The Watermark Project

If you have ever used to Google to search for an image of something, or needed a photograph to decorate your website or term paper with, chances are you have stumbled across an image with a watermark.

Usually these images are high resolution, really nice, and of someone's beautiful face yet, they are never useable because they all have a huge, off-white / transparent logo slapped across them. Usually the logo says something along the lines of “LifeMemory Studios” or something.

What I have noticed though, is that these pictures all look very similar; they almost always include: a beautiful woman, a large blue sky, a stunning landscape, a rustic old train... and a terrible air-brushed effect over the whole thing.

My idea for an art project would be to create a sort of anti-watermarked series of photos. A collection of low resolution, extremely grainy, irrelevant images; most of them would include: ugly people, gray skies, dead animals, messy houses, and unappealing landscapes. And then, on all of them, put an obnoxious watermark on them.

My goal with this would be to cause my audience to think: “Why are these images watermarked? Who would want  to use these?”. I want my audience to question what they think is a “good” image. Why do images are images with watermarks typically regarded as worthy of purchasing the rights to. I want to provoke a redefining of the value of a good photograph.