PLANNING A PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP
[Loftus is a retired attorney, professional photographer,
safari operator, business man, columnist, writer and freelance photo journalist]
Although I am using a photography workshop or course as
example the comments herein can just as well be applicable to any workshop or
course or event.
Tsonga Traditional
Drummers & Dancers
Just the other day a would-be-photography-course-presenter
gave the following advice to an aspiring wildlife photographer after that would-be-presenter
attended a studio workshop: “You always
shoot in M-mode set at F8, 1/80th sec, ISO 100. Do not change that!” The result: a totally over-exposed set of wildlife
images. Fortunately I was there to give the correct settings for wildlife
photography and fortunately for the aspiring wildlife photographer his initial images
was only a test run. But imagine this, you as expert photographer, give advice
to someone who on your advice uses the wrong settings messes up a once in a
lifetime shot and thereby spoils a very expensive trip for example to the
Serengeti. The consequences of giving wrong advice is that apart from having
your reputation tarnished you may find yourself in Court for damages to pay the
cost of that Serengeti trip, especially if the recipient of your advice is a
novice to photography. You will know that the EXIF data on those images will
expose your advice. Or just imagine that you have given the wrong advice on the
settings of the “money shot” at a wedding ceremony and you spoil the image and
the couple sue the photographer [and consequently you for giving the wrong
advice]. You don’t think this will happen? In Australia a couple recently sued
their photographer for not taking the “kiss shot” and had their whole ceremony re-enacted
and sued the photographer for those costs and in another case in the
U.S.A. a photographer was sued for
$300,000 [USD] for "bad images" as the couple had to do their whole marriage ceremony all over
again. There are currently a number of these type of court cases all over the
world and they may each have their own merits and defences, the point that I am
making is that you as presenter or organiser should be very careful of what
expectations you evoke or what advice you give. The bottom line is you do not
want to be a co-defendant in Court.
The essence of a workshop or course is the transfer of
knowledge and/or skills on a specific subject matter or giving advice relating
to it – in most of the courses or workshops I
attended or presented the
frequently asked question is “what was
your camera setting for that shot?”
Different cameras and different lenses will give its own qualities to an
image so the best is to learn what your camera and lens can do is normally my
advice to fellow photographers. Most times at courses you will find that settings they give you are only "guidelines" and not a rigid set of rules.
I have presented several courses myself for the Ngonyama
Safari Club since 2004 ranging from GPS to Bush Mechanics to Safari planning to
“Introduction to Wildlife Photography” courses/workshops. A number of my articles
on these subjects which were published in well-known outdoor lifestyle
magazines through the years. Planning
workshops or courses differs not much from planning safaris into Africa – you
have to do it properly or you will be the loser. Having all this experience
gives me a reasonable platform to make the comments herein.
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| Steam Train shoot - FOTR 2012 |
Being a top
photographer or a skilled presenter/narrator unfortunately does not make you a
successful event or workshop organiser – I have seen Event Organisers planning
and executing, for example, a huge music concert, however they did not have any
music skills or being a public speakers, but the event was a huge success,
because they knew all the peripherals and legalities involving events. On the
other hand I have also seen courses where the organisers had to pay in, either
as a result of ignorance or failing to calculate all the costs and risks
involved.
Planning a photography event or workshop not only takes a
lot of time and a lot of money, but the organisers [or organising committee]
also takes on a huge legal responsibility and duty. These include a number of
contracts like venue, employment, accommodation, transportation, rentals and
indemnities etc. and this brings in legal issues like safety, employment,
insurance, building and model and other releases, copyrights and more,
including Acts like the Bill of Rights, the Consumer Protection Act and other
legislation. All these issues do have a cost implication and these costs must
be built in in your course fees.
Costing is a very difficult thing to do as you can easily
cost yourself out of the market. Working with sponsors does help, but my
experience is that you need to contact possible sponsors months in advance.
When I want Canon [and I am talking of Canon just by way of example] to loan me
equipment for a wildlife photography workshop/course I need quite a lot of time
in advance and I must be specific of what equipment I need and this involves a business plan and proposal. Then I had to
insure their equipment which put my “profit” at risk – an insurance company recently
charged me R3000.00 to insure the equipment I had on loan plus my public
indemnity just for the weekend. So even when you get a sponsorship it comes
with a price. The best option is to work
with whatever equipment or resources you have. It is always a good idea to draft a business plan for your courses whether you need a sponsorship or not.
