Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2010 13:35:36 -0500 From: sara steele <smsteele@wisc.edu> Subject: Charging for photos Message-id: <53F0E0AF46CD470EAED356FF773CC17E@SaraPC>
HI
I agree with Bill's comement that many societies will only get a few requests from indivdiuals per year for photogrqphs. WE have recently gotten one or two from new residents interested in what their house looked like years back. ..
You may think this response is too complex, but do some thinking before you arbitrarily set a figure for all photos, or be prepared to make exceptions. Here are some things to consider.
1. Your society's purpose. If your socieity is primarily geared to preserving and if sharing is a secondary, perhaps annoying activity, of course you will set a fairly high fee. On the other hand, if you have a major goal of making people aware of the various events and people who make up your area's history, then sharing photos is in line with this goal and making photos from your collection very easily available is ione way of carrying it out.
2. The scope of content in your photo collectioin. Bill's comment seemed to indicate that their collection doesn't give high priority to people. People are the power behind and the fecipient of most historical events. Some societies will limit their photos to buidlings and events. Thus the kinda of issue and requests for photos may be different than those who also collect photos of former and present residents.
3. Handling fee--cost of getting a copy made. If someone has to take an original to a photo shop the cost both in terms of time and money is high. However, if you only have to click a couple of times
and take a scanned photo from you files and send it as a jpeg the cost in money is 0 and in time only a few seconds. If it takes special effort to share a photo you may want to set a handling fee regardless of your policy in terms of use.
4. Expected use of the photo by the person requesting it.
a. If it is for a means by which the person requesting the photo will make money the charge might be substantial. Check the WHS fee policy for use of photos. Bill made a good point about expecting your society to be acknowledged.
b. if it is for someone's personal collection, you might want to refuse if you do not know and trust the person.. ie, photos of small children
.
c.. If it is for a familly history or history report on the community, you might put a lower charge on the photo.
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5. Expected use of the photos by your society? if you see them as a major means of making money, then you will look for and promote the most saleable photos. If you are authoring news articles and booklets and using your photos extensively now that it is so easy to insert photos into text, you may not want to share photos widely until after your own item is out for sale. If you want to build an exhibit around them (those who have served in the miltiary, steps in planting tobacco, wedding gowns over the years) you may not want to release the best ones until after your exhibit.
6. Other factors
a. Is the person requesting the photo someway connected to the source of the photo or person or place in the photo? Should the source of photos be charged for copies of photos? Should the major provider of several photos be charged for copies of one or two photos? It annoys me to pay WHS a fee to use photos which originally were taken in this community.
b. Can you make an exchange Add photos to your collection in exchange for the copy you are providing? For example, if a newspaper wants a photo can you extract a couple of photos the paper has printed as an exchange?
Or get two or three more photos of the famiily, farme or business in exchange for the one you are sharing?
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c. Is there a value to you in terms of public relationsif you make the photo available at no or low cost? Example a few years ago one of our banks used several of our photos in ads We did not charge nor did we think to draw on that bank later for a donation. We were a little wiser later. One of oour members was building a bar andf grill wanted photos to enlarge for the walls. Someone in our membershjip made enough of a fuss that the member decided to donate $500. (In this case there were so many photos involved for his two buildings, that figuring per picture would have been extremely annoying The person wanting the photos brought in a professional photographer and reshot the photos he wanted, took care of the enlarging and raming.
d. Oops--that's still another factor. Should the cost be different if the person requesting a copy a member of the society?
Of course, if your society's role is only that of prserving, you may want to set a policy of not sharing any of your photos. Or ifyou are not trying to build a collection, you may simply want to set a policy of never sharing.
Sorry, this sounds so complex. but photos of people, buildings, and events are very important records of local history. Bbjectives and policies related to them need to be carefully thought through, instead of copying a general policy that some other society uses. Situations differ across socieities in terms of how they view their purpose and the role of their photos. .
Sara Steele
Text Archivist
Cottage Grove Area Historical Society.