Customer Reviews

Business and Legal Forms for Photographers (Fourth Edition) (Business & Legal Forms for Photographers)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Nothing is more boring for a photographer than paging through a form book of contracts. Nothing is more important for a photographer who derives income from his pictures than having written agreements with his clients.

"Business and Legal Forms for Photographers" opens with a broad discussion of photographer's contracts, including the "boilerplate" that appears in most of the contracts and their meaning, including such elements as to whether the parties may assign the contracts and in what forum disputes will be settled. The book then presents 34 different kinds of agreements ranging from simple model releases to contracts relating to a book deal. In each case there is a general discussion of the important elements of the contract, followed by a check list of items to consider in the contract, and then the actual contract. The book also includes a CD containing each of the contracts in .pdf, Microsoft Word .doc and rich text format. This gives the user the opportunity to cut and paste to create an appropriate contract.

Although I am a lawyer, when I reviewed this book I wore my hats as a photographer who occasionally enters into such contracts and as a former business officer who negotiated many, many contracts. (I have to add the mandatory disclaimer here that I am not rendering legal advice and that if you have legal questions you should consult your attorney.) It appeared to me that all of these contracts contained the necessary conditions for a good business relationship. On the other hand, particularly where big dollars are involved, like say, a long term lease of space, one might want an attorney to review the agreement as well.

It's important to remember that the negotiation process is not primarily an adversarial proceeding, but rather an attempt by the parties to reach agreement about what is to be done, and how to handle contingencies. In some cases like a wedding photography contract, the photographer will probably present the clients with a copy of the contract and then discuss the meaning of its terms, considering the special needs of the clients. In other cases, like a contract with a gallery, there will probably be discussions between the parties and then the contract will be prepared reflecting the outcome of the discussions. In the latter cases, the photographer will probably want to transcribe Crawford's checklist to his notebook for use during the discussions to remove the air of an adversarial proceeding from the negotiations.

Besides presenting the contract forms, the author makes many other good suggestions. If sending the other party a written contract looks too formalistic, a letter incorporating the terms may be less daunting and just as effective. Perhaps, in the next edition, the author will include a few such letters to provide the flavor of how the same terms can seem less forbidding. If the photographer is presented with a written contract, he should take time to review it using the book's checklists, and make suggestions for changes. Over the years I have found that bad deals are often made because the party receiving the contract was reluctant to ask for modification.

Most photographers who sell their work or services are not schooled as business people. Using this book should help to overcome some of that disadvantage.

I have the old "Revised Edition" of this book from 1999, which has come in handy for preparing different contracts over the years. I ordered this new edition thinking that there would be more emphasis on the digital age, as this was barely touched upon in the 1999 edition. I was disappointed to see that there were few changes to the forms (granted, I did not compare the books page-for-page, but on the forms I have used, there were hardly any changes). For example, the Wedding contract is verbatim with the 1999 version, save for 1 additional paragraph in the T&C section mentioning proof images on disc (as opposed to the old proof book or negatives). It does include 8 new forms: Trademark Application, Employment Application, Employment Agreement, Restrictive Covenant for Employment, Project Employee Contract, Commercial Lease, Sublease, and Lease Agreement. I assume some of these forms were added in the editions between 1999 and now. In short, this is a very handy reference tool for photographers of all sorts, but if you've got an older version you're best bet is to stick with that. Unless of course one of the new forms is particularly relevant to you, but I'd probably check to see if my local library had it first. Me, I'm sending this shiny new edition back & I'll stick to my old dog-eared copy until they decide to really address the digital aspects.

I purchased this book based on positive reviews here on Amazon, and I disagree with those opinions of its usefulness.

I purchased the book primarily for reliable drafts of contracts for wedding and event photography. The wedding photography segment is not thorough. The draft agreement leaves out a number of vital elements, and the book does not elsewhere discuss them. Other segments of the book appear to suffer from the same superficial treatment.

I am a trademark attorney, and practiced at the US Patent and Trademark Office several years ago, and the trademark section of this book is a decade out of date. The author acknowledges the USPTO's preference for online filing, but then provides guidance only for paper filings, and the relevance of even that guidance is questionable. The guidance was clearly an afterthought, and the author put absolutely no current research (despite a number of recent revisions to the book) into the matter.

I rate the book at two stars, rather than one star, because the author's explanation of negotiation processes demonstrates experience and insight, and can be valuable to photographers who have never entered into legal agreements about their work. However, the author's advice about trademark protection alone calls into question the value and accuracy of the remainder of the book, and the draft agreements I was hoping for are too shallow, so I cannot recommend the book.

I would recommend John Harrington's Best Business Practices for Photographers, an excellent, very thorough, and up-to-date legal and business primer for photographers starting a business.

As best I can tell, the Kindle edition of this book does not include access to the contents of the CD-ROM, which are most of the reason to purchase the book. Tad Crawford & Allsworth Press, say it ain't so!

Very useful set of document templates. The most useful part is the discussion of "negotiating" points that accompanies each. The author runs through the most important parts of each contract, explaining certain details that can be adjusted. Because of this, the book is very useful for understanding contracts that other people send you as well as writing your own. There's a CD that I haven't used yet with templates for all the contracts.

This book was even more helpful than I expected! It has all the legal forms I needed for my photography business. I no longer have to worry about wasting time or money drafting up expensive legal forms. I would recommend this to anybody looking to start a photography business and be successful!

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If you're doing photo work or looking to do photo work, buy this book.

Business and legal forms are a pain. This book spoon feeds you everything you need to know.
This book contains: 34 forms/contracts, checklists for negotiation each, and a brief but helpful intro to each explaining individual use.

Sure, it's best for every photographer to have a contract for clients, but I found none of this to be worth any purchase. These forms are about as non-descriptive as it can get. To top it off, the wording alone is enough to put off a client. I give step by step details of what my contracts mean to my clients and these "contracts" were even too weird for me. It's just a bunch of big words explaining absolutely nothing.

This book really is a must for all photographer just starting out. It covers all your basics and comes off very professional. I have 5 main forms from this book I use almost every photo session.

Had everything that i needed and more. Havent put the cd in yet but i will very soon. I also recommend getting the business and legal forms for graphic designers as well. This book is great