
Picture rights at a photo shoot: copyright and consent
Who owns the pictures, what may clients do with them and when does a photographer need consent? Swiss copyright, civil and data protection law, described.
6 min read

Photography
An enquiry form, a quote that becomes the contract, a deposit that holds the date, a calendar and every delivery in view: a web app for photographers in Switzerland.
For now, it is an idea.
An enquiry for a wedding in August arrives by form, by message and then by phone. The quote is written in a text document, the yes comes by e-mail, the deposit by bank transfer, and the date sits somewhere in a calendar, often in pencil. Anyone who photographs portraits, families and weddings side by side finds it hard to keep track of which yes already counts, what is paid and which pictures are still to be delivered.
We are building a web app that covers the office side of photography and no more: enquiries, quotes, contracts, deposits, calendar and delivery. The pictures themselves stay in your own gallery tool; the app will only keep the link to them. It will calculate in CHF, know QR-bills and TWINT, and work in German, French, Italian and English. The data will be stored on infrastructure in Switzerland. Simple on purpose, so your time stays with the pictures.
For portrait, family and wedding photographers in Switzerland, whether self-employed, part-time or a studio with several people.
Your website will get an enquiry form for weddings and reportage jobs, next to a booking page for fixed-price sessions such as a portrait, a family or a couple. Clients will choose a time and extras themselves, and the calendar is meant to prevent double bookings.

An enquiry becomes a quote in a few minutes, with date, what is included, price, delivery time and what the client may do with the pictures. Clients will accept it by link, and the app is meant to turn it into the contract as a PDF, with the cancellation rules and the time of acceptance.
You decide whether a deposit is taken and how much. Until it arrives, the app will hold the date for the client and show it in the calendar. Payment will work by TWINT, in cash or by QR-bill.
Every job is meant to have a sheet with place, time, running order and a contact person on the phone. If you work with a second photographer, you will see the dates per person and be able to add the calendar to your own agenda.
For each job the app will keep the delivery deadline, remind you of deliveries that are due and store the preview and final links that you paste from your gallery tool. No delivery gets forgotten, and open amounts show up before the hand-over.
The quote will carry one sentence on what the client may do with the pictures. Whether you may show pictures of the job on your website and on social media, the client will answer with a yes or a no for each job, with nothing preselected.
The same commitments apply to every app that grows out of our ideas.
Our apps store your data on infrastructure in Switzerland. Where exactly is stated on one page – not spread across several documents.
We do not sell, rent or pass on your data. We earn from the app, not from what you entrust to it.
Your data is not used to train AI models. Not ours, and not anyone else’s.
We design to the Swiss Data Protection Act and build privacy in from the start – not as an adjustment at the end.
Is your question not answered here? Write to us – we read every message.
ContactThe app will store enquiries, quotes, contracts and invoices on infrastructure in Switzerland. Providers will be needed for sending e-mail and, if you use it, for online payment; we will say which ones we use before launch. This website itself runs on our own server at Infomaniak in Switzerland; what is stored where is set out in the privacy policy.
No. The pictures stay in the gallery tool you use today. The app will only keep the link, and the password if you have one, and pass it on to the client. So no pictures are stored, none of clients and none of children.
No. We do not sell, rent or pass on data, and we do not use it to train AI models. The booking page will work without advertising and without tracking.
Yes, the idea is meant for both. Fixed-price sessions will be bookable online, weddings go through an enquiry and a quote. Each can have its own cancellation rules. Whether you work alone or with several people makes no difference to the app.
There is no date yet. We are working on this idea; at launch we will tell you once, if you wish. How many people are waiting for an idea helps us decide the order in which we build.
The price is not set yet. It will be shown in CHF and be clear enough for a studio to decide without long deliberation. We will name a number only when it is right.
No, signing up is non-binding. You will receive a single message once this idea becomes an app, and nothing else. We use your e-mail address only for that; what we store is described in the privacy policy.

Who owns the pictures, what may clients do with them and when does a photographer need consent? Swiss copyright, civil and data protection law, described.
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How a quote becomes a contract and what a deposit means under Swiss law: earnest money, withdrawal money and contractual penalty, described for photographers.
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This idea is still being planned. Sign up and we will write to you once, when it becomes an app. Signing up is non-binding – no newsletter, no advertising.