Wedding photos: who owns the rights?

[mcbook]

Morning all!

I'll be getting married next spring and am in the process of making the early arrangements.

From people I have spoken to it seems common for wedding photographers not to give your ownership of the photos they take at your wedding. You pay for the photos you want and album but never actually get the original digital files. Therefore, I have a couple of questions;

1. Is this actually true (my survey sample was small)?

2. Does anyone know a photographer willing to hand over complete ownership of the photos (we'll be getting married in Edinburgh)?

I appreciate that this question might make me seem like a tight-arse but my fiance and I aren't too bothered about a fancy album and would just like to have the photos available to print as and when we see fit.

I am more than happy to pay the costs associated with hiring a professional for a day but I would just rather own the pictures at the end of it.

[K87]

my sister give digital images if thats what you want.

http://jennytakesphotos.co.uk/pricing/

Not sure if she'd be willing to travel to edinburgh but can always ask if you want.

[mcbook]

Thats good to know - thanks!

I think I'll probably try to find someone more local though.

[andy-xr]

mcbook said:

Morning all!

I'll be getting married next spring and am in the process of making the early arrangements.

From people I have spoken to it seems common for wedding photographers not to give your ownership of the photos they take at your wedding. You pay for the photos you want and album but never actually get the original digital files. Therefore, I have a couple of questions;

1. Is this actually true (my survey sample was small)?

2. Does anyone know a photographer willing to hand over complete ownership of the photos (we'll be getting married in Edinburgh)?

I appreciate that this question might make me seem like a tight-arse but my fiance and I aren't too bothered about a fancy album and would just like to have the photos available to print as and when we see fit.

I am more than happy to pay the costs associated with hiring a professional for a day but I would just rather own the pictures at the end of it.

What you'll probably find is to effectively buy the copyright will cost you more than picking out all the pictures you like. Unless otherwise stated the photographer retains ownership of the copyright, and what you're buying will be the service, the product (prints/images) and usage. The photographer may want to use some of the images from your wedding in their portfolio, or shop window, to do so they need the copyright or usage rights to do that. There'll be a list of t's and c's that come with your wedding package quote, some will be opt in, others opt out.

I think if what you want is copies of the images on disc rather than to own the images, then you'd need to speak with your photographer and come to an arrangement. I saw Simpo Two replied on a similar thread yesterday to say he's able to give the happy couple (or whoever pays I guess) a CD containing the images that they can print if they want to

[TooLateForAName]

The copyright belongs to whoever takes the pic.

Its down to you to negotiate for the ownership or useage rights as part of the package that you agree. Remember that photographers look to make money on selling prints.

[mcbook]

TooLateForAName said:

The copyright belongs to whoever takes the pic.

Its down to you to negotiate for the ownership or useage rights as part of the package that you agree. Remember that photographers look to make money on selling prints.

I'm under no illusions that the photographer needs to make money. However, and I'll probably get flamed for saying this, GBP 500 - 1000 for a days work seems a little steep to me.

[davidd]

I was at a wedding recently, the photographer will give the happy couple hi res digital versions of all the photos for £500. Plus of course whatever he charged for the event.

Nice chap though and very good pictures.

D

[rottie102]

That's what I do with models, they get airbrushed, edited full res copies and can put them on their websites,portfolios etc.
However they sign the model release and copyrights belong to me.

[mcbook]

davidd said:

I was at a wedding recently, the photographer will give the happy couple hi res digital versions of all the photos for £500. Plus of course whatever he charged for the event.

Nice chap though and very good pictures.

D

Bargain

[JB!]

my sister recently photographed a wedding for a very cheap rate including 50 pictures of choice for the couple.

they were most upset when she sent a watermarked cd for them to choose the prints of choice from...

[Super Slo Mo]

mcbook said:

I'm under no illusions that the photographer needs to make money. However, and I'll probably get flamed for saying this, GBP 500 - 1000 for a days work seems a little steep to me.

No doubt someone who shoots weddings for a living will be along shortly, but it's not a single day's work.

There is a huge amount of work required in post production, which can take several days. The reality is that your Pro Wedding Photographer is probably doing close to a week's work for that £500 to £1000. To me that doesn't seem to be particularly poor value.

That's not taking into account the cost of the equipment that's required.

[cs02rm0]

It is steep.

