StephCarson bio picture

Stephanie Carson

My favorite color is purple.  I like it so much that I decided to paint half of my house purple.  The back half.  The front and sides are a nice olive green so my neighbors would not be upset with a purple house on their street.

It is said that purple represents passion.  I am a true believer that we all must possess passion in our lives.  Without it we not only become bored, but we become boring.

Photography and Rock Climbing are my two main passions.  One supports the other on many different levels.  One is my life and the other my vent.  

I have a dog named Duck whom I love very, very, very much.  He is my protector and best bud who follows me everywhere.  He found me in the year 2000 and just seemed to stick around.  I guess he knew that he found someone who needed him just as badly as he needed to be loved.  He's 15 now and still going strong.  It must be the hiking and climbing!

The Duck has a cat named Oliver! with an exclamation mark at the end.  This is because he would get into so much trouble as a kitten Oliver! is the only way we ever pronounced his name....and Oliver! is the only thing he responds to.

Oliver! has a dog named Martin that the Duck picked up in Pikeville, Kentucky.  I suppose he wanted to bring Oliver! home a souvenir from our spring road trip in April of 2009.  To put it bluntly, Martin is a lemon.  But I still fix him when he's broken because I sorta have fallen in love with the little guy.

Other things you might find amusing (because I love to amuse)...I have 4 motorized vehicles.  A van I bought for a $170, two scooters, and a normal grown up car.  The van is neon green on the top half and taxi yellow on the bottom.  Yep, it is a retired taxi van.  During the summer I ride my scooter almost everywhere except when the Duck is with me.  I wish I could train him to ride in the front basket.  

I mostly hang out in a coffee shop in Clifton even though I really don't drink coffee.

In short, I'm just a gal who is trying to make it through this life as best I can with a lot of laughter and beautiful sunsets.

Thanks for visiting my website.  Please stay awhile and hopefully my photos will move you to gigglement and maybe then you will understand why laughter is so important to me.

GRRRRRR

Wednesday, July 16, 2008 at 4:59pm Posted in Weddings

I belong to a wedding photographer message board. I love this message board because it is full of wonderful information given by the best photographers in the world. While it cost a bit of money to belong to it, I think it’s worth it. For instance, I’m up to date on all of the new products and equipment since some of these great photographers are chosen by Nikon or Canon to test it. Or, these great photographers design and create their own products for the photography world.

Basically it’s a place for established and professional photographers to exchange valuable information.

Well, today a post (yet again) popped up titled, “Are your photographs on this site?” I dread those post. What those post means is yet ANOTHER photographer has stolen images from various photographers websites (usually from different areas than where they live) and have claimed these photographs as their own. They build entire websites with other photographers work to pull the wool over potential clients eyes. Sometimes, they even go as far as splattering their own copyright logo across the image. How do they get these images? Sometimes they drag them off the other photographer’s website. More often than not, they get them straight from the brides online album she has posted on one of the various online consumer photolab. This is illegal.

Thanks to the folks on the message board and their watchful eye, a new fake photographer usually surfaces once or twice a month.

How does this affect the bride?

These are usually your $1500 and under photographers who are doing this. This particular photographer mentioned today only charges $600 to shoot a wedding.

How would you feel if you visited a website of a GREAT photographer with a GREAT price only to be delivered a product that is not even near the caliber of what that photographer advertised as their own imagery?

Often, when these photographers are caught, they tell the judge that they did not have any samples of wedding photography. They started booking their first weddings a year in advance and figured they would be that good by then. What kind of idiot would believe they would be that good after only a year of shooting? I hate to break it to these naive “photographers” and their clients…natural talent is far and few between….the rest of us have to work our asses off to get good images. That imagery comes from the technical knowledge and the artistic knowledge to pull it off. That knowledge comes from practice, practice, practice. That “talent” comes from good professional equipment and backup equipment. I’m not really a good photographer. I just have really, really, really good equipment and I would not be able to afford this equipment shooting weddings at $600.

