WeddingIQ Retrospective: Just Gimme the Photos, Revisited
(Editor's Note: We're making steady progress toward completing a major project we'll be rolling out at the beginning of May, and we can't wait for you all to see it! In the meantime, we're continuing to look back at popular and thought-provoking posts from our history. Today, it's Kyle's March 2015 post, "Just Gimme the Photos!")
I firmly stand behind everything I wrote here 100%. Jennifer and I even created a speaking presentation "The Internet is a Thieve's Paradise: How to Properly Use Professional Images & Protect Your Website" for The Planners Suite Conference this past January because we have such strong beliefs on this topic. That presentation was derived from this post and from Jennifer's 2012 post, "How to Protect Your Website From Thieves."
I would like to add a postscript to my original post, something that I concluded our presentation with but neglected to mention here: The only way to ensure you receive the exact images you want and need is to hire a professional photographer. Commissioning a photographer to document your work and/or to create custom images of your business and brand gives you a level of control that can never come from depending on receiving someone's images after the fact.
So, in case you missed it when it was originally published, here's my post on how to properly request and use professional photos if you're not a photographer, and if you are a photographer, what to consider when other vendors are asking for your images:
Just Gimme the Photos!
(P.S. Jennifer here - I'm butting into Kyle's retrospective to add one more thought. I really appreciated this post for several reasons, but a major one was the balanced approach that Kyle took to what has long been one of the most contentious topics in the wedding industry. Especially given that she's a photographer herself, it would have been easy for her to simply lecture other vendors about not stealing images - but instead, she gave truly useful, constructive advice that can help vendors get the images they need, AND she shared her candid thoughts with her photography peers on what to consider when images are being requested. This fair and objective point-of-view is a great example of why I wanted Kyle to join me in running this blog, and I'm so glad she's sharing her experience with our readers. We'll be back Friday with another retrospective!)
