Photography Notice

Effective September 7, 2026 · Last updated September 7, 2026

1. Operator and Scope

This Notice applies to the photography portfolio website operated by Bhagvat Daraji ("the Photographer," "we," "us," or "our"), together with all galleries, archives, and pages made available on it (the "Site").

In this Notice, "Photographer" and "Site operator" refer to the same person. Where this Notice refers to "Images," it means still photographs and any video or motion content created by the Photographer and displayed on the Site.

This Notice explains the circumstances under which Images are created, the legal basis on which they are displayed, and the rights and remedies available to individuals who appear in them.

This Notice is one of three documents governing the Site. It should be read together with the Terms of Use and the Privacy Policy. Where the Terms of Use address a subject also covered here, the Terms of Use control as to the contractual relationship between the Site and its visitors.

2. What This Site Displays

The Site displays photographic coverage of:

interscholastic and community athletic competitions;
graduations, commencements, and award ceremonies;
concerts, recitals, theatrical productions, and other performances;
school activities and student events;
community gatherings, festivals, and civic events; and
other public-facing, ticketed, or invitation-based events.

Images are presented for purposes including event documentation, journalism, sports coverage, artistic expression, historical documentation, and display of the Photographer's professional portfolio.

Unless expressly stated otherwise on a specific page, the appearance of any individual, school, team, organization, logo, uniform, venue, or other identifiable property on the Site does not constitute or imply endorsement, sponsorship, partnership, or affiliation with the Site or the Photographer.

3. Authorized Access and Media Credentials

For certain events displayed on the Site, the Photographer has been issued media credentials, media passes, sideline access, or other written or verbal authorization by the applicable school, athletic department, league, organization, venue, or event representative.

Where such authorization exists:

It permits the Photographer to be present in designated areas and to photograph from locations approved by the issuing entity, subject to the rules and conditions attached to that authorization.
Images so created are captured openly, in the ordinary course of documenting the event, and are not obtained through trespass, surreptitious entry, concealed recording, or intrusion into any private space.

Independent status. The Photographer creates Images as an independent photographer for the Photographer's own account. Issuance of a media credential authorizes presence and photography; it does not make the Photographer an employee, agent, contractor, or representative of any school, district, league, venue, or organization, and it does not place the Photographer's Images under the custody or control of any such entity.

Credential terms are respected. Where a credential, venue policy, or event agreement imposes restrictions on the use, licensing, or sale of Images created under it, the Photographer observes those restrictions. Individuals or organizations who believe an Image is being used contrary to credential terms may contact the Photographer under Section 12.

No implied model release. A media credential is an authorization to be present and to photograph. It is not a model release from, and does not evidence individual consent by, any person appearing in an Image. Publication and use of individual Images remain governed by applicable law and by the operating rules in Section 7.

4. Public-Facing and Ticketed Events

Many events photographed for the Site are open to students, families, spectators, invited attendees, credentialed media, and members of the public who purchase or otherwise obtain admission.

Photography at such events occurs in areas where participants and attendees are openly observable by other spectators and by authorized media.

The Site does not represent that attendance at a public or ticketed event constitutes unlimited consent to every possible use of an individual's likeness. Attendance is one relevant circumstance among several; it is not a blanket waiver.

Where a school, athletic organization, venue, district, or ticketing provider separately publishes photography or recording notices — through admission terms, ticketing, registration, participation forms, event policies, or entrance signage — those terms may independently apply to the event and to persons attending it. The Photographer does not rely on such notices as a substitute for the operating rules set out in Section 7.

5. Sports, News, and Public-Affairs Coverage

California Civil Code § 3344 regulates the knowing use of another's name, voice, signature, photograph, or likeness on or in products, merchandise, or goods, or for purposes of advertising or selling, or soliciting purchases of, products, merchandise, goods, or services, without prior consent.

Section 3344(d) provides that a use "in connection with any news, public affairs, or sports broadcast or account, or any political campaign" does not require consent under that section.

