Would you give your work away

Sometimes at cost only,looking long term and dependant on what other work the recipient could get for you........(y)
 
To give an example.........

I have done a reasonable amount of track day photography and as such skim through shots when sorting to sell. Sometimes you come upon THAT shot, and it's of someone who hasn't paid to purchase. As an amateur I really want that guy to contact me so he will get THAT shot, even if it's for free.
 
fracster said:
Sometimes at cost only,looking long term and dependant on what other work the recipient could get for you........(y)
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I agree, every case has to be taken on its own merits and sometimes you have to look at the long game. I gave some equine images away at the weekend to the people who are training our horse and they loved them, these people are minted and their daughter (the recipient) and her friends are all of a marrying age so I should be in the running at any forthcoming nuptials.

i also give some away to local charities I support but in these instances I am not looking to gain anything from it.
 
I have too, in return for the permission to use the shot myself for promotional purposes. :)
 
I give the farm any pics i take up there for use in advertising their farm shop, i now have total free range of the place to take pics but in return we get cheaper meat, horse looked after free ect. More of 'looking after each other' system. I was also asked last year to take some pics of the wedding marquee set up before it got trashed with the guests when one of them got married,something new for me.
 
Would you give your work away?
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Yep, can't imagine anyone paying good money for it!
 
Most of the pics I take that are any good are sold and the money goes to charity. It's just the way it is for me. I get pleasure from doing this and raising money for a cause very close to my heart. I suppose in that respect I give away most of my pics for free.

Having said that I did sell some and raised the money for new gear as I was upgrading.

Chris :)
 
yes and I did.

I released some balloons for some families who very sadly lost their babies late in pregnancy. I took photos of the balloons and of them going up and one of the photos was, IMHO perfect (as in, just what I REALLY wanted and the kind of photo I would want if I released balloons for my babies that I'd lost). So, yeh, depending on the situation and who to, - at the end of the day money doesn't bring you happiness and a gesture of "I'm really proud of this photo but it will hold more sentimental value for you, so you have it" kinda leaves you with a warm glow.
 
I give shots of friends and their kids to them (if they want them) for nothing. And maybe friends of those friends will want a shot and pay for it. I'm not that fussed as i shoot for fun anyway. But saying that, if there was a comercial shot of a scene, building etc yeah i would charge.
 
I think it rather depends on whether or not you are only (succesfully) doing commisioned photography to make a living...

If thats not your game, and you just take photos because you love it, why not give some stuff away?

I always hear far too much $$$$$ going on on here, it doesn't have to be about the bread man :D
 
Hacker said:
I agree, every case has to be taken on its own merits and sometimes you have to look at the long game. I gave some equine images away at the weekend to the people who are training our horse and they loved them, these people are minted and their daughter (the recipient) and her friends are all of a marrying age so I should be in the running at any forthcoming nuptials.
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No idea where that was going till the last two words

I was filling it in as I went along on the premise that we were playing the long game, quite disappointed with the ending.



No sons of marrying age then...:LOL:
 
I give pics away to family and friends too though.

TBH that's a learning thing for me, if I can produce images that other people want, that's great. I can't work ATM and photography is my release from reality. If I take a pic of my niece and she loves it, she can have it. However, once niece wants me to do a shoot for her and her mates in the summer, so they can have low res images for facebook and around "at cost" prints.
 
Hacker said:
I agree, every case has to be taken on its own merits and sometimes you have to look at the long game. I gave some equine images away at the weekend to the people who are training our horse and they loved them, these people are minted and their daughter (the recipient) and her friends are all of a marrying age so I should be in the running at any forthcoming nuptials.

i also give some away to local charities I support but in these instances I am not looking to gain anything from it.
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Bang on Colin,you/I know how the people we photograph generally work........:)
 
desantnik said:
I think it rather depends on whether or not you are only (succesfully) doing commisioned photography to make a living...

If thats not your game, and you just take photos because you love it, why not give some stuff away?

I always hear far too much $$$$$ going on on here, it doesn't have to be about the bread man :D
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^^^ (y)
 
Hacker said:
I gave some equine images away at the weekend to the people who are training our horse and they loved them, these people are minted and their daughter (the recipient) and her friends are all of a marrying age so I should be in the running at any forthcoming nuptials.
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Well, that's a little different from running an ad in the personals column.

Best of luck. Is it their daughter in particular you fancy marrying, or are there a number of candidates in the pool?
 
Just had an email from a friend we were at Padstow with, asking if he can have an image of the harbour to get a canvas done.

Needless to say he relentlessly took the micky for me staying out after the others went to bed taking shots of the harbour then getting up a 4:30am for the sunrise - now he want's the pics as canvas's!

The good news is he's a couple of colleagues who also want canvas's so I'll sell them :D
 
Friend or family, and it was a memory for them? Absolutely without any shadow of a doubt. If it was to help someone profit from the work? Erm.. NO :D

Friends and family deserve special treatment. I once had a friend who lives close to me ask how much he should charge another mutual friend for a print of a GREAT photo had taken. He eventually accepted it should be a freebie, as I feel charging mates, personally, is daft :D

Gary.
 
