Questions about your photo archive
Baritone Robert Tucker performs the role of King George III in Peter Maxwell Davies' chamber opera Eight Songs for a Mad King, in a 2020 New Zealand Opera production staged at the RNZB Dance Centre in Wellington as part of the New Zealand Festival of the Arts.
Photo: Jeff McEwan / New Zealand Opera • Wikimedia Commons • CC BY-SA 4.0
When I start working with an organisation which has a big photo collection they want to share – for example by uploading it to Wikimedia Commons under an open licence – I have questions. These apply whether I’m working with an opera company, a nature reserve, or a university entomology department.
Where are your photos?
Are these prints in a box all you have, or are there negatives somewhere?
Are these the complete set of highest-resolution versions, or a subset used for press releases?
Are your photos only backed up on CDs/DVDs/thumb drives/a single hard drive? When did you last check them?
Optical media degrades, especially if it’s labelled in Sharpie or with peeling paper stickers. Flash drives only last a certain number of read/write cycles. Hard drives go bad. The National Library has a great digital collections guide.Did each new admin person adopt a different archiving system?
Who took the photos? Was it a staff member or an external photographer?
Regardless of who owns copyright, we’re obliged to credit photographers properly.For photos not taken by staff, who’s the copyright holder?
This is not necessarily the person who owns the photo, or the person who took it, and certainly not the person in it. Most organisations assume they own the copyright for all their photos, but they often don’t.Did you have a contract in writing with the photographer and can I see it?
Under New Zealand law copyright for a commissioned photo belongs to the person who paid for it, but photographers will often have contracts that specify they own that copyright.Is the photographer still alive? If so, do you have their current contact details?
Photographers will sometimes agree to hand back their copyright to an organisation. Sometimes for free, sometimes for money; it’s up to them.If not, who owns their copyright, and do you have their contact details?
Copyright expires 50 years after the photographer’s death; until then, somebody owns that copyright. Finding out just who can be almost impossible.
Are the photos all named something like IMG_1234.JPG?
I blogged about coming up with a good photo-naming schema.Who are all the people in each photo? Including the obscure ones.
This may require retired staff members to come in and sift through a box of prints..Where were they taken?
What date were they taken?
The metadata with the photo is often wrong.What’s the context? If this is a field trip, what’s that person trying to catch with their butterfly net? If it’s a performance, what’s the act and scene and who’s doing what?
Sometimes there’s a media info sheet with key images noted and suggested captions – these are gold.Is there something special or unique I should know about particular photos?
Last known photo of a person, an understudy who stood in for that rehearsal, the opening ceremony for that building…Are there any photos you don’t want released?
…and finally:Do you have an institutional photography policy?
Do you take publication-worthy photographs of every staff member, every event, your building inside and out, and notable people who visit? If not, is there a good reason why not?Do you have an institutional copyright policy? For example, are photographs routinely released under an open licence, unless otherwise stated?
Make sure your copyright policy is stated on your website, and all the photos there are correctly credited: I blogged about crediting photos properly.
Canterbury Agricultural College research showing seven varieties of barley; a teaching photo taken some time between 1947 and 1966.
Photo: Ron Blackmore / Lincoln University • Wikimedia Commons • CC BY 3.0