Accordingly, athletic galleries, graduation and ceremony coverage, and comparable event documentation displayed on the Site may constitute sports coverage, news or public-affairs coverage, documentary photography, artistic expression, or other constitutionally and statutorily protected expressive activity.

The Photographer separately acknowledges that:

California also recognizes a common-law right of publicity, which exists independently of § 3344 and is not identical in scope;
whether any particular use falls within a statutory or constitutional protection depends on the facts of that use; and
nothing on the Site is intended to claim an exemption broader than the one applicable law actually provides.

Because § 3344 provides for statutory damages, disgorgement of profits, and an award of attorney's fees to the prevailing party, the Photographer treats the boundary between editorial use and advertising use as an operating rule rather than a matter of interpretation. Those rules are set out in Section 7.

6. Privacy and Reasonable Expectations of Privacy

Images displayed on the Site depict activities occurring openly at athletic contests, graduations, ceremonies, performances, and comparable events at which the Photographer is lawfully present and, where applicable, credentialed.

The Photographer does not knowingly or intentionally photograph individuals in:

restrooms, locker rooms, changing areas, or training rooms;
private residences or non-public interior spaces;
medical, treatment, or first-aid settings; or
any other location or circumstance in which a reasonable expectation of privacy ordinarily exists.

California Civil Code § 1708.8 addresses certain physical and constructive invasions of privacy involving the capture of images of a person engaged in a personal or familial activity. The Photographer does not use telephoto, drone, concealed, or enhancement equipment to capture what could not lawfully be observed from the position the Photographer was authorized to occupy.

The Photographer does not contend that a person's presence in a public place extinguishes every privacy interest. Images are captured and published with regard to the circumstances of the event, the nature of the depiction, and applicable law.

Injury, distress, and undignified moments. As a matter of editorial practice, the Photographer exercises restraint in publishing Images depicting serious injury, medical treatment, acute emotional distress, wardrobe failure, or comparable circumstances, and will consider removal requests concerning such Images with priority under Section 12.

7. Editorial Use, Commercial Advertising, and Operating Rules

There is a legal distinction between (a) displaying a photograph as photographic work, sports coverage, event documentation, editorial material, or artistic expression, and (b) using a person's identity specifically to advertise, endorse, or solicit purchases of a product or service.

The Site does not claim that ownership of copyright in an Image eliminates rights an identifiable person may hold regarding certain commercial uses of that person's likeness.

To keep that line clear in practice, the Photographer applies the following rules:

7.1 — Identifiable persons are not used in advertising without authorization. An Image in which a person is identifiable will not be used in paid advertising, promotional campaigns, printed or digital marketing collateral, or any material soliciting photography bookings, unless the depicted person — or, for a minor, that person's parent or legal guardian — has given written authorization.

7.2 — Editorial galleries are not calls to action. Event galleries and portfolio pages are presented as photographic work. Pricing, booking links, promotional offers, and solicitations to purchase photography services are kept on dedicated pages and are not overlaid on, embedded within, or presented as part of an Image in which a minor is identifiable.

7.3 — Social media follows the same rule. Where Images are posted to social media accounts operated by the Photographer, an Image in which a minor is identifiable is not posted together with pricing, a booking call to action, promotional language, or a solicitation of business.

7.4 — No likeness merchandise. Images containing identifiable persons are not printed on or applied to merchandise (apparel, drinkware, novelty goods, or similar items), and are not licensed to third parties for advertising or merchandising use.

7.5 — Prints and downloads. See Section 8.

7.6 — Where consent is required, it is obtained. Where applicable law requires consent, a model release, or parental or guardian authorization for a particular advertising, endorsement, or commercial use, the Photographer will obtain that authorization before making the use.

