CD v. Prints

Which would you rather have, after your pictures have been taken and you're looking at the results? Five 5 x 7 prints and two 8 x 10s and maybe a few 4 x 6 to stick in a book somewhere? Or a disk of all the images to share and print however you please, whether on Facebook or in a frame or on your desktop wallpaper?

As a photographer trying to sell my time and images, it raises very intense discussion and valid questions.

Do I want give my clients a disk of my work and let the images be used and enjoyed in a variety of ways, and therefore lose my control over how the finished product looks? (Yes, I know that you can use Photoshop Elements to edit my digital images. You know who you are. :-P)

Or do I want to limit use (no more last minute trips to *cough* Wal-Mart to get prints made for the Christmas card!), but maintain quality-of-image by only letting you buy prints through me and my approved vendors?

I have a theory on this. (Yes, another theory! Lots of theories! Told you so!)

Its an electronic age. There's Facebook. Blogs. Myspace. Not to mention the whole slew of photo printing companies online (check back in the coming week to read my review of photo printshops). You can send a picture message on your cell phone. Email pictures from here to Kalamazoo. Etc. Etc. Etc.

So, in this electronic age why wouldn't I give you a disk of all your images?

Yes, I am risking that you will print them at Walmart (*cough, cough* don't do it! *cough*). And I'm accepting that you might "enhance" my work in Elements or Picasa and thereby ruin the integrity of my image.

But I'm giving you the images. You paid me to take them. And now I will trust you to choose how to use them, when to print them, and how to share them.

This policy might have to eventually change. Not many photographers still do it this way (often, they make you pay an arm and a leg for the disk -- or don't offer the disk at all). But its technology, people!

I want you to be able to use your images.

(And, besides, getting a Christmas card using my pictures is my favorite. Using my work = happy Jennifer.)



(Self portrait in a store window in New York City.)