A quick scroll through my social feeds never fails to flood me with images of my friends riding their horses. It’s sort of a given when you’re a horse girl, right?
But I have to admit – I cringe a little every time I see a really sharp image from a recent horse show in a friend’s profile photo… with the photographer’s watermark plastered across it.
IMO.
Buying photos from the official show photographer can be pricey, I get it. But what you’re buying is a memory. It’s a memento to remind you of that wonderful experience. More than that, it’s an example of that photographer’s hard-earned craft and skill, which took many hours, over many years, to develop and hone.
There’s a reason why it’s a crime to steal an image by posting it publicly with the watermark so blatantly there or even worse – a crappy photoshop job to try to remove it. You are stealing when you do that.
I see photographers post about this on their on channels over and over again. It blows my mind that this is still a problem.
You wouldn’t steal a ribbon you didn’t earn yourself from the horse show, would you? Why would you steal a photo someone worked so hard to capture, just for you?
Think about that the next time you are tempted to take a screenshot of a professional image. Maybe then photographers won’t have to go to such great lengths to explain why that is considered stealing.
This hot take originally published in the Heels Down Spark in July 2021. Get more conversation starters in your inbox every weekday morning by subscribing to the Spark now.