“It’s really frustrating when people rip off your work. You’ve got to get paid for the work that you do. And, if you don’t, you’re giving your work away. There are two key elements in illegal usage. One is willful, the other one is honest, if you want to call it that, honest infringement where they thought they had access to it.”
— Steve Whittaker, professional photographer on his Photography Lessons Learned
Another insightful segment from our interview with Steve Whittaker. It was fascinating to hear him dive into topics like property management, pricing, and image rights, covering aspects many people might overlook, such as on-set security. Keep reading to discover more.
Steve Whittaker is an experienced architectural, interior, and aerial photographer serving clients across the West Coast and throughout the U.S. His studio works with a wide range of sectors, including commercial, academic, healthcare, civic-justice, hospitality, mixed-use, residential, and technology spaces. His photography has been published in leading outlets such as Architectural Digest, Forbes, Time Magazine, Contract Magazine, and Architectural Record. Whittaker Photography partners with architects, REITs, real estate developers, advertising agencies, editorial publications, graphic designers, interior designers, manufacturers, and more.
Text below transcribed from a portion of an interview conducted by Cradoc fotoSoftware in May 2025. To view this and other interviews, please go to our Cradoc fotoSoftware YouTube Channel.
Photography Lessons Learned – Project Management in Photography
Let’s talk about project coordination. I had a couple of projects back around 2005, 2006. The architect was an amazing architect, and he kept promising he’d take care of it. We did a Xerox corporate headquarters in Palo Alto. And, “I’ll let him know you’re coming.” So I checked in with the property manager. “I didn’t know you’re coming.” So he said, “I’ll put you in touch with security.” So I contact security. “Nobody told me you’re coming.” Communications breakdown. So that was the first case.
I went ahead and got letters from everybody, made copies of them, sent emails back and forth. I had a binder with all the paperwork, certificates of insurance, everything that I needed, full documentation. I got to the front desk to let them know who we were. “Nobody told me you were coming.” That’s three times. We got that squared away. It took an hour; I wasted an hour, but I had that documentation and it solved a bunch of problems. He still had to make some phone calls, but we lost an hour, and you’re chasing sunlight. We’re shooting desks, so we needed to light up the building. We had a lift, we had lights all the way around the building. I use quartz halogen and I haven’t switched to LED, because of the type of lighting that I do; it seems to work fairly well. But it’s one of those things when you’re dealing with security, you’ve got to let everybody know, including security.
We did the Hyatt Regency Embarcadero, I think, around 1999. We did it three times before they were about to demolish part of it on the interior and redo it. We ended up using close to 80,000 watts of light to light their atrium because it was a cave. I had assistants. I probably had about six assistants. Every 12 hours, I’d swap out assistants so they’d be fresh. I worked straight through 37 hours. I will never do that again. My hairline went back at least five feet.
But, we did it a second time. By then, we had everything pretty much down. And again, security was helping us out working with this. Crowd control is a big thing. Risk mitigation is a big issue. You want to use gaffer’s tape to tape everything down. Security came up to me. We’re photographing this mall in San Mateo, California. They [security] said, we just caught this lady on camera making six attempts to trip over your tape. I said, you’ve got to be kidding.
People think that we have deep pockets, and especially the developers have deep pockets, so they’re going after anybody. I use gaffer tape, and I use cable tape, and I tape the cable tape down with gaffer tape, and it’s bright fluorescent orange or yellow. And when they go to this lady, they said, you deserve an Oscar, but don’t ever come back. It’s just one of those things where people are going to either have nefarious opportunities or they have accidents, and you want to make sure that you’re avoiding it. It’s risk mitigation every way you can, working with electricity, the whole thing. You want to make sure people are safe.
Getting back to that one I was talking about, the Alcazar Theater after the 1989 quake, I was photographing a scale model in the studio of an architectural site. It was going to be a senior assisted living facility in San Francisco. But right across the street was this rooftop access I needed. So we cleared it with the property owners. They let us up there, and I set up my 4×5; this is about a year or two before I switch to digital. So I have my signers set up, and I just went ahead, this beautiful sunlight. I turn around and there would be thunder clouds coming in. It’s a Friday night, and the door is locked. If you’re in that state, make sure you use something to block the door. I didn’t have a cell phone back then, but I yelled out to a guy who’s coming down an ocean grate crane ladder, and this window opens up. And this guy with the New York accent says, buddy, you want to get across; if you want off that roof, you’ve got to walk across this plank. It was a glulam that’s about maybe two inches thick, 30 inches wide. I had an anvil case, 4×5 anvil case that gets a tripod. And I think it’s one of the two times I had a fear of heights. It’s a six storey drop. And, if you’re getting midway on that glulam it starts gently bouncing a little bit. And he kept coaxing me through, and I pushed the tripod in the camera case ahead of me and got it into the window, and I was out of there. But I now bring a 2×4 with me to block doors, and I use the security with me. I do a lot of building rooftop photography.
