I've been into surf photography since the late 80s. Over the past few years I've stepped it up spending a lot of money on equipment and putting in the time to shoot when the waves are good. I've posted shots here and to my facebook and insta accounts. Should I be flattered or pissed when I find my shots appearing on commercial websites without permission or photo credit? For the third time recently I've found my shots on commercial sites. I've been pretty generous sharing and posting my stuff but when I find my shots on commercial sites without permission or photo credit it does not sit well with me at all. Thoughts?
I think you should research finding a way to keep the rights to your content and decide if that's what's in your best interests.
Pretty sure I'm going to stop posting shots of people other than my kids and their closest friends. Everything else will go behind a paywall. Its been something I've been considering for a while and the latest find is giving me some motivation. Even then its hard to keep people from screen shotting stuff but that would take real balls and the resolution would suck. I did go back on this site and the poached shots were not ones from the photo gallery here. I haven't put much up on here.
No doubt you have legit skills. Hopefully you take the above advice and watermark those awesome photos. You should get paid for it
Yeah the other guys beat me to it, start using a watermark. Your CJ board logo would be a good one, and use a year/date too.
Watermark everything you put on the Internet. I would definitely feel flattered Someone went out of their way to show my photos on their site - but no credit is mod level gay
When I put stuff out there I don't mind if people repost them and such. What gets me is if a business puts my stuff up on their site without permission or credit. I've also got someone who is using a cropped version of my pic below as the profile picture for a surfing Instagram Account despite a written request to take it down..
A visible watermark is one more time consuming step to dealing with pictures. I've done it but its kind of a pain. My pictures generally all have copyright info buried in the metadata of the file that my camera adds so my pictures can be identified as mine. I'm leaning towards using a photo hosting site that lets me offer the digital files for sale or the person to buy prints. I will probably get that in place before the first good swells of the fall. Then I'll just post a few teaser shots and a link to the gallery. These sites block people from downloading the pictures. At best they can screen shot what they are viewing.
+1 on watermarking. Maybe there is a way to automate it via a script, so you could add them in one fell swoop. Irfanview has a batch script tool that will do it. Here's a page that has a lot of suggested free tools.. .. https://listoffreeware.com/software-to-batch-watermark-photos-windows/
The water photog from Blacks uploads thousands of photos with his watermark. It’s gotta be a function when you import/upload. Plus easy e commerce set up to sell em! I believe it’s through smug-mug.
Unfortunately you need to be aggressive with this stuff. Let's also call it what it is, which is theft. You bought the equipment, took the time to learn the skill, shoot the photos and edited them. Anyone who uses your photos without your permission is stealing them (and in particular on the commercial side). My advice would be to get a canned message ready that basically says - we need to come to an agreement on how I'm compensated for my work (which can come in many forms - up to you) or you need to take my photos down. I would also suggest you contact a lawyer and/or get one on retainer and get a canned cease and desist letter that you can blast out to whomever is using your stuff without permission and doesn't respond to your aforementioned note. The latter piece may sound harsh but it should do the trick. By the way this would be in combination to the watermark stuff, which you should 100% be doing as well.
I actually just got the full Adobe Suite last week. Spent last night watching tutorials and tinkering with Lightroom and Photoshop. The features are there and once I set it all up it will be easy to apply watermarks. Previously I was using Gimp and the photo editing software that came with the camera so my pictures will take another leap forward thanks to the new tools. Lightroom will speed up the editing process considerably.
i honestly wouldn't care if my photos were posted on a website. Just knowing your photo was on somebody else's website is pretty cool. now if that was your business whereas you sold photos here and there, that's another story. but if it's just a hobby, then i wouldn't care who runs with it
Get a website together and sell your photos CJ. Your stuff is great. well done. If anything you'll make some money to pay for equipment upgrades and replacement. Dude does it around here. Has cards he passes around. People call him and tell them where they're going to surf and will buy shots. He shows up takes some shots and sells a few. I bought a whole printed sequence once. Now if he sees me he shoots and sends me an email with a link to the sight. I buy sometimes. While I'm looking through if I see my friends I tell them. He makes enough coin to get a real professional set up. You gotta see the zoom lens he has. Probably 10k worth of equipment. He started getting gigs from bands, bike rally's and car shows, and what not. Taking photos is now basically paying for all his hobbies.
CJ you shoot excellent photos , the guy from Rincon Surf uses a watermark .We have purchased photos of my family surfing after he posted them up on his site
If it’s a hobby, I would be flattered. I would not be too concerned about recognition or “getting credit”. If it’s a business (which you have the skills to probably develop it into something), then protect your merchandise.
