What should one be aware of when taking pictures at work, but not as one's primary role?

Question

I took a few pictures around work and they were used on our website (more here). I've just been asked to do some shots of the executives, and it looks like there may be more requests like this. Any advice?

• Money came up. What's a fair price? Pay per shoot, or increase salary?
• Rights agreement — any gotchas I should look out for?
• Other stuff I should think about?

Answer

This greatly depends on your intentions, if you intend to become a full time photographer then drawing up an agreement would be a very worthwhile endeavour. I'm not a lawyer but in that case you'd probably want to ask to retain the rights to use photos for promotional purposes for use on your website etc.

If you don't then I'd suggest specifying a nominal fee of say 150CDN (you don't say how many photos we're taken) on the understanding any more sets of photos will incur a further fee. If you take this route you're being rewarded monetarily for your time and investment in equipment but also by being seen as performing an act of good will to the company because you're cheaper than getting in a professional photographer. I'd be wary of asking for an increase of salary because that implies that you would become 'official company photographer' and as great as this sounds that might affect your career by taking your time from your main position.

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