AboutSteve Meltzer Expertise I am a professional photographer and I've been shooting for newspapers, magazines, commercial clients and artists for over 30 years.
I have shot stock photography for dozens of years and in 1977 created West Stock (Seattle, WA) which was one of the first to produce stock photo CDs and later one of the first to establish an online stock photo slaes site.
I have a new book on digital photography "PHOTOGRAPHING ARTS, CRAFTS AND COLLECTIBLES (Lark Books, 2007)which is available at Amazon.com, eBay.com and in bookstores like Barnes & Noble and Borders. I have another book, CAPTURE THE LIGHT which will be puiblished in November, 2008.
I write 20-30 feature articles and columns for regional and national publications a year.
My education includes studying with photographers like Cornell Capa, Duane Michels and Oliver Gagliani (from the Ansel Adams Center.)
Question Hi, I was wondering if you could explain to me the logic behind an average little photography studio where people get their children's wallet sized portraits and so forth taken owning the copyrights to the picture even though the subject/customer paid them to take it for them, not the other way around? The customer isn't being paid to be a model for the photographer, the photographer is being paid to take a picture of them and for them. The issue I'm looking at specifically is one of the few later pictures taken of my deceased grandfather by a photographer visiting the nursing home he was at on Christmas. The pictures I believe had stickers on the back saying "no copying" or something to that affect and places like Walmart won't copy anything that looks professional rather than home snapshot. My mother's copy of that picture got ruined with water. My aunt and grandmother probably each still have one but how am I supposed to get a copy if no place will copy it and I don't have any idea the name of the people that took it or how to find them to get them to print me a copy? To me it doesn't seem right that some photographer my family paid to take a picture for us (again, not the other way around, he didn't hire us to be models or something...) can essentially hold my grandfather's image hostage like this. It's the only later in life picture there is of him. Can you explain this to me or give me some suggestion? Again I don't have any idea who the original people that took it in 1996 were and even if I did I don't know how I would get for example my aunt's copy to them without my aunt being afraid of losing it. Thanks for any clarification you can provide.
Answer The current copyright laws give the creator of a photo or a book etc ownership of their creation.
It protects the writer or photographer from their work being used without permission or payment.
That's the law and it really should apply to commercial reuses and uses where a photo is used to sell something. But it is often used to wring a few extra bucks from someone like you. What I am speaking about is the spirit of the law and the way it gets misused.
And this happens a lot and sometimes its even crazier. I know people whose parents were married in the 1950s and had their wedding photographs done by a photographer who has since died and his studio is long gone. But because his name is on the pictures no one will copy them. And there's no recourse, its nuts.
The issue here is the photographer. The professional photographers I learned from were of the old school. They taught me that happy clients tell people about you and send you more business and then they came back themselves for more work. You make more money taking pictures then selling expensive reprints. And unhappy clients will kill you because they tell everyone that you are a jerk.
They taught me that when it came to a couple of extra prints you simply charged the cost of making the prints and built relationship.
But the problem is that there are too many "photographers" who don't know how to do business. Especially in many areas of photography where little or no experience is needed, just a big camera. They nickel and dime clients because they don't know any better and don't get the consequences.
I tell folks to always negotiate with the photographer before you hire them. Find out exactly what you are paying for and make it clear what you need. Especially when it comes to things like getting copies.
In the current situation I think you have two options. One is to call the photographer and ask for additional prints. If the price for these copies is crazy let the photographer know that you will tell everyone you know to stay away from him or her.
The alternative is to find a friend who has a flatbed scanner with their PC and ask them to make a scanned copy of the original. It won't be quite as good but you will have a copy.
