When I got home later and put the children to bed, I started going through the days editing. I normally start by going through the images and deleting all that are no good. After a while I came across this image below of a lone bluebell, thinking there was a blemish/fly in the bottom left hand corner I enlarged it to edit out the problem and was stunned by what I found.
I quickly uploaded the photo onto my personal Facebook account asking friends what they thought “Fairy or Fly?” expecting everyone to just laugh at me, but I was inundated with comments which added to my suspicion that it did actually look like a fairy!
Feeling a bit braver now I knew I wouldn’t look like a complete idiot, I decided to post the same image to my Facebook Page. I went to bed and thought nothing more of it, until the next morning at 8.30am when I had a phone call from a press agency wanting to know if I would like to share my story!
That is The Power of Social Media!
From that point on for about 7 days my website and Facebook went absolutely crazy. My story was featured in the Daily Mail and Mirror online, nationally and then internationally. It was in the Metro, the local papers, big named mags posted it online like Country Living, Good Housekeeping and Redbook. Even the Huffington post helped share it across the USA.
I was asked to do radio interviews, be on the local news and overall the story was shared over 50’000 times, that I could see. It was definitely fun while it lasted, but I learnt a few lessons on the way. What really happens when one of your images gets worldwide attention? Here are the pro’s and cons of having an image in the spotlight and some things you must consider.
People will steal your work! FACT!
No matter how much you try to protect an image, once it is on internet it’s fair game to the greedy and sometimes rude journalists trying to make a quick buck. One journalist even stole a personal family photo of myself AND my children off my Facebook account to use in her story!
It is within your rights to ask people to take your image of their site if they don’t have permission to publish it.
I got asked by many to use the image for free and it is totally up to you what you say. Just remember it is your image, your property and you have every right to ask someone to take it off their site if they don’t have your permission. Just a polite, “Hi there, I’ve just noticed you have one of my photos on your page, please could you remove it. Or, if you would like to keep it I charge *** and accept bank transfers or Paypal. Thank you.”
People will make things up just to make it a better story.
Each interview I did the Presenter or Journalist asked if I believe in fairies… I’m in my 40’s for goodness sake, so my answer was always “that I think it’s lovely for people to believe that there is more to life than what we see!”... Every single article written stated I believed in fairies and that Tinkerbell was my favourite film!
The public will not always like your work.
OK, so taking a picture of what looked like a fairy was always going to cause some people to leave negative comments. In general I think I faired quite well, with most looking at it as just a lovely fairy tale to tell their kids. But if you haven’t got broad shoulders don’t attempt to publicize your work, especially if it's a bit quirky, people can be quite mean when they want to be.
Don’t be afraid to ask for payment for your images.
This sounds crazy, but if I hadn’t have stated to the press office dealing with the image that I wanted payment, they wouldn’t have even mentioned it and I would have got nothing! Once you have given someone permission to use your image, it is hard to go back and ask after it’s been published. Ask for a contract stating the terms and conditions which is signed by both parties.
Remember that sometimes accreditation is better than payment.
Trying to set up a photography business can be hard work, so when the local papers contacted me, I was happy to do a deal where they advertised my business for the story. This definitely helps with building your name in the area and can be much more beneficial than the money.
Thankfully all has quietened done now, my seven days of fame have long gone and all is back to normal. However, just in case fairies really do exist we were sent this lovely fairy house (below) from The Magic Door Store, to keep them safely tucked up in our garden. You never, know, they might come knocking again one day :-)
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