8. Print Sales and Digital Downloads

The Site offers Images for sale as prints and digital downloads. Payment is processed by Stripe. The commercial terms of sale are set out in the Terms of Use; the following rules govern who may purchase Images containing identifiable people:

8.1 Sale of a print or download is a sale of a copy of a photographic work. It is not a license to use the depicted person's identity, and it conveys no right of publicity, endorsement, or commercial-use right in any person appearing in the Image.

8.2 Where an Image contains an identifiable minor, the Photographer sells prints and downloads of that Image only to:

the depicted minor's parent or legal guardian;
the depicted individual, once eighteen (18) years of age or older;
an immediate family member of the depicted individual; or
the school, district, team, league, or organization associated with the event.

8.3 The Photographer reserves the right to decline, cancel, and refund any order for an Image at the Photographer's discretion, including where the purchaser's relationship to the depicted individual cannot reasonably be established, or where the requested use appears inconsistent with this Notice.

8.4 All purchasers receive a personal, non-commercial license only, as set out in the Terms of Use. Purchase does not transfer copyright.

9. Students, Minors, and School Events

School athletic events, graduations, concerts, performances, and comparable activities frequently include individuals under the age of eighteen.

9.1 The presence of a minor in a documentary, journalistic, sports, public-event, or artistic Image does not mean that the minor, or the minor's parent or guardian, endorses the Site, the Photographer, or the Photographer's services. Images of minors will not be presented as personal endorsements.

9.2 Where a school, district, or organization maintains a list of students for whom a parent or guardian has opted out of media, publicity, or directory-information release, the Photographer will honor that list to the extent the list is provided or made known to the Photographer. Schools and districts may transmit such requests to the address in Section 12.

9.3 The Photographer does not publish, alongside an Image, a minor's home address, telephone number, email address, date of birth, class schedule, or comparable identifying detail. Where a name appears (for example, in a sports caption), it is limited to information already publicly announced in connection with the event — such as a roster, program, heat sheet, or public results listing.

9.4 Location metadata (including GPS EXIF data) is removed from Images before publication on the Site.

9.5 Parents and legal guardians may exercise the removal rights in Section 12 on behalf of a depicted minor.

10. FERPA and School Records

10.1 Photographs independently created by a photographer are not automatically "education records" merely because students appear in them.

10.2 The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, 20 U.S.C. § 1232g, and its implementing regulations at 34 C.F.R. Part 99, apply to qualifying education records maintained by an educational agency or institution, or by a party acting for such an agency or institution.

10.3 As stated in Section 3, the Photographer creates Images as an independent photographer for the Photographer's own account and not as an agent of, or party acting on behalf of, any school or district. Images displayed on the Site are the Photographer's own works and are not maintained by or on behalf of any educational institution.

10.4 Nothing on the Site is intended to disclose confidential education records, academic information, disciplinary information, health information, special-education information, or other protected student records. Images depicting ordinary participation in public-facing school activities are presented solely as photographic documentation of those activities.

10.5 Where the Photographer has separately performed work at the request of a school or district under an arrangement in which the school directs the work, any images created under that arrangement are handled according to that arrangement and are not published on the Site except as that arrangement permits.

11. Copyright Ownership and Permitted Use

11.1 — Ownership. Unless otherwise indicated, Images displayed on the Site are original works of authorship created by the Photographer and are protected under United States copyright law, including 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 106, and 201. Under 17 U.S.C. § 201(a), copyright vests initially in the author of the work.

11.2 — Works of others. Only Images that the Photographer owns, or is otherwise licensed or authorized to display, are published on the Site. Where an Image was created under a written agreement transferring copyright, or as a work made for hire under 17 U.S.C. § 101, it is not published on the Site unless the agreement permits that display. Nothing in this Notice claims ownership of a work whose copyright is legally held by another person or entity.

