Reply To: Fauxtogs who should end up on the main page…

[Mrs Woo]

Actually, sharing someone’s work for informational or educational purposes, if done with restraint (you can’t link every photo in their portfolio, for example), falls within fair use in copyright law without any release by the creator/copyright holder.

I think most of us are defensive when we’re confronted with what we might be not doing well, and even moreso when the tone (like here) is kind of mocking and confrontational.  The first (and it is logical and definitely easiest) excuse would be, “That was older stuff and I am improving.”

Though they might be over-estimating their abilities, most people starting out as photographers (by the way, I’ve read there is a very high failure rate in photography studios – a lot of these people never make enough money to afford to stay in business, and part is their instinctive low-balling on their pricing – they KNOW, in their hearts, they aren’t ‘worth’ really high fees) aren’t actually thinking, “I suck but I’m gonna take people’s money anyhow.”  They think, “I’m learning and I’ll be honest that I don’t have a whole lot of experience and my rates will show that.”

If they are good at marketing (another very needed skill for a photography business), they can actually get a lot of sales and end up (hopefully) improving as photographers as they go.  And hey, if they suck as photographers but their marketing keeps them in business, maybe a more competent photographer has something they can learn from the bad photographer?

No one wants to be accused of defrauding people, and sometimes YANAP and Facebook sites like it, etc., actually insinuate and some posters will even insist that customers are being defrauded.  So a knee-jerk defensiveness is to be expected when they are confronted.