Terms of Service

Bretterick Studio + Lab 412 S 700 W Ste. 120, Salt Lake City, UT 84104 brett@bretterick.com · (801) 231-4094

Last updated: September 8, 2026

These terms cover the use of bretterick.com and the sessions, workshops and products booked or bought through it. Booking a session, buying a gift certificate or using this site means you accept them.

Who you are dealing with

These terms are an agreement between you and Bretterick LLC, which trades as Bretterick Studio + Lab at 412 S 700 W Ste. 120, Salt Lake City, UT 84104.

In this document, "I", "me" and "my" mean Bretterick LLC. Brett Briggs is the photographer — he runs the studio, makes the plates and answers the email, and the first person is simply how the studio talks. Your agreement is with the company rather than with him personally.

Booking and payment

Sessions, workshops and paid calls are booked and paid through Calendly. Gift certificates are bought through the store on this site. Both take card payments through Stripe.
Sessions: a non-refundable deposit is due at booking; the balance is due on the day of the session. You can reschedule with at least 24 hours' notice.
Workshops: paid in full at booking, and refundable — in full at two weeks' notice, less a 10% materials fee inside that. Workshops and sessions do not share cancellation terms; the Return, Cancellation and Refund Policy sets out each separately.
Prices shown on the pricing page are current at the time you see them and may change. The price you are charged at booking is the price that applies to your booking.
Cancellation, rescheduling and refunds are covered by the Return, Cancellation and Refund Policy, which forms part of these terms.

The sessions themselves

Wet plate collodion is a hand process from the 1850s and it does not behave like digital photography. Plates carry swirls, pour lines, edge irregularities, dust and comet marks. These are characteristics of the medium, not defects, and they are a large part of why people book. I cannot guarantee a specific outcome on any individual plate, and a session sometimes needs a test plate before we start making keepers.

Please arrive on time. A session is a fixed block of studio time and a late start shortens it.
Children and pets are welcome where the booking says so, and the adult who booked is responsible for them in the studio. Chemistry used in this process is hazardous and is not to be touched.
I may decline to continue a session if anyone present is unsafe, intoxicated, or abusive. In that case the deposit is not refunded.

Images, plates and copyright

You own the physical plate. It is yours once the session is paid for.

I retain copyright in the photographs I make, which is the ordinary position under US copyright law for a commissioned photographer.

The model release

Everyone who is photographed signs a model release. It is part of the order form you complete for the session, and it is signed per person, not per booking:

Each adult in the picture signs for themselves, and gives their printed name and date of birth. The form has room for four.
A parent or guardian signs on behalf of a child, and is named on the form as the guardian. The form has room for four children.
An animal's owner signs on the animal's behalf and is named as the owner.

If your group is larger than that, there is a second form. One order form holds four adults, four children and one animal. Bring more people than that and I have another form filled in for the rest — the slots run out, the paperwork does not. Everyone who is photographed signs a release. There is no group size at which that stops being true, and nobody is photographed on the strength of somebody else's signature.

This is what you are signing, in full:

I hereby grant to Brett Briggs ("Photographer") and their legal representatives and assigns, the irrevocable and unrestricted right to use and publish all photographs and videos from this session, for editorial, trade, advertising, and any other purpose and in any manner and medium; and to alter and composite the same without restriction and without my inspection or approval. I hereby release Photographer and their legal representatives and assigns from all claims and liability relating to said photographs and videos.

In plain language. You are giving me permission to use and publish the pictures and video from your session — in my portfolio, on this website, in print, in exhibitions, in advertising, and in media I have not thought of yet — and to crop, retouch and combine them, without having to come back to you for approval each time. You are not giving up ownership of your plate, and you are not giving up your own right to share your pictures.

It applies to every kind of session. There is no separate release for the fine-art and nude work: the same wording covers a headshot, a family sitting and a nude study alike. One release, no distinction, and that is deliberate rather than an omission. A nude study is work about bodies and light, made the same way as everything else here and released on the same terms — unrestricted, irrevocable, no separate form and no narrower consent.

