Trinity Photography's Blog

The world of digital is a mixed blessing, as I may well have mentioned before. No longer are photographers limited by the number of exposures on their roll of film. It’s possible to retrieve files which may have accidentally been deleted, and it also provides a great way of making sure you aren’t in danger of missing that shot. The downsides are that people expect to be able to receive their photographs instantly, forgetting that we still have to process the imagery, and the whole confounded issue of copyright.

It’s a funny old world, and you would think that by now people would have got their heads around the copyright issue. Sadly that’s not the case. We all know that taping a film in the cinema is illegal. We’re told that it’s piracy. We know it’s wrong and yet still people will not only film them, other people will buy these pirate copies. The whole case surrounding Napster and music downloads forced the industry to rethink its approach. And so now we come to digital photographs, the ownership and copyright thereof.

Back in the good old days of film a customer would never have dreamed of asking for the negatives from their photoshoot or wedding. They expected to receive a contact sheet and to choose their images from that. It was understood that the negative – and therefore the copyright – stayed with the photographer. They owned that image; you merely purchased a copy of it. For some reason this notion seems to pass people by now the world deals in digital. Just because an image is online and in the public domain it doesn’t mean that it is therefore free to all and sundry to copy for themselves. The photographer still owns the copyright to that image. Yet many’s the time I’ve seen that someone’s facebook profile pic has changed to an image we have taken – they have right-clicked and saved the image without a thought. I don’t mean to imply that these people are maliciously infringing copyright law, and we wouldn’t dream of pursuing them for proper recompense – that would be tantamount to professional suicide in such a small city. Times have changed to such a degree that the whole concept of copyright is now hazy to a large percentage of the population. It is difficult to police and seemingly even more difficult to educate. Just as people often feel that paying for a professional photographer to take their pictures is unnecessary because their phone has got an 8mp camera on it (and the Nikon D3 is only[!] 12.1mp. Fancy that??!) so it follows that pictures of you taken by someone else are obviously yours for the taking. Even if you haven’t paid for that picture… Sigh. We’ve had people at events say to the group of mates around them “it’s all right, we’ll just pay for one and copy it for everyone else.” They don’t seem to understand that there is anything wrong with this, as they say it within our hearing. Once we explain to them that that’s copyright infringement and what that entails they seem to understand and often end up apologising, eventually paying for the number of copies wanted.

This whole fiddly situation is one reason we are now happy to offer digital files to wedding couples. Prior to the days of 5 and 8mp cameras on mobile phones you would have paid for the photographer because otherwise you weren’t going to have any photos at all from the big day. As the sole photographer there the professional could afford to charge less for their time as they knew they would be getting reprint orders. Now at a wedding when we set the group up or pose the couple to take that shot, we’ve got another 12 people around us pointing their cameras in the same direction. Quite often the couple has seen hundreds of pictures from their wedding before the first dance. Reprints are a thing of the past and people now want pictures they can post on their facebook profiles, to other websites and digital photoframes. So be it – times have changed and so therefore must our professional practices. The issue of copyright law still holds true and is more of a challenge today than it ever was. All we can do is trust to people’s integrity and try to point out the errors of their ways. People still understand that a professional photographer earns their living from photography, but they do sometimes need a gentle reminder that those photographs belong to the pro and not them, and yes you will need to pay for them!

It’s time to spoil all the women in your life this March - not only is today International Women’s Day but coming up we also have Mothering Sunday (or Mother’s Day, if you want to go all US on us!). Here at Trinity Photography we think we’ve come up with a rather lovely package to spoil and treat those beautiful and wondrous women in your life.

Be pampered by our makeup artist before turning into a diva in front of the camera for a glorious photoshoot. Then it’s off for a spot of lunch, on us, while we process your images before coming back in to the studio for a viewing, complete with champagne and chocolate. You’ll also receive one mounted 7”x5” print from the sitting, ready to frame. A whole day of fabulous pampering and fun, for only £299!

The small print:

- Shoots must be booked and a deposit of £75 paid by 18th March 2012, but the shoot itself can take place any time before 30th September 2012, subject to availability.

- The balance is due 2 weeks before the date of your sitting.

- The deposit is non-refundable.

- You will be expected to have fun and enjoy yourself! If we fail to meet your expectations another glass of champers is yours.

Congratulations to all you newly-engaged out there, and if it was the lady who got down on one knee to pop the question good for you! Seeing as weddings are full to the brim of tradition we hope that the leap year tradition of the woman doing the proposing resulted in new engagements up and down the country.

As a celebration of your courage and commitment yesterday we’d like to offer all couples a free engagement sitting with us. You can either come for the sitting itself, have some fun and with no obligation to buy whatsoever, all for the grand price of absolutely nothing, or you can create some personalised ‘We’re Engaged!’ cards, starting at £40 for ten cards. It’s entirely up to you. Give us a call on 01722 422224 to book.

Congratulations once again and here’s looking forward to hearing from you!