Tough situation, help please.

[texkam]

My wife designs stores for Starbucks. She recently had to remodel a store (the one in Frisco that got rammed). I decided to shoot some pics at the pre-opening party for the purpose of. 1) Personally documenting her work (we were both proud of how it came out) and 2) to give a CD of lo-res images to the manager (a nice guy who's also proud of his store) with the undestanding that he is free to do with them whatever he wants (post on the store's FB page etc.). I don't care where the lo-res images end up.

Fast forward... My wife's boss wants to know if he can have a hi-res image/s to use in a presentation to Seattle. No good deed goes unpunished right? I knew I should have left my camera at home. Should I asked to be compensated for the hi-res file/s, essentially forcing him to use his P&S to take his own, making me look like a turd and losing boss points for my wife? I'm inclined to smile and give him what he wants. …. Thoughts?

[pbyd]

From my point of view it looks like you already set the free use when you offered images for use to the store Mgr.
When you have worked behind a camera as long as I have you will no longer bring a camera anywhere. This is the sad part of shooting full time for over 40 years, it becomes a job. If I shoot images, I am going to be paid.
For the brownie points your wife will get it might be to your advantage to give up the images, after all you were shooting for fun and your wife.
See if they will give you photo credit when they use the image.
Wayne
Photography by Design

[HotHolly]

Originally Posted by texkam

Should I asked to be compensated for the hi-res file/s, essentially forcing him to use his P&S to take his own, making me look like a turd and losing boss points for my wife? I'm inclined to smile and give him what he wants. …. Thoughts?

Ick. They won't understand why you are asking for money now. And even if they do, it's gonna leave bad vibes there. I'd give it to them, with the understanding its for ____________, and ask for a line credit if they use the images.

If you are a kick ass commercial photog, and everyone knows it - then I'd says sure, and hand them a bill. I suspect that isn't you, or you wouldnt have asked.

And I think the line credit should say THIS AWESOME PHOTO WAS TAKEN BY MARK. MARK IS AWESOME. Then ask for free coffee for life.

[dcnctx]

Give it to him free of charge, (your gut is already saying give it away) licensed for his presentation in Seattle. Make it look beautiful and put your logo at the bottom for all the brass in Seattle to note. Good luck - live and learn. (I see now that I concur with Holly)

[athompson]

Mark: agree with Holly.
-ANDY

[ka5txl]

Originally Posted by HotHolly

And I think the line credit should say THIS AWESOME PHOTO WAS TAKEN BY MARK. MARK IS AWESOME. Then ask for free coffee for life.

I kinda agree with Holly, but IMHO thier coffee sucks and is overpriced but if you can get it free for life go for it

[SCone]

Let him know all you want in return is your name out there. Logo the image and/or credit at the end of the presentation. Let him know that you would be happy to put together more shots for him or even gather shots from other stores.... of course, the additional work would be at a price......

[texkam]

From my point of view it looks like you already set the free use when you offered images for use to the store Mgr.

True, as stated, I don't care where the lo-res images end up.

Logo the image and/or credit at the end of the presentation.

They all have a small watermark, which I heard they don't like/want, so I'm assuming getting credit at the end of the presentation may be a challenge.

Let him know that you would be happy to put together more shots for him or even gather shots from other stores.... of course, the additional work would be at a price.

In addition to repaying the store mgr. for his kindness to my wife throughout the project, that was kind of my motivation, to land some commercial work that the regional office can't or doesn't want to spend their time doing.

They won't understand why you are asking for money now

I am asking for money now because they are asking for something else. They (the regional office, Seattle, or their Aunt Beatrice) are free to use anything I gave the store mgr. ...any of the images on that CD are now theirs. What I have a bit of a problem with is her boss asking for a free, hi-res, non-watermarked image that isn't even on the "freebie" CD.

Bottom line is, he wants to know if I got a wide angle shot of the front counter. Well I did, but I didn't include it on the CD because it had people milling around making it an unacceptable shot for this purpose (trying to make the store look awesome - see pics), but his presentation that he wants this photo for, is for informational purposes only so the distracting people are not an issue. I could just lie and say "nope, didn't get any of that", but I'll probably process up the shot he wants and give it to him non-watermarked with a "request" for photo credit and let it ride. So I guess now this just turns into a vent. Sigh. Thanks for all the input guys. Live, learn. : )

IMHO thier coffee sucks and is overpriced

H-e-e-e-e-y.

[bryanlindsey]

You're stuck, you gotta give the photos or else your wife will pay the price.

Get what you can for them (credit, coffee, etc.), but you know what you have to do in the end...

[texkam]

Yep. Kind of sux, but oh well.

FYI, when you have a wife that works for Starbucks you have a house full of free coffee. Well..... she earns it. : )

[srwatters]

If photography is your business, why not write off the cost as a marketing expense? If it's not a normal income source for you, I would ask why you want money for these images.

Just my $.02

[carrbowl]

You could say that if you can get your name out there for promotional purposes you can justify giving it to them for free. Otherwise as a business person you can't. And ifyou have to do that one photo for them you have to do X amount of photoshop work which will cost X dollars. I think it will put you in a tough spot though!!

[srwatters]

Originally Posted by carrbowl

You could say that if you can get your name out there for promotional purposes you can justify giving it to them for free. Otherwise as a business person you can't. And ifyou have to do that one photo for them you have to do X amount of photoshop work which will cost X dollars. I think it will put you in a tough spot though!!

Or you can say you did this work as part of a proposal to do work for them. There is a real cost in the travel & time. I do this for proposals that I write for contract engineering jobs.

Of course it wouldn't hurt to contact your tax accountant or CPA...

[Jake]

Not sure why it bothers you really. You don't mind them using the photos on the internet for free, but you mind them using them for a presentation? Sure it's going to take a few extra minutes to burn a CD or upload the hi-res files, but still.

I say let them use them at this point and not to stress about it.

[doctahjones]

since you already offered these photos for free (even though it was really for the low rez ones), i would tell him that normally you'd be paid for high rez stuff, but in this case you'd trade for a gift card or something. i'm sure a gift card is something he could do -easily-. cash is usually harder (has to go through channels and such).

this way your photos will be seen by people in seattle (marketing exposure), you'll get some "compensation" (free coffee), and you'll set his expectations incase he has some other work for you.

at least that's what i do in similar cases. but then photography isn't my main source of income (yet). plus, bartering comes in way handier sometimes than money....