On Watermarks.

Since I began writing this blog and began sharing my pictures as I first started photography, I have gone through various watermarks to protect my images from copyright infringement. Watermarking ensures, or at least the concept of it did at some point in time, that - in this case- a photographer's work cannot be reproduced without written consent and permission. In other words, clients cannot use the images without the photographer's permission, images cannot be copied and used elsewhere for any purpose without photographer's permission, and images cannot be altered in any way - including removal of watermark. 

Watermarking seems like a good idea in theory. At least it did back then. It also served for easily identifying your work and having it be recognized by future potential clients. Nowadays, however, the photography industry continues to change often and it quite frankly, in my opinion, seems moot to ensue the trouble of watermarking my images for blogging purposes. It has been my experience that copyright or no copyright, visible or not, people will copy and use images if they want to. No one can stop them... I can't see what the person at the other computer is doing with my images. 

So why should I continue to add more to my workload when I can simply eliminate a process in my workflow? This is why, dear reader, I have decided to no longer watermark my images for blogging purposes. It seems pointless - clients will still crop out watermarks when using the images on line. Some may do it negligently while others unknowingly. Either way, it's done so why not make both our time better used? 

This is a sensitive subject for photographers, and I completely understand. But for the time being, I have decided to stop watermarking the images appearing on this blog. This blog is where I feature my recent work so if someone is going to copy the images and use them against my will, they are still infringing upon copyright whether the image is "written on" or not. 

With that said... I thought it would be nice to reminisce on all the watermarks I have gone through. Looking back, I realize I never quite found a proper watermark that I was fully happy with. I suppose it was a hint of things to come, ha! 

So we begin with 2009...

What do you think - what are your thoughts on watermarks?