So you guys got me thinking...
For me, it's always been as a result of my continued obsession to see one again since seeing one once before, but I always try to keep the camera ready to go...
But I know. I saw. So the desire to get a picture is more...I suppose maybe I just wanna say "See! See!! Ha! Told ya!"
And suppose I got lucky.
"Hoh sh*t! There it is!!.......................!.....................oh, camera!....
...and then I manage to get four shots in a row...
daytime shots, clear as could be, walking across and away, at approximately 50', 75', 100', and then a farther shot at about 200', unobstructed, rocks and trees for scale, pictures clear and in focus, amazing stuff, virtually undeniable...

not your class photos, but really good pictures.

What could they actually possibly be worth?

...and since I'd like to eventually go digital with movie clips, how about the scene and distances in the above example uninterrupted for about 15 seconds?

What could the market possibly value these at?

More related thoughts and questions...

What would be the wise way to go about publically presenting pictures anyway? Would you/should you go get an agent/firm/attorney, publicitymarketing/legal?
Contact others here? Go to BFRO?

I wonder if there would be all that much of a pay-day anyway.
But I guess that would also depend on the person. Would you just sell the pictures, maybe get some speaking opportunities, few magazine articles...actually, that could amount to quite a bit right there.
Or would that person try to turn into a marketing machine...pictures,pictures, posters, speaking,speaking, t-shirts, articles, books, t.v. movie, milking it every way possible....
It could be a nightmare, driving tens of thousands of get-rich-quickers, kill-'em-all hunters, abject idiots, and countless more curiousity seekers all into the forests.
Somebody's 'big score' could be the beginning of the end for the dark king of the woods?
Good reason to hush it all up anyway? Whether it be locals or feds or both..
...maybe a good reason for skeptic/hoax/fraud talk even in the face of the best evidence?
We'd all be excited, thrilled, vindicated...but what would it unleash?
Or maybe, there would be no huge changes. Somebody gets great pictures, manages to accumulate a few hundred thousand dollars in reward, there's a brief publicity flourish, and camping/hiking/hunting numbers spike, but no hysteria, and after a short time, it is common knowledge and some believe and some do not...

nothing? no one?
how much $ for a hoax? is ok...
how much $ for a dead bigfoot body is cool..
but zip, zero, nada regarding my query about pictures?
wtf
ok fine, make a guy feel completely unwelcome already...
i'll show you...lol.

Hmmm, well the way I see it some nice, clear daytime photos would be worth a good deal of money. How much would mostly depend on two things.

First, you would have to shop them around and see who was interested in them. It would probably help you drive up the asking price for the rights to the photos if you spread the word that you had them but held them back from public viewing at first. This way you would tease the poor souls who are really interested in seeing them until they couldn't stand it anymore. As word spread about the reported photos someone will claim (falsely) that they know you personally and that they have seen the pictures themselves and they are for real. Some people just like to start rumours just to see how far things will go and just how many people they can fool into believing their lie, it's human nature. Eventually, to someone who possesses a great deal of money and has an interest in Bigfoot, the itch to own "authentic" Bigfoot photos would prove to be too much to ignore and he would buy them.

Second, the person looking to buy them would have to be convinced that they were legit and that might be difficult for some to believe with all the damn hoaxers and debunkers out there.

If you could pull all of this this off, I would imagine the pictures might be worth $250,000 - $500,000 or so. A nice, clear video would probably bring even more money as scientists would want to study the creature in motion.

Sojourner,
Tell me about your sighting! I'd love to here the story. Please!

of course the $$ is all relative to "if " you get those clear photos..and "If" you find someone actually willing to pay for them....and "if" ...hell,I could do this all day....

Well, my excuse is that I JUST noticed your thread
As to worth...It would, I suppose, depend upon market and more importanly, some way to authenticate them(VERY difficult in this age of imaging technology..).
Sadly, the more likely case is that you would get your best "haul" from a tabloid..

Hey!

Send them to me and let me do the worrying for you...

Good, clear photos might be worth some thousand.. great photos, maybe $10,000. Just guesses of course. A great video, much better than the PG film, maybe $20,000.

Those prices are for the rights. No more royalties for you after that.

I don't know... with todays technology, still pics are going to be harder than ever to use as proof. With $15,000.00, I could make a BF suit that would really give Patty a run for her money. I'd love to do this because "I" think it would be great leverage to show WHY she couldn't have been faked in '67. A few quick e-mails to Steve Wang, XFX, and some of Stan Winstons folks, and I'd be well on my way.

For modern still pics to fly, you're going to have to show the boy blinking, shifting his eyes, sweating, eating bugs, and who knows what else, to get a rise out of serious researchers, and the bad thing is, all the stuff to do that is available now on the internet if you have the money to buy it.

