Our first copyright violation was back in 1983 when you had to xerox a photo from a magazine page (xerox, a fancy copy machine that produced paper copies) to copy it. And to be honest with you, I’ve lost track how many times our images have been grabbed violating our copyright over the decades. It doesn’t keep me awake at night. The last time was just last week. I bring this up only because the concern over copyright, which is a very important thing, has been like so many things in photography, overinflated. When it comes to the danger of infringement, many ruin their photographs in fright. Be proud to share your great images … not afraid. YOU can change the world with your photography!
I use this photo of a Black-neck Trogan as an example. The combination of white type on a green background is used for road signs because it’s thought to be one of the easiest color combos for the human mind to latch onto. I see so many great photographs totally ruined by photographers when they put the Copyright symbol and their name on their photo in nice, clean, white type. If I had done this on this photo, all you would see would be my name, not the gorgeous and rare Trogan (captured by D4s / 800mm w/TC-1.25). If you don’t want someone to possibly steal your photograph, then just don’t post it, anywhere! Ever! But if you don’t want to be a coin collector but rather a storyteller, then you have to share your photos. The bottomline is, get over it! Placing your name on your image isn’t going to stop someone from stealing it, especially with Content Aware Fill being so readily available to remove it. Show off your gorgeous image and be proud, not afraid. Your photography deserves to shine!