Headshots: Contract warning for photographers

Hi everyone,

Like many of you, I have seen the headshot AI apps constantly promoted on Linked In. I saw a fairly disturbing response by an “ai evangelist”. She had posted her photos from the service. Of course the reaction was divided, and she was then asked how may photos she uploaded.

She said the following:

“I uploaded a mix of 10! It was 3 or 4 professional headshots and then the rest were everyday photos and a couple of selfies. All with different outfits, lighting, slightly different poses.”

The most unsettling part is obviously…the photographer most likely doesn’t know about it.

So I’m here now. Offering a warning and suggestion and hopefully opening up a discussion to help photographers protect their work…

The warning: this is obviously happening across multiple sectors, not just limited to headshots.

Suggestion: while there are obvious holes, the most obvious place to start is in your contract. Make sure you’re adding it as a line item… are people doing this already?

Discussion: maybe this is an overblown reaction. Maybe it won’t do anything, but I’m curious how the community has reacted to this. Is this something that would turn clients off? (Explicitly not being able to add photos to an llm?) Does it matter to you if people are uploading your headshots / creative to LLMs without your consent? Have people just accepted this as an expectation because we don’t have the tools to verify or push back?

Genuinely curious what people think here…maybe it’s a non issue and people have already gravitated into a weird world of acceptance but Jeesh, I find it quite unsettling someone would do this. Not surprised, but deeply unsettling.