Photos within Your Blog Posts: Do You Own Them?

I’m told adding pictures to our blog posts increases the likelihood that people will remain on our website pages much longer than they would if we have posts without pictures.  After studying my Google Analytics, I believe there’s some validity to this statement. At least, it certainly proves to be true for me.

 

I might add, whenever I’m on another blogger’s site, the pictures add to my curiosity. I gain more insight from the posts, and depending on the topic, I learn more about the author and/or contributor of the posts. For me, I also collect a small sense of connection as I delve more into the author’s world and perspective of their topical messages.

 

Since I purchased a nice Canon camera a few years back and now own a pretty fancy Samsung Galaxy Note 3, I find myself capturing pictures of all sorts. One never knows when some of the shots may prove useful in one way, or another for my posts.

 

I’m especially aggressive about this task due to an article I read a few months back. One blogger used a photo within her post that someone else shot.  Somehow, the owner happened upon the blog post and saw their photo used within the author’s blog, and the unimaginable occurred. The blogger was sued and had to pay the owner of the photo a handsome fee. A simple, “I’m sorry. I had no idea I did anything illegal. I didn’t mean any harm.” just didn’t do.

 

As an author who loves to include photos within my blog posts, I thought, Oh no! I never want this sort of thing to happen to me, so I stopped using photos that aren’t mine, including photos from Ficklr, which I have been told was safe to use. Now, I’m about the business of making my own collage of photos just for my blogging task. If I’ve taken the photos myself, I own the photos, right? Just long as I’m not taking pictures of someone’s child without their permission, I should be okay, at least I hope so.

 

Just today while visiting my Mom, I thought to take a picture of her new watermelon patch, a small spot she captured in her back yard for growing her very own watermelon. Whoever thought? At least I never at had inkling my Mom would ever do this. This was especially interesting to me for two reasons: (1) My Mom usually keeps a very neat and well-manicured lawn (as you can see this small area isn’t very pretty) (2) I’ve never seen anything like this before in my life — a real watermelon patch growing by my very own Mom right in her backyard, or any place for that matter.

 

My Mom’s Small Watermelon Patch

 

This one is the length of my hand.

 

This one is about the length of my foot (size 71/2).

 

Although I’m taking many different photos for the purpose of fulfilling this one goal, I’m truly enjoying myself and love how my collage of photos is developing.

 

I hope you will come back again soon to read more of my blog posts, and enjoy more of my very own shots that I’ll include to spice thing up a bit.

 

   Oh and by the way, here is side view photo of my beautiful Mom.  This shot was taken last winter as she shopped at a furniture store. Perhaps I’ll capture one of her later on fiddling around in her watermelon patch.