You may have wondered, with all the shots being taken on the day of the shoot, who actually owns the images being captured? Well this is a great question, and one that you should know before entering into a contract with your photographer of choice.
By law, the photographer owns the copy right to the images, but as the client you get to dictate or request the required image usage.
When we quote on a photography job for a client or ad agency, the first set of questions we ask usually helps clarify this: “Do you, as the client, want to own the images we produce for you? Do you have specific usage needs? Do have a time line with specific requirements?”
To understand this, let’s say you are looking to work with a photographer for a specific billboard campaign. This campaign calls for a certain amount of billboards for a specified period of time. In this case it would be much more cost effective to ask your photographer to only charge you for a usage fee for these specific media buy images. With the requirements of this hypothetical billboard campaign you would not need to own all images shot, saving you money while still accomplishing your needs.
Having said this, we at JIVE often produce a finite amount of images for our clients and include all rights to the images when sending them over. This practice began out of a want to be more flexible, and we have found that adapting this way has helped us support small businesses with smaller budgets, but more needs.
In conclusion, the best practice is to always ask questions and to have a clear goal in mind when it comes to how many images you want to have by the end of the project.
A good photographer will work with you to accomplish any ask!
