Is Pinterest a Yes or a No for Photography Professionals?

Beate Chelette

Beate Chelette is the PhotoBizCoach and dedicated to educating photography professionals about the business behind the art of photography so that the next generation of photography industry professionals can be successful. She is an International speaker and teaches the photography business through the PhotoBiz Intensive, an online course. Beate became a multimillionaire when she sold her stock photography licensing company to Corbis that is owned privately by the world’s most successful entrepreneur, Bill Gates. Chelette’s experience is impressive and includes a BA in photography, being a Photo Editor at German Elle, a producer and rep and she ran a global stock syndication. During her career she worked with some of the world’s biggest names in photography such as Lord Snowdon, Helmut Newton, Tim Street Porter, George Hurrell and Gilles Bensimon and has a client list that includes such staples as Mercedes Benz, BMW, Mervyn’s, Levi’s, Wrangler, Glidden Paint, Coldwell Banker and many more. “Your photography is only as good as the business behind it.” ~ Beate Chelette Follow Beate on her blog and on Twitter and Facebook.

Is Pinterest a Yes or a No for Photography Professionals?

May 31 | By Beate Chelette | Posted in Business of Photography | Print This Post

In this edition of Ask the Photo Business Coach, I discuss Pinterest and other social networking sites. Are you giving your life away by posting photos there?

4 Responses to “Is Pinterest a Yes or a No for Photography Professionals?”

Libby said:
May 31st, 2012 at 2:19 pm

But what you have not addressed here is the Pinweasels grabbing up images or content you DO NOT want freely distributed. And that is their game - get the most pins - brag that you "pinned" 1000 images in an hours. I have a culinary site with original content, both text and images, and it was all winding up there. I don't want people grabbing up and in some cases taking credit for MY hours of investment.

Sure if you want play that pin game, go ahead and curate your own collection and upload. I just don't want stuff grabbed and abused without my permission, and that is where the big problem lies.

So how is THIS addressed on a business level, that is, dilution of work because of distribution by the freetards?
Beate said:
May 31st, 2012 at 3:35 pm

Good point Libby. I'll get my head around it and will do some research. You are right there is the involuntary share effect. Good follow up post idea.
Quintin Lake said:
May 31st, 2012 at 8:43 pm

Glad you say its a Yes - Photoshelter said its a No! I think its a YES also as we have to go where our audience is. It has changed the way I watermark though - not because i'm worried about theft but if it the 1 in 1000 viewers who wants to hire me doesn't know who created the image then the marketing exercise fails. You might be interested to see how i'm watermarking outside of the image for Pinterest and Facebook which I think distracts aesthetically much less than inside the frame http://pinterest.com/pin/23503229275778107/
David Pimborough said:
August 28th, 2012 at 4:36 pm

Here is a quick reality check I have a pinterest account and of all the photos I pinned they always lead back to the original image where ever it came from (flickr, tumblr what have you).

Try stealing a photo? Well you end up with a pretty cruddy 100kb (or thereabouts copy).

I have a friend with a culinary site and they end up using Pinterest as an advertising point as it leads viewers straight back to their website and blog.

Think of it less as theft and more as free advertising.

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