How not to get screwed as a photographer

It's not always about what's in the contract, sometimes it's what's *not* in the contract.

The following piece is part of our new series on how to become a photographer. Read 4 photo critics and curators on how to succeed as a photographer here.

Most freelance photographers will learn about contracts the hard way — usually after being underpaid, overworked, or outright ghosted.

In this piece, three photographers we love share what they wish they knew earlier, including:
→ The one clause that can get you paid again for the same image
→ How to avoid accidentally owing €10K in taxes
→ What to do when a brand keeps asking for “just one more” shot
→ And the mistake that led one photographer to shoot a campaign, album cover, and BTS — for the price of one

If you’re building a creative career and don’t fully understand contracts (yet), this is your survival guide.

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What do you think you should always have in a contract with a client?

Jackson Bowley: Always specify the outcome. So, what do they want? Four shots? So they’ll get four shots. The amount of retouch rounds as well. Basically, agree on what you’re delivering and for how much. Anything that can be used against you later, will.

Jules Moskovtchenko: A really important thing in a contract is to make sure that both sides agree how the money will be used. So make sure you know whether you will retouch or not, or if someone else is retouching, that the money will be allocated for that, and it won't come out of your fee. You also need to make sure you know if your assistant rates are covered. And because there are so many extra costs with photography – the film and stuff like this – you need to make sure that you're never going to have to put that within your fee or to agree on this before. Same for travel.

Alessandro Merlo: You should specify if your fee is going to be before or after taxes and should also have a specified number of final images and the specific formats and resolutions. Also, charge extra for any extra images that are required, so specify an extra fee. These are all things that any agent should deal with, but obviously, not everyone has an agent. You should set the deadline, and you should also specify if the photographer is going to produce the shoot – so, if you have to pay for things up front or not – that is massively important. And specify the usage of the images and be clear whether they're going to be used for six months or a year, and where – like shops or billboards or what have you.

Can you tell me about a time you wished you had pushed for something specific in a contract?

JB: One time I was shooting a Crocs campaign with Jacob Collier. Because I'm so polite and can't tell people no, they asked if I could shoot BTS. And I was like, “Not really, but sure, I can try.” Then I was shooting the campaign alongside shooting BTS, which is interesting, because it's very hard to shoot BTS on a campaign you're shooting. Then his management asked if I could shoot his album cover – I ended up getting rinsed. I shot the campaign, BTS and the album cover. Then I rang my agent, who told me to hold the files so we could sell them back to them. But still, it made the shoot very stressful and not very fun.

JM: Sometimes I’ve wished I made a contract for a job that I thought I didn't need to because I trusted a client or because it was such a small thing I thought there was no need. I have figured out that emails are actually a form of contract, though. If you have phone calls with clients, you still need to make sure that the number of images, deadlines and the usage and all of that is written in an email, because the email will count as a bit of a contract. If you only agree to it on the phone call, the client can literally do whatever they want.

AM: Even though I had a contract for the Valentino campaign that I shot in 2022, so many things went wrong. Basically, the whole point of this Valentino story is that I was made to be the photographer and the producer of the shoot, so I had to pay the entire team their wages. I can't even remember how much it was, so let's say it was a €30k shoot, they gave me €30k, and I kept, like, €5k or €8k, I can't remember, and then I had to pay everybody. But the Italian government thought that I had earned €30k, so I had to pay taxes on the €30k! I wish I had known how this worked. At the time, I had just started freelancing in Italy, and there were all these rules, and I didn't understand. They took advantage of my ignorance, which I regret.

Can you think of a time when having a contract covered your ass on a job?

JB: A contract that specifies the number of shots always helps because usually they end up asking for much more and I’ve ended up getting way more money. If it says eight shots in your contract, shoot the 20 that they're asking for. Shoot as many as they want and charge the extra. Get as much money out of commercial clients as you can!

JM: The best example I can think of is regarding usage. I've been paid for a job multiple times because usage had expired, but the client wanted to reuse the picture. I think once, I even got paid three times, because first they wanted to use it for the original use, and then decided they wanted to use it for print, and then it became like a Christmas card. And so I got paid again and again for an image I'd made before, and that was just the nicest thing ever.

There's this other anecdote I wanted to tell you, because it's a bit of a funny one. I signed this contract with the client and realised that the contract said they owed me more than we had agreed. I realised that they’d made a mistake and signed the contract – so we both signed this document that said that they owed me more money than what we'd previously agreed. This is a huge company, they have so much money and it was a badly paid job. I then invoiced them for the amount that was set on the contract, which was a bit cheeky of me but I was like, “I've got to try.” But they were really not happy with the fact I invoiced for more, even though we both signed that contract. Contracts are great for covering your ass, yes, but the bigger party always ‘wins’.

AM: I was working for this magazine in Italy, shooting editorials for them. The good thing is that they would always have contracts, so the contract would specify the number of pages and images that I had to shoot. At one point they wanted an extra image, and they were making out like I didn't send the correct amount of the images. It was just an oversight from their team, because I had sent the correct amount of images, but they were convinced that I had to deliver more images. The contract was there, so obviously they couldn't ask for these extra images – even though they threatened me! If the contract wasn't there, I couldn't have proved that I was in the right.

Why do you think there is so little information available to photographers about contracts and why they are important?

JB: Because it's confusing as fuck. I don't know anything about contracts because I'm not a lawyer; it's so confusing. I've had photo assistants send me contracts, and I'm like, “God, I don't know what the hell is going on.”

JM: I don't think the industry is good at talking about these issues. I think you don't want to, really. There’s this idea that you don't want to become the difficult photographer or the difficult stylist. I think there's so much competition that people don't want to be associated with this kind of diva image. So you have to keep it low-key and be really nice to work with blah, blah, blah. I think I learned the most by asking my peers and my friends, especially [set designer] Tom Schneider – he's the best person at making contracts for this kind of stuff!

AM: Photographers are not unionised and we rely on agents and agencies to talk about the legal aspects. We just worry about other things. As a photographer, you have to wear many different hats and the legal side of things is an afterthought. For me, it is definitely an afterthought – like, I’ll clean up the mess later. It’s also a complicated subject that photographers, brands and magazines don't want to deal with.

Do you ask for a contract every time you work with a client, or are you selective about which clients you will ask to have a contract with?

AM: When I work with big brands I need to have a contract. I will push for one. For example, with Gucci or Valentino, or big magazines like Vogue, I will ask for a contract. Or sometimes I will provide one, just to make it clear that I'm serious and they cannot fuck around. But I have to say that with smaller brands and people in general I won’t complicate things. Obviously you have to have a certain relationship to not ask for a contract. So, I will push for a contract whenever possible, but sometimes I just realise it's not realistic.

By Eilidh Duffy