reptiliaherps:
wheremyscalesslither:
kaijutegu:
I know this isn’t something that gets talked about much on reptiblr, but I think it’s worth it to address. People in the art community know this already- or should, at least- but it’s worth talking about in the context of animal pictures. For most images, it doesn’t take long at all to find the source! And I mean source. I don’t mean “pinterest” or “google,” I mean the actual photographer or establishment that owns the rights to the photo.
For instance, let’s say that I wanted to post an image of a reticulated python in the wild. I type that into google search, hit images, and- there!
Clicking on the image takes me to… a forum thread about a hypothetical fight between a retic and an orangutan.
That’s highly unlikely to be the actual source of the image! Use some common sense when considering if something’s a source or not. Pinterest is pretty much never a source. Forum threads are great sources for pictures of peoples’ animals and health-type things, but they’re not likely to be a source of professional-grade pictures. So, how do I find the source of the picture? Easy! Just right-click and “search google for this image.”
Looks like it’s posted in at least one other place…
That gives the photographer’s name- and a flickr link!
A flickr page is very likely to be the source of an image. Going to that link shows that the person is very clearly a reptile photographer and wouldn’t you know it, the photographer of this picture! Here’s the source of the image clear as day, and it took about fifteen seconds of actual work to find it. It only takes a few seconds to properly source most images. Some are a little trickier! If you’re looking for pictures to post, try searching flickr directly- or arkive.org. Arkive’s a great site for wildlife photography and has many rare species! Arkive also watermarks all of its pictures with the photographer’s name, so be sure not to crop that out!
Once you’ve found the source, just link it. You can put the photographer’s name on the post if you want, but it’s best to also have a link to the site. Be respectful of the photographer’s wishes, too- if they say “don’t repost,” then don’t repost! And if they have a tumblr presence, reblog from them, don’t repost. You wouldn’t want pictures you took to be used without credit- remember when there was that Snek facebook page and people freaked out because they weren’t crediting the pictures they reposted? There’s a reason people were upset- those pictures were their work! Respect the effort that goes into the pretty photographs and link back to the source. It’s the polite thing to do.
Important!!!
There’s a specific blog that has been in the limelight many times for outright refusal to source images of the venomous snakes they post.
Remember to source your images, folks! And avoid blogs, pages, etc who do not.
Yesss I love this.