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Fine Art Photography: The Complete Guide

Lesson 91 of 138

How to Keep Licensing Organized

Fine Art Photography: The Complete Guide

Lesson 91 of 138

Lesson Info

How to Keep Licensing Organized

So we're gonna talk with licensing about organization of those files, organization of the whole spreadsheet keeping track of all these things that you have to remember when you're licensing an image, which gets highly complicated, where to license your images, where you might wanna upload your pictures to and have somebody sell them for you, or that you might want to sell yourself, and then how do we price licensed images? And I'm excited to talk again about pricing, because it is something that people really struggle with, that I have often struggled with, and I wanna try to just break down what it means to price a licensed image, as much as we can. And I'm gonna tell you right up front, it's a lot more complicated than pricing a print for a gallery. So just prepare yourself mentally right now. Okay. Organization. When we're talking about organization for licensed images, I don't necessarily mean where you keep them in folders on your desktop or anything like that, or how to back them...

up. What I mean is how do you keep track of which images have gone where and for how long and for what projects and things like that? So the title of the project is good to have, as well as the title of the image that you're licensing. Who is licensing it specifically? And I mention that because there are a lot of publishing companies, for example, that work with other publishing companies and they might, you know, totally innocently, give that image to this other publishing company that they work with for this other thing that they wanna do and it's not really meant to go to that person. So who exactly is the licensee? What region are you licensing within? When I say region, I mean what country? What part of the world? For example, this book is in a language that I don't know but it's in another language. Can anybody read that? No? That's okay. It's in a language that I don't understand because I have a lived a sheltered life and I don't know languages. But this was, let's just say, it looks like maybe the Netherlands or something like that. Netherlands! It is. Okay. So this was from the Netherlands and this image was licensed for this book cover so when I created this contract, one thing that I might have said was, "do you want this image to be sold anywhere else? Are you okay with that?" The price will change based on their answer. So they might have said, "please don't sell this image to anyone else in the Netherlands." Okay? So that would be restriction by region by saying, well, I don't mind if you sell this picture to somebody else other places in the world, but not in the Netherlands because that's where we're based, that's where this book will be distributed and that's what's most important to them. Alright, so aside from region, duration. How long is the license going to last? Will this be a worldwide exclusive forever license? Or are you going to limit the duration of the license? So you might, I might tell these people in the Netherlands you can have this picture for three years with exclusivity in the Netherlands but after three years is up, I can still sell that picture to anybody else that I want in the Netherlands. Just an example of how you would use duration to limit or expand your license. And then the medium. So maybe... I'm just gonna keep holding this book instead of putting it down. Maybe if this person came to me and they said, "I want to license this image, it's for this book, I need exclusivity in the Netherlands, but also on all book covers worldwide," then that would be exclusivity by medium and that's something that we have to think about. They might say you can still make prints of it, you can still, you know, sell to bands for album art, you can do movie posters, but just not books because they want the rights to the books. Something to think about. And then price is what you'll also organize into your spreadsheet. How much did you sell for? What are the terms and conditions? And I've already showed this to you a little bit and I just wanted to run through this one more time because I think it's very important that we're really clear about organization here with licensed images. This can be an extremely difficult thing to untangle if you haven't kept track of who you're selling your images to. So I've got here the title of the image, the licensee, the amount that I sold it for, if it's exclusive or not, what the terms are, terms and conditions, how they paid, what format it's in, digital versus print, the print run of it. So if they did sell it, how many copies are out there? Things that you might want to know. I tried to make these spreadsheets with every piece of information I can think of, even if I can't even see how it's relevant right now. If I just think one day down the road I'd really like to know how many copies of this book are out there, I'm just gonna ask right up front and figure out what their print run is. The other really good thing about doing that, about asking about their print run size, is that you know then, and let's say they can't afford a really expensive license, then you might say, "you know what, if your first print run is 5000 copies, then I'll sell it to you for this print run. But if you do another print run, you'll owe me 300 more dollars," let's just say. So it's good to know the print run. Invoice, medium, what is it on? So is it a book or is it a CD or is it a movie poster? The working title, and any notes. And so we've already gone over this so I'm gonna skip right past it, but just really emphasizing how important each of these categories are.

