"Your photos are great, everyone's posting on Facebook"

dlscott56

So, this seems to happen a lot to me. I post my customers photos on Smugmug with right click protection, watermarking, etc. Then I get feed back that everyone loves my photos and they are being posted on Facebook? How is this possible when I have watermarks on them? I don't get it?

Angelo

Well right click protection does not protect against screen grabs. I suppose the silver lining is no one is removing your watermarks and others know who the creative photog is.

Helvegr

I would also assume you have sharing turned off on your smugmug? But like it was said, as long as your watermark is staying intact, its all good. Its not as much fun when you can't keep track of how its being circulated, but so long as it leads people back to you, which it appears it does, it can't be all bad.

dlscott56

Well I suppose that's a good point. However, it is a little annoying that the photos get out from under my control so easily.

Helvegr

dlscott56 wrote: »

Well I suppose that's a good point. However, it is a little annoying that the photos get out from under my control so easily.

I can totally understand that feeling. I've found myself to be a bit of a facebook "lurker". I shoot a concert, post a gallery to a band's facebook page, tweet them etc. Then later I'll find band members that use the image for their avatar. There is really no way of tracking that, it just happens. But I just now consider to be all good. Plus i even often tell them, go ahead and snag the pictures off my site! upload them to your own facebook gallery! Just leave my watermark.

I think this works better, because then as their fans browse their images, they see my watermark. Doesn't matter that I can't "track" it, but I do tend to see a bit of a spike on my website traffic after stuff gets posted to facebook.

Good luck!

jmphotocraft

As said, right click protection does not prevent screenshots or getting the file out of browser cache. So,

1 - your watermark needs to have your website address in it. And don't make it obnoxiously obscure the entire image.

2 - get paid up front.

Kavika

I too have 'customers' doing screen grabs from my Smug galleries, then they share those images with friends and family via email ... prior to making any purchase. It doesn't matter to them that my copyright watermark runs across the image. So I did 2 things: first I downsized the display image size to medium on Smug. Next I switched my watermark to the tile design, so it now appears at least 4 times across every image. What next? Should I change my watermark to: Thou Shalt Not Steal, Thou Shalt Not Steal, Thou Shalt Not Steal, Thou Shalt Not Steal? Do you think they'd get it? At least that might make sharing an embarrassment to the thieves.

johng

Kavika wrote: »

What next? Should I change my watermark to: Thou Shalt Not Steal, Thou Shalt Not Steal, Thou Shalt Not Steal, Thou Shalt Not Steal? Do you think they'd get it? At least that might make sharing an embarrassment to the thieves.

Nope. Stop relying on Smugmug as your primary revenue stream. Get paid up front and you will cease to care that customers share your watermarked images. You'll also stop wasting your time photographing subjects who never buy.

dlscott56

Well it is an interesting subject and somewhat of a dilemma for me. I've been watching successful businesses that I'm aware of for quite some time and they all seem to follow a similar approach. They don't sell online. They charge a fee up front and then sell additional product at the back end. The up front cost I've seen are in the form of session fees, a 'deposit' for minimum purchase, or a package fee that can be upgraded at the end if the client so chooses. They do the post shoot sales in person where they can project images so clients can see both the image and relative size of prints they may be interested in. There are also sample products for clients to see at their studios.

My problem is that, just starting out really, I don't have the facilities to do this and so it becomes a little difficult. Or at least I think it's difficult. Maybe I'm over complicating it. I normally charge a session fee up front. However, I just shot a pre-school with about 40 kids. I put together some package pricing for them and shot the whole thing with no up front costs to the school. So everyone at the school got photographed. They've been doing this for years and were unhappy with the previous photographer. I put the images online in individual password protected galleries. The parents could purchase from there. for this project that worked out pretty well.

I'm thinking that the online model is a decent way for me to start but need to work towards in person sales. For most work I do charge a fee up front in the form of a session fee so am NOT shooting people for free. In the mean time I just have to make sure my images are watermarked to minimize the damage.

DeeRich

tracking Photos

dlscott56 wrote: »

Well I suppose that's a good point. However, it is a little annoying that the photos get out from under my control so easily.

I know this is very frustrating. Check out http://www.digimarc.com/digimarc-for-images. Track the whereabouts of "borrowed" photos ON-LINE. (It probably doesn't work on photos that have been print-screened then uploaded to an on-line site.)

chrisjohnson

If I was using Smugmug for my business (and I am not) I would be making sure I got paid before putting the photos up.

Smugmug is an excellent fulfilment mechanism - marketing jargon for taking care of delivery. When you are offering a print/download/archive facility then Smugmug becomes an added value, but you need to close the sale first.

The one thing we should learn from Facebook is that the volume market is in the "kodak moments" we experience every day. The picture does not need to be sharp or even well composed but it DOES need to be there in the moment. It is also, incidentally, teaching new generations about the difference between fuzzy photos and good photos, and any serious photographer should be glad about that.

Glort

chrisjohnson wrote: »

The picture does not need to be sharp or even well composed but it DOES need to be there in the moment.

Doesn't even need to be well lit....or lit much at all really from what I see people doing on their phones every time I go somewhere.

Probably goes a lot to the reason so many " I got a camera for Christmas so now I'm a photographer" types are around.

perroneford

Such a sad state of affairs.

