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Mehran Afshar
Naderi
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Mehran, who has had work published in several magazines, would like to know what he should consider when deciding to join an agency.
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The answer comes from Margot Klingsporn, the owner of the Focus photo agency in Hamburg, Germany. A World Press Photo contest judge in 2000, 2001 and 2003, Margot says:
1. Inform yourself about the agency, discover who else is represented by them. Find out if your work fits into their “portfolio” - it makes no sense to have pictures with an agency which represents completely different work!
2. Ask about conditions. For example, how the income is split for national archive sales, international archive sales and assignments? The usual split for archive and first sales is 50 % for the photographer. For assignments, it varies between 70 or 80 % for the photographer.
3. If you have special conditions about the publication of your pictures – such as no cropping, no manipulation or special fees because they are very exclusive, put them in writing and keep a copy.
4. Ask how often sales reports are made and about the schedule of payment.
5. Ask if you get tear-sheets (copies) of the magazines/newspapers where your pictures have been published.
6. Ask if the agency also offers stories or story proposals meaning that if you have a story idea, the agency would ask editors to find support to finance that story. The supporting publisher then has the first-time publication rights or can withhold the story for a defined period of time.
7. Insist that they try to get you a proper credit with each publication.
8. Define a period of time for how long the agency can offer your pictures in their database, in case you want to stop the relationship. After this period, the user rights of the agency are over and all data has to be removed from their database.
9. Ask to have examples of the data file format (the size, resolution, type of image) and about captioning.
10. When all these items have been established, send an e-mail confirming
all the points or if the agency offers a contract, make sure all the points are included - and read it carefully.
11. Finally, once you are working with an agency, please make sure that you
do not give them pictures which touch on the rights of third parties (people
on the street, brands, buildings) unless you have obtained clearance first.
Otherwise, you can be made liable for any damages caused."
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