benefit gained by a client from using our images. Editorial assignments all used to be billed with the day rate (see above) as a guaranteed minimum against the space rate. In other words, if the day rate were $650, but the publication ran one photo at half page size worth $500 and a second photo at quarter page size worth $300, then the photographer would be due an additional $150 (500+300-650=150) upon publication. In a system where advertising rates are billed based upon how large an ad runs, it is only fair that photographers also be paid for how large a photo runs. If a client gets more benefit by running the image larger, then the photographer should be compensated accordingly.

Unauthorized use
The use of an image for which a specific license has not been granted. Remember, a use must be specifically granted, otherwise it remains with the copyright holder. The law is very clear: it is up to the end-user to obtain a license to use a copyrighted work before doing so, otherwise the use is unauthorized.

Usage
How, where, and for how long a copyrighted work has been licensed to an end-user by the copyright holder.

Warranties
These clauses within contracts ask one or both parties to pledge that some act or circumstance will or will not occur. These clauses may or may not be reasonable when the acts or circumstances are within our control, for instance when we are asked to warrant that the photographs will be original and that we are the exclusive copyright holder. This protects the publisher from an unethical photographer who steals another's work and then sells it as his own, for example. However, if we are asked to warrant against anything that involves a third party, for instance, "...will not infringe upon the personal or proprietary rights of or give rise to any claim by any third party", we may end up being held liable for something we could not control and we should not be asked to guarantee that.