A Not So New Industry Practice...Feel "Free" To Go Away

I’d like to take you through some hypothetical scenarios to see what your immediate reaction is. Humor me. I swear there’s a point.

1.       I work a wedding with X florist. I’ve never met them before and have no relationship with them. But DAMN do they put together a nice bouquet of flowers that I’m sure my wife would LOVE. So, I stop in and order one, only when it’s time to pay…I say, “Well, we worked X event together, so I thought you’d give them to me for free.”

a beautiful private backyard birthday set up by Picture Book Picnics & Parties

2. I book a DJ company I’ve never hired previously, and ask them to give me their best DJ for an upcoming event for 200 of my closest friends for five hours. I expect it for free because we worked a mitzvah together.

nobody rocks “coke & pepsi” quite like fabien or dc from All Around Entertainment

 3.       I work an event at X venue. Several months later I’m in need of a space to hold an anniversary party. I go back to that venue and ask them to rent me one of their best rooms, and since we now have a “relationship,” I expect them to waive the rental fee.

the beautiful gotham hall in nyc prior to the edward r. murrow awards

How did those scenarios make you feel? Did you feel like I was being unreasonable? Acting entitled? Trying to take advantage of these businesses? Did you develop a sudden eye twitch?

Of course you did. You know why?

YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO SOMETHING JUST BECAUSE YOU WANT IT!

Now let me back up and say that just last night, my wife and I were making some site updates and she said to me, “You know, you haven’t done a blog since 2020.”

My initial response was going to be something snarky…something along the lines of, “Well, what could I POSSIBLY write about that would really matter in the utter shitshow that has been the last two years?!” along with that patented Joe Pesci look from “My Cousin Vinny” after the whole back and forth with Marisa Tomei on the porch of the cabin.

I decided to save my marriage and simply say, “I honestly haven’t had that much to write about.” Which wasn’t a lie.

And then I thought of something based on an email that came in recently from another vendor.

“Hi, I was wondering if the images from ‘X event’ were completed yet? We’d love to have some for our website, and of COURSE we’ll credit you.”

Ah yes…the ‘ol “We’ll give you SO much publicity” line in order to get what they want. That train ain’t never late.

The problem is none of them ever really do research on us. Had they simply taken a moment, they would see what this little studio that could has accomplished, who some of our clients are, that we are SO fully stocked on “credit” that we simply couldn’t take another bite of that pie.

We recently received an email from another vendor:

“I was wondering if you could send me the gallery of photos for ‘X event’ when they become available?”

I did what I’ve always done, and wrote the following:

“The final images have yet to be chosen by the couple. However, all proofs including any of the ones you are looking for have been completed.

As a rule, we normally do not offer images gratis. Vendor purchase price for website portfolios is $25.00 per image. If you’re interested, we’ll be happy to send along a link for you to make your selections.”

Not surprisingly, there was no response. Certainly not the first time, and most definitely not the last.

But here’s what they don’t know:

1. We don’t charge $25.00 per image, our retail rates are WAY more than that.

2. We don’t actually charge vendors we work with for images. It’s a test to see if they’re willing to invest in their own company, or if they’re just trying to grab some freebies. If they’re willing to pay, we just give them the images. 100% of the time. They just don’t respond.

Other event vendors often see photographers as a means to an end. They don’t see the value in what we do. They just see an opportunity to put professional quality images on their website, courtesy of us. They seldom, if EVER, ask to pay for them, and most times, feel like they’re entitled to them.

Another recent inquiry went like this:

“You can send us any images that show people having a great time, or our DJ in action. We'd be very excited to receive those. Those images would improve the look of his online resume and you will get a credit line and a link back to your website.”

I wrote them back and replied to the same way as I did in the previous instance.

Crickets.

They wrote me back at least three other times with the EXACT same email as the prior one(s) after that. Maybe to wear me down.

I replied the with the same exact email each time.

Nothing.

What they and most of our fellow vendors don’t realize is that NOTHING is free in this world. They simply see us like trained chimps, walking around and pressing a button. And while most days we may actually FEEL like that…it’s far from the truth.

Let’s break down what typically goes into an 8–10 hour event:

• Multiple emails, phone calls, etc. with the family or client prior to the event. Let’s be conservative and call it 3 hours.

• Then there’s the event itself.

• Then comes the ingestion, culling and editing of those event images. Let’s say that’s another 3+ hours based on the event type.

• We have the yearly cost of a third-party application to upload the proofs to a digital platform to share said images.

• Sometimes we need to pay X amount to the venue to issue an additionally insured certificate.

• Travel, gas, tolls.

• Then the edits for the final images. Depending on the complexity of the edits this could be anywhere from a couple hours to a couple days.

So for every 8-10 hour event, let’s say we’re actually putting in 17-20++ hours. Yes, most of those costs are baked in, but it’s still a LOT of work.

Oh, and by the way. The other vendors DON’T PAY FOR ANY OF THAT! The client does. And unless the client is buying the copyrights out from us (which happens mostly with our corporate event clients), WE STILL OWN THE IMAGES!

I have no problem calling out venues as the worst offenders. They’ll happily give us 2-day-old food as a “vendor meal” and inevitably give it to us once the dinner hour is over, and our opportunity to eat has passed. But boy aren’t they the first ones to demand images from us for free after the fact?

Look, we’re all just trying to make a living here. The last two years have been hard on EVERYONE.  But can we agree that ALL of our collective time is worth something?

At the end of the day, you’re not entitled to what our clients are paying for. It’s their big day, their big yearly event, their big whatever.

I’m going to repeat what I said earlier because it seems to be a larger issue these days.

YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO SOMETHING JUST BECAUSE YOU WANT IT!

I look forward to the day I finally get to tell someone, “Thank you for actually being open to investing in your own business. We don’t actually charge vendors for our images, but the fact that you heard us and respected us enough to agree to it, please accept these as a thank you.”

But my guess is…Joe Pesci’s eyeroll on that porch as Vincent LaGuardia Gambini will be the outcome of ALL of those emails.

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