CLARE BREHENY REVIEWS THE HARMONY AND BLUE PORTRAIT CONTRACT TEMPLATE
In summary, this seems to be just what UK portrait photographers need! I haven’t seen anything out there in the market that offers this.
I found it to be really comprehensive and importantly it has been thought through from the view point of different business models e.g. location vs studio photographers, all inclusive packages vs a la carte sales, IPS vs galleries, newborn sessions vs family portraits etc etc
It covers off some of the very important aspects of regulations that we all need to understand and be compliant with (for example the 14 day calling off period for non face to face purchases and sharing our clients’ data with other suppliers). It is clearly a professional legal document but is also written in plain English so that our clients (and we!) can understand it.
Not only does it deal with lots of the common issues that come up time and time again on photographers’ forums e.g. when to delete client images, not providing RAW files, not showing every image taken, cancellation policies etc etc
but it also acts as a best practice guide for new photographers, setting out all the different things they need to think about in their business work flow and interactions with clients. (I wish I had had access to this when I was starting out!!)
The built-in ability to set your own parameters within the contract means it will meet the needs of most photographers and enable them to follow their own preferred ways of working with clients.
I also love the way it is split to have the summary part and tick boxes up front and then the detailed terms, it makes it really pragmatic when getting the client to sign it online.
Clearly a huge amount of work has gone in to making this a top class resource for photographers. It is much needed and I think it’s brilliant that our industry will have this resource.