What If The Masters of Photography Used Horrendous Watermarks?

K. Praslowicz

October 8, 2012

66.6K

Hi! I don't do as much text blogging as I used to, as most of my efforts have shifted towards video content. Please consider subscribing to my YouTube channel.

View The Channel

Idle thought today while at work was how it seems like many amateur photographs spend more time putting elaborate watermarks on their images than they do making images worth stealing. This led to a second thought that I don’t really recall ever seeing the photographs of famous art photographers with a gaudy watermark. This in turn led to one more thought…

What if the masters of photography used horrendous watermarks?

Well wasn’t that just a ball of fun? Here are a few more links to some other fun satire posts about famous photographers in the Internet age.

Great Photographers on the Internet
Great Photographers on the Internet, Part II
Future Now Cleansed
Iconic Photos “Re-taken” with Instagram

Category Humor & Satire | Tags: Garry Winogrand, William Eggleston, Andreas Gursky, Steve Mccurry, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Sally Mann

34 Comments

Dimitris February 25, 2020, 9:23 AM

Funny, but these great photographers were not printing a single image and leave out on the street for everyone to see, were they? That's the equivalent of posting on social media, I guess. If they were doing that, I am pretty sure they would have their own watermarks on the prints.

Reply to Dimitris

wireless G April 6, 2013, 2:26 PM

This page is hilarious and spot on. In my experience, the worse the photographer, the more prominent and gaudy the watermark. IMHO, the reason these are ‘stolen’ less isn’t because of the identifying information, but because they make the photo look just awful.

Reply to wireless G

Max November 13, 2012, 3:30 AM

“So, therefore, if you don’t want your work copied and used by any random stranger who happens to come across it, then don’t put it online, simple as that.”

Photographers have a right to publish their work. You don’t.

Reply to Max

Hippie Zingo November 1, 2012, 2:53 PM

Well, the bottom line is that any photograph you put online WILL be “stolen,” guaranteed, engraved in stone, case closed. It’s akin to dropping a hundred-dollar bill on the sidewalk and then leaning out of a fourth-floor window in the building above it, yelling at anyone who goes to pick it up and expecting them to stop. Yeah, right. So, therefore, if you don’t want your work copied and used by any random stranger who happens to come across it, then don’t put it online, simple as that.

Reply to Hippie Zingo

Livia Lazar October 25, 2012, 10:06 AM

Excellent. Thank you for this! Made my day!

Reply to Livia Lazar

Jet October 24, 2012, 4:56 PM

What amuses me is that you think that professional photographers don’t watermark their work; they most probably do, just unlike them the amateur or smaller resourced professional photographer doesn’t have the resources to have it invisibly embedded in the picture’s actual code (see steganography). And as others have said before me; advertising is good.

Reply to Jet

Chris October 24, 2012, 2:25 PM

As a semi proffesional photographer I put my logo in the corner of almost all of the photos I put online. Why? Because society today seems to think it is ok to copy and use photos without permission. A lot of comments on here seem to underline that.
I run my business to help pay my bills and make a living. Is it fair to have my work stolen like it has been many times in the past? Sometimes by some very reputable companies. My equipment and time is valuable to me so the effort I put into my work deserves more than someone thinking they can just copy it. I’d like to see the response you got if someone like Getty had found you had copied one of their photo’s without permission. I think you need to have a read of the copyright laws.
Let me put it this way, Is it ok to walk into an art gallery, take a painting off the wall, walk out and put it up at home to show all your friends because you liked it?
The reason photographers put watermarks on their photos is to stop idiots like you copying them without paying for our work.
It has become more prevalent now as the digital age has made it easier for work to be copied and ripped off.

Reply to Chris

EK October 24, 2012, 11:54 AM

Well yeah, obviously if they are posting their photographs on Facebook or on their website, they want something that can’t be stolen and reposted. the best way to do that is make a separate copy with a gaudy watermark.

Plus it doesn’t hurt to lead people to your work.