I gave away a £90 (at cost) framed print to a friend as her wedding present, of a photo from her weddnig which I took, as a surprise for her.

So, yes i do and I have.
 
I give them away to friends and family, and yesterday I was asked by Northwest Air Ambulance if they could use one of my pics on their website and portfolio of course I said yes and let them have it free, as its a great service they do (y)
 
My wife and I went through the horror of our first son being stillborn. The few snaps we took of Thomas on a camera phone are treasured by us beyond words.
I know in america there are photographers who offer their services to give couples those images to treasure. If I could find the courage to do that myself I certainly wouldn't be charging for those images but get the feeling I would feel better for giving those images away than any other image I'll take and charge for
 
Yes Gary I would - because I don't consider myself good enough at photography to justify charging someone.

Some of the pictures I took at the ring I gave away free when people pointed out they were in them.
 
Yeah but I always explain to the person that I am sending the picture to that they will have to pay for any more photos after october (when I get a media pass at Oulton)

Also, I make sure I get something out of it.

E.G free publicity, free tickets, free BSB tickets, laps in cars around Oulton etc.
 
depends, if it was for a local charity that I believed in, not one of these national ones that pay people a fortune then yes or if it was a friend.
 
The Camera club had an exhibition in the main church in Bolton, when it was
over i was asked if they could keep the three prints i had in there. They were
for their own use and not being sold so i let them keep them..
 
I will be lending/donating images of the French Pyrenees to a local children's hospice to use in next year's calendar, but will retain copyright to them.

Basically a local printing company has agreed to produce the calendars at cost price, I lend 12 images that the children at the hospice like and whatever they fetch goes completely to them, to pay for physios etc.

I'm not sure I'd "give away" images to companies, even though I'd look at the bigger picture. Cheaper yes but free, no :|
 
I did one today a 10x8 blow up, it was from a family snap, and needed a bit of work to get nice, it was a friend of a friends daughter who was killed on Saturday, she was only 23.
I don't look on that as work, I look at it as a favor to a very good friend (who's done a lot for me over the years) it's just a little payback really.
 
Hacker said:
I agree, every case has to be taken on its own merits and sometimes you have to look at the long game. I gave some equine images away at the weekend to the people who are training our horse and they loved them, these people are minted and their daughter (the recipient) and her friends are all of a marrying age so I should be in the running at any forthcoming nuptials.
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Just as an interesting update to this, Phil is a trainer at this yard and is one of the people I gave some images to last week. We were there again this morning to watch Zeus being ridden and as a direct result of the 'freebie' last week Phil has just booked me for his wedding next year (something I didn't even know about) which will be my first same sex wedding.

So was 20 minutes of my time to process some images and the cost of a disc worth it? I think so. :D
 
I made up a disc of shots for an friend to have a look at, Squirrels ,deer, birds etc.
Next thing I find some of them are in an opticians shop hanging on the wall. Then they landed in two primary schools in Dundee as educational aids for the kids. Not before the teachers had taken prints for themselves though.
I do not mind so much the kids being taught about nature, but was less than happy about the rest.
No more free discs from me.
 
sawman said:
I made up a disc of shots for an friend to have a look at, Squirrels ,deer, birds etc.
Next thing I find some of them are in an opticians shop hanging on the wall. Then they landed in two primary schools in Dundee as educational aids for the kids. Not before the teachers had taken prints for themselves though.
I do not mind so much the kids being taught about nature, but was less than happy about the rest.
No more free discs from me.
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Think you need to choose your friends more carefully!

Graham
 
sawman said:
I made up a disc of shots for an friend to have a look at, Squirrels ,deer, birds etc.
Next thing I find some of them are in an opticians shop hanging on the wall. Then they landed in two primary schools in Dundee as educational aids for the kids. Not before the teachers had taken prints for themselves though.
I do not mind so much the kids being taught about nature, but was less than happy about the rest.
No more free discs from me.
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Thing is, how many copies of those images have you sold?

Sometimes an awful lot of people seem over protective about commercial aspects of images that in the real world aren't actually salable - not because they aren't quality images that any of us would give good C&C to, but just because you can't find anyone to pay for them!

If you'd have told each of the above that you wanted 25 quid a shot from them, I doubt if they would have bought any...
 
desantnik said:
Thing is, how many copies of those images have you sold?

Sometimes an awful lot of people seem over protective about commercial aspects of images that in the real world aren't actually salable - not because they aren't quality images that any of us would give good C&C to, but just because you can't find anyone to pay for them!

If you'd have told each of the above that you wanted 25 quid a shot from them, I doubt if they would have bought any...
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Well one of them made a magazine cover & another is about to be used in another mag. So I would say they were of commercial value yes. Several of the others are being retained by a mag with a view to publish in the future.
The point I was making was that they were used without anybody asking if it was OK.
As I have never met the people that used them then I could hardly ask for money could I?
 
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