Credit Where Credit is Due

Am I the only person who feels guilty when asking for things that you shouldn’t have to ask for? Like, if you own something and someone else takes it, does anyone else feel the need to apologise when they ask for it back? Or ask for people to acknowledge that it’s yours? I say, ‘sorry, but do you mind if… ‘ and then I finish my conversation with ‘would that be okay?’, like I’m asking for permission to own the thing that is mine in the first place. Why? Why do I do that? It’s ridiculous. It’s actually quite sad and pathetic. Man up. Isn’t that what they tell you to do. Grow a pair. Just own it. Sheesh, the anxiety it gives me to try to ‘own it’.

In this instance it’s photography. Photos I have taken that are being used by other people to make flyers and promote things, which is fine, I’ve never had a problem with that. But there’s always been a kind of understanding that if you do screenshot or download the photos and use them to promote something other than my little (clearly not for profit) business then you’ll just put a note in the comments, or on the post, or even leave the watermark on the photo so that people know who took it. I’m pretty sure I’m in the right here. It’s being completely taken for granted and using my work to create something else without giving credit where credit is due. And it’s not too much to ask, surely? The photograph is my work, my intellectual property so I’m owed credit when you use it. Or maybe I’m just overreacting and making a mountain of a molehill. What difference will it make if they credit my work or not? It won’t change my life. Will it make me feel good? Sure. Doesn’t everyone feel good when you get acknowledged for something good? Will it make me any money? Not likely. But maybe that’s the problem right there. Maybe because I’ve undervalued my work for so long people just can’t take it seriously as ‘work’ that I’m owed credit for. I don’t know.

For several years now I’ve been taking photos of local soccer matches and posting them online for the players and supporters to view. Initially I posted them on my own Facebook page, and then I posted them on the local club page that I was volunteering at, and then it grew into a stand alone Facebook page, then I added Instagram. And every winter I get my – not cheap – gear and I stand in the rain alone, or in the burning sun at the beginning of the season, or in the howling wind, and I shoot. It all started when I lost my voice. I had been shooting a little bit at games my son and husband played in. Just to take pictures of them and their friends. Then when I couldn’t work because I couldn’t talk I isolated myself from the sideline group and focused more on taking photos. Before that I had stood with my friends, the other parents and committee members and chatted and socialised while I shot some photos for us all to look back on. I would burn them onto a disc for the parents at the end of the season and they’d all give me $10 and everyone was happy. When I was first diagnosed with Tension Dysphonia and had to ‘rest my vocal chords’ I could no longer stand with the group because I just wasn’t allowed to talk. And even if I wanted to, I had no voice to do so anyway and it hurt to ‘chat’ so there was no point in trying. So I moved away from the group and learned how to shoot the sport properly. I spent hours and hours and hours honing my craft. And I enjoyed it. And pretty soon people were paying me a few dollars more for an image here and there, and asking me to shoot a specific team or player and paying me, a little bit, to do so. And clubs were asking me if they could use the photos on their Facebook pages, with credit given. Sure. No problems. And every now and then the local newspaper would snaffle a photo or two to go with the weekend soccer reports.

Credit was always given. Clubs shared links to the albums rather than stealing the pics so I got more followers. Local council groups asked me to come and shoot for new promo material they needed. Players made the images their profile pictures, left the watermark on because apparently that’s what people do. No big deal. Someone even told me they’d seen my soccer photos used as profile pictures for guys on Tinder, lol, made the big time.

But recently some of the images have found their way onto a club Facebook page without credit. Without any mention of where the photos came from. Fine. No biggie. It happens. And then they start posting them without the watermark, as in, they cropped the watermark and used just part of the image. But I knew as soon as I saw it that it was mine. I took the photo, as if I wouldn’t know it was my work. So I asked for credit. And apparently that was a big deal. It had to be discussed at committee level, which was then shared with people outside the committee, who then mentioned it to me. My overly anxious brain read far too much into it and I didn’t sleep for days thinking of the way people are laughing at me, thinking I’m being ridiculous for asking for credit for my work. And it is MY WORK. I invested the time and the money into learning how to take photos that people want to use in their marketing  products and people are happy to put in the newspapers and on their club websites. I learned how to get THAT shot, with the rain drops coming down and the mud flying through the air and the ball frozen in time. Crystal clear despite the rain because I spent the money on the gear.

 

So I worked on the art and I deserve to be given credit for it. But I felt sick with the stress of having asked for something so simple as a shout out to the Facebook page the photos were stolen from. And they responded by saying they’ve removed the post I referred to. No acknowledgement was given on any photos that had been posted in the weeks leading up to it, all recent use of the photos just disappeared from the page. So they obviously didn’t need or want them any more. And I can’t understand the reluctance to just edit the post to say ‘photo cred to Soccershots Photography’. It’s not a big deal surely. I know it’s not, because I made that Facebook page they’re now managing, I built the audience up to what they have with all of my graphic design work and my photos. I would acknowledge other Facebook pages and businesses wherever needed. It’s literally 3 more seconds of your time to give the credit where it is due.

