Anyone who has been talking to me over the past few weeks knows that I have a bee in my bonnet about giving proper photo credit. It seems that on numerous occasions when the Shutterbugs have had work published, the photographer has not received a proper photo credit.

This started when the Sun-Gazette photographed Brent Shirk‘s winning shot from last year’s annual show. They placed their photographer’s name next to the photograph. Although Brent’s name was placed in the caption below the photograph, many people assumed that the Sun-Gazette photographer had taken the photo, not Brent. This was further reinforced when Brent had several people question him as to the true identity of the photographer.

More recently, another such experience was with the Day of Caring Calendar. Originally the producers of the calendar did not want to issue individual photo credits but a collective recognition on the last page. This was not satisfactory to us, and finally individual credits were issued except for the photo by yours truly.

We were asked again for the use of the photos in the United Way’s annual report. We agreed to this if the individual photographer as credited and a copy of the report provided for each photographer’s work. Well, 12 of our photos were used, not one of them was individually credited, and I received one copy of the report. In fact the credit issued on the last page states "Photos….courtesy of Shutterbugs Photography Club." To me, that is just short of insulting. The members involved donated film and their time to do this work, the club donated over $200 in processing and enlargements, and not only were the individuals not recognized, but the club’s name is wrong.

Well, the last recent episode was the Sun Gazette’s lack of proper photo credit listing of Terri Chapman & Jim Zerfing’s photographs. I think the amount of coverage that the Sun gave us in those pictures was fantastic! But again, I take exception to listing the staff photographer’s name next to the photos. By only showing the image, and not that it is a picture of a picture, the Sun’s photographer has been again credited with someone else’s work. When proper photo credits were given to the shots of the Bicentennial Show as a result of conversations I had with the Sun, I thought that this problem had been resolved

In public school, when someone else’s original work was copied it was called cheating. In college it was called plagiarism which could result in expulsion. In the photo world it’s called copyright infringement which can result in criminal prosecution.

Suppose the Sun photographer took a shot of a painting of Van Gogh’s and then the Sun-Gazette placed the name of their photographer next to the photo of the painting, who is to say that the less knowledgeable wouldn’t naturally assume that the work was done by the Sun-Gazette photographer rather than Vincent Van Gogh?

This is not about bruised egos, but a gripe to get proper credit whereever our work appears. I want people to take us seriously as an organization of genuine achievement and talent. A organization that is willing to share our talents with our community in a worthwhile way.

So what do we do? One suggestion I‘ve been offered is that we have a contract for any future photographic requests which states an individual photo credit is required or the "free" work will be billed at a fair market value. Do you have any other ideas?

Does any of this bother you, or am I alone in these feelings? I don’t think it is too much to ask to for proper recognition in published works, particularly when you work for free. To paraphrase Dennis Miller, this is just my opinion, I may be wrong.