Essay On Exposure In Photography

Exposure is worthless without compensation

If I grabbed your attention, let me say that it is not that kind of exposure I mean. I am not talking about exposure in camera, which is essential, but exposure itself as a way to show your work. Yes, I know it is good to have your work seen, but don’t rely on it, if you want to do a living from your photography.

So, yes, exposure is worthless, if we’re talking about exposure by itself. I decided to write some paragraphs about the subject, because this is something that photographers – and those whose dreams are shared through visual arts – are confronted with multiple times.

The idea of exposure in photography – and no, I am not talking about using aperture and shutter speed – always atract people,

There are multiple stories of big companies using photographs, simply because they are available online. It’s really fantastic that companies that protect their assets think of the Web as the Wold West when it comes to photography. So be warned, even your FaceBook, Flickr, Tumblr or Instagram photos are in danger.

Obviously, photographers always have to find ways to be seen, promote their work, and still protect their rights. Sharing photographs online is so common these days, that we all want to use it as a means to expose our work to others. This, some times, leads to another type of rights-grabbing process, which is called “can we use your photo and credit you?”

The “can we use your photo and credit you?” comes from big and small companies, comes, in fact, from the most diverse sources. The usual question is immediately followed by another comment: “you’ll get a lot of exposure”. I’ve heard that many times, and it still puzzles me. Do people really believe that having my name printed under the photo will be of any benefit to me? I mean, if they know I make a living from seling the right to use my photographs – take notice, I did not write “sell my photographs” – do they expect that I will get some form of payment from that