Class Description

Creating a great photo for a client is one thing - but turning your passion and ideas into a series that is shared, shown, and sold is a whole different business. If you do it right, you’ll be shooting what you love all the time. Learn how to choose which ideas to create, how to turn your concept into a production, and steps to getting your work seen and even sold in Fine Art Photography: A Complete Guide with Award-Winning Photographer, Brooke Shaden.

This is an all-inclusive workshop that provides the tools you need to run a successful and creative business as a fine art photographer. You’ll learn creative exercises to find and develop your ideas, how to create an original narrative, how to produce your own photo series, post production techniques and skills for compositing and retouching, how to write about your work, ways to pitch to galleries and agents, and how to print your pieces so they look like art.

This workshop will take you on location with Brooke as she creates a photo series from scratch. She’ll walk through every step for her photo shoots including set design and location scouting, she’ll cover techniques in the field for capturing your artistic vision, post-production and compositing techniques, as well as printing and framing essentials.

She’ll round out this experience by discussing all of the details that will help make your career a success like licensing, commissions, artists statements, social media plans, gallery prep, and pricing your work.

This comprehensive course is a powerful look into the world of fine art photography led by one of the world’s most talented photographers, Brooke Shaden. Included with purchase is exclusive access to bonus material that gives exercises and downloads for all of the lessons.

Lessons

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Reviews

April S.

I tuned in for most of Brooke's lessons in this course and watched some of them more than once as they were rebroadcast. First I want to say that Brooke is a very good instructor. Her easy-going, friendly, down-to-earth, somewhat quirky manner cannot be mistaken for unprofessional. She is very prepared, she speaks well (not a bunch of hemming and hawing), she is thoughtful, she is thorough, she is very relatable and at ease, and she is definitely professional in her presentation. I really thought when I first tuned in that it would mostly be background noise while I was at work, sound to keep me company. Not because I didn't like Brooke but I really didn't think I was into fine art photography nor did I think I cared about the business side of things much. Not now anyhow. I was really wrong. Brooke sparked a deep interest in me to delve into fine art photography, to consider creating images for myself, from my imagination. In fact, I realized that this was something I'd been thinking about for a couple of years though I hadn't put a name to it (the idea of creating pre-conceived images based on my own creative goals). I gleaned many little treasures from her about image sizes, working with printers, different types of paper, selling, interacting with galleries, and so much more. I may not need all of what she taught right now because I'm definitely headed in another direction at the moment, but she planted ideas and information in my head that I know will be useful at some point. Things I may not have thought of on my own, but that seed is in my head now so when the time comes, I'll know. I'd really like to buy her course but at the moment, with the holidays right around the corner, it's not in my personal budget. I'm grateful to have caught the live and rebroadcast lessons though, and her course is on my list to own. I think it's a great reference to be consulted over and over again, not watched once and forgotten. Kudos Brooke for really putting together an excellent course.

Ron Landis

I'm retired now, but spent decades in the people and training business. Brooke is extraordinary! Even though this course is extremely well organized and she's left nothing unattended, she moves through it with friendly conversational manners and without a sense of it being stilted. It's as though we are all her friends, not students, as she shares her heart and passion with us. What a joy it is to listen to her. And what a clear, unambiguous command of her subject. Wow! She explains it with such ease using explanations and techniques that won't overwhelm artists just starting their portfolio or the Photoshop-squeamish among us; but despite its simplicity her resulting art is breathtaking and beyond original. I wish more of my professors at school were as engaging. This was by far my best buy at Creative Live yet.

Angel Ricci

When the title says comprehensive, it means comprehensive! I loved every part of this course. It's inspirational, motivating, and insightful towards creating art work. Even if you are not necessarily considering a fine art specialty, the concepts discussed in this course are applicable to many areas! I find this super useful as a videographer and photographer and look to apply all of these exercises and concepts for my personal and business work moving forward. It is lengthy, but you will not regret a single minute. Brooke Shaden is an amazing artist and educator. I recommend keeping up with her work, presentations, and any future courses that may come in the future.