Safety Notice: PLEASE READ!

Recently, it was called to my attention that someone online had posted one of my photos claiming it as their own.  Even scarier, they were also claiming the children in the photos were their own.  When confronted, the individual deleted it immediately, but the entire situation was alarming and made me feel like it was necessary to address it with you all.  The safety of my clients, as well as my work, is of the utmost importance to me.  I love the internet and what it makes possible for my business, not to mention what it makes possible in my personal life.  I am the first one, when I snap something adorable of my kiddo, to slap that sucker online, and I often wonder what we did before!  But, I do think we need to be safe and smart when we are sharing our lives and work on the internet.  

So, here's the lecture (Not really, but it feels like I'm nagging and I am really sorry about that.): When you purchase a CD, I explain that it contains files for printing (without a watermark) and photos for emailing and uploading (with a watermark).  It is EXTREMELY important that you upload ONLY those photos with my watermark on them and do not crop it out for any reason. Not only does it protect my work, but it also protects you as the client.  Any photos uploaded onto my blog and/or Facebook portfolio are protected and have the watermark present, so the picture had to have come from someone else having uploaded the pictures from their CD or emailing them out, without the watermark present.  I haven't had this happen before, so I don't usually say much about it when people upload the wrong pictures or when they crop out the watermark, but this situation was VERY scary.  I want my clients safe.  And I want to be able to continue doing what I do for a very long while.  Again, I apologize if this sounds aggressive, I just feel VERY passionately about my work and about my clients.  

Thanks so much for your help keeping us all safe, especially those sweet little faces we all love and adore!!! :o)

Regards,

NeniaDawn

On a side note:  Not only did I confront the individual and report them to the website, but I did go all "Criminal Minds" on them and I creeped their other social networking profiles (Facebook, Flickr, Tumblr)...I felt like a scary ninja lady, it was liberating...Anyway, no other pictures were found that raised any "red flags", but I still felt like I needed to look. :o)