Starting Your Career as a Freelance Photographer [Paperback]

Tad Crawford (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1581152809 | ISBN-13: 978-1581152807 | Publication Date: August 1, 2003

Here is a virtual treasury of advice, insight, and guidance for every freelance photographer! From creating a portfolio and promoting your work to winning the first client and running a healthy, profitable business, Starting Your Career as a Freelance Photographer provides crucial marketing, business, and legal know-how for every step of the process. New entrepreneurs will discover in-depth information on choosing the right location, interacting with clients effectively, and receiving timely payments. They’ll also find practical advice for keeping track of business income and expenses, managing insurance and tax issues, and marketing their work to a diverse range of clients.



Readers will also find real-life answers to the essential questions every photographer asks, including how to negotiate, how to price, how to find the right market, and even how to keep from drowning in paperwork. Finally, the guide includes sample contracts, model release forms, and much more. For anyone looking to earn money with their photography, Starting Your Career as a Freelance Photographer is a must-have start-up kit!




• Three guides in one: marketing, business, and law, specially tailored to the needs of the freelance photographer

• Author is an attorney respected for his advocacy efforts for photographers

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An invaluable tool for the emerging photographer." (Eugene Mopsik, Executive Director, American Society of Media Photographers )

About the Author

Tad Crawford, Publisher for Allworth Press in New York City, graduated from Columbia Law School, clerked on New York State’s highest court, and served as general counsel for the Graphic Artists Guild when he practiced as an attorney. He originated the course titled “Law and the Visual Artist” at the School of Visual Arts and wrote Legal Guide for the Visual Artist (now in its fifth edition) to serve as the text. He is the author or coauthor of more than a dozen books, including Starting Your Career as a Freelance Photographer, The Graphic Design Business Book, Business and Legal Forms for Fine Artists, and Business and Legal Forms for Graphic Designers. He lives in New York City.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Allworth Press (August 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1581152809
• ISBN-13: 978-1581152807
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #716,278 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Allworth Press publisher and founder Tad Crawford is an author, attorney, and artists' rights advocate.

Born in New York City, Crawford grew up in the artists colony of Woodstock, New York. Interested in writing both fiction and nonfiction, he majored in economics at Tufts College and graduated from Columbia Law School in February 1971. ("That explains the unusual amalgam of my activities," Crawford says. "A lot of legal skills are crucial for helping the artist and for running a publishing company. Of course, writing is an excellent background for publishing. So it's come together very well.")

Crawford clerked for a judge of the New York Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, then went to work for a small general law firm in New York City while writing and teaching writing and literature at the School of Visual Arts. Until he took the teaching assignment at the School of Visual Arts and learned of the need for materials to help artists understand their rights, he had not envisioned being an advocate of artists' rights.

"I found nothing in print to help artists deal with such legal matters as copyrights, contracts, income taxes, the 'hobby loss' problem, estate planning, or even how to get grants," recalls Crawford. And so, responding to what he saw as "an extreme need," he wrote a book dealing with those and other relevant issues, titling it Legal Guide for the Visual Artist and using it as a text for the "Law and the Visual Artist" course that he taught at the School of Visual Arts. Published in 1977, Legal Guide for the Visual Artist is now in its fourth edition and has one hundred thousand copies in print.

He followed this with The Writer's Legal Guide in 1978 (which has been updated and reissued with The Authors Guild as co-publisher and Kay Murray, the General Counsel for the Authors Guild, as co-author). With Arie Kopelman he wrote Selling Your Photography in 1980 and Selling Your Graphic Design and Illustration in 1981. At the same time Crawford served as Chairman of the Board for the Foundation for the Community of Artists, legislative counsel for the Copyright Justice Coalition (which had many arts groups as members), and general counsel for the Graphic Artists Guild. In 1982 Crawford was asked to help publish books for some of the organizations that he had represented as an attorney. In response, he became publisher of Madison Square Press, which issued annuals for such artists'organizations as the Society of Illustrators, the Society of Publication Designers, the Art Directors Club of New York, and the Art Directors Club of Los Angeles.

In 1988 he decided to strike out in a new direction, "to create a press that would offer the kind of information that was more like what I had taught, written about, and lobbied for." Crawford saw the need for a publishing company that would provide practical information to creative professionals, such as artists, photographers, designers, and authors. He knew first hand the issues faced every day by such creative people and could envision a spectrum of books to help them survive and prosper professionally.

