Sharing a love of photography through pictures

One of my favorite things about photography is sharing my pictures with others. If something is beautiful enough for me to pull over, stop my car, and take a photo, then I believe someone else will enjoy it too. I enjoy looking at photographs others have taken.

Sometimes for inspiration - other times for pure enjoyment of the image. And yes, there are those times when I think I wish I had taken that.

It has been almost a year now since I started taking photography more seriously. Not just clicking away at random, but looking at my backgrounds, my subjects, and the lighting with an end result in mind. I have recently joined a group of fellow photographers and although we all have different equipment and varying levels of experience, we have a camaraderie when we get together. I love all the knowledge we share and the group support as a whole is amazing. 

However, I have noticed one thing that we do differ on - How we choose to share our photographs with others. 

A small percentage of those in the group place a watermark on their photos. I have never watermarked my pictures, but have always gone back and forth with this concept. I understand the purpose of using a watermark, but sometimes feel that it distracts from the actual photograph. Also, if someone is going to "steal" an image, then they will just crop it regardless of a watermark. What it all boils down to is ethics and morals.

So this brings me back to why I love sharing photographs. If a friend of mine shares a photo on social media platform and I like it, then I want to be able to share it with others - giving proper credit of course. If they took the time to post it, then I would think they are proud of the work and want others to see it. However, I have discovered that not everyone wants their pictures shared in this manner; claiming that it is stealing and promoting copyright infringement. This is something that I don't understand.

Why bother taking beautiful photographs and posting them if you don't want to share them for fear that someone will steal your work? Personally, I am flattered if someone wants to re-post, re-tweet, or share any of my photographs. Giving me credit for taking the photo of course. 

What are your feelings on sharing your photographs with others?