-Sarge

If you wanted to make money off a picture(s) your probably right and whats so funny about this is J Lo and Ben pics go for $25,000 depending on the picture!

My first thought on this is that there mightn't be as much interest in a good BF photo as people think. The iffy (brief / partial-body / shaky / fuzzy / distant) photos and videos that have been made in recent decades have brought in very little money, and seemingly aroused little bidding interest. Also, the Patterson film was only a moderate success financially, and took a lot of work to make as a film. I assume it was shopped around the networks and they didn't bid on it, or they didn't bid much. (If it wasn't shopped around the networks, that was a poor decision.)

This is a straw in the wind that there mightn't be a lot of interest in anything that isn't a lot better than what's been put forward so far. (Search Google for ordering info on "Big Footage" by Mike Quast, an $18 book on the photos and films of BF claimed over the years, to get a sense of what that consists of.)

Probably a good bet would be to contact an insider in TV-land who is familiar with the BF topic, such as the producer of S:LMS and Mysterious Encounters. (Too bad it isn't likely that he'd now want to weigh in here and share his insights with us. (BFF has probably burned its bridges to that connection!))

OTOH, I don't think that modern digital editing techniques devalue photos as much as some have said. I've said before that although digital editing can make a convincing-looking photo, I've read knowledgeable peoples' statements that a pixel-level analysis of such photos can generally reveal certain normally invisible "signatures" of phoniness. That is even truer of a digitally created video (moving-picture) creation. I.e., a pixel-level analysis of Jurassic Park would have revealed its artificiality immediately. If several experts vouched for the authenticity of a photo or video, their statements could be broadcast or printed in conjunction with the broadcast or printing of a video or photo, allaying popular suspicion of what they are being shown.

Maybe the first thing to do would be to look up one of these experts and get his endorsement, before approaching any publishers. There are many directories of experts used by journalists when they want quotes or double-checking. I mentioned them a few months ago here. (Search on my name plus "experts" or "directory.")

OTOH, I think there'd be a tremendous interest in videos and photos, even the ones of borderline quality that haven't drawn even a nibble so far, after "B-Day"; i.e., after Bigfoot is confirmed with a body, or with a video shot by highly credible witness or witnesses (like an on-duty cop) of a tall BF taking long strides. At that point, once media gatekeepers realize that the beast really exists, or most likely exists, they'll soon realize that the "amateur" quality of the pictures so far taken is a kind of roundabout indication of their authenticity, and they'll start offering three or four-figure amounts for them.

If public interest in BF skyrockets after B-Day, as I think it will, then the value of existing videotaped interviews with witnesses will go through the roof, as the media will try to acquire material to satisfy their audience's hunger for material. This looks to me like a better bet for people who are interested in covering their expenses and time in BF investigation than trying to get a shot of BF itself. (I argued this position in a paper I posted here awhile ago, "Let's Videotape Testimony and Create Documentaries.") As for the value of the Patty film, that'd reach astronomical levels.

EDIT: This is a bit off-topic, and I should have mentioned it in an earlier post I made about why the media is or seems skeptical (I think it's a need to maintain its credibility with its skeptical audience, primarily), but here is another reason for the media's skepticism. When I saw the Patty film in the late sixties, I went with a friend who was a journalist. (He won a Pulitzer prize the next year.) He thought it looked too much like a man in a suit--which is the sort of immediate reaction many people have.

When I grilled him more on this, he said that a lot of journalists were skeptical of stories that seem to evaporate when they are looked into, or that don't have follow-up news items tending to confirm the original story. He said that when he (or a friend of his--I forget) was stationed in Argentina, stories of crypto beasts would come in regularly, but they never led to confirmation, which made him feel he was dealing with a will o' the wisp. This may well be a mistaken assumption--i.e., one that is valid only in judging the credibility of stories about ordinary events. Anyway, we should be aware of it, as it always helps to "know the enemy."

The worst thing you could do in my opinion is produce photos taken with a digital camera (and I'm speaking as an Expert Witness here).

Unless the evidence is properly contained by a forensic technologist, camera and all *before* someone happily starts printing away, then there is no way to verify that the photos were taken when they photographer says they were taken.

We regularly see digital images in our line of work that have been altered, or have suspicious dates and time stamps.

If someone sent me a digital photo, I would only put my name to it if it was sent while it was still in the camera - anything images that are printed outside a controlled environment are worthless.

Use 35mm film cameras - apart from anything else, they respond a heck of a lot quicker, and are much harder to fake than digital images.

Patterson footage and show frames of it.

I think then it will have some monetary value. They don’t have to be real mind you, just good enough to convince most folks. Then networks and shows and orgs will have to pay you $$ to use your photos.

Get folks to accept them. Get them to the same status as "Patty", Then you have some $$ involved. Maybe not enough to get you rich, but any $$ isn’t all that bad.