JC Dill

There is a lot of confusion about model releases for photographers.

You only need a model release if the photos are to be used for commercial advertising, e.g. to advertise toothpaste or vacation brochures, go on the cover of a novel or CD or video, (or to sell for stock, for that type of purpose) etc. You usually don’t need a release if your photos are only for your own portfolio, or if the photos are for editorial use. There are many example model releases online. Download a few of the examples and use them for inspiration for writing your own release.

The text of a contract is not covered by copyright, because legally a contract is not a “creative work” but merely listing the terms the parties are agreeing to. However, the layout of a contract document has creative aspects, the font used, the spacing of the fields that are filled out, etc. and these creative aspects are covered by copyright. You can’t just use someone else’s form as is (that would be a copyright violation), but you can use their contract terms without violating copyright to make your own form with your own (creative) layout. (I am not a lawyer, but this is what I was told by a lawyer who specializes in intellectual property law. I suggest you ask your own lawyer for conformation.)

If you title your release Standard Model Release then your models will be less likely to object about signing it – because it’s a “standard” release! If you have a business contract with the person (e.g. they are hiring you to take their photos for portraits or weddings) build the release terms into your Standard Contract.

For a release to be legal (stand up in court), both parties receive a signed copy AND there must be an “exchange of consideration”. Professional models are paid. Non-pro models may be paid a nominal amount ($1 is common, especially when traveling) or you may agree to send them a CD with jpegs from the shoot or a print in exchange for signing the release. Always give consideration (money or a print or CD of image files) because otherwise your release isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on! I highly suggest you get this book: Legal Handbook for Photographers: The Rights and Liabilities of Making Images by Bert Krages. It covers model releases and much more.

I recently posted the following in another blog – answering a query about how to take great baby photos.

1) The MOST important thing (the primary thing that sets most professional photos apart from snapshots) is the lighting. It needs to be soft indirect light. If you use a window as the primary light you need a white card or white wall to bounce light from the window to the “dark side” of the baby. If you want to shoot outside, do so only on an overcast day, and again you will probably need a bounce card to reduce shadows.

2) The next important thing is the background. When you find a baby photo you like, don’t look at the baby – look at everything else. How can you make your “set” look like that? Many excellent baby photos use a plain white sheet or black velvet as the background. You can drape the cloth over a beanbag chair to create a baby posing station. There are more great tips in the How to Photograph your Baby book by Nick Kelsh.

3) You will have trouble getting enough light to get a depth of field deep enough to bring all the parts you want in focus. It’s very easy to end up “too shallow” and end up with a great shot, except you wish you had more DoF.

Go to flickr and smugmug and search for “newborn baby”. When you find a photo you like, use the “more info” options to see what the camera settings were for those shots. Here’s one on Smugmug. Put your mouse over the image, and an overlay will appear on the right. At the bottom is an “i” icon, click that and another overlay will appear that shows the camera info for that image. You will see it was shot with these camera settings:
Camera: Canon EOS 20D
Exposure: 1/160
Aperture: f/5.6
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 45mm (75mm equivalent in 35mm)

Drag the overlay down (off the photo) and then use your keyboard arrow keys to move forward and back in the gallery, and view other photos (and their settings) without having to take extra steps to see the settings on each photo.

Here’s one on Flickr. Scroll down to the bottom of the right hand column to the More Information section and click on the “more properties” link to get the camera properties for this shot. You will see it was shot with these camera settings:
Camera: Nikon D200
Exposure: 1/125
Aperture: f/7.1
Focal Length: 80 mm
ISO Speed: 250

4) Bump the ISO if you must, but don’t do it unless necessary to get fast enough shutter and high enough f-stops. Lower ISO is always better. See the shots above – shot at ISO 100 and ISO 250.

5) Shoot in RAW. No exceptions. If you want top quality images NEVER shoot in jpeg mode. Don’t do B/W conversion in the camera. RAW only! Do the conversion in your post processing. Over time you will learn more about post processing and will want to go back to your earlier shots and reprocess them, making them even better as you learn new post processing techniques.

