I’m afraid this advice is mostly for fellow female photogs. There are quite a few things you may have never considered when dressing to shoot a wedding or a portrait session. Here are some of my fashion dos & donts:

• Don’t wear a skirt/dress unless you charged extra for a peep show
• Do wear jeans/trousers. Your knees will thank you.
• I’m a skinny jeans girl. But tearing my jeans by crouching down a billion times in an hour isn’t favourable. Try to wear relaxed trousers, not tight ones.
• Don’t wear bangles to shoot a wedding. Every time you move your arm, you’ll draw attention to yourself.
• Don’t wear cheap shoes. Crouching down on the balls of your feet will totally split the sole wide open. Try for something from Clarks (in the UK) or Aerosoles (In America) with flexible soles.
• Pockets are so valuable for a photographer. When I buy cardigans, I always make sure they have a pocket. This way, you can drop in your lens cap, spare battery, etc.
• If you’re a makeup wearer, your makeup repertoire should be different for a long day of shooting.
• You probably won’t find it easy wearing sunglasses while looking through a viewfinder. And even if it’s not your style, consider a hat for outdoors shooting in impossibly bright locations.
• No matter the heat, cover up for sun protection and try to avoid sunscreen on areas of your body which will come in contact with your camera or it’s strap

That’s all I can think of for now. Anyone else have tips for a photographer’s wardrobe?

My least favourite topic of all time. Copyright. How do you protect your intellectual property? Keep it to yourself. Never share a single image online. I’ve splashed watermarks allover my photos. Didn’t make a difference. Clients will steal the previews from their gallery and post them to their Facebook. People will steal your photos from Flickr and print them on canvas and send them to shopping malls allover the UK. People are selfish and we don’t always think about the chain reaction that can be set in place by our selfishness. We’re all pirates from time to time.

This post started with a question from a reader: “How, without going to an expensive lawyer, do you protect your intellectual property, copywrite etc and ensure you have permission to publish the photographs from your clients.  I’ve been searching for what seems forever to find standard letters, contracts etc.”

The answer? Through your own hard work. There is literally no one out there to help you protect your work. There’s the Creative Commons group for creating licenses for your work. And there are laws regarding copyright. But in reality, there don’t seem to be any measures in place for upholding these laws, short of suing the thief in court. And thieves know this. I mean c’mon, short of our own morals or principles, who of us copies a CD for a friend and worries that they’re going to get arrested? It’s pretty much an honour system and when someone is dishonest and steals your stuff, it’s up to you the magnitude of the theft and it’s effect on you. And then you have to decide if it’s worth taking them to court. And if they’re stealing an image they couldn’t be bothered to buy the print for, they don’t likely have any money even if you DID win a lawsuit. The only scenario I can see this being worthwhile is if you caught your image in a prominent magazine or on a CD case or in a movie.

The second half of this question deals with to reverse scenario: Do WE have the right to publish THEIR face on our website? This is a grey area. Yes, the images are your property. But then, their face isn’t. Their kid isn’t. The easiest, most effortless way I deal with this is before a session, the client fills out a client info form with their name, address, phone and the date (the date is very important). Then at the bottom of the same sheet is one sentence: “I am happy for Elizabeth Halford, photographer to use the images resulting from this session online or in print.” If it’s a child session, they have to write the child(ren)s name next to their signature. I’ve never once had a client not sign this portion of the form and never once have I had a client unhappy with the images I have used.

For weddings, the release is on the contract they sign and hand in with their deposit.

I wish I had more to tell you. I wish I could say “call this number” when someone has stolen your work. The police will laugh you down on the phone if you call to report a stolen image (believe me. I’ve tried). Just stay on top of the petty crimes by making contact with clients who have used your images outside of the copyright agreement and don’t waste too much of your precious time chasing down stray images here and there. Time is money!

Ever watch those ‘stupid criminal’ shows where they tell stories of bank robbers writing their demands on the back of their utility bill? Or how about the real life scenario of a friend spilling the beans that the client they sent your way has the photos framed allover her house? But you don’t remember getting an order from them? Yeah.

I don’t believe the clients who have stolen from me have done so maliciously. I don’t think they’re thinking of the hard work and thousands of pounds worth of equipment I’m still paying for which I used to produce their images. But that doesn’t mean they don’t need to be educated.

I’m going to write a more exhaustive post about protecting your intellectual property legally and how to deal with cases of copyright infringement. So this post is mainly about the things I’ve done in the past to educate others about their theft of my blood, sweat and tears.

1. I received an invite to a baby shower which had images of the friends’ maternity session which hadn’t been requested from me. I think they’d been swiped off Facebook. I kindly emailed them and asked that the next time they would like to use my images, they ask first so I can send them better quality versions which have my logo on them. Easy peasy.
2. Facebook – this one is a killer. Although I do sometimes provide web-ready images for clients to share (it’s great publicity) I’m NOT ok when they swipe the photos from their preview gallery, crop out the “do not copy” watermark and post them on FB and then never ever buy a single photo from their session. It’s so easy to catch them, too. These clients are easily traceable because most of my business comes by word of mouth. Just take a morning to troll through the friends lists of your friends who send you clients and the photos are often their profile pics. Or simply search for your most recent clients via their email address. Send them a message to let them know that they’re stealing and you would like them to (please) remove the photos and buy the web-ready disk from their order form. If they don’t remove them in a reasonable amount of time (and let’s face it, most of us check our FB multiple times a day so it’s not like they’ll need a week) then you can report them to FB for copyright infringement. I’ve done this before and the photos are removed and the person is notified of the issue. And then when you see them every day dropping the kids off at school, they can’t make eye contact with you. LOL
3. I’ve actually been emailed by clients who (somehow) downloaded or copied one of their images and they need help because the canvas they tried to print at the local grocery store came out all ‘fuzzy’. Um…no thank you! I’ve got no problem telling friends and clients now in no uncertain terms (although nicely) that this is piracy and no different than burning a CD of my music if I were a musician. It’s not any different just because they’re photos.

Those are the only scenarios I can think of at the moment. Please leave your stories of piracy in the comments below!