Definitely a flat price. Being paid anew each time the "book" is reprinted would be extraordinary. Very few photographers can command that sort of a provision in a contract. We never did, and we were well-established. Base your fee on estimated time spent on the job. 1/2 day minimum would be normal starting point. Time spent will depend on number of pieces shot and the complexity of the setups. If they are all being shot against the same, plain background it will go a LOT faster than individual setups with props etc for each shot. Figure 1 hour for the basic setup, and 15 minutes per each additional object if they are of a similar size and against a plain background. If any of the objects are significantly larger/smaller than the others or needing a different setup (translucent porcelain vs opaque porcelain, for instance) then figure an hour for each additional setup.
What's your time worth? Only you can answer that. A rational starting point would be $75/hr or $500/day, assuming you are pretty new in the business. It would not be unusual for you to run "overtime" on your first job of a certain type, until you get the hang of doing it efficiently. Efficiency is the key to professionalism. Eat the overtime; don't expect your client to pay you by the hour on an open-ended ticket as you learn at his expense. When you have done more jobs like this, you will better be able to accurately estimate the time you will spend on the job.
Make the contract clear on what rights they are buying: in the stated instance, use of the photos for publication in a book, plus reasonable use of images from the book in promotion of the book. Ownership of the images reatined by you, prints to be provided by you at a stipulated (and reasonable) per-print charge. All usage to be accompanied by photographer credit. Specify exactly how the credit should appear ("Photo courtesy J. Lelli Photographics", whatever).
If they want exclusive use of the images, attach a surcharge to the fee. In this case it's not likely to be a large surcharge; the future market value of photographs of antique artwork you do not own is very small. Surcharge might be an additional 25% above the shooting fee in this case.
Be sure the contract specifies exactly what will be the end product that you deliver; presumably, in this case, high-resolution digital files of "x by y" minimum pixel dimensions, "camera ready" (ready for the printer, no post-production needed at that end), in a specific file format (probably CMYK tiff files), on compact disk. Specify how many disks you will deliver (2 would be normal) and the charge for replicating the disks in future should that become necessary. If they want total ownership, send them the 2 disks and be done with it; the images are their responsibility at this point. I'd keep them in my system for a while, in case of screwups, then erase 'em (unless any are portfolio-worthy) after backing 'em up to archives.
For starters, hope this helps.
Robt.
|
