Busines Question - Merging w/another event photog

[RandyArrowood]

You, as the owner of the equipment, should come up with what you want per print sold to cover the use of your equipment. On a $20 print, how much should go to you for your stuff? $10, $12? I am talking hard material costs as well as wear and tear and replacement/upgrade costs.

Deduct that amount from EVERY print sold and then sit down to haggle over the remainder.

[darryn_patch]

I shot The Asia pacific Masters games with 4 other photographers who all do/did event photography. at first money and payment was a bit of a sticking point. I had 600/4 which enabled me to get into more sports so to speak which meant, (to me anyway) I was going to sell the majority of images as I was the more experienced sports photographer having shot every type of sport for the last 5 years, However all the photogs brought something different to the team and contibuted equally to the success of the event. We simply sent people to sports which suited the gear they had.
We ended up selling something like 20K worth of shots from memory. We split the sales evenly with the games organisers taking 15%. It wasn't as profitable as I had hoped given that I wanted a split of sales on who shot the pic gets the money. If it had been like that I think I would have ended up with atleast 40% of the sales.

In your situation given you have all the veiwing stations and 95% of the gear required I would put a premiun on sales, Say 20% of all net sales then split the remaining net profit 50-50. Obviously you'd go 50-50 on all expenses papers inks etc. Which would leave a split of 60-40. That seems pretty fair. Given that you partner is a competant photographer. Yopu will be spiiting chips if you sell 90% of photos and he sells 10%. You might need to look at a form of remuneration relating to sales. It can get pretty ugly but the more easy going you are the less you will get payed.

Will be interesting to see what eventuates next time the games are on as I don't talk to one of the photogs anymore as he spat the dummy at me coming back to The Gold Coast and taking over what was my road bike track day photography business before I went around Australia for 12 months. Give a guy a leg up to an event untill I get back and when I get back I get very ordinary announcement posted on his website about me and my lack of morals ah well all is good now I have more events to shoot now than I did a year ago.

Here is a few links to some of my road bike trackday shots which explains why I got my trackdays back again

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=2087803

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=2087798

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=2083393

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=1352552

[CBFountain]

WOW! You guys have been busy while I was away. Thanks for all of the good inputs.

We will be meeting again over the next weeks and I will try to update with ideas or resolution to our peculiar situation if it is appropriate to do so.

So far we have entertained a mixture of the ideas everyone has suggested above.

I don't have a tax accountant or attorney, but judging by some of the comments that may be a necessity. As a small business-home business operator I have been able to keep up with the legalities so far, but expect this mix is going to complicate life far beyond what I expected. Looks like it may be time for a consultation...

As far as depreciation figures, I'm willing to bet that current tax laws don't come near predicting an accurate scenario with digital. As for the computer equipment and printers, it may be a bit more realistic.

Darryn writes:
<It wasn't as profitable as I had hoped given that I wanted a split of sales on who shot the pic gets the money.>

We looked at this initially, but then you can start getting into issues of who gets the "prime" shooting location, how the non-shooting partner gets compensated, etc. We settled on not differentiating who shot what during the event and focusing on "participation level". I'm not sure how that is going to lay out with our new negotiations, but I'm curious to see.

Michael, I think you're hitting close to where we need to be--independent contractors--both of us. Essentially, that is what we are today. It gets a little difficult as we both have hooks in the community we are working and may alternately "book" a particular event and bring the other in. We do, however, need to get a strong working agreement/contract so we can do business easily together and apart. A big issue I'm struggling with is how to deal with prior acquaintances--and smaller jobs that don't necessarily require both of us to show up, but could probably support us at a much lower profit...

It feels good to get some of this out in discussion...

[CBFountain]

Norbert writes:

<It seems to me that you have trouble to find a photographer to work for you. Or worse you are not doing well and think bringing in the competition will generate more money.>

You know I skipped over that the first time I read it--and I should probably ignore it now...

How would you come to such a determination? I don't belive I left anything out in my initial posts. As I said--we pitched the event together. We want to work together, I'm just asking for help with the specifics...if somebody has already been through this they may be able to lend a hand rather than just slinging disparaging comments.

Your follow up is essentially what Terry Zorich outlined--without actually suggesting that I loan the partner half of the equipment.

Thank you for helping me see this in a new light. I think it's time for my nap.

[NorbertBissinger]

[ QUOTE ]
How would you come to such a determination?

[/ QUOTE ]

Very simple.

Many photographers have approached me to join as partners bringing in equipment, expertise and a helping hand.

All of them doing very bad themselfes and want to better their income.

I helped one of them selling him my automation and the digital backgrounds because I know him for over 10 years and he has 6 kids (three times twins). He doing well now.

[CBFountain]

Thanks. Yeah it makes perfect sense why you would reach that conclusion about me. Thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt.