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This is a huge topic with clients; here are some thoughts I shared recently:
FYI: I don’t want to argue with lawyers, but I’ll just give you my understanding of it… just my opinion, don’t sue me 
They always say that photo rights are on a sliding scale of ‘Location’ and ‘Usage’… the more public the location and the more ‘news’ the usage, the more clear the ability to do what you want with the photo. The more private the location and the more ‘advertising’ the use, the more you need signed permission. You have to decide on how far the balance is tipped in each situation.
This is pretty consistent with what my clients do. At the biggest college I work for, we don’t get photo release permission forms on anything during Reunion. And those photos go up in several online galleries.
We do get them when I photograph in a hospital (no surprise… not ‘public’, very private and with HIPAA rules) and I’m sure the Marketing team gets them for the Billboards and ads (which I don’t take the photos for).
What shots don’t need releases?
There is a point where the group is large enough in a photo, that a release isn’t expected. If it’s a very public event, and a very wide shot of the crowd with no real main subject focus, you would be less apt to be told to get a photo release for fairly ’safe’ uses, like promoting the event next year, etc.
And let’s not forget the classic ‘no faces showing’ option, where people are only seen from behind. When done well, you don’t even think about it.
(in this photo, the only face showing is a staff member)
But the lawyers!
It’s totally possible that lawyers might say that you must have every single photo released before using it in any fashion… but that would be crazy and impossible to do on a large scale event. But a lawyer’s job is to play it super-safe and they may not think through the implications.
I’d estimate that getting permissions would cut the number of photos by a factor of 10 and add one or two workers to follow me. Imagine getting the form from every subject in groups taken on the run. I’d be holding things up and being a pest. Really, I’d just have to focus at each event on 2 or 3 good shots, and not get the other 20 things I get. And that becomes a decision you’d have to make.
We did releases once for a brochure (so it was marketing use, not news), at a very public event and it was so crazy, I’d think twice before doing it again… or more likely would change what I attempted to do… and for that shoot, I had 2 helpers getting forms signed.
Hope that helps explain the difficulties of a system of having every photo taken having a signed release at every public event.
Since I was so hard on organizations not using photos quickly on the web, here are some examples of clients doing big things right on the web.
RIT Reunion:
For a number of years now, RIT has let me run with this idea of a ‘Virtual Reunion’. We post photos throughout the weekend to a site I create and this year I tested this new interface where comments can be left, photos can be sent as e-cards, music can be played, etc.
Results: 3061 Unique Visitors (not ‘hits’ or counting people twice, actual different people). More people saw the photos than attended Reunion.281,000 Page views… that’s huge. My normal would be around 6,000 for a week.
For the ImagineRIT event, my Associate Ron Cronk and I did the same thing with big results:Over 3000 viewers on Flickr (over 20,000 image views of any sort on Flickr… not counting people just seeing the slide show on the RIT site
To my web site’s ImagineRIT Gallery:Over 1100 unique visitors in 3 daysOver 13,000 page views
OK, less chatter from me and more examples to inspire you…
Harley School:
They have a system built into their new web site design and can easily upload my photos. Under the ‘News & Events’ Menu, click Media Gallery.
UofR:
I do online slideshows like this for my top clients (that I know will share them), and the UofR does a great job of promoting what I’ve done. The Wilmott Cancer Center and the UR School of Nursing particularly promote when I create online photo content for them. I see people visiting these shows for months after an event.
One very telling thing is that I see that many people will Google the name of a major event, or the organization and will find my site with these shows… so if your attendees are looking that hard for the photos, you know eventually all client web sites will be set up to show off things like this.
RIT (Again!):
Innovation must be in the water at RIT, because they let me try so many things and they really run with new ideas.
RIT hosted a cool conference for kids in elite science and tech high schools. I covered the event and they wanted my photos right away for a dinner slide show and they paid me to create this online component. I even did this wild 3-D gallery as part of it, figuring tech kids would enjoy the fun interface.
Thanks so much to all of my clients that have been so supportive of these projects… this kind of display of my best work really gets me excited and I think is a ‘Wow’ for event attendees.
Homework: How can you use these ideas with your photos at your next event? What IT person can you befriend to get support to put photos up right after an event, rather that weeks later when no one is looking any more? What can you change with your next web redux to make a space for simple (but elegant ala Harley School) galleries.
I had a really amazing discussion with a client last week. It started with the fact that the local paper is cutting back in a million ways and that to get out their message, even on great stories is nearly impossible… but how to get out the message in our current world, which is arguably post-newspaper.
Obviously we discussed the web and he said they post press releases online constantly, but how do you become a web site that people want to go to, and then how do you make them want to see your message??
He told me a story about a really exciting blog one expert started on his own, and it was getting tons of hits, until the top people saw it and thought it presented the organization’s message ‘in too light of a manner’… and so they killed it.
This is the challenge today— Promote your organization well and have something people want to see…but it has to start with the vision to be trusting, interesting, valuable and different.
Check out what these guys are doing… different, fun, educational… bet they get lots of hits and I bet their organization’s reputation as a cool place is growing. The main site is here and this is a fun out-takes reel:
Your homework Ms. PR Guru… would your organization run with an idea like this, or run from it?!
I have maybe 10% of my clients that do really interesting things on the web with my photos… but many just don’t have the ability (Web site is created by IT and can’t be easily updated), or vision (don’t realize how many visitors cool, current photos on the site). It’s basically free to do and I know over the next few years it’s going to be a huge growth area… and now with the media doing less coverage of exciting things my clients do, we’ll be helping them get out the message online.
Photo Tip: Don’t always take photos from the obvious viewpoint, look around, look behind you, look for the cool details…
(Photo is from the Kids Games at the RIT Brick City Homecoming & Reunion 2008)
Grabbed this during Reunion weekend… not as creative as the earlier bathroom examples, but still has something….
