Check this out:
The Photo I took of Iznart Street during the after noon rush hour had appeared on the April 11th issue of The Guardian, who claims to be Western Visayas’ Most Widely Read and Respected. It was not only displayed at the home page of The Guardian’s Online Edititon, but it was printed on the front page of the actual newspaper, which circulates all around Western Visayas and as claimed by them garners 38% market share of Western Visayas’s advertising budget.
The first time I saw it I saw shocked and enraged. I know it’s my photo because you can never duplicate a street scene, especially cars, the people and other details. Someone from the Guardian might have taken this photo from this page I posted months ago.
What’s worse was that they cropped out the watermark in the lower right part of the photo. It would have been a great opportunity for this site to be advertised like that.
In reaction, I immediately saved the original photo in my USB drive, bought a copy of the newspaper, and headed to their office in La Paz.
When I entered their office, I asked the secretary if who was responsible for publishing the photo on the front page. She called up some guy named “Alex”.
Then this guy walk out of the door, it turned out to be Mr. Allan Francis Angelo (actually he’s one of my favorite news writers, hehe) who found the pic on the net while googling. He told me that the lay-out people cropped out my watermark since they didn’t know better. He said that it is their newspaper’s policy to credit photographers of the photos they publish, especially when they just found it online and he apologized to me about what happened. He promised that they are going to include my photo with the added credits on their next issue.
I wasn’t ecstatic about it. I told him that the photo you published in the front page of your newspaper is mine, and it had already circulated all over Western Visayas without any credit to me, the photographer (I also was thinking that during their next issue, they will not post the picture with the added credits on the front page).
To make things even, he proposed that I send him a feature about Explore Iloilo, which he will publish in The Guardian. I guess it’s a good deal already, so I left with a courteous goodbye and a lighter mood.
He even offered me to be a freelance photographer for The Guardian, I guess I’d have to think and talk to him more about that part since I’m not very confident about my photography skills and since I’m not using professional equipments (SLR).
Well that’s all for that, I’ll be guarding my photos more securely this time and if you have seen any of my photos displayed somewhere, please please please inform me because they might have taken it without my permission.
![[photo post] Sunset Rush](http://static.flickr.com/96/253376602_1648991b80.jpg?v=0_s.jpg "[photo post] Sunset Rush")
10 Comments
naku chy, manaanad ka na sini. even my photosgrpahs, gina kawat man.
its just so bad that many people, especially, those in the media and webmasters dont care to give credit to the photographers anymore.
Oh BTW, the Guardian had already published the photo again with the added credits and promotion for the site on the second page of their April 12th issue. It’s all good now.
chymera: They should pay you for using your photo. And don’t believe him for offering you a gig. Believe it when it happens.
“Guardian News MAKAWAT!”
That happened to My Profile too. Someone stole one of my graphics in there. I found it in someone’s thread. But that’s okay, what they need to do next time is to ask permission from me, that’t it. No Big Deal to ask permission. I will allow them as long as they respect me. That’s all. Cheers! :)
Amo gid na Mig basta sikat ka na :)
Kita mo bisan Guardian kit-an na ang efforts mo. Batona ang offer nila sa imo nga freelance photographer sideline mo pa na :)
No wonder that photo looked familiar. A similar fate happened to me too and naugot gid ko. What if you don’t read their paper so bale libre na lng to ya gali kay komo wala may nag reklamo? Mabal-an mo man bala ang source sg picture maski gin google lang…
Anyway, very nice mga photos mo maski indi SLR cam. I think you don’t necessarily need one. It’s in the person behind the cam not in the cam who can capture great photos.
Ei chy you dont need a very expensive SLR to be the best photojournalist.. :) Keep it up dude. Your photos can tell it all. :)
kibot man ko gani pag kita ko bag-o lang sang picture sang Iloilo River nga guin take ko sa Ideas For The City Blog sang canurb.com. wala ko ka dumdum may nag ask permission usar picture ko. nag send na ko e-mail sa admin nila.
ay ikaw aman gali … 3 of us ako, ikaw and eric of byahilo.com, guin kwaan man sang CanUrb sang pictures without permission or credits.
msn search is the easiest way to search for images.