If I knew I was famous, I would have charged more...

[MolsonBoy]

A funny thing happen on the way to an oil change. I was early for a scheduled oil change in the old Ferrari. I decided to stop at a local book store and see what was new on the selves.

After killing a better part of an hour roamming the photography section, the computer section and the sports section I stumbled into the business section. Not really interested in what was here, I just walked through without looking at any thing.

Suddenly something caught my eye. I stopped, turned around and took a better look. There displayed on a table was Bobby Unser's book titled "Winners are Driven". Having met Bobby nine years earlier I was a little intrigued by the title and what he had to say.

Thumbing through the book, which is about what has made him successful in his racing career as well as in busines, I came to a photo section of the book. And what did you think I saw? It was one of my pictures that I shot nine years ago when Bobby came to Canada to ice race on a frozen lake. (We Canadians take are racing seriously and don't let a little thing like three feet of snow and freezing temperatures stop us from enjoying our favorite sport).

So now that I am famous I will be charging for any advice I give on this forum. In fact my fee will be exactly what I was paid for use of the photo....zero!

PS. I will also be, from now on, signing my posts: "Photo courtesy of Bobby Unser"

[MolsonBoy]

Here is the book.

[Andrew Kitson]

Excellent!!

[MolsonBoy]

The image used in the book was not the best one I shot. Far from it. It is a shot of the start of Bobby's first race on ice. I had better ones where he was sliding the car around the corner with a huge plume of ice crystals coming off the back of car. You car see the headlights of a few cars in the back ground.

Not being paid for the use of the image has happen before but the lack of photo credit especially when all the pictures I gave Bobby had my name and phone number on the back.

I guess the up side to all this is the fact that I shot a FIRST in Bobby's racing career. Considering that he was in his sixties and has raced just everything that moves. I was the only photographer at the event.

Bobby had so much fun racing here that the next year Al Unser Sr., Bobby Unser Junior and Robbie Unser came to the Great White North to race on the ice. So I guess there was a lot of FIRSTs.

[vwpilot]

You could pursue this if you feel up to it. If you did not give specific permission for the shot to be used in that book then you are entitled to payment for its use. Just because you might have sold a print to him all those years ago, does not give them the right to use it any way they please.

If you never sent the image to the copyright office you wont become a millionaire, but you can recover what the going rate for a photo in a book like that would be.

Its up to you, but if it were me I would not be thrilled and would immediately contact the publisher about this.