About Nancy: Starting Out Right

This certainly will be a difficult post to write because it will offend and put off some of you. It's about ethics.

Lord knows I don't even know where to begin when it comes to ethics. All of us have probably done things in our misguided youth or possibly during these difficult financial times that we might not be genuinely proud of. I'm far from blameless and have done many things that were plain stupid. Getting ahead in life seems to be a driving motivator for some. Trying to get an edge seems to be what business school encourages. Making a living has never seemed more important. Striving to get a business off the ground or staying in business should not have to be so hard, but darn it - it is.

There is no short cuts and yet many people try to find the easy way. It's human and if you are trying to take that short cut, let me say, I hope you are extremely lucky because in the business world, you've got to put in the time and effort.

A week or so ago, a new vendor emailed me because she took images of real weddings by NLCD from the internet without our permission. I am positive her intentions were real, genuine and lacking in malice. I don't think she meant to hurt my business in any way. She was honest about giving credit and she wanted my ok. Why should I even care and why didn't I just let her use my work? 

Foremost, I've never met this vendor and I've certainly not worked with this vendor. So I should care where my images are being "used" to promote another business even if it is not in conflict with my own.

If you think this is unusual, it's not. During the past few years, I have seen our work show up on other wedding vendors' websites without our permission. And frankly, I don't think they had the permission of the photographer either. Usually, I just send them an email and ask them to "remove" and of course, many do take down the images. Of course, I'm not talking about a "wedding related website" or a design blog that is doing an editorial feature. No No No. I'm talking strictly about a competing business' web based portfolio.

Many new and competing business owners can easily "save" images via the internet to use on their websites to promote themselves and sell themselves. We all know that. For the most part, I think all of them who do it aren't malicious. They may have the capability of "using" images but do they have the right to do it?

If it were a blog post with a photo credit and design credit, that's a completely different matter and the credit should be given whenever possible with a link back. It is sometimes hard to find the original source and I know that I often have trouble with this as well but it's key to note in the post that the work you show on your blog might be from another source. However, to take an image and to mislead your potential clients to think that you've designed the event, worked on the event or planned the event is wrong!

 Simply, unethical.

If you are doing this or thinking of doing this, I assume it's because you don't have many images from real weddings to create your new business.

To that I say, do a trade with a photographer.
Exchange your service with another vendor.
Create a photoshoot not for editorial purposes but for your portfolio.
Create something that you would be proud of and that you could actually execute because your clients are smart and you have to show your creativity.


Bottom line:  You might fool a few but you can't fool them all. Take a small piece of advice: Start out right!