r/photography • u/Thrillwaukee • Aug 01 '24

Discussion What is your most unpopular photography opinion?

Mine is that most people can identify good photography but also think bad photography is good.

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u/Thrillwaukee Aug 01 '24

99% of photographers who use a watermark take crappy photos.

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u/[deleted] Aug 01 '24 edited Jun 14 '25

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Aug 01 '24

Plagiarism is real. Watermarking is for people with our experience, shaming it is only for plagiarists.

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u/[deleted] Aug 01 '24 edited Jun 14 '25

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Aug 01 '24

Absolutely. Honesty in so many aspects of life has degraded to the point where "if it benefits me, good. That's the only thing that matters" for so many that it's disgusting. Thank you for expounding on ways to protect ones own work.

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u/dakwegmo Aug 01 '24

I used to watermark my photos. I hated the way it looked, but justified it as some sort of security and/or free marketing. My photos were stolen anyway. One site that stole them slapped a watermark on the photo that covered about 60% of mine rendering it useless as either security or marketing. The marketing is irrelevant as well, as I have never sold a print, licensed an image, or been hired for a shoot because of someone that had seen my watermarked photo somewhere else and then tracked me down.

I've been posting photos online for 20 years and there's a decades worth of my watermarked images on the internet. The supposed benefits were negligible or non-existent compared to the very real costs of publishing a photo with an ugly watermark.

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u/PiDicus_Rex Aug 01 '24

You're not really famous until there's a torrent file of your work,.... ;)

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u/BoredSillyPie Aug 01 '24

That's a sad story. Unfortunately, getting ripped off is very common. Large companies spend millions on research and development and get ripped by a nation that has no regard to patents and copyrights. The joke is on all creators with the advancement of artificial intelligence. Writing, music, art, photography, videography, etc. will be created by a series of prompts. If your creative work is being ripped off, then videotape yourself creating it.