Not quite established but friend wants me to do photos for his business?

[Blondephotog]

I have been doing photography for a couple years just as a hobby. I eventually want to go probut I still have TONS to learn. I feel I have a few decent photos that I've posted on facebook. I don't even have a "real portfolio" established. But one of my friends just asked me to do photos of his stable business to put on his website. I would love to do the photos but I have no idea how to go about doing this. How do I copyright the photos? Do I charge him for this and how much? How do I get the photos to him? Etc. Please help! Thanks a bunch!

[mokka]

This is just a quickie reply because I feel you'll find the best answers for these sort of questions can be found in the articles on this website and elsewhere, so in short.

You don't need to do anything to copyright your photographs, in almost every legislature in the world they are your copyright as soon as you take them. There may be things you can do to protect your intellectual rights, some countries run registries of copyrighted images for example, but it isn't essential.

If it's for a business then he will most likely want them as digital copies, enabling him to use them in brochures, website as he sees fit. Generally, delivery via post on a CD is the best way to do this.

You should definitely charge, these photos are going to earn him money and you're spending time and effort producing them for him, so yes, charge. You'll get a lot of opinions, many of them conflicting on how much to charge, it's dependent on a lot of things which are specific to you, you'll have to do your own research to find out what effects the price, how much and to what extent, but in short these are the factors you should look at (in no particular order):

• What are your variable costs? (the costs of doing this commission, e.g. travel, postage and packaging)
  What are your overheads? (at the very least you are consuming a fraction of the cost of your camera to do this, but there will be other overheads too most likely, insurance?)
  What do you bring to this commission in terms of effort, skills, inspiration, creativity? unique selling points of you as a photographer.
  What exactly does he want to use the photographs for, how large? how extensively? how long for? who will see them?
  What is his earning potential from these photographs, how much are they worth for him?
  How many hours will this take of your time?
  How many photos are being requested?
  Is he requiring any spe******t skills from you?
  How much do you need to be making in profit to support your lifestyle?
  What do other photographers in your area charge? Having taken all of the above into consideration does this mean you are expensive, average or cheap compared to other photographers, what justifies this?

Other than this, look for free internet courses, books etc on photography business and running a business in general.

[andyw]

Originally Posted by Blondephotog

I have been doing photography for a couple years just as a hobby. I eventually want to go probut I still have TONS to learn. I feel I have a few decent photos that I've posted on facebook. I don't even have a "real portfolio" established. But one of my friends just asked me to do photos of his stable business to put on his website. I would love to do the photos but I have no idea how to go about doing this. How do I copyright the photos? Do I charge him for this and how much? How do I get the photos to him? Etc. Please help! Thanks a bunch!

DO IT.
BUT................... Do it on the understanding that you are not experienced at this sort of work and you ensure that your friend (client) is aware of this.

Copyright is yours (although in the US you need to register them to be able to take advantage of the legal system should you require) - that is established in the copyright law. You are giving him/her a license to use the images. There is plenty of info about this on the web but basically you need a bit of paper which tells them what they can do with the images. Anything not on the paper then they can't do it.

PAY - absolutely you get paid, what that is is entirely upto you.
If currently you are not running a business then there are no business costs as such but you should at a bare minimum charge for your time and expenses.

You get the shots to them in whatever way you agree. Normally that would be either sending them to the client via ftp/e-mail etc or by use of a dvd/cd.