11.4 — Prohibited uses. Except as permitted by applicable law (including fair use under 17 U.S.C. § 107), as expressly permitted in a written license from the Photographer, or as permitted by the personal-use license accompanying a purchase, Images may not be:

downloaded, copied, scraped, or redistributed;
reproduced, republished, or reposted;
sold, licensed, or sublicensed;
altered, cropped, filtered, recolored, or otherwise modified and then redistributed;
used in advertising, promotional material, or merchandise;
used for another person's or entity's commercial purposes;
embedded, framed, or hotlinked from another site in a manner that presents them as that site's content;
stripped of watermarks, credits, copyright notices, or metadata; or
represented as the work of another photographer.

11.5 — Public display is not dedication. The fact that an Image is publicly viewable on the Site does not place it in the public domain, waive any right in it, or transfer copyright ownership to any person depicted in it, to any school or organization appearing in it, or to any visitor.

11.6 — Requests to use an Image. Schools, teams, news organizations, families, and others who wish to use an Image may request permission at the address in Section 12. The Photographer routinely grants reasonable, credited, non-commercial requests.

12. Automated Access, Text and Data Mining, and AI Training

12.1 The Photographer expressly reserves all rights in the Images and other content on the Site against text and data mining, web scraping, dataset compilation, and the training, fine-tuning, grounding, or evaluation of machine-learning or artificial-intelligence models, including generative models.

12.2 No license is granted for any such use. This reservation is made for purposes including Article 4(3) of Directive (EU) 2019/790 and any comparable opt-out mechanism recognized under applicable law, and applies regardless of whether the content is accessed directly, through a cache, through a third-party index, or through an intermediary.

12.3 Automated crawling, scraping, bulk downloading, and systematic retrieval of Images from the Site are prohibited except by search-engine crawlers that observe the Site's robots.txt directives and that index only for the purpose of directing users to the Site.

12.4 Requests for a license covering machine-learning use may be directed to the address in Section 14. Silence is a refusal.

13. Third-Party Names, Logos, Uniforms, and Trademarks

13.1 Names, uniforms, mascots, logos, trademarks, service marks, venue names, sponsor signage, and other identifying material may appear incidentally within Images captured at athletic events and school activities.

13.2 Their appearance is descriptive, documentary, artistic, and identifying. It reflects what was present at the event as photographed.

13.3 Such appearance does not imply that any school, district, athletic organization, league, conference, venue, sponsor, athlete, student, or other party sponsors, endorses, operates, reviews, or is affiliated with the Site.

13.4 References in this Notice or on the Site to media credentials describe the circumstances under which Images were created. They are not, and should not be interpreted as, an endorsement of the Site by any issuing school, district, league, or organization.

13.5 All third-party marks are the property of their respective owners.

14. Image Concerns and Removal Requests

The Photographer respects legitimate privacy, safety, dignity, and personal concerns, and treats removal requests seriously.

14.1 — Who may request. A person depicted in an Image, or the parent or legal guardian of a depicted minor, may request removal, restriction, or modification of that Image.

14.2 — How to request. Send a request to:

bhagvatdaraji1@gmail.com Subject line: Image Removal Request

Please include:

the gallery name, event, date, and — where possible — the URL or file name of each Image at issue;
a description sufficient to identify the person in the Image (for example, jersey number, position in frame, or approximate timestamp);
your relationship to the depicted person; and
for a request made on behalf of a minor, a statement that you are the parent or legal guardian.

14.3 — Verification. The Photographer may ask for reasonable additional information to confirm that the requester is the depicted individual or that individual's parent or legal guardian. This is done to prevent a third party from having another person's Image removed. No government identification number is requested or required.

14.4 — Response. The Photographer will acknowledge requests within ten (10) business days and will act on reasonable requests within thirty (30) days of verification, or will explain why more time is needed.

14.5 — Outcomes. Depending on the circumstances, a request may result in removal from public display, restriction of a gallery, cropping or obscuring, removal of an accompanying caption or name, or a decision to retain the Image. Requests concerning safety, minors, injury, or acute distress receive priority.

