I am always amazed at the quality of photos that come up in trip reports. I would love to have some of these pictures on my wall. Would it be bad manners to PM folks and ask for an image file? Or would it make sense to have some sort of service to put signatures and copy rights on the image and handle sales? I don't know much about photography so apologize if this is a dumb question. Any body else want photos or have thoughts on this?

David, I cannot speak for all photographers here, nor can I speak for professional photographers. However, just about every -serious- photographer has some sort of an individual web gallery for photos. Now, maybe it is a free site or a cheap site, but there is some place. As you move toward the more serious photographers, the web gallery hosting is a bit more expensive. However, interested onlookers can see some photos there. On my gallery, interested onlookers can make comments about individual images, and those feed back to the photographer. Very interested onlookers can also purchase prints. At a minimum, consider those print purchases to fund the gallery site itself. Since some image files are upwards of 50MB each, having several hundred images visible is not completely trivial.

On the other hand, in the past some people have seen some of my small images and asked me for permission to use the images elsewhere. That depends on the exact usage. Some have gotten my images, used them without permission, and I had to issue a take-down demand, which is the first step before a lawsuit.

--B.G.--

Speaking as strictly an enthusiastic amateur, I keep photos to relatively lower res on my website (and now my Flickr site). If someone truly wanted to steal an image, not much I could do without getting off my lazy butt and programming the back end of my website more. :) OTOH, the image quality I have set makes it difficult to use for commercial purposes beyond an occasional hotlink on a website.

Having said all that, If a person wanted to use a photo as wall paper for personal use, I personally would not mind and probably be flattered.

EDIT: I also have a semi-professional site for selling photos (that I really don't promote too much...) http://www.redbubble.com/people/pmags

Edited by PaulMags on 08/12/2012 22:06:41 MDT.

Bob- I checked out your photo website. It seems to work very well and is easy to negotiate and order photos. Prices seem reasonable with an eight by ten being 17 bucks. It takes Paypal which is convenient. Couldn't tell right off how much postage would be though.

Between the hassle of e-mailing a large image and getting it printed, the cost seems very fair.

Is it expensive or difficult to get this sort of service set up?

Thanks for the info.

Paul- thanks, you take some nice pictures.

edit -I'm not sure that avatar is one of them though!

Edited by DavidAdair on 08/12/2012 21:48:58 MDT.

"Couldn't tell right off how much postage would be though."

I don't know either. I'm not directly involved with the printing end of that business until my check shows up. The web site company (Zenfolio) handles the image files and the transaction, then sends files off to a printing company where they do the printing and mailing.

"Is it expensive or difficult to get this sort of service set up?"

No, I don't believe so. The free sites work one way, and the cheap sites work another way. Zenfolio has different options with different costs to the photographer. I've been there for about three years now. When you initially upload a bunch of big images, expect to have that online connection up for hours and hours.

Search engines do not seem to find their way into my gallery, and that may be good or it may be bad depending on how you look at it.

--B.G.--

Bob- Thanks for the good information.
Paul-Thanks for the link.

I don't see how having TR photos available for purchase would be considered overly commercial. Perhaps others disagree? In fact it would be convenient if folks just indicated that the images were available at such and such website at the end of the TR. Personally, I like the idea of knowing who took the killer photos hanging on my wall. Its either that or I am going to have to upgrade my own photography skills. Somehow I am guessing that would turn out to be considerably more expensive.