Good Friday Morning!
Today is the first chapter in a short series of posts about why I am planning to leave Facebook as the primary outlet for my work. There are a lot of elements that go into a decision like that, and I do not take them lightly, as I have been inspired and encouraged by all of y'all out there that have had interesting or encouraging things to say over the last 3+ years of this operation. This does NOT mean that I am quitting this work - just changing the venue.
One of the primary reasons for the change is the issue of image misappropriation or lack of attribution, which has grown remarkably intense over the last year. I have had to chase folks for attribution that an image is mine, or have had much larger pages or groups share my images with their copy added, with no attribution, no link-back, etc. I am fortunate that I have the resources to credibly threaten legal action over such things, but at the end of the day that is not why I do this work - to have to track and defend my work and threaten folks out in my audience. I'll have further thoughts on upcoming posts as well.
Over the next little stretch, I will be crossposting my work to Instagram (@samueltaylorphoto) and to my website (http://www.samueltaylorphoto.com/todays-photo/), with the intent to move to those media more exclusively soon, and this page will feature a limited selection of my work and featuring content from my website, directing folks to those other venues.
With all that said, I will try to go out proudly, featuring images that I am excited about.
Today's image from late last summer, just before our trip out West. We had driven up to the rail trail at Masontown, and went for a hike in the warm summer evening, aiming for the falls the whole way, hoping to catch them in the evening light. As we approached, there were several people swimming just below the falls, and we pulled up a rock on the far side of the creek, and ate a snack basking in it all. As the sun faded, they packed up, pantomimed a "have a nice evening!" to us, and we were able to set up and make this image. Just another evening in West Virginia.
Summer Evening Swimming Hole - West Virginia