Selling the rights to a college or school...

cakanode

I have a photo that I know is a good photo and one that is marketable but I'm not sure of how to go about doing it.

I attended Virginia Tech from 1998-2002 and while there took a lot of different photos with an old 35mm SLR. One of the photo's is of the old press box of Lane Stadium before they changed it a year or so ago. (keep in mind that is a poor scan of the negative so the original is much better. I have others but this is the best one and one that people have expressed interest in before. Last year, at an arts and crafts fair in Blacksburg I made about $800, mostly off of my VT photos.
My question is this: How would I go about trying to sell the rights of my photo to the University? Or could I simply try to market it to a bookstore in Blacksburg that would then display it in their stores? I feel like both of them would require permission from VT since it is a photo of their property and it says the word "HOKIES" on the press box(that is one of our trademarked names).
Any input or advice on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

---CK

quark

Not sure I can help with the marketing question but I do know that the market for scanned 35 mm work is very low. Most agencies or larger businesses that buy photographs would want a high-resolution digital version. If you can get a really clean large scan or if you could re-shoot in digital the price will be better.

bham

cakanode wrote:

I have a photo that I know is a good photo and one that is marketable but I'm not sure of how to go about doing it.

I attended Virginia Tech from 1998-2002 and while there took a lot of different photos with an old 35mm SLR. One of the photo's is of the old press box of Lane Stadium before they changed it a year or so ago. (keep in mind that is a poor scan of the negative so the original is much better. I have others but this is the best one and one that people have expressed interest in before. Last year, at an arts and crafts fair in Blacksburg I made about $800, mostly off of my VT photos.
My question is this: How would I go about trying to sell the rights of my photo to the University? Or could I simply try to market it to a bookstore in Blacksburg that would then display it in their stores? I feel like both of them would require permission from VT since it is a photo of their property and it says the word "HOKIES" on the press box(that is one of our trademarked names).
Any input or advice on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

---CK

My suggestion would be to research into getting the image licensed from the university ( they get a % maybe like 10%) you could start with Collegiate Licensing Corp www.clc.com

I just check and they don't license VT but they do Virginia and the royalty rate is 8% and there is also an upfront charge.

But I am not sure if you have to get it licensed as long as you are just selling it as "art" not looking to have it used by commercial interests.