As some of you know Im being made redundant soon, one person I work with has bought a shop and has commission me to shoot 6 to 12 photos of the town we live in for postcards to sell. What I need is some advice about the above photo and what to charge, money from each postcard or a one off fee. The photo is the English bridge taken while trespassing on private property at 5:00am

well, just look at it yourself, do you see anything you'd like different? If so, do it. Also, make sure its the proper size for a postcard ( i dont think there is a proper size, but a general one). Also, will you want to add text promoting the town? That sorta junk. as for charging, I really wouldn't know. If you do a persale thing, its easy to be lied to (friend's or not, u never really know), so me thinks, even if there was a contract, it'd be better for a one off deal. at least that way its gauranteed

Sorry, I don't have a clue about the economics. May do better with boxed sets, or slightly larger ones for framing. How will they be printed? I'm interested to hear if anyone has made this work. [Really nice picture, BTW.

The only problem I foresee here is the point you raise at the end, the fact that it's shot on private land..... Depends on what sort of land, but personally, I would approach the landowner, be straight that you are an amateur photographer and that you think the bridge would look good from there - play it down, if they ask about you making any money, jokingly suggest that you doubt it, but don't lie outright. I personally would knock up a quick 'permission to shoot from private land' form for him to sign to give yourself leeway. You don't have to state on it what the photo's are for, just that you have permission to take them. Offer them a copy of the pics you take or something, but don't admit to already having taken the pic. This is my advice based on my recent voluntary work guidelines and the fact that some landowners (organisations so far, apparently) are legally restricting commercial photo's being taken on their land - info from UK Photo magazine. Hope this helps, coz that's a great pic. (",)

Oh, one other thing - if they say no outright, you may consider a rowing boat from this side of the river... from the looks of thise you should get away with a similar angle. Or the local boating club might have a willing volunteer to take you out on one of their meeting days..... they're like us y'know, they like people being interested in their hobby to talk to as well!! (",)

Good luck with this azy, it's a really nice shot ; )

Some good sound advice here, a nice project to have and a fine picture to start with. :O)

I would think your pricing should depend on if the shop has exclusive rights to the image. If they want that, I would charge more, if you can use the images as well, then charge less. Non excluse rights, 10 images, I would charge based on the amount of time it took me to shoot them. If I took all 10 the same day (probably not possible) I would charge say $200 - that's maybe $20 an image. If I spent a week crawling around the city shooting 4 to 5 rolls to get 10 images, I would charge $400-$600. Exclusive rights would at least double the price, maybe triple. I personally wouldn't worry about contacting a private property owner after-the-fact. When I get caught, I offer an image as compensation. A caveate here - I don't make a living out of photography - but when someone wants my work, they pay what I consider a fair price. What is it worth to you to shoot what they want - that is the final price. Hope this helps -

Jordy may have a point. Laws could be different in UK. Check with him, as he does historic architucture stuff professionally.

After 35 years eating with my cameras I strongly advise you sell the rights to be used for post cards, reprints additional, but retain the rest of the rights ( just in case!). You will go absolutley nuts trying to keep up with who sold what, etc other wise.