As an artist, I try to be diligent about acknowledging other artist’s work whenever I share it here. It has been my practice to watermark the images I take with ©FrankiKohler.com because I actually clicked the image. When your cursor hovers over the image the name of the art and the artist are revealed.
During August I made two visits to the O’Hanlon Gallery in Mill Valley and I shared those experiences here and here. One artist felt that my watermark on an image of her art was misleading the reader into thinking that it was my art. I sincerely regret that impression because it was not my intent at all. To be absolutely clear I have created a new watermark for each image with the artist’s name. When your cursor hovers over the image my name is first (to acknowledge the image is mine) followed by the name of the work and the artist.
I hope that this solution will mean that there can be no misunderstanding about who created the art that I picture on my blog. I intend to use this as my practice for the future. I will continue to create a link to an artist’s website or blog whenever possible.
What is your practice for acknowledging other artists?
Good post. At first I thought that this was a little excessive. But, in the post-Pinterest age, I see how this is an issue. If the photo got reposted on Pinterest, it would show with your watermark, even though you imbeded the makers information. Thank you for the heads up-I never would have thought of this.
I wish I had thought of this ahead of time. Live and learn. I think it’s a good solution for this issue.
Are you creating the watermark in your camera or on the computer? Since I am not sure how to do that, I can’t fiddle with the mark. However, before I post an artists work I always ask, as I am sure you do also, and then I put her name in the body of my blog I put her email or blog address again, if possible. I love to see photos of shows, since from where I live I seldom get a chance to travel. Maybe that should be another question on show applications, photo or no photo. After showing a piece at a show, it seems to be fair game in photography. For a piece in progress to talk about on the blog world, best to only show pieces in the process, rather than the whole thing till it is shown to the exhibit public.
I create my watermark in Photoshop.
Great post. Great solution!
Thanks Karen. A little more work, but I think it’s worth it.
You were diplomatic and tactful, as usual. I think that anyone reading the blog would not have made the assumption that you were showing your work, especially the one with the artist in the picture!
I think the real concern here is that when folks use an image from my blog somewhere else the context of the image is lost. I hope that folks who actually read my blog don’t think I’m trying to clamin credit where it isn’t due. Also, that’s my friend Sharon in the photo, not the artist.
Hey, still locked out of WP (aargh). Anyway, when you put your watermark on your images, the implied copyright is solely for the image and not anything on it. So your photo of Mt. Everest only implies the image is yours, not Mt. Everest! You do not need to put the artist’s name as a watermark on the quilt image unless you want to be nice to said person. Kris
Your comments need approval until you’ve commented 3 times (I think). So here you are!
And being nice to another artist is okay with me.
I applaud your efforts to 1. be nice to the artist, and 2. go the extra steps to provide provenance of the work. I’ve spent SO much time on pinterest trying to locate the artist. I hope someone is as diligent if they have an image of my work that they post.
Thanks for stopping by Judy. I’m doing my best here. Not always perfect but working on it.