here we go again.
who said they were posted on flickr? this guy was a professional who covered at a particular venue, people who went to this particular venue consistantly ripped off photos from his site rather than purchasing them.
free publicity is all well and good but there comes a point where people take the **** and it earns you ZERO money.
Sorry my post was more a two part thing, I meant to ask why having a few pics nicked - which wouldn't have been sales anyway - would make a pro tog give up the business?
Then when I said "this modern photographer's delusion" I wasn't referring to the equestrian tog, more the hordes of photographers that seem to think that just because they took a pic of someone, that person is going to be willing to pay money for the use of that image. They won't, they'll just either nick it or if they can't/it's too watermarked they'll use someone else's image.
In response to what Swanseamale47 said, if you have put a large enough watermark on images that it would stop someone using it then chances are you have not only ruined
that image but used your name/business name/url to make yourself look like a crap tog. No matter how good an image, if it has an intrusive watermark people don't see a nice image with a big watermark, they'll just see a big watermark.
Also, I don't see the point in using watermarking to try and inform people that the image is copyrighted. You could have your image watermarked with "unauthorised use of this image will result in prosecution" and people would still use it.
A small email address or url along the bottom of the image that people can use when they are looking for prints etc would be much better.
If someone wants to pinch your image and thinks that even this spoils it and wants to crop it out, they'll do so. But that's still not a lost sale. It's someone that might just remember the url that they cropped off and pass it on to their friends who ask where they got the amazing picture of themselves.
