There’s been a lot of discussions over the year about how to protect your pictures’ copyright (e.g.). The number one method appears to be watermarking, which makes sense, though it really won’t prevent anyone from still sticking that picture on a random site. I, personally, haven’t thought much about copyright, but of course, I am not making money from photography.

As I am buying my first SLR camera (a Canon Rebel XSI) pretty soon, I thought a little what I want and don’t want out of photography. I like to make good pictures of course. I like to become a master of the medium. I like to express myself. And, I’d like to be able to take pictures whenever I want to. But one thing I noticed, from taking over 5000 pictures with a Canon Ixus, with less than 5% with me in it, is that I also like to be a part of the picture-experience.

What inspired my idea was my recent upgrade to an Intel Mac with my very first webcam—that’s right, I never saw the attraction until now. It rules! To anyone used to video-Skyping, you’re familiar with the huge video of your friend, and the tiny video of yourself at the bottom.

So, I’m thinking, why not have the same thing for pictures? Taking a picture would then look like this:

Instead of having a pesky and rather ugly watermark, you can see who actually made that picture. You could of course have a little mini-cam in your camera, pointed at you and taking an up-to-date shot of what you look like — that one was taken while I had the flu, some months ago — but a static picture will do the trick most of the time.

What do you think? Should photo-pubishers like Picasa, iPhoto, Flickr, etc. integrate such a feature? Would it have any useful function to you, as a photographer or as a viewer? Share your thoughts!

Vincent