We purposefully only chose a photographer that would give us high quality digitals. She was absolutely great, but not local to Edinburgh at all I'm afraid. She wasn't actually interested really in doing prints for everyone - it was all about selling a particular package with a set number of albums, etc. I guess it stops her having to deal with the odd £15 picture here and there and she can just concentrate on spending her days doing £XXXX shoots.

[mcbook]

Super Slo Mo said:

mcbook said:

I'm under no illusions that the photographer needs to make money. However, and I'll probably get flamed for saying this, GBP 500 - 1000 for a days work seems a little steep to me.

No doubt someone who shoots weddings for a living will be along shortly, but it's not a single day's work.

There is a huge amount of work required in post production, which can take several days. The reality is that your Pro Wedding Photographer is probably doing close to a week's work for that £500 to £1000. To me that doesn't seem to be particularly poor value.

That's not taking into account the cost of the equipment that's required.

I was expecting this post and I understand to a certain extent. If it's a week's work that I'm paying for, then ok. However, I have a suspicion that I need to pay for a week's work because the photographer doesn't have another job until next saturday and not because it actually takes him/her a full week to do the work.

[Andy M]

mcbook said:

I'm under no illusions that the photographer needs to make money. However, and I'll probably get flamed for saying this, GBP 500 - 1000 for a days work seems a little steep to me.

I'm not a professional photographer, but I have many friends who are. Here's my view 'from the sidelines':

A photographer is said to only be as good as his last piece of work. In an industry where the results are immediately apparent (in that it is very obvious when a photo is a bad photo), the photographer has to make sure that every shot he puts his name to is of a standard that it can be a calling card for future work.

As such, the 'days work' that you talk about probably isn't what it appears. For every hour shooting the tog will probably spend another two hours touching up those files and making sure that they represent a true reflection of the wedding day; so one days shooting becomes three days work.

The photos that come straight out of the camera are seldom of a quality that most people would be happy with, and for their own protection many togs won't consider handing these over (especially for £500).

£500 - £1,000 is bargain basement territory for wedding photography IMO; around these parts £5k+ isn't unheard of.

[mcbook]

cs02rm0 said:

It is steep.

We purposefully only chose a photographer that would give us high quality digitals. She was absolutely great, but not local to Edinburgh at all I'm afraid. She wasn't actually interested really in doing prints for everyone - it was all about selling a particular package with a set number of albums, etc. I guess it stops her having to deal with the odd £15 picture here and there and she can just concentrate on spending her days doing £XXXX shoots.

This is exactly what I'm after... I'm sure I'll find someone after a bit of searching.

[mcbook]

Andy M said:

As such, the 'days work' that you talk about probably isn't what it appears. For every hour shooting the tog will probably spend another two hours touching up those files and making sure that they represent a true reflection of the wedding day; so one days shooting becomes three days work.

.

Excuse my ignorance on this subject but what happened in the days before digital image manipulation?

Did everyone get crap photos?

[Don]

You get married once (supposedly).

Don't go cheap. Go for quality. View the portfolios of a couple of specialists.

We paid £1K fifteen years ago. Worth every penny. The shots were/are still great! That's got to be at least £2K today.

There's other things I'd economise on first...

[davidd]

mcbook said:

Andy M said:

As such, the 'days work' that you talk about probably isn't what it appears. For every hour shooting the tog will probably spend another two hours touching up those files and making sure that they represent a true reflection of the wedding day; so one days shooting becomes three days work.

.

Excuse my ignorance on this subject but what happened in the days before digital image manipulation?

Did everyone get crap photos?

Yes, well we did. Although that could be becuase we used a crap photographer and I am ugly

[Don]

mcbook said:

Andy M said:

As such, the 'days work' that you talk about probably isn't what it appears. For every hour shooting the tog will probably spend another two hours touching up those files and making sure that they represent a true reflection of the wedding day; so one days shooting becomes three days work.

.

Excuse my ignorance on this subject but what happened in the days before digital image manipulation?

Did everyone get crap photos?

Nope. They fixed em up beautifully in the darkroom.

[mcbook]

Don said:

You get married once (supposedly).

Don't go cheap. Go for quality. View the portfolios of a couple of specialists.

We paid £1K fifteen years ago. Worth every penny. The shots were/are still great! That's got to be at least £2K today.

There's other things I'd economise on first...

You make a good point, Don. I think I just need to accept that this thing is going to cost a st-load.

Problem is, wherever I think we might be able to make a little saving, it turns out to be really important; over budget on venue, over budget on food, over budget on wedding dress dress, over budget on photos...