Whilst most clients do this, and will probably unfortunately continue to do this, I wanted to make a point of writing a post to simply let you all see this from a photographers point of view. I understand the majority of clients won't know the frustration this causes us, and that's okay, you weren't to know. But now you do know, will you respect your photographer enough to take note of the below?
So you've had your photoshoot, and you're dying to see the images. When they are finally shown to you, either by a sneaky peak on social media, or as an online gallery, I bet you can't wait to show them off can you? Well that's great! Of course us photographers want you to be so pleased with your images that you want to make them your profile/ cover photo's etc. BUT, there's one downside, clients tend to take screenshots, instragram them with awful filters, or crop the logo out for their profile pictures, and it can be quite disheartening. Here's why...
Screen Shots
When you screenshot an image from our page and re-upload it onto your profile. We LOVE the fact that you like the photo enough to want to share it with your friends, but.. When you take a screenshot, it more often than not leaves that horrible black banner on the top and bottom of the image, which looks horrible and as if it's part of an image. Also, a screenshot will create a lot of pixelation, it won't be that clean, crisp, sharp image, as if Facebook didn't create enough blur on images already, but that's a whole other story. So when you re-upload, we are glad you are happy to share our work, but are mortified at the quality and would hate viewers to think that's how our look. It could actually put potential customers off if they think that's how our images turn out.
Editing & Filters
When you hire your photographer, you are hiring them not only for their amazing images, but for their editing style. So when you attempt to edit an image yourself, you are not only going against legal photography copyright laws, but you are changing the way the image was supposed to look. Even the simple colour to black and white edit won't look like the photographers work, as we don't just click 'change to black and white', each photographer has their own technique in the way they edit, and by you editing and adding filters is not a true reflection of our work.
Cropping
I don't know what's worse, showing our images pixelated and filtered with a logo, or cropping our logo out altogether. Again like above, when you crop an image, either to square for a Facebook profile photo or instagram, or just cropping to show just a face, it is not a true representation of our work, and people who see this may think it's how we gave the image to you. If you crop tops of heads, feet or parts of the image out, that is not how it was handed over to you in the way you loved, and you hired the photographer for the way they present the images too right? If you crop the logo out completely then firstly, that's disrespectful and something us photographs hate. Secondly, you are potentially making us lose out on work. Not many photographers may admit this, but the main reason we share images on Facebook is to advertise to the general public, who may turn into customers. So by you cropping the logo out, all those people who see that image are people who will never know who took that photo and who will never book us. Photography is art, and by cropping out my logo you are erasing my signature from a painting I created. Do you go buy artist paintings, and erase their signature from the bottom? No! Please do not do this to my photos it's hurtful!
So, I won't go on and on, I think I've made my point. I hope you don't see this as a negative 'rant', I'm just putting into words what all photographers think. And hopefully now you, the customer will be educated in why the small things that seem petty to you, are important to us, and you will respect our wishes. So next time you want to use our images, please simply 'share' the image on your profile so it links back to our page. Next time you want to use our images as your profile photo's, please keep the logo in, and if you're feeling extra generous, tag us in the description. It's the small things that make us photographers happy, and love our customers just that little bit more :)
