If you’re a professional photographer, familiarity with photography and the law for copyrights, releases, contracts and more, is an essential aspect of your photography business. Attorney Rachel Brenke — who is licensed in Texas, Virginia and the Supreme Court of the United States — can help through her web site, TheLawTog.
“I’ve been working with thousands of photographers over the last 10 years,” Brenke says. Her goal is to help professional photographers stay “protected, engaged, and successful”. In addition to providing legal advice and guest-lecturing at CreativeLive and WPPI (Brenke is a photographer herself), she offers marketing tips through her blog.
Recent article titles include “What do I do if there’s no written photography contract?”, “What do I do if someone makes an illustration or painting based on my photograph?”, “Do Memes Violate Copyright Law?”, and “Slander by a client — and what you can do”.
While there are fees to get into their meatier content and services, they do offer some freebies. For example, if you type thelawtog.com/freecontract, you can download a free contract. If you’re looking for something specific, there are commercial and personal photo contracts available for download at prices ranging from $100 to $230. A Wizard Tool is available to help you zero in on the kind of contract you need so you don’t waste your money on the wrong one.
Other products offer include an intellectual property defense kit, marketing online education packages, tax tools, and more. If it’s any indication of the influence of The Law Tog, its affiliated Facebook group page has over 33,000 members and sees over 100 posts per day.
