Hello there. It's me again. I want to tell you a little story on why we as photographers watermark our photos... Back in the day I used to Watermark my images on the photo itself. It was small, out of the way, and made sure it wasn't ugly as hell, and I've had ugly watermarks before.
Watermark On the photo...
We watermark for a couple of reasons..
- Marketing. It's the best source of referrals right? Has anyone every asked you "who took your photo?" Well when our watermark is on the photo, there's no need for the ask.
- To stop people from stealing photos. If you think this sounds dumb, then I would suggest you visit this site and then tell me it's still dumb: http://stopstealingphotos.com
- MARKETING... I can't stress this enough. (that's right, I used it twice...)
Recently I changed my watermark process. I don't know why, I guess the old way was getting old. I recently went with a border on the photo and then placed my logo on the outside. I'm daring. People could steal my photos... People could save their photos as their profile photos, and then crop it out? Why was I making such a dumb change? Because I trust my clients. Now I'll be the first to admit, It took some time for me to get used to the fact that I could lose my marketing, or my photo could get stolen, and I had to accept that and get over it; quick. But because I trusted my clients.
My lovely out of the way watermark on the bottom of the photo..
Another fine example of an amazing photo, an amazing couple, and an amazing out of the way logo...
I've seen watermarks before though, where they are on the clients faces. I've seen them miss the detail of the shot because their name is everywhere on their photo. This is what it looks like..
"Hey, um... where's this photo taken? I can't see it because of your name... everywhere..."
Looks like crap right? You're damn right it does.
Recently in the news, unfortunately there were terror attacks in France. In the wake of the event, there was a drawing by French artist Lucille_Clerk on Instagram.
lucille_clerks's drawing on Instagram.. Source: Here
However, that drawing was then shared as well by a fake instagram user under the Bansky name. I bring this up only because this photo was shared, stolen, and then finally the credit was given to the original artist only after small detective work on the internet's part.
Photographers, Artists, Authors, all want to create their passion. We watermark, we copyright, we hold back on sharing so much because of what could possibly happen to our work. Which leads me to my final thought. If you save a profile photo that has our watermark, don't crop it out. Don't remove it.
We feel defeated when we see that. A lot of photographers have it in the contracts with their clients that if you were to share, then they receive credit for the photo. If you want to save a photo as a profile photo on Facebook, or share it on instagram, and the watermark doesn't fit, just ask us, we'll make a change so we can add it, and still be out of the way. Word of mouth got us where we are today.
Thanks!
-kevin