I handled this one 24-storey tower that I illuminated in San Francisco. We used a high-rise that was about a block away as one camera position. We had two other camera positions for that. We used our lights to illuminate the building, both on the roof of that building, the sides, and washing the face of the building itself. It was way too much work.
About two weeks later I get a call, and the film permits are required. Two weeks later, I get a call from an art director in New York wanting me to photograph a bunch of high rises around the country. And I swore that’s the last time I lit up a high rise. I think it was in Fatal Attraction, they lit up the Marriott Hotel, and that’s when I was driving to San Francisco, and I saw that. I’ve got to do that one of these days.
More Photography Lessons Learned – Pricing in the Industry
So you talk about pricing. You have to build all that product coordination into the pricing factor, into your expenses rental. One guy wanted $5,000 for the parking lot. I said, you’ve got to be kidding. And I found Plan B very quickly. It was Caltrans; they had a vacant ramp, so I used that. But, again, you have to get film permits and that could be really arduous sometimes. There’s a lot involved in that.
When I ended up going, my first stop was Buffalo. We photographed a building in Buffalo, natural light, at dusk and predawn. I went back to my roots just falling in love with natural lighting. Then I went to New York. I think it was Avenue Of The Americas, which is a high rise tower. So I used a 20-storey tower to light that one.
And about three years ago, I started finding my images, reverse image searches from this project ten years ago. And sure enough, the property managers say “Sure, you can use the image.” So I’ve been getting a lot of money from relicensing my work, going after these people.
And the way I handle it, I don’t take them to court, I don’t threaten. I just say I’ve discovered through reverse image searches, usage, unlicensed usage of my images of these projects in whatever city it is, and this is my copyright certification registration number. This is the image number itself. We expect this payment to be made. One company FedExed payment within 24 hours. A lot of times it takes up to six to eight weeks. And, again, I’m not badgering them; I’m just sending them a very friendly letter that I developed that works. It’s just one of those things where, if you handle it in a way where you want to be treated, chances are they’re going to respond the same way. I am dealing with a couple of companies right now where they have barriers trying to reach people, and I’m finding that’s really frustrating. So I’m starting to work with Pixsy.com, and I’m starting to work with another company, Image Rights. And so far, I’m starting to make some headway through them as well. I’m turning them over to companies that are using my image in social networking and other things.
It’s really frustrating when people rip off your work. You’ve got to get paid for the work that you do. And, if you don’t, you’re giving your work away. There are two key elements in illegal usage. One is willful, the other one is honest, if you want to call it that, honest infringement where they thought they had access to it.
I worked with the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Air Force One Pavilion in 2006. I’m still finding my images showing up to the tourist companies, other companies using it. I’m sending Pixsy after them right now, so it’ll be interesting to see what happens. But I contacted the director of public relations who’s still there from 2006, and she said, absolutely, we did not allow anybody to use those images. Somehow they did screen grabs, but they got all of the images. And it’s just one of those things where you just have to keep at it. It’s been a year worth of challenges, so I’ve kept out of trouble by going after these people as well.
The keyword is your intellectual property, and you have to defend it.
The Photography Lessons Learned by Other Photographers
Photographers across different industries bring unique insights and lessons from their specific fields. Here’s an article that discusses tips for architectural photography. Are you frustrated with how to price your work? Read our blog.
About Steve Whittaker
Steve Whittaker is an architectural, interior, and aerial photographer working with clients across the West Coast and the U.S. His work spans sectors like commercial, healthcare, civic, hospitality, and residential spaces, and has been featured in Architectural Digest, Forbes, Time, and Architectural Record. Whittaker Photography collaborates with architects, developers, agencies, designers, and manufacturers.
Website: https://www.whittpho.com/
Copyright: All images belong to Steve Whittaker used by Cradoc fotoSoftware with permission of the copyright holder. Use of images or content by any person or entity other than Cradoc fotosoftware for any purposes is expressly prohibited.
