Ryan Thon Catchs a touchdown pass

High-school football season has ended and while I am still finishing up a few projects related to that I have also been photographing my Alma mater, Alfred University, in their playoff run.

I am trying to create a business model that works in a virtual visual world where expectations drift towards the free flow of information. Download protection and watermarking only goes so far especially when you forget to use them and your images end up all over Facebook with no attribution.

Maybe I should be satisfied that people like my work enough to use it on a social network. Money is nice but it’s not the only motivator I have for the work I do; I take pictures so people will see them and share in the experience. That is whats happening.

Of course my other motivation is putting together a killer portfolio so people will pay me to make a photograph and if nothing else I am working towards that goal.

I also think that watermarks distract from the image and wish I didn’t have to use them but  being able to pay back my student loans outweighs my internal artist at this point.