Reply to EK

jeremie October 23, 2012, 2:35 PM

thanks to say out loud what a lot of people think.

It’s seems very pretentious sometimes to put a huge watermark on your photo. If they want to use it : they will use it anyway (most of the small watermark are easy to remove in photoshop).

Reply to jeremie

Glenford Nunez October 17, 2012, 11:40 AM

I wrote a post about this just yesterday. I am interested to hear your opinion on it.
http://trustyourphotographer.com/watermark-work/

Reply to Glenford Nunez

Jon Roach October 13, 2012, 12:06 PM

Fun and thought provoking! I’m a Dorset wedding photographer and I’ve wrestled with this on and off over the years. I’ve finally concluded that however good they are, they’re my pictures, and I assert my ownership!

Reply to Jon Roach

Marc October 12, 2012, 11:40 AM

I never watermark my photographs. If people are on my site looking at my work, then they’ll have probably noticed my name on the site. I don’t mind them being used and those that have, have attributed my name to them. I don’t really worry about it.

I think if I were a wedding photographer or studio portrait photographer and my photographs were my business, my bread and butter, I’d probably do it then, but only to publicize and promote myself.

But I’m not, so never will.

http://www.marcfairhurst.com
@marc_fairhurst

😉

Reply to Marc

juice October 12, 2012, 6:06 AM

Yawn. Anyone who doesn’t know how to make watermarking an automatic part of the LR export process – and who doesn’t understand that the printed image from 50 years ago is somewhat less likely to be stolen than digital images today – has to be pretty clueless.

Also, in this age when files are distributed willy-nilly, a watermark can lead people to your business. An unwatermarked image is a marketing opportunity missed.

Reply to juice

Brian October 30, 2012, 12:45 PM

In Reply To juice.

Or a watermark that distracts from the image can make anybody who looks at it, quickly look away to the next thing and serve as a deterrent or anti-advertizing mechanism. Many watermarks are so obtrusive that the work is no longer appealing to look at.

Reply to Brian

Raghav October 12, 2012, 2:02 AM

Your point is valid but your presentation is way too exaggerated! I hardly see any decent work with such gaudy watermarks, most photogs who really see the beauty of their work have minimal watermarks. Another point you are missing is most examples you posted do not belong to the digital era. The famous images you posted were of the print age so it is not totally correct to compare with today’s problem. Another point is once they are published/recognized in/by a reputed magazine or website the photogs are lesser worried as no one can claim credit for their work ahead of them. Most stolen/misused works are landscapes & generally not portraits, journalistic works. So again depends on genre. But seriously, I never saw pics even by amateur photogs so heavily/gaudily watermarked! I would love to see some real world examples which inspired you in this direction 😉

Reply to Raghav

K. Praslowicz October 12, 2012, 7:06 AM

In Reply To Raghav.

Exaggeration is half the fun of satire.

Reply to K. Praslowicz

tatyana October 11, 2012, 12:33 PM

Seriously good post. Couldn’t stop laughing… or crying.. don’t know which.
But point well made!! Kudos.

Reply to tatyana

Stephen Sherman October 11, 2012, 12:11 PM

I agree, but, it’s not if someone will steal your images. It’s “when”

People assume if it’s posted on Facebook or other social media sites that images are up for grabs.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

I am not honored if someone steals my image and uses it commercially, I am VIOLATED.

I think subtle names & copyrights are necessary for all posted images. No-one can claim they don’t know who took the photograph if he names are embedded in them,

Reply to Stephen Sherman

Hugh Jass October 11, 2012, 9:43 AM

Isn’t shooting RAW for computer geeks with no camera skills? Just get it in focus and then use software magic to slab a thick coat of lipstick on that pig!

Besides, not only did that vain, no-talent Salvador Dali scrawl his name on the corner of his works, but he couldn’t paint anything close to realistic looking!

Reply to Hugh Jass

K Hunt October 12, 2012, 12:11 AM

In Reply To Hugh Jass.

