This summer I shot pictures for a horse show, which is one of my favorite things to do. I spent three 12 hour days in the 110 degree heat of San Miguel trying to shield my poor camera out of the sun. A few times I feared one of us would stop working because it was THAT hot. I have only done a few horse shows, usually weddings and portraits, and so I found myself taking TOO many pictures. I decided instead of selling individual pictures people could just buy a disk of one day or the entire weekend. That way all those pictures I took would find their rightful owners and I wouldn't have to justify to myself why I took so many. It was not so much about the money as it was fun.

Needless to say it was a little disheartening to find out that a person who had contacted me about purchasing the photos but had never actually done so, had instead stolen them off of my website. I very much dislike putting PROOF over all my pictures but now I see why that, or branding, is completely necessary. This person had used the pictures on their website, on their blog and on an advertisement. After a few back and forth emails where the person insisted they had only used the SHARE button and that everything was linked back to my gallery, that they received thousands of pictures and why would they use mine. But an innocent party wouldn't have taken them down quite so fast I dare say.

So the moral of my story is, don't steal. When you get caught its downright embarrassing. Especially since I was practically giving the photos away and I would have gladly let them use them for advertising with my logo on them.

And hip-hip-hooray for Stitch...screen shots are how you get caught in the act of thievery!