So how to solve the issue:

1. Understand that ANYTHING you upload can and probably will get used. You cannot control it.
2. Understand that anything you upload with your watermark is advertising for you. Best to embrace that, and use it to your advantage.
3. Understand that sites like Smugmug are fulfillment sites and really poorly suited to be blind sales sites.
4. Understand that if you intend to make money in this business, you either need to be getting paid up front, or working for someone who is writing you a check (newspaper, magazine, etc.)

I primarily shoot for one large client these days. I work on contract. All those photos that I put on FB or other social media are simply advertising. I tend to watermark differently depending on where the photos are going so that I know where people "borrowed" them from.

There are ways to make money at this still, but you must be flexible and embrace new business models. Those who don't will soon be relegated to obscurity.

perroneford

Glort wrote: »

I think you make some excellent points.
I'm not convinced of the advertising worth or watermarked images though. I suppose it would depend on the audience but for the most part, I think the people who would copy them in the first place will probably use or share them in areas where the viewers are going to be like minded and not want to pay for anything.

While my business model certainly won't work for everyone, it's effective for me I believe. I'm going to point out a few specific things about how I work in this message and hopefully it will help others.

Typically, I work in two primary markets. Sports and Fashion/Beauty. There's also some corporate work but that's a special case. The vast majority of my sports work is done for a university. I work on contract for them. My photos are bought and paid for before I ever show up with my camera. This is an ideal scenario for me. Due to NCAA rules, I am not allowed to sell the photos I take for the school. That's the downside. However, because my photos tend to show up in places like ESPN, the NCAA, the ACC, and local newspapers, people are aware of my name, and my "brand" as it were. This allows me to make contracts with other schools, or individuals looking for my type of work. It is VITALLY important that I have a small catalog of my work available to be seen by these folks. Most of whom I've never seen or met. I am in Florida, but I've worked for a newspaper in Colorado, a school in Albany, NY, etc. I've been contacted by schools a couple of states away for contract work because they've seen my online pages and are familiar with my work. So for me, it is critical that I get watermarked work out in the public eye as much as possible. Twitter, FB, etc.

Glort wrote: »

I also feel that the chances of someone seeing a shooters watermark and chasing them down to do paid work is minimal. I'm sure it happens, probably on the same frequency people get struck by lightening so I'd put the advertising value in the " expect a dead loss and be stunned and happy if you do get some paid work" category.

For me, it's a great source of business. A large part of what I do is contract shooting. And quite often that happens by word of mouth. A remote school will call my school and ask who in the area can shoot. I got a call 2 weeks ago from a newspaper in NYC about a week long project because of word of mouth. I got a call from a university in Alabama last year simply because of word of mouth.

On FB, I've lost count of how many people have run me down when they've seen my logo on a photo, found my webpage, and contacted me. In certain sports seasons it's nearly constant. I've actually been working on sports fields and have had parents approach me because they've seen my work on FB (put there by the University on their official page) and they've asked how they can buy images. It's happened twice in the past month alone.

Glort wrote: »

What I have repeatedly found is the Old school methods of business are still highly effective and becoming maybe even more so.
People who make an actually call, send out printed info and go see a client in person are becoming standouts in the days of email and websites etc.
I haven't had a website for a few years now and if anything it's been a big advantage.

The Old School methods can certainly be effective. I employ them a lot for shooting fashion work. Sometimes the best thing to do is just to sit down with people you're interested in working with. But even with that, you are completely limited by the people you know, or can find personally. It's incredibly difficult to find large numbers of people this way. Casting calls and the like can help for volume, but it's hard to give people the amount of time you'd like.

I fail to see how NOT having a webpage can help. The more ways people can find you, book you, and pay you the better. At least to my thinking.

Glort wrote: »

The best way to sell yourself or your work is face to face ( or B2B, belly to belly) and build rapport and show you are prepared to make extra effort and give REAL service.
Some time ago Photographic educators were encouraging shooters to make home planning visits so they got to do a proper and most effective sales presentation. It always worked and worked well.

This is likely true, but is REALLY dependent on the type of work you're doing. For sports photography, I find that meeting people on neutral turf works well. And in many cases, buyers of my work are magazines and newspapers. It would make no sense at all to try to meet them face to face. They want a photo, and they want it 15 minutes after a game. The contract is struck often a week before the game takes place.

For some of my photography, meeting clients at the studio was more effective. Or meeting over dinner at a nice restaurant. The age of the client matters as well. As a middle aged man, it's rather awkward for me to suggest meeting a 19 year old model at "her place" to discuss photos. Meeting her in a public place with my female intern and having her bring a girlfriend or two is a FAR more effective way of working.

Glort wrote: »

There is a reason why sales intensive Businesses like Car dealerships, estate agents and corporate product suppliers still employ sales reps and don't just try to do everything online.

Very true. But more and more car buying is happening online. And who goes to a car dealership these days having not researched the car online, and likely having researched the dealership online? Product suppliers is more B2B, so I place that in a different category.

maddadkeith

perroneford has some excellent points. I am currently in the process of going back to the old way communicating with clients and prospective clients. I do, however, plan to keep track of it all via the internet. Photographers have to be flexible to get any kind of return on their investments of time and money. Other people posting my work on networking sites is what I consider free advertising. With SM they can post your whole gallery on other sites, but it will (and should) lead back to you. The good part about it is that any file that they choose (or so it appears to me to be true about my photos) is small enough not to be good for reproduction except on networking sites.