Seething mad…

16Aug07

I don’t even know where to begin with the ranting fit I’m about to throw publicly, but I just have to get this out…

I received a phone message, and then an email from photographer, Jamie Burnett today, who called to inform me that another wedding photographer out in Arizona had literally cut and pasted my images and displayed them as his own on his website. I couldn’t believe it—honestly I couldn’t believe that a photographer would actually be so low, and so unethical, and so pathetic of an artist, that he would steal other photographers work to get business for himself. But sure enough, it was in fact true. I went out to the photographer’s website, and there they were—two of my images listed as his first two portfolio pics….! It gets worse… At first, burning mad, I thought to sue his ass, but then I thought I should atleast shoot him an email and kindly ask him to remove the illegal images off his site. So that is what I did. You won’t believe the response I got back—and I quote: “Illegally how? Where is your copyright if we are using your photos?” Can you believe this? I wrote back and said that I’d have my attorney contact him with all the ways my work is copyrighted and illegal to use, and of course to remind him of the ethical reasons for why one shouldn’t be posting others work as their own. He wrote back again and said “Unethical maybe. Illegal NO you have no copyright who says they are yours?”

Ummmmm for one, my clients say they are mine!  Needless to say, I will be contacting my lawyer tomorrow—whom my husband and I hired a year ago to deal with copyright infringement (some of the best money we’ve ever dropped)!

I have been really lenient in the past with florists, wedding websites, venues, or even other random people posting my images as their wall paper on myspace—in fact, I’m generally flattered. But when a photographer is actually using my work to get his own business, I have to put my foot down–right? I mean, one is really a photographer, one should have her own body of work out there somewhere–even if its images taken from her point and shoot at a wedding where she wasn’t the main photographer. And here it goes—-the elephant in the room…there are way too many people out there who think they are photographers, and just aren’t. I have to get up on my soapbox and say this… Just because one can get a decent shot with their expensive camera and look semi-professional, does not mean that she is a photographer—a professional that is. If one really wants to be a photographer, and I’m all for it—then do it. But she should go out and shoot her own images… put in the hard work and meet with other photographers, wedding coordinators etc. She should take a workshop, build up her portfolio, or apprentice under somebody.. But please, she shouldn’t steal our images that we’ve worked hard to create to make herself look good.

For those of us who have put in the hard work, and who can call ourselves professional photographers because we are trained and because we are talented and because this is our job, not our weekend hobby, have it hard enough keeping up with the “drive by shooters” who charge $300 for a wedding on their weekend and claim to be a “good deal”. By the way, this man was doing weddings for $150.00 and the way JamieBurnett found me, was somebody actually sent her an email asking her to match his price!!! When she went out to his site, she noticed a discrepancy in the work and realized that the links on some of the images were still in tact—his page actually linked to mine!! And other photographers too… He plucked his favorite images off the web from numerous photographers and is claiming them as public property. He clearly isn’t the sharpest “photographer” out there. Anybody that would hire this photographer to shoot their wedding would be sorely disappointed that the outcome looked nothing like the work on his site—but then again, what do you expect for $150?

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