Let us say, [by way of example] that you want to give a course
in Photoshop or any photo editing programme, but let us use Photoshop as an example:
·
all the legal duties
and responsibilities I touched on above are still applicable
·
Are you a
qualified or certified Photoshop instructor/tutor [by Adobe,]?
·
Or do you have a duly and properly authorized
presenter to present your Photoshop course?
·
Are you going to create the impression to your
course attendees that you are legally entitled to present a “Photoshop” course?
·
Do you have all the copyright permissions or
authorizations for the material you are going to use?
·
What expectations have you evoked from your
audience? I have attended a couple of photography courses offered by
magazines, shows, expos, camera
manufacturers and the like for purposes of learning more and reporting on it and
found that a couple of them had the same course material content of an
earlier course I attended or that I know more about the course subject than the
presenter, because the course was only of a basic nature. I have even been threatened/bullied by Big Event
organizers/manufacturers to prevent me of writing anything negative about the
course/event/product until they found out exactly who I am whereafter they
quickly changed their tunes. You do not know who will be attending your
course/workshops and what negative comments they can say about your course so you need
to be prepared for that as well.
·
[TIP: Why don’t you rather have Adobe or an Adobe
accredited presenter to do your course or the part where you need them in your course –
isn’t that a nice and legal way of doing it]
Once you have the above in place let us consider
the following:
Your
venue:
§ Is it a safe environment for a course/workshop?
§ Does it have
the proper facilities for the course? For example does it have enough
electricity points for laptops, computers and charging systems and lecture
rooms with tables and chairs?
§ What about
privacy? Assuming that photos are going to be taken you need to sort out privacy issues before the commencement of the workshop - [I once attended a course where there were models posing
for the attendees on a specific defined contractual basis , but the venue owner was all under our noses taking photos
himself left, right and centre and there by infringing the privacy rights of his
guests]
§ Security: What
provisions were taken for the safety of your attendees’ cars, equipment and
possessions?
§ Are you
providing meals & drinks? What happens when your guests/attendees get food
poisoning? Did you put your public liability insurance in place?
o Releases: do you have
all the releases necessary like buildings, models, art and other copyrighted,
branded or trademarked objects, especially if you are going to take pictures
during the course or workshop? (I attended a workshop where we were presented with model releases and
afterwards found out that one of the models was under age and signed a model
release without the assistance of her parents – this may have legal
consequences). There are workshops which will allow and enable the attendees to take photos of models and props with the purpose of building their photography portfolios - now just imagine one of your attendees posting such photo of a minor.
The point I want to make is that if you want to do a workshop or course
or event – make sure you comply with all the legalities. On Facebook and social media I have seen
comments to the effect “bugger the Law, let’s do what we want to do!” – to me
that person is unprofessional, will in all probability infringe copyrights [and
pirate copyrighted images and software], will fail to observe human rights or
privacy matters or the rights of others and for that remark I will not refer
any customers or attendees to him for a photography brief or if he would present a course to avoid his courses.
On my example above I work on the assumption that the course/workshop
will involve the taking of photos. One should give careful consideration as to
the type of workshop or course you want to plan and execute. Tip: always have new material or examples in
your course and as much of your own work as possible.
One of the failures of a workshop or course is the lack of marketing or
insufficient marketing and not having enough attendees to cover the costs.
Unfortunately there is not a thing like a “free lunch” and unless you are a
philanthropist you need to be remunerated for your efforts. Nobody will crucify
you for making a R1000 or more from a course, but that if
there are not enough attendees you must take the brave decision to cancel your
workshop or event.
The mere fact that you know how to drive a car does not mean it is legal
– you need a valid driving license and the same applies to presenting workshops
you may know how a lot about "Photoshop" [as per my example] but to do it you still
need to do it legal. So if you want to use a branded name like Photoshop to
market your course you will have to get a license or authorization from Adobe or the legal copyright/brand owner –
but nothing prevents you to advertise your course as a “Photo editing” course
without referring to any branded or copyrighted names, but you still need to be
careful that you do not invoke the “expectation” of your attendees that they
are attending a “Photoshop” workshop.
I hope I have given an insight and food for thought for both potential presenters as well as attendees that there is more to presenting a workshop or course that meets the eye.
I do not want to put a damper on enthusiasm to organize or present a
course or workshop but there are many pitfalls and dangers lurking for the would-be-organizer
of a course but if you are aware of it you can work your way around them.
Loftus ©2013
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