Privacy

We boast the "Best Privacy Policy in the Industry" for good reason.

When Nudity is involved:

  • We give you FULL LEGAL RIGHTS (copyright) on the results. Since they aren't ours, and we can't legally use them for anything, we delete our copy. (No other photographer does this.)

  • We process your order, including prints, books, and calendars, all IN-HOUSE. No other eyes will see your photos. (We're the only photographers doing hard-cover books in-house.)

  • It doesn't stop there -- expand the next section to see our full Privacy Policy.

Privacy Policy (Full Text)

The best privacy policy in the industry!

When nudity is involved in your shoot, this policy kicks in by default. Our whole workflow is changed to put your privacy as the top priority.


The Highlights:

  • You are in full control of the results.

  • Images have virtually no chance to make it to the Internet during or after production.

  • We delete our copies per the contract, and hand over all images and legal rights to you.


Copyright Assignment

No other photographers do this, but maybe we'll start a trend.

We seriously value your privacy, and here's the proof: We assign all copyrights to you. You own the photos, 100%. You can make prints, edit them further, sell them for profit, or anything else. Nobody else is legally entitled to your photos -- not even us! After we deliver the CD or DVD to you, our copies get deleted after a few weeks per the contract. That CD or DVD becomes the only digital copy that exists. You'll have the only prints as well. Any prints that aren't delivered get shredded.

Why do we do this?

  • Your privacy. You deserve a photographer who won't freely share the results at their choosing.

  • Your comfort. Since the photos are private, we hope you'll feel more comfortable during the session and have better photos as a result.

  • Your security. Legally speaking, since you own the photos, you control the photos. If, for example, you have a nasty break-up in the future and the photos get shared without your permission, you have the power to sue for copyright infringement and issue DMCA take-down notices to remove the content. (We suggest registering the copyright within 3 months after "publication" (sharing) and talking with a copyright lawyer if this happens to you.)


Licensing Agreement

If you love the results and don't mind sharing them with the world, we can arrange a licensing agreement. You control the photo copyright, but this gives us permission to use specific photos for specific purposes. If cost is an issue, this licensing agreement could include payment. Yes, we (the photographer) might be willing to pay you to use the photos.


Our Process

At the shoot, we use a professional Nikon camera that saves to two SD cards. This instant-backup prevents data loss.

The photos are copied to a dedicated secure encrypted Linux machine, which also has an encrypted backup to prevent loss. Since the two SD cards are no longer needed, we do a secure "wipe" of the cards. This ensures that the data can never be recovered from the cards even if they are stolen. (Other photographers don't do this, and if a "recovery" is done on the cards, there's all kinds of surprising stuff on them from years past!)

The photos live on the secure encrypted Linux machine during processing. Even if this is stolen, the data cannot be decrypted without the password.

Photoshop and Lightroom are increasingly going to "the cloud". We don't use anything that sends your photos or data to "the cloud". To ensure your privacy, and keeps costs low, we instead use Darktable. It's open-source software that only works with photos locally, and it's just as good as the other expensive options. For books we use Scribus, which is also open-source.

To preview the photos, we suggest that you stop in. But we'll keep the data as secure as we can if traveling to you.

We can print a lot of products in-house, even hard-cover photo books! Since the books are popular, we learned the book-binding craft to help maintain your privacy. Prints and other media that aren't delivered get shredded. Except for the photographers, no other eyes will see the photos unless you decide to show them.

The CD or DVD that we deliver isn't encrypted, so we recommend copying the data to a secure location or keeping it hidden in a safe spot. The disc includes a subset of the RAW images from the camera, and exports of all that we process. (We only keep the best, so don't expect every one that we take to be on the disc. Additionally, the RAW images prove ownership, along with the Copyright Assignment form.) The disc also includes parity to prevent data loss, look for a "par2" tool if you find that parts of the disc cannot be read in the future.

After delivery, and after a couple weeks per the contract, we delete everything we're not entitled to. We archive some parity information in case the CD/DVD disc is extremely damaged, but cannot recover anything without the disc or some percentage of the files. We also keep anything that you license to us, if you choose, per any Licensing Agreements.


How We're Different

Other photographers will:

  1. Take your photo however they want, whenever they want.

  2. Copy photos to their insecure Windows PC, and delete them from the camera. It's possible to "undelete" them from either one.

  3. Sort and edit photos with Photoshop and Lightroom, both of which are "on the cloud" (Internet) now.

  4. Email proof sheets.

  5. Send photos to a 3rd-party printer, and especially photo books. Lots of eyes on your photos.

  6. Keep the photos, post them online as examples of their work without any consent from you. (The model release you sign allows them to do this, and much much more.)

  7. Charge an arm and a leg for the service.


We take a much better approach:

  1. Work with you at any location, keep the room warm, and keep you comfortable. We also listen and implement any ideas you have to the best of our ability.

  2. Copy photos to a dedicated, secure, encrypted Linux PC. We also securely delete the photos from the camera card, so it's impossible to recover if the camera (or PC) is later stolen.

  3. Sort and edit photos with Darktable and other local apps. Nothing ever on the internet.

  4. You can stop in, or we can snail-mail printed proof sheets. We will only email the proofs if you request it and understand the privacy implications.

  5. We do all prints in-house. We print and bind our own photo books and calendars as well, all in-house.

  6. Legally assign all rights to you, deliver the originals, and delete our copies.

  7. Charge a very affordable price for what we deliver.