I'm thrown off my schedule with the Noodle being gone, you'd think it'd be a big party over here for the parents but we work all day and miss him at night so really, it's kind of an odd experience. As such, I'm looking for a little hideaway like this to get through my work day.
I spied this photograph on Pinterest
here and
I actually went to the Romantiska Hem blog and searched through the archived posts back to February searching for a photographer credit, to no avail. It is so frustrating. Isn't it such a pretty picture? Don't you want to know who actually took it? I DO. I want to see more of this person's work. I want to put their name under their photograph, where it belongs. Did a stylist help them set up the shot? Don't you want to know who that hard-working person is too? Didn't they do a great job hanging those paper lanterns in there?
Normally, I would not post this image on my blog. There are many, many, many photographs I find that I would love to share with my readers here, but I can't find the original source so I'm stuck with "liking" it or making it a "favorite"on whichever site I found it on. It's a giant brick wall over and over.
Today I am going to post this uncredited image though because I've been meaning to post about the topic of photo credits for a long while. From time to time, there are posts by other bloggers about how to properly credit photos for use on blogs. The fact is, legally, you should not post anyone else's images without their permission. In reality, blogs would come to a screeching halt if they waited for permission all the time. This has frustrated me many, many times because as a photographer and rule-follower, I try not to use images without permission. But sometimes, an image is so pretty and perfect, like this one, that I will break the rules. It is not the greatest situation, I'll admit it. I imagine you've all seen this poster by now:
I really do think it's a complicated situation these days. As a photographer or artist, you welcome exposure and you accept some risk by posting your work on the internet. The risk is that your work will get used without credit or payment, and the payoff is possible exposure leading to payment somewhere along the way. Some photographers and artists grumble about their work being stolen, and that stinks, don't get me wrong. But the safest thing to do is never put your work online. Even so, it could be stolen and used.
I take a moderate approach. I share my work online and I welcome others to use my images with a credit. I minimize my risks of others making prints of my work by uploading small, low resolution file sizes. Recently a photograph I took appeared on Poppytalk, and less than two weeks later, I received an Etsy order as a result. I think this is great, obviously, as I am trying to establish myself and earn a living with something I am passionate about.
As for the uncredited photo in this post, if anyone out there knows who it belongs to, please let me know. I will even go back and leave comments on Pinterest and Tumblr naming the owner so that eventually others won't have to do so much work. Really it boils down to time management. At the very least, are people willing to slow down just a bit to make a note where they found the image and then other people like me can do the right thing and get permission to use the image. What if that Tumblr owner had not just said my source is so-and-so's blog, but included the permalink to the actual post? It would be so helpful.
How do you handle photo crediting on your blog? Are you strict and use images only with permission? Do you plan all your posts ahead of time and wait to get the permission? Do you post images with credits and hope the photographer doesn't ask you to take their images down?
