Boid
All-Pro
- Location
- Bangalore, India
- Name
- Rajiv
We think the images and photographs we make are precious objects and try and hold on to them using ugly watermarks, scarring the purity of the image. Maybe the thinking is that some stranger who has no idea who you are, will look at the image and "Oh this is a wonderful picture. I must call this photographer and ask him to take pictures for me."
Or it could be so that someone else who likes your image, can't post it on his blog or share it with anyone he/she feels like without acknowledging you in it. This seems more reasonable, but it does mean that the photographer has made the image THAT little bit worse by slapping some text on it and the person sharing the picture, is unable to share it in it's entirety.
There's also a line of thought that believes watermarks make the image more... official. Like a rubber stamp on a legal document.
Sometimes a watermark is the only common consistent design element running through a series of images in a portfolio. Weak photographs need a watermark, borrowing strength from stronger photographs in the set.
Often really good photographers don't watermark their images, Steve McCurry comes to mind (Home | Steve McCurry). Some photographers don't even care all that much about the image. They can always make another image equally full of worth and content. After all the idea for an image is IN them, not out there. The sad fact of the matter is that we don't decide on the value of a photograph. People do.
A photograph, much as we would like to believe otherwise, is not a work of art. A painter signing a work of art, with the same brush that drew the canvas, is not the same as slapping some text on it in Photoshop. A photograph though, has the POTENTIAL to be considered art by the viewer. I feel it's that potential which is harmed when a photographer puts a watermark on the image.
Here's a photographer who has taken sharing to a whole new level - Rainy Alley [Photobomb] - Fort Street, Auckland ... | Aucklandia
Or it could be so that someone else who likes your image, can't post it on his blog or share it with anyone he/she feels like without acknowledging you in it. This seems more reasonable, but it does mean that the photographer has made the image THAT little bit worse by slapping some text on it and the person sharing the picture, is unable to share it in it's entirety.
There's also a line of thought that believes watermarks make the image more... official. Like a rubber stamp on a legal document.
Sometimes a watermark is the only common consistent design element running through a series of images in a portfolio. Weak photographs need a watermark, borrowing strength from stronger photographs in the set.
Often really good photographers don't watermark their images, Steve McCurry comes to mind (Home | Steve McCurry). Some photographers don't even care all that much about the image. They can always make another image equally full of worth and content. After all the idea for an image is IN them, not out there. The sad fact of the matter is that we don't decide on the value of a photograph. People do.
A photograph, much as we would like to believe otherwise, is not a work of art. A painter signing a work of art, with the same brush that drew the canvas, is not the same as slapping some text on it in Photoshop. A photograph though, has the POTENTIAL to be considered art by the viewer. I feel it's that potential which is harmed when a photographer puts a watermark on the image.
Here's a photographer who has taken sharing to a whole new level - Rainy Alley [Photobomb] - Fort Street, Auckland ... | Aucklandia