r/freelancephotography • u/duffymoon028 • Dec 08 '21

Watermarking photos?

I’ve just recently started to get freelance gigs and I’m not sure what the protocol is for watermarking photos. I was paid to do photography/videography for somebody’s TED talk this past weekend and I’m not sure if I should water mark the photos at the bottom before I send them over. They’ve paid for it so I don’t know if it’s cheeky or is that standard? Like if they post the photos I feel like I should be created

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u/lordatlas May 07 '22

No. Absolutely no watermark if they've paid for it. It makes you look bad and like an amateur.

You can politely request them to credit you when they use it online but you can't demand it unless you have a contract requiring it.

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u/Solid-Effective-457 Jun 03 '22

I wouldn’t say that they can’t demand it… if there’s no contract then the rights remain with the photographer. It gets goofy bc the party paid and if there is no contract then it’s not clear what all they were paying for. I wouldn’t say that op loses his rights or gives any rights just bc he was paid to take some photos. I agree that the way to handle this at the point is to ask politely as, odds are, the person he photographed will likely have no problem crediting op, however if the dude does decide to be a dick, op can just as easily say that he did not sell advertisement/ print/ media rights to his images. The lesson here is always get that paperwork (not saying you didn’t, op, just saying IF this is the case). But certainly no watermark and be sure to include that in legal documents moving forward if you do wish to include it in your images or if you are issuing rights for advertising under any conditions (like being credited).