British Journal of Photography
Photojournalist John D McHugh said battling against people sharing your photos on social media is a fight that “can’t be fought.” So he designed Marksta, an iOS app that lets photographers add their name, logo or other information to a photo.
One of my favourite photographs from 2012 in Afghanistan watermarked with #Marksta in 10 seconds. #photojournalism twitter.com/johndphoto/sta…
— John D McHugh (@johndphoto) January 3, 2013
In an email interview, McHugh said other watermarking apps he tried “were very basic, and looked like they were either designed for kids, or by kids!” (You can decide that for yourself.) Marksta, he notes, lets photographers position a templated watermark anywhere they’d like on their photos, which frees them from worrying about whether their photos are being used without credit.
“Especially with [people’s] fears about exploitation of their photographs by various social media websites,” he wrote, “I believe a lot of people want to watermark their images.”
I can think of a couple of instances in the last year where a dated watermark, even by amateur photographers, may have saved media organizations a lot of heartache: The saga of Andy Duann’s “falling bear” photo, as well as the story of Karin Markert’s Tomb of the Unknowns photo, which many people believed was shot during Hurricane Sandy.
The app gives you options for creating your watermark:
(Thanks to Liz Heron for pointing out the BJP article.)
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