Case in point: I'd like to get my kids' pictures taken. No print ad campaigns or web advertisements, just pictures of my kids, maybe myself and my wife. In the past we've used a place that takes really nice pictures, but they insist that the only way you can get their prints is to purchase print packages from them. I understand they are trying to make back their money invested in the initial sitting, but I can't wrap my head around how they are trying to take an old business model (selling photographic prints) and apply it to this new, digital age. All of their cameras are digital, but they won't sell me the RAW digital files, not for any price. However, they also delete the copies after 90 days, so they take digital pictures, print me out copies, then (presumably) destroy the originals.

I think photographers in large part are touchy about copyright issues because it's so easy to use a photograph and pass it off as your own or sell forward, etc. Also, if they sold you the RAW, then you could print it off to a hundred relatives, whereas now you need to buy the prints from them. But only giving 90 days to order as many copies as you'd like is very poor service.

Full time professionals may not like to negotiate flexible deals, but people who are just starting out taking portraits or doing it as a hobby would probably agree on a deal where you can use the results for non-commercial purposes as you will . Of course, It doesn't take a lot of equipment to get good quality portraits, but if the skill is not there, you won't be wanting to hang the results on your walls :-)