Raina the Mermaid

PLEASE do NOT crop off my watermark. If you see an image of me online WITHOUT  a watermark, please alert me so I can address it- sometimes it’s because someone has taken it from a print preview or my FB page where credits are listed, and sometimes it’s because they’ve edited out the credit. I work with many photographers, and their conditions of my sharing our work is that they receive their credits. Credits are built in to my watermark, my website, my FB etc. You’ll notice that 99% of my photos posted here you can click on them and they’ll take you to my source.

Please don’t post yourself as the “source” because you found my image. The purpose of the source label, is to give credit to the copyright holder, creator, or originator of a piece of work. A source should only be you, if you created it.

It’s extremely important that copyright be respected for many reasons. I have limitations on the context in which I can share images that contain children (this is primarily because they are minors, and for a variety of safety issues), I have limitations on ways in which publish work can be shared, and it IS illegal to take someone else’s photos and use it as your own without the permission of all those involved. I realize people think this is common place because it’s the internet… but images are pulled from sites like tumblr all the time because the copyright holder files a complaint. Yes, you can legally be fined, and depending on the material you take actually face jail time!

I realize tumblr can be a place that is a bit bleary. People post and re-post things al the time without proper credit, permission, etc. But that doesn’t mean it’s OKAY, legal, or the correct thing to do. I am fine with my work being on tumblr, so long as it credits back, or links back to me in some shape or form. I encourage people to always seek out the original sources of work they can share within reasons. There is a clause called “fair use” in which a certain percentage of a piece of work is reasonable to share and use if it’s close to impossible to get permission (e.g. the person has been dead for 50 years). However, too many people think this means “oh well I dont know how to contact her- so yay fair use!”. Nope. It’s something people should read up on.

Finally, citing sources is really just an act of simple respect, as a fan, as a photographer, as a model, as a writer, as an artist- whatever!

So please, if you’d like to share my work I am flattered! But, please either reblog, link to my website or my FB, or leave my watermark in. And as I said, if you see something floating around without my watermark let me know so I can address it. I realize people do these things by accident with no ill intention- simply out of ignorance or because it was that way when they found it.

Thank you!