In the Fall of 1989, Crawford published Allworth Press's first book, a revised edition of his classic Legal Guide for the Visual Artist. Ten more titles followed in 1990, offering information about marketing, promotion, pricing, copyright, contracts, health and safety, and much more. The first edition of Business and Legal Forms for Photographers was published in 1991. "The information in these books,"Crawford says, "can make all the difference in terms of success and prosperity." Today Allworth Press has a backlist of more than 250 books, publishes 12-15 books annually, and employs a staff of six very talented people.

Crawford's last involvement as an active lobbyist was in 1986, and he's given up active practice of the law to devote his energies to his publishing and his writing. The full list of books that he has authored follows:

AIGA Professional Practices in Graphic Design (editor)
The Artist-Gallery Partnership (with Susan Mellon)
Business and Legal Forms for Crafts
Business and Legal Forms for Fine Artists
Business and Legal Forms for Graphic Designers (with Eva Doman Bruck)
Business and Legal Forms for Illustrators
Business and Legal Forms for Interior Designers (with Eva Doman Bruck)
Business and Legal Forms for Industrial Designers (with Eva Doman Bruck and Carl W. Battle)
Business and Legal Forms for Photographers
Legal Guide for the Visual Artist
The Money Mentor
The Secret Life of Money
Selling Your Photography (with Arie Kopelman)
Selling Your Graphic Design and Illustration (with Arie Kopelman)
Starting Your Career as a Freelance Photographer
The Writer's Legal Guide (with Kay Murray)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Starting Out, August 18, 2005

By 

Conrad J. Obregon (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Starting Your Career as a Freelance Photographer (Paperback)

When I first encountered this book and glanced through its index, after noting that it had been published by the American Society of Media Photographers and Allworth Press, I expected it to be a version of "ASMP Professional Business Practices in Photography"...light. The latter book was designed to help professional photographers with the business aspects of their careers (but I found it omitted reference to many important business questions). I was wrong.

This book purports to be aimed at people who are interested in becoming professional freelance photographers and it starts out simply in the first part with a broad overview, including comparisons of the advantages of attending a photography school and apprenticing to a professional photographer and selecting equipment. It was simple stuff to be sure but I'm told many people entering the career need this type of information.

But when Part II came, there was more meat. It was a first for me to encounter a photography business book that actually talked about where the new professional was going to get his startup cash: family, friends, a working wife, or even (highly unlikely) a bank loan. The short chapter on location and leases even referred to things like zoning and subletting. There was even a section that talked about the collection of sales taxes and resale certificates for tax exemption. The chapter on insurance covered a topic you never hear even experienced photographers talk about although you know they all need it.

Part IV on negotiating contracts and prices even had a pricing model that looked at the costs of creating photographs and suggested that if the photographer could not set his prices high enough to cover his costs (including his own draw) he should not enter the business.

Part V called "Photography and the Law" discussed copyright, privacy and hiring an attorney. It even had a section on income taxes with suggestions on how to keep the books, which combined with an earlier reference to the software Quicken, talked about an issue that the new photographer usually doesn't even think about facing.

You may have noted that I haven't discussed Part III on marketing, which I found the weakest part of the book. It was disjointed and not comprehensive, although most photographers would probably benefit from reading the short but well written chapter called "The Web Site as Marketing Tool." If you want to understand what's involved in marketing I would suggest Scott Bourne's little book "88 Secrets to Selling & Publishing Your Photography."

This is not to suggest that this is the only business text a freelance photographer will ever need. Far from it. With the exception of the chapters on copyright and privacy and releases (which I think covered the fields very well) every one of the issues raised by the book will require more extensive study. But the book will highlight areas of the business of photography of which the beginning freelancer would never think until a major problem exploded in his face. Presumably, that's a good enough reason for him or her to read the book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lots Of Things To Think About, February 19, 2010

By 

Rolf Bertram "RolfBertramDotCom" (Anna Maria Island, FL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Starting Your Career as a Freelance Photographer (Paperback)

This books gets to the point on a long list of aspects involved with being a professional photographer. Good idea to get this book before starting a business, read it, and while you read, make a checklist of what applies to your situation. With your list in hand, you can start analyzing and re-shaping your business concept.

For panoramic, stereoscopic and infrared photography I recommend this book:
Panoramic & Stereoscopic Photography In Color And Infrared: A Step By Step Guide

15 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A basic guide to beginning a freelance photography career, December 8, 2003

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Starting Your Career as a Freelance Photographer (Paperback)

Talented with a camera? Check out Starting Your Career As A Freelance Photographer, a basic guide to beginning a freelance photography career, which covers everything from skills needed to equipment, locating clients, and building portfolios of successful projects. The meat of Starting Your Career As A Freelance Photographer lies in its photography-specific business savvy, from negotiating contacts and pricing to studio management.