HOW TO MAKE MORE MONEY AS A NIGERIAN PHOTOGRAPHER OR ARTIST
A must read for every photographer and artist.
A typical photographer in Nigeria owns a studio where he takes birthday photoshoots, official headshots etc. Sometimes, he also goes for outdoor jobs.
A conventional artist makes paintings and drawings when he’s contracted to do so. Some artists go a step further to gift drawings or paintings to celebrities just to broaden their audience and increase visibility.
All these are great ways to grow your brand and earn a living as a photographer or artist but you can actually do better.
MONETIZE YOUR WORK THROUGH LICENSING OR ASSIGNMENT.
Do you know that beyond displaying your works on your social media page, you can take steps to license or assign those works?
Learn from Sanjo Lawal
Sanjo Lawal is a fine art photographer in Lagos.
He decided, on his own, to venture into a campaign photoshoot for Odogwu Bitters.
On April 2, 2022, he published the pictures from the shoot and asked netizens to help publicise his post so the work will be noticed by the owner of Odogwu Bitters, Obi Cubana.
After some days, he annonced that the Cubana brand had reached out to purchase the arts. However, the details of the transaction are not known to the public.
So you see, one way to increase your flow of income as a photographer or artist is to sell the works you’ve produced.
To get the best out of every transaction, you need to take note of the following:
You need to decide whether you want to assign your work or license it.
If you assign, it means that you will no longer have any right over the usage of that work, apart from moral rights. Let me explain…
If the Odogwu Bitters photographs were assigned, it means that Sanjo Lawal relinquished ownership to the company. The company will now have the right to resell, display, reproduce, and adapt the work in any way they please so as to get economic benefits but while doing all of these, they cannot attribute the creation of those pictures to any other person apart from Sanjo Lawal. They cannot also use the photos in a way that will be detrimental to Sanjo's reputation as an photographer and artist.
So, in summary, an assignment takes away all future economic opportunities from you. It transfers all ownership rights to the buyer but with licensing, it’s not the same.
Licensing allows you to decide which right to give out and which one to hold back. Eg If the agreement for the Odogwu Bitters photos was a licensing agreement, Sanjo Lawal can decide to restrict the usage of the photographs such that the bitters company will only be able to use the photos for display (or any other specified use) while Sanwo will retain other rights of usage for himself for further economic exploitation. He can even decide to limit the display usage to only a number of years.
Basically, in licensing, the photographer or artist remains the owner of the work.
Typically, an assignment should cost more than licensing. If you're assigning your work, you must know that you can never gain economic benefits from that work again so you had better charge the highest possible price for your efforts. Bargain well.
If you license your work to be used on a product, you can decide to ask for a recurring royalty. Eg if your photograph or artwork is going to be used in branding a book that will be sold, you can ask for a percentage of profits from the sales of that book. So each time the book is sold, you get a cut.
Documents are paramount. Don’t just get engaged in oral transactions. Put every term down in writing. Let the buyer sign. This will help you avert unnecessary disputes in the future.
Before you venture into any contract ensure you get across to your lawyer. Having a lawyer will give you an advantage during negotiations because you’ll able to get solid advice on the terms to agree to and the ones to reject.
FINAL WORDS
The general rule is that when you create a work as a photographer or an artist, the work belongs to you and you can exploit it economically in any way that you deem fit.
However, there are exceptions to this general rule.
Do you want to know what these exceptions are?
All subscribers will gain first hand knowledge on the exceptions to the general rule of copyright ownership.
Wonderful !