Why You Should Use Your Own Photos On Your Bolg
Photos. Something every good blog post should have. Why? you ask. Because people don't like to read long blocks of text, and pictures give the reader something aesthetically pleasing to focus on other than just text. But that is another blog post for another day. Today I am going to tell you why you should use your own photos instead of getting them off the internet.
1. It is Safer.
If you use your own photos, people can't come back on you for stealing photos because the photos on your blog are your own creation. (I have personally not had people complain to me about taking photos, as I have used photos legally. But I have heard of other people getting in trouble with it). If you don't already know, you can't just go to Google images and take any picture you want, even if you are not using it for commercial purposes (i.e. to make money). This is because the photo does not belong to you. If you want to use a picture from Google images for a school project, I do not imagine that you will have the police knocking at your door. However, if you use a Google image on your blog, and that blog becomes immensely popular (which is often the goal), you could be in trouble. If you do want to use a Google image, I would contact the owner and ask permission. But this is a lot of work for a picture, especially if you are going to write a lot of posts. Essentially, to avoid legal hassle it is safest to use your own photos, because you are the one who took them and they are your property to do what you want with them.
2. It is Easier.
I know. I just told you how it's illegal to take pictures from the internet. However, there are sites that you can get pictures from legally, but it is a lot of hassle. One of those sites is flickr.com. On Flickr you can go to the creative commons and use pictures that have the attribution sign next to them, but you must link back to the picture. However, with my experience the only way to put the picture on your blog if you use blogger is to click the blog icon for blogger, it then goes live, but if you want to use it in a post you have to revert it to a draft and add your text. If you already have a draft written you have to copy and paste the text into the post with the picture from Flickr, and then often I have had the font size screw up so you have to play around with the font to the right size. Whereas, if you use your own photo, you just take a picture, upload it to your computer, upload it to blogger, and put it in your post. It is a lot simpler and more straightforward. There are also other sites which you can get free photos from, but I do not know much about them, and some sites require you to pay a membership fee. Also, regardless of the site you still have to go to the trouble of making sure you are not doing anything wrong and that you can legally use someone else's picture which you find. But maybe you don't mind doing that. If that is so, that's great, but for myself I find it to much work to get legal pictures off the internet. I find it much easier to take my own photo for my blog post.
3. It is Easier. Part 2.
Making sure you can use a picture legally is only one part of the battle. You also have to find a picture which looks nice, and suits your blog post. Yes, there are a lot of pictures out there on the internet that are free, but you would be surprised how difficult it is to find one that you really like. You may find lots of pictures that are good enough, but for me the pictures I find are never quite what I imagined. I find that it is easier to think of how I can take my own picture rather than searching and searching for the right one which can become quite tedious. On the other hand, there are certain topics that are hard to take pictures for. Like if you want to blog about Paris. Unless you have been to Paris and taken photos, it is hard to come up with something and may be easier to get something off the internet. It is not impossible to come up with a picture you could take yourself, and you could even draw something, or make french food. But, it may be easier to just see what pictures are online. However, the majority of the time I believe you can think of something to take a picture of rather than searching on the internet. In short, it takes a few minutes to take your own picture but can take some time to find one online.
4. It is Fun.
If you are blogging, odds are you already have a creative gene, and taking pictures can be a fun way to use that gene. When you take a picture for your blog you get to think of what you want, and then you stage the picture and can do whatever you want with it. This can be quite fun. There are also no limits on what you want to do other then copyright limits for brands. You can be as extravagant or conservative as you want with your pictures. But, to really know if you are the sort of person who likes to take pictures, you just have to do it yourself and see if you like it. Maybe you won't like it. Maybe you'd rather spend hours searching online. Or maybe you really will like taking pictures and it will make the blogging experience that much better for you. Either way, taking your pictures is worth a go and you have little to lose in the process but a lot to gain.
On an end note, you don't need any fancy equipment to take pictures for your blog. Better cameras will take better pictures, but nowadays most cameras are pretty good, even phone cameras. I personally use my iPad mini to take pictures,
and it works quite well. Anyhow, I encourage you to experiment with taking your own pictures, and hope you have a happy time blogging!
