SHARING PERSONAL IMAGES ONLINE

Lately I have had some seriously weird and kind of scary online experiences.

It all really started last year when a photographer friend who did a shoot of my middle child, found one of the images (of her face) on a site that sells photographic prints. Basically they were selling prints of MY CHILD’S FACE *heart sinks. Can you even imagine it? It totally sucks to share images on your blog and then have them stolen. What sucks even more is that I am the one who put the image out there, it was a shoot that I had posted here on the blog. Never in a million years did I think someone would take it then try to make money off of it! Am I stupid to think that?

This is the first time it’s happened to me either. When I was in the wedding industry, I can’t even tell you how many times images from my weddings were stolen and used by other wedding vendors in their “portfolio” or on social media, claiming to be their own.

It’s beyond frustrating, it makes me never want to blog again-actually it makes me want to crawl into a hole, die, then come back to life and live on a remote island with no internet.

I don’t want to add “please ask permission before using my photos” to my Instagram handle. I just want people to not use them without asking first. Unfortunately this is not how it all works, and hiding in a hole won’t fix it either.

For now I have decided to not share too many photos of my family online. I know this won’t prevent people from stealing but it will make me feel a little better for the time being. As for the future, I honestly don’t know what I will do. Maybe I won’t show their faces? Have any of you dealt with this before? I would love to know if you have and what you think about sharing personal images, please let me know below in the comment box.

This image was shot by Rachel Castillero for the Fox and the Sparrow.