Credit doesn’t pay the bills..
Obviously I’m always pleased when someone likes one of my photographs and wishes to use it on their website etc. For personal sites and non-commercial use all I ask is that someone is polite enough to ask first and to credit me properly with a link to this site. The important thing here though is personal use by a private individual on a non-commercial site.
This week I received another (all too frequent) email from a company who would like to use one of my images for promotional purposes. But they ‘can’t use the low-resolution web image so could they please have a high resolution copy?’. Part of that message said “of course we’ll credit you when we use it”.
Oh really, how very gracious of you!
I guess I’m supposed to be flattered and grateful that someone wishes to use my photo. It was after all a good photo that a large international company thinks is good enough to use for promotional purposes, whilst apparently placing a value of ‘nothing’ on it.
Maybe next time I go for a nice meal they’ll give it to me free if I promise to mention them on my blog, or perhaps I can get my car serviced free if I say how nice the mechanic is on Twitter?
Let’s be very clear: Getting credit for my work isn’t compensation. If I created the image the right to credit is automatic, it is not something that someone does for me as a favour.
Credit doesn’t pay bills. I spent thousands of pounds on my photographic equipment, insurance, training etc. And years learning how to use it. No amount of ‘credit’ will reimburse me for that investment, and it certainly won’t pay my electricity bill or council tax!
The work of an experienced photographer isn’t free. I don’t expect you to do your job for nothing, please don’t expect me to to mine for nothing either.
If you’re interested in licensing my images for use in any commercial context you will need to obtain a commercial use license. You can find more information about this on my sales and licensing page.