itserikachristine

Life is a dream.

Happiness. 

Sometimes Sacramento is pretty.

idfwu

Just a “little” blurb about reposting.

I am so so for those Instagrams that repost photographer’s work. It helps the community out, and quite frankly I like following them for inspiration from a variety of photographers that I may have otherwise not heard about. However, my problem is that often times these accounts, which are huge, don’t give credit. The process of creating this art through photography is a long one, and I think many people don’t realize how much work goes on long after the photographer and model have parted ways. 

In fact, I don’t think many people know the process at all.

I want to take a second to talk about a typical shoot for me, and I am by no means a professional photographer. Sometime the models I work with are professionals, and sometimes they are my friends or kind people I have met through the magical world of Instagram.

Okay, so for example, this one shoot I had with the gorgeous Alexandra. (the photo above) I met up with this darling girl at 7 am. 7 AM. Okay this is beyond early for me, and I am more than sure that it was for her as well. So anyways, I show up, yawning, barely having slept and this gorgeous, 6′ tall girl is in perfect makeup & hair. Now, I was lucky enough to have rolled out of bed around 6:15, threw my clothes on, put up my hair and went to her home. I have no idea what time she woke up to be ready with hair and makeup done, but I’m telling you...it was way before I had even begun to consider waking up.

Anyways, I digress. So we start shooting downstairs in her cellar for about an hour (I wasn’t a huge fan of the shots, I hadn’t brought my flash and I love natural lighting shots). We then take a gander outside, and mind you, it’s cold. It’s 36 degrees outside. She doesn’t complain. Not once. 

Finally, I ask her.. “Alexandra...do you mind? I wanted to try something...could you lay down in the grass?”

Now this girl is not a complainer, and she promptly sat down in the grass without a second thought. I can’t even imagine how cold it was for her. But anyways, I took a shot facing down on her and we continued shooting for another hour or so. I had to stop because I couldn’t feel my fingers or bend them anymore, and there was no way to keep shooting and warm them up.

After we parted ways, I went home and began editing. This process takes me FOREVER. I painstakingly remove any small blemishes, fix lighting, fix the shadows, the highlights, the misplaced hairs. It took me about an hour to get this photo exactly the way I wanted to.

I posted it on Instagram, and so did she.

Now, this HUGE account reposted the photo, and only gave Alexandra the credit. I SUPER politely pointed out that I was the photographer, so technically it was my photo, so if they could ever so kindly give me credit...it would be awesome. This account quickly corrected the matter.

However, another account posted the photo as well. Alexandra, bless her heart, immediately began asking them to give me credit. They never even responded or acknowledged our pleas. Look, Alexandra did an amazing job modeling. But the thing about photography is...there’s so much more to it than just that. It was a team effort, and TWO artists’ work. My biggest issue with what this account did, was they blatantly stole my work, without giving me any credit, and they did so in order to make themselves get bigger. I am allllll about this Instagram community, but only when we work as that. A community.