Home › Forums › Let’s Talk Photography › Let's Talk Copyright for Retouching Fauxtographs › Reply To: Let's Talk Copyright for Retouching Fauxtographs
There is so much wrong with this whole situation. Broken Focus- it was a bad idea altogether for you to agree to edit those images. My response to the bride would have been “No way, that’s copyright infringement.” If she wanted so badly for you to do it still, tell her she absolutely would have to just use them for personal use like in a photo album on her coffee table, and not post them online. Posting them online, regardless of the credit you gave the fauxtographer, was just a bad idea in itself. Copyright inherently always belongs to the photographer, unless specifically in writing and signed, it is released (Seriously, WHO would release a copyright anyway?) I release print rights when purchased. You did a decent job rescuing the already horrible photos. They can never be good though, they were bad from the start, but at least I suppose the bride and groom have something they can look at to remember their day without cringing so much their eyes get stuck closed. Maybe if this fauxtographer was such a beginner she should not be doing weddings. You cannot redo a wedding. From the looks of it she needs serious practice not for hire and maybe something other than a kit lens at f/8.0 and a camera set on auto. She doesn’t even know how to take portraits in the first place. But what can you expect having a wedding done for $100? And if she did their engagements before that, shouldn’t the couple have realized “oh shit… we need to find someone else, fast!” And I could hardly get past her grammatical errors. How unprofessional! And why would she be asking you to help her out, saying you’d both benefit- what are you going to benefit from her? And yeah, she stupidly gave a verbal agreement of them having the “copyrights.”
Aside from that, OP, it looks like you need a little work also. Maybe you have more than what’s on your page but I saw a lot of technical shortfalls and over-editing to rescue something that probably wasn’t good at the start. You also should consult with the clients before a session and suggest they do not wear shirts with logos or words. It’s so distracting. I always do, though once in awhile I have people wear their logo shirts anyway. I recently did a family session where the man was wearing a shirt that read “Hurley” right across the front. Oh well, I tried.
Remember, @TEV, it’s not always the gear, it’s the person using the gear. I have done some work I myself and others feel as amazing with my Rebel. However, it is much easier to me to use the 5D Mark II which I had been able to borrow for some work. The controls on the Rebel are too clunky to use, and SD cards are slower than CF. Much easier to switch focus points, aperture, and shutter speed on the 5DII, and you can bump up the ISO much higher without as much degradation of quality.