Re: photo permission and payments

**S* H* <s*@saxonholt.com>**

Amy - I have never paid cash compensation to a property owner for photo use.  I have never had a publisher pay the gardener to my knowledge either.   I always offer them my photos and if possible, will get the publisher to send a copy of the book if the garden has a nice spread in it.  This works fine for gardens I have been assigned for a publisher, but more often I work in gardens where I don't know what photos might be picked. I rarely have control over photos are selected and thus can not promise much to the gardener; so I always get a signed property release which designates what sort of publication they allow going forward.  Sometime it is for a single use, other times it is completely open.  

The use you request for the book is editorial (journalistic) as opposed to commercial (advertising). Editorial budgets simply do not allow payment to gardeners.  Gardeners do it for the love of sharing not the money.  If the garden owner takes the stance of saying "Well you (the author, photographer, writer) are making money off my garden", then you politely acknowledge their ignorance, don't take photos you will publish, and move on.

It is very common to pay garden locations for commercial use  or photo shoots where there is potential for garden damage (weddings, fashion, tv profiles, etc) and where there is money to being made irrespective of sharing the garden.  Rates for this vary a lot depending on how badly the commercial user wants access.  I know of $5000 fees that have been paid.

You (we all) need to be vary careful about getting permission to publish photos - before you take them.  It is a nightmare to go back, often years later, to get permission - as you point out in the case of the garden changing hands.  It is not at all uncommon for a new property owner NOT wanting the garden published.  It is also common, especially for well known gardens, that they only want their garden photographed for a specific publication, and they may have already signed a property release of a limited use, or not.  You just don't know and don't assume anything.   You need to ask permission, explain what you are asking for, and get it in writing.  This is never seen as pushy, people genuinely like to know.

In this current book where the property owner is asking for compensation, whatever you work out, be darn sure you get something in writing -  for your sake and the publisher.  You do not want this person to change their mind after the book is out.  It is hard enough to try to explain a permissions issue after a person has seen the photo in a book, it is entirely different if they raise the issue before it is published.

Good questions.  Tanks for giving me the opportunity to explain.  - Saxon

Saxon Holt
Saxon Holt Photography
ASMP, ASPP, GWA
415-898-8880
-----------------------------
PhotoBotanic Library
Great Garden Speakers
Mental Seeds Blog

> 
> I have a publisher for a gardening book, and I would like to use pix  
> in it for which one property owner would like compensation.  That's  
> fine, but I don't know how much to offer her.  I've asked her to tell  
> me how much she wants, but she declined and wants me to make an  
> offer.   

> The other question has to do with photos taken on a property that has  
> changed hands at least once since the photos were taken.  No property  
> release was signed by the person who owned the property when the  
> photos were taken.  In fact, he's passed away.  Someone else owns the  
> property now, and I could find out who, but it seems to me they don't  
> have any right to object to photos of the property taken before they  
> owned it.  There are heirs to the person who owned the property when  
> the shots were taken, but they no longer own it, either.  Does anyone  
> know what one is supposed to do in a situation like this?
> 

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