14.6 — What removal does and does not do. Removal from public display on the Site does not:

delete the original file from the Photographer's private archive, backups, or business records, which the Photographer may retain for legal, accounting, and archival purposes;
remove copies previously cached or indexed by search engines or third-party services, though the Photographer will, on request, submit available removal or refresh requests to major search engines; or
remove copies previously downloaded, shared, or reposted by third parties.

14.7 — Voluntary act. Voluntary removal or modification of an Image is a courtesy extended in good faith. It is not an admission that the Image was unlawfully captured, unlawfully published, or owned by any person depicted, and it is not a waiver of any right or defense.

15. Copyright Complaints (DMCA)

If you believe that content displayed on the Site infringes a copyright you own or control, send a written notice under 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3) to:

DMCA Notices — Bhagvat Daraji bhagvatdaraji1@gmail.com Subject line: DMCA Notice

Your notice must include:

a physical or electronic signature of the copyright owner or a person authorized to act on the owner's behalf;
identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed;
identification of the material claimed to be infringing, with information reasonably sufficient to locate it (a URL is best);
your contact information, including address, telephone number, and email address;
a statement that you have a good-faith belief that the use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and
a statement, made under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on the owner's behalf.

Material identified in a compliant notice will be removed or disabled promptly. A counter-notification procedure under 17 U.S.C. § 512(g) is available to any party whose material has been removed. Misrepresentations in a notice or counter-notification may result in liability for damages and attorney's fees under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f).

16. No Transfer of Rights Through Requests

A request to remove an Image from public display does not, by itself:

transfer copyright ownership in that Image;
create a license to copy, reproduce, distribute, publicly display, edit, sell, or commercially exploit the Image; or
entitle the requester to receive the original file, the RAW file, or any derivative.

17. Applicable Legal Framework

This Notice is intended to operate consistently with applicable federal and California law, including, where relevant:

Authority	Subject
17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 106, 107, 201	Copyright: authorship, exclusive rights, fair use, ownership, and works made for hire
17 U.S.C. § 512	Notice-and-takedown procedures for claimed copyright infringement
Cal. Civ. Code § 3344	Statutory protection against certain uses of name, photograph, or likeness, including the news, public-affairs, and sports exception at § 3344(d)
Cal. Civ. Code § 3344.1	Comparable protections concerning deceased personalities
California common law	Right of publicity and privacy torts, which exist independently of the statutes above
Cal. Civ. Code § 1708.8	Physical and constructive invasion of privacy involving image capture
Cal. Penal Code § 647(j)	Criminal invasion-of-privacy provisions concerning certain recordings
20 U.S.C. § 1232g; 34 C.F.R. Part 99	FERPA and its implementing regulations, concerning education records
Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 22575 et seq.	CalOPPA, addressed in the Privacy Policy

Federal and California constitutional protections concerning journalism, photography, artistic expression, news reporting, sports coverage, and public affairs may also apply depending on the circumstances.

Jurisdictional limitation. This Notice is written with reference to California law. Where an Image is created in another state, that state's laws may apply to that Image, and nothing in this Notice asserts otherwise.

18. Reservation of Rights

Nothing in this Notice waives, limits, or releases any right, defense, privilege, copyright, license, statutory protection, constitutional protection, contractual right, or other legal protection available to the Photographer.

Likewise, nothing in this Notice is intended to eliminate, limit, or waive any right that another individual holds under applicable law.

This Notice describes the policies and principles governing Images displayed on the Site. It does not create rights or obligations beyond those provided by applicable law and by the Terms of Use.

19. Changes to This Notice

The Photographer may update this Notice from time to time. The "Last Updated" date at the top will reflect the most recent revision. Material changes will be indicated on the Site. Continued use of the Site after a revision constitutes acceptance of the revised Notice.

20. Contact

Bhagvat Daraji Email: bhagvatdaraji1@gmail.com

For image removal requests, use subject line Image Removal Request (Section 14). For copyright complaints, use subject line DMCA Notice (Section 15). For licensing and permission requests, use subject line License Request (Section 11.6).