A couple years ago, I remember seeing the Facebook notification, clicking on it, then having to re-read it several times to make sure I understood what the commenter had posted under one of my photographs. Seemingly she was offering me some constructive criticism on a preview photo I had posted for a client. It was clear from her critique that she didn’t know anything about off camera flash, so I took her words with a whole handful of grains of salt, and she ended with “Still a nice photo though!” No matter how she had intended her words to come across, all I knew was that I didn’t like them being attached to my photograph out in public — and I really, really didn’t want my client to be hurt by them.

I was reminded of that earlier this week when one of my friends faced a similar situation, but this one was much more public and inflammatory. In this case, the commenter harshly and directly criticized the appearance of the photographer’s young subject. It was an inaccurate assessment, and completely uncalled for.

Online, we can hide behind our keyboards, behind avatars instead of our own pictures, behind screen names. We can insist it’s not “real” life and that we’re actually nice people, rude online comments aside. But what we write online are real words. They hurt. And when it comes to professional photographers’ images shared online, they not only hurt the person who took the photograph, but potentially that person’s business, and quite likely the person who is the subject of the photograph and their family and friends, too.

So when you get online, remember what you learned as a child. Only, when you get online, you don’t have to worry about keeping your mouth closed if you don’t have something nice to say — you just have to stop your fingers from typing anything unkind. It isn’t that hard, really. I mean, there’s even the backspace and delete keys to help you out if you type the words before you can stop yourself.

We all need to treat others with the same respect and kindness we would hope to receive from them. And we’ll all be much happier if we do.

~ Laura