ArcanaPhotographic

I've been reading the forums (I should get into posting, I'm mainly just a lurker, probably a confidence thing), and there was a discussion on watermarks on photography. Someone claimed that they got a lot more favourites after they removed watermarks from their images. I suppose at the moment, my images being used isn't a problem, and I know that people can easily remove them in 5 minutes with a crop tool or clone brush, what I sort of wanted to stop was people just sharing and forgetting to attribute, but if it's going to harm the number of people sharing and liking my work, then I don't want to do that either. I'm thinking of going back through and taking out the watermarks on my pictures, and only using them for hi-res copies. Opinions?

Another slight problem I'm having is with a profile picture. I am, let's be blunt, CRAP at taking self portraits, I don't have a particularly appealing face, and when I do take my photo, I can't line myself up properly, and I can't stop having a sort of fixed, gormless face. I feel that I need something, and being a photographer, it should probably be a photo. SO, I got one of my models (Lyra) to go out with me and be at the other end of the camera, I set it up the camera and the lighting (little speed light balanced on someone's grave,) and she sorted the framing, pointed the autofocus in the right direction and we were away. I am not a model. It's really hard. I don't know what I look like really, I don't know what stupid face I'm making! Anyway, after getting back, I left the photos on the card for a day or so before I could be bothered to edit them. In the meanwhile Nero Backup, decided that my SD card was my portable hard disk, freaked out when it wasn't and managed to wipe all the photos off it. Upshot is that I've got to go and do it all again.