Templates · Contracts

In photography, the argument is almost always about usage.

A generic freelance contract assumes the client ends up owning the work. In photography that is usually wrong and always expensive to assume: the normal arrangement is a licence for a defined use, for a defined time, in defined places. Get that clause right and most of the rest is scheduling.

What it has to contain

Every clause, and what it is doing there.

Worth having as a checklist whatever you draft it in. The provisions are the reason the agreement works; the formatting is not.

01Parties, date, location	Who, when, and where, including call times. For events, the schedule is part of the deliverable.
02Coverage and deliverables	Hours of shooting, number of edited images, format, and whether raw files are included. Raw files are usually not, and saying so up front avoids the conversation later.
03Licence and usage rights	The clause that matters. What the client may use the images for, in what media, for how long, and in which territories. Exclusive or non-exclusive. Commercial use commands different terms from personal use.
04Copyright	Ordinarily retained by the photographer, with the client receiving a licence. If ownership does transfer, price it accordingly because you are selling the asset, not the sitting.
05Fee, deposit and payment	Booking fee to hold the date, balance due before or on delivery. The deposit is what makes a date real.
06Cancellation and rescheduling	What the client gets back and when, and what happens to the retainer. For outdoor work, name who decides on weather and how a reschedule works.
07Delivery timescale	When edited images arrive, and in what form. A named number of weeks prevents the most common complaint in the category.
08Model and property releases	Who obtains them, especially for commercial use. Without a release, commercial usage can be unlawful regardless of what your contract says.
09Portfolio and promotion	Whether you may show the work, and any embargo. For weddings and private commissions, ask explicitly.
10Liability and equipment failure	Ordinarily capped at the fee. Say what happens if a card fails or you are genuinely unable to attend.

What changes with the deal

The parts no template can decide.

Licence scope

Personal, editorial, commercial. Duration, territory, exclusivity. This is where the price actually comes from.

Deliverable count

A named number of edited images, or a range with a minimum.

Raw files

Usually excluded. If included, price them as the sale of an asset.

Reschedule terms

Weather-dependent outdoor work needs a named decision-maker and a cutoff time.

Commonly missed

The clauses people delete by mistake.

Generic templates carry clauses for situations you are not in, so the instinct is to cut what looks unnecessary. These are the ones worth keeping.

Territory and duration on the licence, not just "they can use it".
Who obtains model and property releases for commercial shoots.
A named delivery window in weeks.
What happens on equipment failure, with liability capped at the fee.
Whether images may be shown in your portfolio, and any embargo.

Why not a download

What a downloaded contract template still leaves you to do

The clauses you delete are the risk

Generic contracts carry provisions for situations you are not in, so the instinct is to cut whatever looks unnecessary. That is how the liability cap, the cure period and the survival clause go missing, and none of them is missed until it matters.

Nothing reconciles the terms with each other

Payment says milestones, termination says thirty days, and acceptance says nothing. A template cannot notice that the three clauses disagree, because it was written before your deal existed.

The signed copy goes into a folder

A contract in storage is a contract nobody can query. The notice period, the renewal date and the value are in the text, which means they are nowhere you will look in eighteen months.

In seconds, with AI

Drafting one in seconds, and keeping it afterwards

One sentence like this is enough: Commercial product shoot for Northwind, one day, 40 edited images, two-year non-exclusive licence for web and social in North America, $4,200, 30% booking fee, delivery in three weeks.

Describe the arrangement, not the document. "Mutual NDA with Northwind before the pilot, three years, Delaware law." It works out what kind of agreement this is and what it has to contain.
It asks only what genuinely changes the terms. Mutual or one-way. Term. Who signs and in what order. Two tappable questions rather than a form, and your answers become defaults.
Your own wording, if you have it. Import existing paper from PDF or DOCX and it becomes an editable template. Settings carries a playbook in free text the AI obeys, so a rule like never agree to unlimited liability holds on every document.
Signed against a specific version. Each party signs wording identified by its content hash, with email verification and a certificate of completion on the final PDF.
Then it is read back into fields. Parties, dates, renewal, notice period, value, governing law and obligations are extracted on completion, and you are warned before the notice window closes.

Create one free What the AI does

Questions people actually ask

Straight answers.

Who owns the photos, me or the client?

Ordinarily the photographer retains copyright and the client receives a licence for a defined use. Transferring copyright is possible and should be priced as selling the asset rather than the shoot, because it ends your ability to license the images again.

What should a photography licence specify?

Four things: permitted uses, media, duration and territory, plus whether it is exclusive. "They can use the photos" is not a licence, and it is the phrasing that produces arguments eighteen months later when the images appear on a billboard.

Do I need a model release as well as a contract?

For commercial use, usually yes, and they do different jobs. The contract is between you and the client; the release is permission from the people in the frame. Say in the contract who is responsible for obtaining them.

How do I handle weather cancellations?

Name who decides, by when, and what happens to the retainer on a reschedule versus a cancellation. Leaving it to good faith on the morning is how a booking fee becomes a dispute.

Not legal advice. This page describes what agreements of this kind usually contain; it is not advice on your circumstances and cannot tell you whether something is enforceable where you are. Have anything you send repeatedly reviewed once by a lawyer, then draft against it.

Draft it, sign it, and still know about it in a year.

Describe the arrangement and get the agreement back drafted. Signed terms are read into fields, so the renewal does not surprise you. Three a month, free.

Create one free