With Nick Dunmur Wed 19th June: online seminar

I attended this seminar to increase my knowledge of working in the photographic industry

Nick Dunmur, Commercial Photographer, Advisor to the Association of Photographers (AOP), and chair of the British Photographic Council.

“The Business of Being a Creative’ deals with the nuts and bolts of getting started as a creative business. In this Creative Conversations session, Nick Dunmur walks us through the foundations of getting set up properly, such as business structures, insurance, tax and probably most importantly, knowing how to set your rate properly, to make sure you make money and start a business which not only survives but thrives”. (At: https://learn.oca.ac.uk/mod/book/view.php?id=27053&chapterid=10018 (Accessed 29/06/2024).

My Learning:

This was an excellent seminar, where I learnt much about the business elements of operating as a commercial photographer. I gained detailed knowledge of professional contexts, such as my collective responsibility as well as own (fee setting, use of AI).

This learning supports my own practice as I disseminate my work and operate in the professional dimensions of the photographic industry. It is also timely as the knowledge I have gained will support the writing of my project resolution plan (assignment 2).

I made detailed notes, further down, which I will return to for specific information as needed but here is my top line learning:

If developing a commercial practice:

• Consider how you could carve out a niche for your photography?
• I have a responsibility to myself and to others, and to the industry. When quoting if you pitch yourself too cheap you won’t have a long career for very long and it lowers cost expectations for other professionals.
• Set a creative fee not a day rate (see below)
• Consider funding sources

MY NOTES:

Best practice in business basics – Its ‘commercial’ if you’re making a living from it.

• AOP promotes connections between organisations and photographers.
• Reminder that my AOP membership gives me a 3 years access membership for £40. This keeps me in touch.
• Importance of collective responsibility (eg. AI).

Useful information:

Clients often want a day rate. He suggests you pitch as a creative fee so not specifying a length of time but to an outcome, which can’t be compared to other’s day rate, and can be increased as your work becomes well known.

How to fund your life if regular income is needed? This requires setting a day rate, :

• Do you need to make money from it?
• Are you wedding, portrait editorial photographer, Fine art photographer?
• My reasonable requirement + costs of doing business (office costs: Insurance, rent) he suggested 12k office costs 48K as reasonable salary.
• Allow for holidays (30 days)  illness 4 days, maybe allow 200 days for editorial work which with 60K income needed, divided = £300 a day, apparently this is the going rate today.
• Consider the number of shooting days available to me/Number of bookings I’ll get = number of opportunities. Divide what I need annually by this for each event.
• Some market sectors you can charge more such as advertising, but the expectation of the value that the photographer can bring is high, as can stress levels.

Consider overheads for your business:

• Equipment: Buy hire lease?
• Insurance: these define professional photographers, esp first two. Tell your clients that you are properly insured.
• Public liability? Covers you against causing injury (say a trip) to others and being sued against their loss of earnings. Cheap approx. £100 a yr.
• Professional indemnity (PI) (AOP): covers against infringing someone else’s copyright, but can be messy, against your own mistakes like loss of images/data when you have to reshoot. Can get it through AOP if associate (£160 pa )/accredited member then they provide a blanket group professional indemnity cover (would probably cost £200 pa)
• I won’t need  employer liability
• Portfolio (can be expensive to produce and insure), goods in trust (eg goods photographing), hired in kit & accident and health.
• Can get insurance on a shot by shoot basis. Good insurance brokers: Williams and Carson, Glover and Howe, Hancella Canworth….
• Cyber and data (data protection cover/breaches, hacking, ransoms eg. Instagram). Office/studio
• Doing workshops – overhead CPD

Business plan: needed if making a funding bid eg arts council. Templates for these in the AOP member dashboard. Also consider:

• Profit and loss outline
• Cash flow forecast – when’s your money coming in?
• 1/3/5/yr plan
• Raising funds: long term/short term

Think how you will fund your own bodies of work – how many  average pa, where do the sales come from are they through book sales or gallery, online print sales

The paperwork trail:

• Own Terms and conditions (AOP 5 pages long bullet proof T&C that covers most eventualities -geared to business to business, rather than business to consumer, which are less contract heavy)
• Estimate (general overview of expectations and outcome: encouraged as give wriggle room) or quotation (avoid as can be legally binding) include terms of use.
• Confirmation of commission: to get in writing what has been verbally agreed, as recollections can vary .
• Their purchase order
• Model release/property release form –if photographing people or on location. (there is an app called ‘easy release’ if want to do on your phone)
• Third party/crew agreements- if working with others, assistants, lighting etc.
• Issue your invoice and licence to shoot (aka usage agreement or terms of use of your work). You are not handing out your intellectual property/copyright you are renting the use of it out. Eg exclusive licence only they can use this work, cheaper is an non exclusive licence where you can sell the work to others.

Other tips:

• Check AOP resources of documents
• Artists network £36 pa lots of information and resources on funding opportunities esp useful for fine art practice.
• Plus see beyond the lens resource

LO1 demonstrate comprehensive knowledge of the professional context(s) relevant to your practice and have an understanding of the professional dimensions that underpin a successful photographic practice.