Practical Photography

Today it was announced that the first Models Union has been established, I have been aware over the past 12 to 18 months the various petitions to start a models union to protect young men and women from being compramised or being ripped off. This will be good news for Models as in the Industry there are a lot of models being taken advantage of, also this may prevent some agency’s and some Photographers from charging thousands for portfolios to young men and women who have no chance of making a career from this. I think this will help re gain an industry standard for the amount of commission an agency takes and help seperate the good models from the wanabees with the money.
What about the photographers?

This could be seen in two lights really,it may mean stricter rules when employing a model or it may mean better quality models in agencies.

A models union will mean photographers will have to be more carefull with images and they will have to be meticulous about getting model release forms signed, either by the model themself, the agency representative, or by parent/guardians if the model is under 18.
When a model is paid they are paid for a number of things;

1. Their time, this is fairly obvious you get paid hourly or daily, any extra hours you get paid for…simple.
2. Usage, how the images will be used. If it is for a website, magazine, billboard, TV commercial etc. The more times it is used the more money it will cost.
3. Exposure, will the images be used locally, nationally, internationally. Obviously the more exposure the more it will cost.
4. Timescale, images are bought usually for a number of months or a season if the images are to be used in another campaign or carried on over the timeframe then the model should receive royalties subject to this.

Photographers can do a buyout if a project looks like it is going to be large. This is a lump sum which gives you full copyrite of the image and the models will have to pay for any portfolio images although most photographers will supply this as a Gesture of good will.

I don’t think the Models union will do photographers any harm, it is unlikely that all the models will strike at one time! I think it will be beneficial to reputable photographers because if you are professional no one will complain, it is the photographers who are trying to scam models out of there money that will suffer.