Had some digital prints sent to Walgreens this morning so I could have some quick 4x6 prints to give to family. Needed them by tomorrow so BRI or any other quality online printing service was out of the question. Is it normal to be prompted for a photo/model release for your own photos? The guy at the photo lab refused to give me the prints because they looked professional and demanded a release before he would give me the order. This pretty much made me feel proud and pissed at the same time. The images were of my wife and kids plus a few of my girls and various Disney princesses taken at Disneyland over the summer. Really Walgreens? I appreciate the protection you're giving to professional photographers and their studio shots, but really? I need to bring a model release to buy prints of my own family taken by myself? I think this is a little ridiculous; your thoughts?
Hahaha I had that happen to one of my customers! Gave them a disc of images and they tried getting em done I believe at walmart(Walgreens never gave me issues, but I dont know if I printed pictures of people from there...) and Walmart refused to give the pics until they got a release from me! Sadly they were a few hours away so it was kind of a pain to get it to them.
Ridiculous? IMHO yes, I think its sad we have fallen that far so as to have that little integrity where that is needed. But it is needed now a days
The sad thing is that over half the imags were from poor quality copies I had to upload from Facebook. You would think they would notice the low resolution. I asked if they required a release for non-professional looking crappy photos. The guy didn't respond, but I would honestly like to know the answer. On the other hand, I feel privileged to have learned how to take nice, professional looking images so if I ever have to use them again for print I'll just draft a release...but, yeah, what a PITA!
I periodically print at Costco (convenience!) and you get a "you own this picture right?"
prompt, which is easy enough to click through.
One of the parent's on my kid's swim team bought a 4x6 pic of his daughter from my smugmug site, took it to Costco and had them scan it and enlarge it for reprinting. I basically had the prints priced at cost from the online lab (that was my volunteer contribution to the team so I could get out of snack shack duty etc) and he was still too cheap to buy the right size, he had them scan and reprint it. I'm sure it looks like garbage.
So I just realized the model releases I have (downloaded from KT.com) aren't exactly drafted for the photographer, they're always the other way around. Anyone have any ideas how to word them so the client is given the right to print? Even if the "client" is the photographer? I don't plan to use the Walgreens photo lab on the regular, but it is convenient when time doesn't permit and less expensive as well when I don't exaxtly need quality prints.