The same goes for photographers who post photographs they took when shooting as a second photographer (or even more lame, a shooting as a wedding guest) for a wedding and then build an entire fake front. If they are the second photographer or wedding guest, let that be known on the website. Be honest about it.

The sad thing about this is I know of at least one well known photographer in the area who has a very prominent photo on their site that is a stock image from a photographer who shoots bridal portraits in Florida. The Florida photographer sells the images (among many others) to stock agencies who, in return, will sell them for advertisements for various types of businesses. This image is the opening image the the photographers website. The first image (and by far the strongest image on the site) that the client sees.

The same goes for the amazing photographers who advertise two photographers for each wedding yet they only show their amazing images on the website. How does the client know the quality of the second shooter when only the amazing lead photographers shots are shown?

I am making a statement right here and right now. All images on my website are taken by either me or my second shooters. We are StephCarson Photography.

Other great photographers that I know use their own images are:
Bluebird Photography, Steve Lyons Photography, Simply Timeless, TM Photography, Mike Bresnen Photography, Leppert Photography, Wagner Photographics, Bambino Photography

I’m sure there are a few other photographers in the area that hit the high ranks as the photographers that I just mentioned. These are just a few that I thought of offhand.

OK>…off my soapbox….

by Chester

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July 16, 2008 - 7:40 pm April - I hear you sister!!! Thanks for the shout out! April

July 16, 2008 - 9:01 pm Bill - This has needed to be said for a very long time. Cincinnati Brides deserve to know what they are getting. Thanks for having the guts to post this!

July 16, 2008 - 10:36 pm tine hofmann - Thanks for posting this! How sad that some low life photographers would actually do that. I mean come on...Tine

July 17, 2008 - 8:38 am Chester - Wow! I would have never imagined the emails I've been getting on this one! Thanks to everyone who has emailed me and you are welcome!! I especially appreciate the comments on this blog from the photographers who are willing to put their name out there as well!

July 17, 2008 - 8:41 am nancy - Good for you Steph! Brides need to be educated that they get what they pay for. Often the "budget friendly" vendors are working without insurance, without quality equipment/products, and who knows about their longevity? will that "company" still be around a year later if you book them far in advance? (perhaps they will tire of working only to fill their gas tank?)

July 17, 2008 - 11:27 am Jeff Schaefer - How unethical. I'm dying to know who the local guy is.

July 18, 2008 - 12:32 am Ang - I was glad when I did my research before spending them money on my wedding pictures. Friends Of mine had gone with XXX and while they had no complaints still have not bothered to get there pictures as they were not as spectacular as what they advertise. I looked around and talked to other friends and after looking several and there blogs which included pictures of people I knew and weddings I had been to, I chose XXXX Photography.

July 21, 2008 - 3:36 pm studio - i'm a new photographer from newark (about 45 min east of columbus) and i agree w/everything you said! i hate to say it but i am a $600 photographer right now because i'm new and i'm comparable to several other photographers in my area...with that being said, everything on my site it mine but i know the feeling of people steeling stuff from you because there is another local photographer that does the same to me. she even blogs the same stuff i blog...it doesn't matter what i do, she copies everything and it drives me crazy! so you go girl on everything you said! :)

July 22, 2008 - 5:58 pm Lee Howell - Unbelievable...I'm not 100% established in my community as of yet and am still building my photography business, but the thought of someone stealing others' work to entice would-be customers is nauseating. It would be false of me to say I run a tight ship in terms of access to originals on my website due to reasons I justified as being "nice" and "generous" to my customers, but this has given me reason to consider a new strategy and not be so frivolous with my hard-earned portfolio! Thanks! If it's at all possible, would mind sharing a link to the message board??

August 1, 2008 - 4:00 pm Friend - A friend of mine makes wedding cakes and she told me a similar story about some cake people. They have pictures from magazines on their websites passing the cakes off as theirs.

May 12, 2009 - 9:53 pm Max Surikov - How sad that people can be so unethical so as to pass off other's work as their own. We've got to make a point of these occurences each and every time.

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