6) Your images are only as good as the glass used to gather them. There is a reason why people pay $1500 for a lens instead of $150 for the same focal-length lens in a lower quality line. If you have the “kit lens” consider renting a top quality lens for a week or several weeks. You may think all the hype about good lenses is “just hype” but it’s not – once you shoot with a top quality lens you will be itching to buy one. Fortunately you can rent them so you don’t have to break the bank!

7) Cull! This is the hardest part – especially when shooting a baby because the images are “your baby” in two ways – of your newborn baby, and your photos are also (themselves) your baby. But you MUST cull. This is another trait that defines the professional photographer – they never show you all the photos. They cull, cull, cull. You only see the very best shots. Do the same with your own work. You should only keep about 10% of what you shoot, and of that you may only share or print 10% – so only 1 in 100 ends up being shared.

8) Post processing is just as complicated and important as shooting. If you want color prints you need to color profile your monitor. If you send your images to a lab for printing, see if they offer printer profiles and learn how to soft-proof your images with the printer profile. Run some test prints and compare them to how they look on your screen to make sure you have everything configured right. I highly suggest you get one (or several) of Scott Kelby’s books on using Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, and/or Lightroom to learn post processing tricks.

My sweetie Kirk is a fantastic photographer. He also likes horses. Lucky me! :-)

He rode horses as a kid, but after an accident his parents sold the horses. He rode again (rental horses etc.) a few times in his 20s, but hasn’t ridden for about 25 years. The only previous time he has ever even been at a horse show was when he came out to a show I was shooting at, on our second date. He saw me work, shooting eventing stadium jumping. He took some photojournalism type photos while I was shooting so he didn’t get to see much of what being the actual “horse show photographer” was about.

On Saturday we went out to a few barns in Portola Valley to take some practice photos so he could learn how to operate my camera’s various functions and learn to recognize the moments people want to see on their horse photos, i.e. the correct moments to capture for lope/ canter/ gallop photos, so he could time his shots for those moments and chimp (delete) the shots taken at the wrong moments. He also initially had problems shooting so far “ahead” of the horse that the camera focused on the background instead of the horse (oops) or he ended up with shots that cut off the tails or hoofs (oops). As we worked together he got it all sorted out and his last hour’s worth of shots were getting pretty good.

Yesterday he worked with me as a second photographer for EquinePhotoArt.com as we shot the San Mateo County Horseman’s Association horse show at the Horsepark in Woodside.

They were running 3 rings, one was quite distant from the other 2 which is why I needed a second photographer. I took the arena where the group classes (hunters, jumpers, english, western) were held, he took the arena where the reining events were held which was on the far side of the Horsepark. As time allowed, we each tried to also get some shots in the trail arena.

I knew he was a fantastic photographer, but I was still blown away by his photos! So far I’ve only had time to sort thru the first 2 hours of his shooting. I just uploaded some of them to his flickr account.

Not only did he do a great job on the photos, but we worked really well together all day, from prep to setup to shooting to breakdown.

It’s going to take me the better part of a week to get all the photos culled and sorted and uploaded to my website, but I just couldn’t wait to brag on him here today. :-)

I also want to brag on my helper Michele. She staffed our table, and went out among the parents to let them know about our services and get people to sign up. In addition to staffing the table at the show she also helped with updating my marketing materials during the week. We couldn’t have done this without her help.

I’m SO lucky to have such a great team helping me!

My 300D is no longer finding the focus point in auto-focus. I’ve had some repair estimates, from $150 to $300. The camera is only worth ~$400-$500 (fixed) and I was offered $150 for it as is by someone who would use it for parts for their 300D. So, I’m now trying to figure out how to move up to a 1DMII. In the meantime, I have a borrowed 1DMII that I’m using for the horse show this weekend, and I can always rent one if needed from K&S in Palo Alto.