The Plate
Nine long projects open for 2027. Commission us

Commission us · Five weeks, minimum

Tell us whatyou want tounderstand.

Not which pictures you want. The photographer will tell you what is actually there, which is the only thing worth five weeks of anybody's time. €14,000, all costs in, answered within two working days.

Start the enquiry

We would rather see the archive first.

Fourteen thousand euros is a lot to spend on a photographer you have not worked with. Ask the archivist for a research folder on your subject instead — it is free, it takes about a week, and it is made of pictures that already exist.

Most commissions that go wrong went wrong at the brief: the client wanted a picture they had already imagined, and five weeks is a very expensive way to be given it.

Ask for the research first, or commission straight away. Both start with the same form.

How it goes, in order

Enquiry to archive

  1. Week nought

    You write. Tell us what you want to understand and where; do not send a list of pictures. We answer within two working days, including when the answer is no.

  2. Two weeks before

    The photographer is named, and you speak to them directly. If access needs arranging, it is arranged now rather than on the first morning.

  3. Weeks one to five

    Silence. Nothing is filed while an assignment is running, because a picture editor watching in real time changes what gets shot.

  4. Week six

    Two edits, a fortnight apart: the photographer's, then the desk's. You see the second one, with captions and consent already attached.

  5. Eighteen months

    First use is yours. After that the frames enter the archive under the photographer’s copyright, and any further licence is a new one.

  6. Afterwards

    The contact sheets stay with us, including the weeks that produced nothing. You can ask to see them.

What the sheets and the accounts say

Checked every March

1 in 6

Comes back empty

And you are told in week three, not week six. The take is catalogued anyway.

1,320

Frames from inside

Of 4,860 on a five-week commission — made once the camera stopped being noticed.

60%

To the photographer

On every licence and commission, paid the month the invoice clears.

0

Frames staged

Nothing arranged, added, removed or recropped into another meaning. In the contract.

Practical terms

Minimum
Five weeks. We turn down anything that has to be shot in a day, and we will say so on the same day you ask.
Where
Anywhere one of the eighteen already knows. If it is somewhere none of them knows, we will tell you that rather than send someone to guess.
What we need from you
A subject, a rough season, and a budget. Not a shot list, not a mood board, not a reference photographer to imitate.
Non-commercial
Museums, small titles and academic publishers pay half the rate card, and the terms are otherwise identical.

What we promise, in writing

What you will get
An edit of thirty to sixty frames, captioned with place, date and subject, and the consent record where one exists.
What we will not do
Stage a frame, add or remove anything in one, crop a picture into a different meaning, or let a caption be dropped.
If it fails
Some assignments come back with nothing. You are told in week three, not in week six, and you pay for the weeks that were shot.
If we are wrong
A caption error is corrected on the file, in the archive, and sent to everyone who has licensed the frame. It is not quietly amended.

Before you write

All the questions
Why five weeks?
Because the first two are spent being a stranger. A photographer is noticed for about a fortnight, and almost everything worth licensing is made after that stops. It is not a romantic rule; it is what the contact sheets show.
Can I send a shot list?
No. You can tell us what you want to understand, in any amount of detail, and the photographer will tell you what is there. A list of pictures to reproduce is a commission to confirm something, and confirmations are cheap and usually wrong.
What if the assignment comes back with nothing?
About one commission in six does. You are told in week three rather than week six, you pay for the weeks that were shot, and the whole take is catalogued anyway — an archive that only keeps the successes is a record of our expectations, not of places.
What does €14,000 include?
Five weeks, one photographer, travel, insurance, fixers at a published rate, two edits, captions and consent records, and first use for eighteen months. There is no expenses conversation in week four because there are no expenses outside the figure.
Is there a lower rate?
Museums, small titles, students and non-commercial shows pay half, on identical terms, and nobody is asked to prove anything. If the rate is the only obstacle, write and say so.
Do you do advertising work?
No, and not as a moral position — it is that a photographer who spends half the year making pictures to a brief stops being able to work without one.

Start here.

Answered within two working days. We do not add you to anything.

Nine projects open for 2027.

Two of the nine are already part-funded and looking for a co-commissioner.

See the projects