Photographers everywhere would like you to please stop doing this one thing...

When you hire a photographer it is because you see something in their work that you love. Something about the quality of their imagery that captures your attention. This quality takes time to perfect. Lots of time, years & years. We spend countless hours perfecting our craft. We take pride in our work. We enjoy seeing our work shared and liked and favorited across the web, it truly is an honor, but....please stop adding filters to our work.

I love Instagram as much as the next person. Many of you found my work through hashtags on Instagram. IG is a great marketing tool and aren't we all lucky for this amazing free service. But I wish they would have never created these god awful filters. They have become such a sore spot for photographers everywhere.

Have you ever painted your home? You go to the store, pick out the paint, have it mixed and it is perfect! You love it. You spend hours of labor painting, layer after layer until you get it right. Then imagine someone coming to your house and painting over your beautiful paint job. They did not do a good job at all, and you hate it, it doesn't reflect all your hard work. This is how we feel. It is heartbreaking. And it happens way too often.

Example of what we see when you filter our images.

Creative Market posted a really great blog about things photographers cringe at and this was on the list.

In my contract it states that adding any filter of any kind is against my terms. I know you may think "But the photos are of me, why can't I do what I want?" At the end of the day we, artists own our intellectual property and when you agree to a contract you are agreeing that you will not alter the images in any way and that often includes adding filters and cropping the image. Going forward I will not work with anyone who violates these terms, whether you are an established client or not. I will refer you to another photographer who will likely not want to work with you either.

Guys, it really comes down to common courtesy, and respect. We work really hard. We obsess over our work. we spend tons of money on software and equipment JUST for you. We want to please you, we want you to be happy with our quality of work & in return we only ask that you value our work by not defacing our pictures.

Be thoughtful, be respectful.