http://www.photosbypennie.co.uk/

Pennie Withers is a Commercial and Event Photographer working in the Thames Valley and London.  She helps businesses stand out from the crowd by enabling them to have professional photographs on their websites, marketing materials and social media.

In the final guest blog of a three-part series by professional photographer Pennie Withers, she covers the thorny subject of Copyright.

When a professional photographer takes a photograph, they own the copyright.  Unless they explicitly give over the copyright (usually in return for a fee), they retain it.  All the images that I take are supplied to my clients with a full and unrestricted licence to use them in any media over any time period. I retain the copyright ALWAYS. I have never found this to be an issue with any of my clients and indeed, have been fortunate enough never to find anyone using any of my images without permission.

One question you may ask however is, how can you find professional photos which you don’t have to pay for.  Whilst I wouldn’t particularly want to encourage this (!), I have to accept that sometimes there is a need for this kind of thing.  So – here are a few suggestions.

Dreamstime.com – you may have to pay for some of these, but they also have free ones.

Pixabay – there are also some Shutterstock images on their site, which you have to pay for but that is how they finance offering free ones.

FreeImages.co.uk – this site is financed by paid for advertising however again, the images are free.

All of these sites, whether you pay for the images or use free ones, will clearly show the image licence details. It’s always best to check the licence to make sure you don’t fall foul of any copyright issues.

I hope you’ve found my series of blogs useful.  If you have any questions or would like to have a chat about photographs for your website or social media, do give me a call on 07715 8895457 or drop me an email on pennie@photosbypennie.co.uk.