Second Shooter Contracts – 3 Things You Need To Include
Are you a wedding photographer struggling to keep up with all those postponed events after the joy that was 2020? Expanding rapidly in the post-Covid ‘brave new world’ of opportunity and thinking you need some extra hands on deck? A second shooter may be your best solution in the short term – arguably a necessity if you are to deliver what you have promised to everyone!
BUT you will be needing a second shooter contract for that!
Your Terms and Conditions with your customer should be in a ‘contract for services’ format – that means that (whether it explicitly states or is implied) you can substitute someone to provide the services if you are incapacitated or unable to do so for any reason. This is always a tricky issue for customers who, after all, usually buy into your offering for YOU. You’ll need to do some client expectation management, along with quality control over any second shooter you might use.
Make sure your second shooter contract for services covers these 3 important issues:
1. Define what your second shooter is doing and how they are going to get paid.
Most people get this right, but make sure it is in writing – charges per hour, per day or per project need to clear. But how about overtime, extras and variations? Also consider ‘project creep’ – you know what I mean by that, we’ve all been there! This is work outside the scope of the original proposal and needs to be covered too. Make sure you are confident your second shooter can deliver what you are contracted to provide to your customers. It is your brand and reputation on the line.
2. Make it as clear as possible that the second shooter is NOT an employee and this is a contract for services, not a service contract between you and the second shooter.
Sounds like a right lawyer’s distinction, I know, but it’s important. No contract can completely remove the risk of scrutiny of your employment position by HMRC or the Employment tribunal (take a look at this blog we wrote for hair salon owners on this very topic), but it is important to set out some areas of what you provide and how you may ‘control’ second shooters in their contract. It can be very problematic if a photographer provides the second shooter with uniforms, equipment, insurance or vehicles, or if you insist they attend a particular work place regularly between particular times of the day. Not to mention if you don’t allow them, in turn, to substitute someone of a sufficient calibre in their place – so take some advice! If the contract sets this out clearly this can help but it will not be definitive – just ask an Uber driver….
3. What’s your insurance position?
There is no ‘one size fits all’ answer to this, but the starting position is that the second shooter should have their own public liability cover as a minimum. They should perhaps also have some further cover for the quality of their services too, unless they can be covered by the photographer’s own insurance policy – this is a question for your insurance broker or policy provider. CHECK – do not assume!
Whether you are the photographer looking to take on a second shooter quickly as self-employed extra capacity, or a freelance photographer helping out a mate thinking, ‘It’s about time I set something up in writing’ (yes, it is!), we now have solutions that won’t break the bank at Stanford Gould Online.
Two versions of our freelancer contract template you can use for second shooters are available – one for the photography business taking on the freelancer, and one for a second shooter/freelancer to provide to any photographer they intend to work for and provide services to. Check them out here.