And then. Then I get a message from someone with a photo of a flyer stuck to a wall that has literally six or seven of my photos lined across the bottom of it.  It’s up on walls and windows in local cafes and it’s being handed out the local community market. Shared far and wide. And there is not a single mention anywhere of where the photos came from. There was no message from any of them asking did I mind? Nothing. Radio silence. So I went down to said market and asked if the flyer was one I made last year that had been changed. They didn’t know anything about it. Uh huh. Yeah, a committee of only seven people doesn’t know who made the flyer for their market stall and community promo. Sure. If it was something like those photos of little Lego Star Wars figures that people made would it be okay to just use them to promote your business without giving, at the very least, credit to the artist? It it was a Bansky print would you be allowed to just take it and use it wherever and however you want without so much as saying, ‘oh hey, yeah, by the way, this is not our work, it was created by someone else, thanks for letting us use it dude’. That’s not to say I’m comparing my work, or my worth, to someone of Banksy fame, but who’s to say that if I pushed hard enough I could become one of ‘those’ people, who takes a photo of an athlete in action and watches that photo go viral, because I took myself seriously enough to not give it away for free. Someone whose photo wins the Female Sports Photographer of the Year, or just the Sports Photograph of the Year? Is it impossible? Probably because I don’t shoot professional sport. Or AFL in any form. But I have the talent. I know I do. Vain? I don’t think so. I just know that my photos are good. And it’s taken a long time to acknowledge that. But why? Why am I, and probably others, so embarrassed to take the credit and accept that what we have done is good quality and worth looking at. Is it just an ‘artist’ thing? Or is it just that I’m so full of self doubt and insecurities from all the years of high school bullying and teasing that I’ll never grow out of it?

But back to the initial question, why is it that I feel guilty about asking for credit? Why do I feel foolish when people mention it to me? I feel humiliated over the whole stupid thing and I’m at that point in my life where I’m sick of feeling like I should be second guessing myself.  I’m guessing it’s because I don’t take myself or my work seriously enough to consider myself an ‘artist’ who owns the right to the work. I’m just someone who stands on the sidelines in the rain taking photos because…?? For other people to use as they see fit without worrying about giving credit where it is due? Or for a few Facebook likes? So now I put my foot down, I ask for credit, because I deserve it, and others think it’s a joke because I don’t take myself seriously enough. So it’s time to change tactics I guess. At first I thought you know what, I’m just not going to take the stupid photos. Your team photos, do it yourself. (although I set it up so that it’s almost impossible to take a crappy team photo for that club now… typical). Pictures of your littlest kids out there playing and having fun in the sun, rain, mud… find someone else to spend their Sunday morning following other people’s kids around. Pictures of your own kids on the pitch? Nope. That’s a big fat double nope from me. And if I do decide to take any?  Then do I just go back to sharing on my own personal page and watermarking with my own name?  But then what would be the point of even bothering to take them if they’re not going to be enjoyed by the players and supporters? I don’t know what the answer is. Am I at that point where I stop letting people see them on social media and create a website where people can buy them but not download? I don’t know. How do I assert myself without losing friends and family over it? How do I get people to take the work seriously? I guess I find a new audience. One that doesn’t begin with friends who say, ‘Geez your camera takes good photos’.

Starting again

Once the decision was finally made to start a blog then came the bit where I had to actually write something. But what to write about? Think back to what I have done recently. Well to be honest, I’ve been somewhat ‘busy’ recently, but not really with anything super creative.  First there was the whole moving thing. We didn’t move house but I may as well have. I had been using the ‘spare’ bedroom for my creative space, housing my Mac and my sewing machines and all my stuff in general in that room, and stashing all the things I wasn’t quite ready to find a real home for. And then our niece was coming over to stay with us for a couple of months from the UK. Which was exciting, she’s the first niece/nephew from that side of the world to do so. To be fair, she’s the oldest and is only 19, but still, it’s been a long time coming for my husband, who left his family in Manchester to join me and mine and start our own family here in Australia way back in 1996. Anyway, we have had nieces from WA visit and stay in said room before, three times in the past 15 months to be exact, which was fine because they were only there for short stays. A few days up to a fortnight maybe. But this one was coming for two months. It wouldn’t be fair to just do some juggling in the room and squeeze her in with all my ‘stuff’ for two months, and by the same token it wasn’t fair on me to have to give up my space and access to all things creative for the two months that she would be here. So the deal was struck, my husband and my son, who invited her over to play football (soccer) for their teams, were to do a mini renovation on the carport/garage and move me into it so that she could have a real bedroom, which ultimately becomes a genuine, permanent spare bedroom.

So Dad came down to check out the space and we decided instead of just putting up a dividing wall and having me do my sewing and whatnot in the ‘garage’, staring at a brick wall, we would convert the far side, fill in the open side that lead to the side fence, put that dividing wall up but then put a false ceiling in to hide all the garage door mechanics, put a wall in front of the garage door itself, which can still be pulled down in future should we decide to sell and the new owners wanted to use both sides of the garage. We put sliding doors in on the fence side so my new room, my ‘studio’, has its own entrance straight off the driveway, meaning I can actually use the space as a photography studio, or I can come and go through that door, as if I’m actually away from the house in a real ‘studio’.

It took about a month or so to build, a few days here and there when Dad had time off work, and then the laying of the floor and painting and putting up shelves and filling it with all of my ‘stuff’. It was pretty exciting. It was definitely something I looked forward to having finished. For weeks and weeks after the initial decision was made to create the space, I did nothing really. I didn’t want to start any projects in the old room. As much as I loved the view of my back garden and the way the afternoon sunlight streamed through the window, I was uninspired because I just wanted my new space. So I put everything off. I did nothing. I didn’t even start packing the room up because that was waaay too big a job to contemplate, especially when my CRPS flared up in my hands and made life really difficult. Once the room was done though I honestly couldn’t wait to get in and get started on ‘stuff’. So now here I am, in my ‘studio’, with an actual studio space at one end, for the photography sessions I hope to one day be holding in here, and a creative space at the other end, with my sewing machine and overlocker ready to go at a moment’s notice. scissors all hanging nicely on the wall waiting to be used, and my desk in between the two spaces. For photo editing, and writing and printing and just general time wasting. So wish me luck, I cannot wait to use this space for all that it is intended for.