Where do you get your pictures from?
1. It is Safer.
If you use your own photos, people can't come back on you for stealing photos because the photos on your blog are your own creation. (I have personally not had people complain to me about taking photos, as I have used photos legally. But I have heard of other people getting in trouble with it). If you don't already know, you can't just go to Google images and take any picture you want, even if you are not using it for commercial purposes (i.e. to make money). This is because the photo does not belong to you. If you want to use a picture from Google images for a school project, I do not imagine that you will have the police knocking at your door. However, if you use a Google image on your blog, and that blog becomes immensely popular (which is often the goal), you could be in trouble. If you do want to use a Google image, I would contact the owner and ask permission. But this is a lot of work for a picture, especially if you are going to write a lot of posts. Essentially, to avoid legal hassle it is safest to use your own photos, because you are the one who took them and they are your property to do what you want with them.
2. It is Easier.
I know. I just told you how it's illegal to take pictures from the internet. However, there are sites that you can get pictures from legally, but it is a lot of hassle. One of those sites is flickr.com. On Flickr you can go to the creative commons and use pictures that have the attribution sign next to them, but you must link back to the picture. However, with my experience the only way to put the picture on your blog if you use blogger is to click the blog icon for blogger, it then goes live, but if you want to use it in a post you have to revert it to a draft and add your text. If you already have a draft written you have to copy and paste the text into the post with the picture from Flickr, and then often I have had the font size screw up so you have to play around with the font to the right size. Whereas, if you use your own photo, you just take a picture, upload it to your computer, upload it to blogger, and put it in your post. It is a lot simpler and more straightforward. There are also other sites which you can get free photos from, but I do not know much about them, and some sites require you to pay a membership fee. Also, regardless of the site you still have to go to the trouble of making sure you are not doing anything wrong and that you can legally use someone else's picture which you find. But maybe you don't mind doing that. If that is so, that's great, but for myself I find it to much work to get legal pictures off the internet. I find it much easier to take my own photo for my blog post.
3. It is Easier. Part 2.
Making sure you can use a picture legally is only one part of the battle. You also have to find a picture which looks nice, and suits your blog post. Yes, there are a lot of pictures out there on the internet that are free, but you would be surprised how difficult it is to find one that you really like. You may find lots of pictures that are good enough, but for me the pictures I find are never quite what I imagined. I find that it is easier to think of how I can take my own picture rather than searching and searching for the right one which can become quite tedious. On the other hand, there are certain topics that are hard to take pictures for. Like if you want to blog about Paris. Unless you have been to Paris and taken photos, it is hard to come up with something and may be easier to get something off the internet. It is not impossible to come up with a picture you could take yourself, and you could even draw something, or make french food. But, it may be easier to just see what pictures are online. However, the majority of the time I believe you can think of something to take a picture of rather than searching on the internet. In short, it takes a few minutes to take your own picture but can take some time to find one online.
4. It is Fun.
If you are blogging, odds are you already have a creative gene, and taking pictures can be a fun way to use that gene. When you take a picture for your blog you get to think of what you want, and then you stage the picture and can do whatever you want with it. This can be quite fun. There are also no limits on what you want to do other then copyright limits for brands. You can be as extravagant or conservative as you want with your pictures. But, to really know if you are the sort of person who likes to take pictures, you just have to do it yourself and see if you like it. Maybe you won't like it. Maybe you'd rather spend hours searching online. Or maybe you really will like taking pictures and it will make the blogging experience that much better for you. Either way, taking your pictures is worth a go and you have little to lose in the process but a lot to gain.
On an end note, you don't need any fancy equipment to take pictures for your blog. Better cameras will take better pictures, but nowadays most cameras are pretty good, even phone cameras. I personally use my iPad mini to take pictures,
and it works quite well. Anyhow, I encourage you to experiment with taking your own pictures, and hope you have a happy time blogging!
Where do you get your pictures from?
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