Lay My Hat

Hello everyone,
While I run a holiday cottage in the Scottish Borders, my full time job is as a professional photographer. I specialise in photography for properties, especially interior photography which is an area that many owners seem to struggle with. I have worked for many individual holiday cottage and B&B owners as well as many of the big holiday cottage agencies and I'm certain that good photography can make a huge difference to your enquiries and bookings.

I cover the North East including Yorkshire,Northumberland and Scotland. There are lots of examples of my work on my website www.insidestoryphotography.co.uk and I'm always happy to chat about we could help improve your website photography.

HI there, do you own a rental property? Please read this thread.

viewtopic.php?t=121

Hello Helen,
Sorry I thought I'd mentioned that in my post. Yes I own a holiday property and you are welcome to check it out at www.gypsypalace.co.uk
Tracey

You have to provide a link to it if you are offering a service. Welcome to LMH.

Thanks Helen. I thought it meant I had to provide a link to my photography website - didn't read it properly!

Lovely part of the world! I found the history of your cottage very interesting too.

Lovely looking photographs, Tracey.

Hi Tracey. Welcome to LMH. If you stick around and contribute to the discussions, as a rental owner and as a specialist photographer, you’re likely to increase your client base as you become part of the fabric.

Some thoughts:

Crisp, elegant and imaginative interior photographs that are a pleasure to view. As you correctly state, interior photography of rental properties is a challenging area for most owners.

A few examples showing how you deal with lesser spaces would be useful – awkward bathrooms or small bedrooms with big beds filling a disproportionate area are every owner’s recurring nightmare.

‘A typical cost for photography and a professionally finished set of images is £250’ – given that there is no such thing as a ‘typical rental property’ – is a hostage to fortune. Properties range from single bed apartments without balconies to multi property complexes with extensive sports areas and pools - and every possible combination in-between. Either you’ll disappoint clients by having to mark-up your ball-park figure or you’ll be running yourself ragged for no profit. Pitching too low to attract clients to a new business is always a trap.

You don’t mention copyright? Do you simply hand over the images at the end of the shoot, or retain copyright and issue a licence that may (or may not) restrict how the owner uses the photographs? This is a contentious area on LMH; some owners believe that, if they’re paying, everything shot on their property belongs to them and they can do whatever they choose with the material in the future.

Jim

Jimbo wrote:You don’t mention copyright? Do you simply hand over the images at the end of the shoot, or retain copyright and issue a licence that may (or may not) restrict how the owner uses the photographs? This is a contentious area on LMH; some owners believe that, if they’re paying, everything shot on their property belongs to them and they can do whatever they choose with the material in the future.

Jim

I don't doubt that some owners might think that, Jimbo. If they do, though, it's a little naiive IMHO. As I understand it, the copyright of a photograph belongs to the photographer unless explicitly stated otherwise.

If owners do want to have free use of pictures in any way that they like, it's important that they clear this up with the photographer BEFORE hiring him or her, and have a clear written agreement to that effect.

Much though it might sound logical to the layperson, it's wrong to assume that if you're paying, you can use them as you please. It depends on precisely what you are paying for.

kendalcottages wrote:As I understand it, the copyright of a photograph belongs to the photographer unless explicitly stated otherwise.

That's pretty much so:

Under law, it is the photographer who will own copyright on any photos he/she has taken, with the following exceptions:

* If the photographer is an employee of the company the photos are taken for, or is an employee of a company instructed to take the photos, the photographer will be acting on behalf of his/her employer, and the company the photographer works for will own the copyright.
* If there is an agreement that assigns copyright to another party.

In all other cases, the photographer will retain the copyright, if the photographer has been paid for his work, the payment will be for the photographer’s time and typically an allocated number of prints. The copyright to the photos will remain with the photographer, and therefore any reproduction without permission would be an infringement of copyright.

Photography and copyright - The UK Copyright Service

Thanks for your comments everyone - I'm sure that I'll be able to contribute to the forum as both an owner and a photographer.
Jim, you mentioned that interior photography is a challenge for most owners: I'm increasingly finding that its quite a challenge for many general professional photographers too, who are perhaps more used to photographing babies and weddings. It really is a complete art form in itself.

The issue of space and how its handled is a good one. There's no easy answer to this though a good quality wide angle lens that doesn't distort and a bit of creative thinking helps. For example, if you want to tackle this yourself, its not alway strictly necessary to show the whole room: sometimes just detail shots of interesting features within the room can still convey the right feeling.

Regarding cost, your right again - no two properties are the same. However, I felt that I needed to at least indicate some idea of cost on my website (I've since edited that section slightly). In my area, most of my clients seem to run single cottages with 2/3 bedrooms so my cost is based on that but as you say, a large complex is always going to be more expensive. All I can do is invite prospective clients to contact me for a chat.

Very few photographers indeed would willingly hand over copyright to the client, so its worth chatting with your photographer beforehand to be absolutely clear what their policy is. Personally, I retain the copyright of the photographs but give the client unlimited use for web, print etc with the only restriction being that they do not re-sell the photograph.
This can be a big deal and I have heard stories of customers who have to obtain permission from the photographer every time they use the photograph in any form - which is a pain.

Thanks for the input from everyone - much appreciated.

what a gorgeous and interesting cottage Tracey!

insidestoryphoto wrote:I felt that I needed to at least indicate some idea of cost on my website ... All I can do is invite prospective clients to contact me for a chat.

Another possibility might be to quote your day rate and indicate what out of pocket expenses you will add (say mileage charge above a 25-mile radius from your base?). That way, you put your clients back in the driving seat because they can decide how much they want (or can afford) to pay and can prioritise those areas they feel need attention within their budget. Fixed price contracts – I’ll shoot your property for xxx – are popular with clients, but can be a minefield for the unwary photographer.

The ‘Big C’s’ – cost and copyright - loom large when planning any photo shoot and should (I believe) always be published upfront on a photographer’s promotional material. LMH’s professional owners don’t hide their light under a bushel – they clearly indicate their prices and T+Cs on their websites and listing sites information. Doesn’t mean that they’re not up for a bit of ‘adjustment’ on a private one to one – but that’s against a background of the client already knowing the going rate and conditions.

... many general professional photographers too, who are perhaps more used to photographing babies and weddings.

... babies and weddings. The horror!

Jim