I would rather you knew that before the session than discovered it after. If those are not terms you want over that work, say so before we shoot and ask me — that is a conversation worth having early, and it is a great deal easier than one had afterwards.

Asking me not to post you

The order form has a box, next to each person's signature, that reads "Please DO NOT share my portrait on social media." Tick it and I will not put that person on social media. There is one box per person, so in a group portrait one sitter can decline while the others do not, and a guardian can tick it on a child's behalf.

Two things about that box you should know, because they are easy to assume wrongly. It asks about social media — it does not, by its own words, cover this website, my printed portfolio, an exhibition print or an advertisement. And the release you signed above is unrestricted, so honouring the box is a promise I keep, not a limit the release places on me. I keep it anyway.

So, plainly: the box means social media. It is not a wider opt-out wearing a narrower name. Ticking it does not by itself keep you off this website, out of the printed portfolio I show people, off an exhibition wall or out of an advertisement. If you would rather not appear on any of those either, tell me in words — that is a conversation rather than a box, and I will have it with you before we shoot.

Your own use. You are welcome to photograph and share your own plates and the scans I provide. Please credit Bretterick Studio + Lab when you post them publicly.

Delivery

Allow 1–2 weeks from your session to everything arriving. That window covers the whole journey, not one leg of it: the plate is varnished for archival preservation before it can ship, and your digital files are scanned, edited and emailed as a download link. The files and the plate are two separate deliveries inside one window — the files are not a later stage that waits for the varnishing.

Shipping, where it applies, is charged at the rate shown on the pricing page. Risk in a shipped plate passes to you on delivery.

Gift certificates

Gift certificates are covered by the Return, Cancellation and Refund Policy, including whether one can be refunded or passed on to somebody else. They are redeemed using the link on the card, which books the session without taking further payment.

Using this website

Please do not attempt to break, overload, scrape or gain unauthorised access to this site. The text, photographs and design on it are mine and are not free to reuse. Booking flows and prices may change without notice.

Limits on what I am responsible for

Some things cannot be limited by an agreement, and nothing here tries to. Nothing in these terms limits or excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited or excluded under Utah law.

Subject to that, my total liability to you for anything arising out of a session, a workshop or an order is limited to the amount you paid for it.

What that means in practice:

If a plate is lost or damaged before it reaches you, or a session cannot be delivered, I will remake the plates or arrange a new date where that is possible, and refund what you paid where it is not.
I am not responsible for indirect or consequential losses — the occasion you booked the session around, travel or accommodation, time taken off work, a missed deadline, or any other loss beyond the amount you paid me.
The same limit applies however a claim is framed, whether in contract, in negligence, or otherwise.

Governing law, and how a dispute gets sorted out

These terms are governed by the law of the State of Utah.

If something goes wrong between us, email me first. Most things are fixable in a message and I would far rather sort it out directly. Please give me 30 days from the day you tell me about it.

If that does not resolve it, we both agree to try arbitration before going to court. A dispute arising out of these terms, or out of a session, workshop or order, will be resolved by binding arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules. The arbitration will be held in Salt Lake County, Utah, or by video or on documents alone if we both prefer, and the arbitrator's award may be entered as a judgment in any court that has jurisdiction.

Two exceptions, because arbitration should not be a way of making a small claim expensive. Either of us may instead bring a claim in small claims court if it qualifies for that court. And either of us may ask a court for an order to stop misuse of photographs or of this website.

If the arbitration paragraph is ever held unenforceable, the rest of these terms still stand, and the dispute goes to the state or federal courts located in Salt Lake County, Utah, whose jurisdiction we both accept.

Changes

I may update these terms. The version live on this page at the time you book is the one that applies to your booking.

Contact

Bretterick LLC, trading as Bretterick Studio + Lab 412 S 700 W Ste. 120, Salt Lake City, UT 84104 brett@bretterick.com · (801) 231-4094

Brett Briggs answers this email and this phone.