Hahaha 🙂

Reply to K Hunt

Lisa October 11, 2012, 9:36 AM

Unfortunately in this litigious society, I think you have to use watermarks.

Reply to Lisa

Pete October 11, 2012, 7:11 AM

Uhhh… Shooting RAW doesn’t protect your photos anymore than having LoJack prevents your car from being stolen. No one likes GAUDY watermarks, but I can spend 10 seconds at least making it difficult or trying to dissuade someone from stealing the work (plus letting people know who actually took the photo) vs. thousands of dollars in legal fees later just so I can say “Hey, the metadata is in the RAW file!” Besides, all of the metadata can be changed too.

The main reason TO watermark in some way is if you do portrait work. Word of mouth is the best advertising, and my clients all ASK me to send them watermarked versions of the full res unmarked shots they bought so that they can post them to social media and share WHO did the work for them.
Otherwise, 9x’s out of 10, when friends see a photo of someone, they say “great photo!”. They don’t care or say “Oooooh WHO took that photo of you?!?”

Reply to Pete

Jason October 10, 2012, 8:34 PM

“Look at all the big international image agencies like Getty, Rex Corbis etc and all the stock agencies and all online press.. they watermark absolutely EVERYTHING!”

QED.

Reply to Jason

Brian October 30, 2012, 12:50 PM

In Reply To Jason.

Almost always however with a tiny watermark in the far corner that needs to be searched for to find it. Corbis for example.

Reply to Brian

Chris October 10, 2012, 7:44 PM

This is not invalid.. A lot of these photos ad their heyday in print.. Watermarks sadly are a necessary fact of life these days.. back then hardly anyone at all had the internet and Facebook was not the image stealing-exif data erasing beast it is now.. Today the entire planet is online and people will hijack your image for personal use from Dublin to Tim-buck-Too without a second thought. Look at all the big international image agencies like Getty, Rex Corbis etc and all the stock agencies and all online press.. they watermark absolutely EVERYTHING!

Reply to Chris

imene October 10, 2012, 7:12 PM

I think you have totally valid point. I personally don’t watermark my work, if someone steals it I will first feel flattered that my work got so good then I will think about ways to protect my work

Reply to imene

Life Tips October 10, 2012, 5:27 PM

It’s funny because the recent generations seems to be fond of this new watermarking.

Reply to Life Tips

Scott Dolan October 10, 2012, 11:56 AM

This is the funniest thing I have seen all day. Thank you.

Reply to Scott Dolan

Jordy Caris October 10, 2012, 11:34 AM

I hope you know the images are all protected by international laws?
You got permission from the photographers above to abuse their photo’s like this, and the right the make them public on the internet?

Reply to Jordy Caris

K. Praslowicz October 10, 2012, 11:45 AM

In Reply To Jordy Caris.

“Abuse” is pretty harsh. Makes it sound like I strong armed my way into each artist’s studio, knocked them out cold with a blackjack and scoured their hard drives for unpublished work that isn’t already widely available on the Internet.

Nah. I have no ethical qualms that these don’t fit in under fair use for commentary & parody.

Reply to K. Praslowicz

Christopher Brown-Floyd October 10, 2012, 11:53 AM

In Reply To Jordy Caris.

@jordy: I hope you know that critique and editorial use is considered fair use. His article is not misusing the photos, as the article is actually about the photos in question.

On a side note: I don’t think watermarking as we currently do it was as simple/easy as it is now.

Reply to Christopher Brown-Floyd

Bill October 12, 2012, 10:53 AM

In Reply To Jordy Caris.

You are a terrible human being and I hope that in time you come to realize it and work on improving yourself.

Reply to Bill

K. Praslowicz October 12, 2012, 11:18 AM

In Reply To Bill.

Even though you’ve been dead since `94, I still respect your career and opinion Ghost of Bill Hicks. (for those playing at home, email address used was bhicks@….)

Reply to K. Praslowicz