ᎡᎾᏚᎬ blinked twice, inching her face closer to her phone, her eyebrows knitting themselves together in confusion. She had just woken up from a good night's sleep, sitting up from her bed at seven in the morning. Hundreds of notifications could be seen plastered on her lockscreen, all of what seemed to happen overnight. About a few hundred comments and thirty warnings from Instagram, Rose concluded while trying to make sense of the mess and all the while scrolling through the notifications on her lockscreen.
Most people would be happy to receive this much attention, much more appreciated if you were an underground photographer and have their work gone unnoticed for about three and a half years or what felt like an eternity like Rose. But that wasn't the case at the current moment, Rose felt confused and quite terrified. Fame doesn't exactly happen overnight because that is sketchy and a bit too easy in Rose's state of mind, yet it wasn't what was bothering her.
The word "warning" made her head pulse. In fact, goody-two-shoes Rose never had a
warning in her life. And to suddenly receive thirty warning notifications overnight can be quite a shock to anyone, especially to her. She blinks twice yet again in disbelief of what she had just seen.
Gathering every ounce of courage she had, she unlocks her phone and opens up her
Instagram only to be greeted by bad remarks as she looks through the comments. Aside from the bad remarks on her photos, some of the comments showed a strange yet peculiar pattern.
"What the heck?" Rose managed to mumble under her breath, her eyes shaking a bit.
"Photo by Gael."
Photo by Gael, almost every comment had those three words as if it were a
requirement of some sort. Just about any Instagram content creator knows of the famous Instagram photographer Gael Flores or most commonly known as @gaelvish as an Instagram username. He rose to fame a few months ago due to his reign in several photography competitions and has become an idol to those who choose to pursue the art of photography. But the real question was, why was his name appearing everywhere on Rose's comments section? Feeling completely puzzled, she leaves the comments and proceeds to the warnings despite her fear.
Rose was definitely not the type of person to claim any form of work as her own but
like a slap to the face, all thirty warnings displayed "Copyright Claim." To no one's shock, all thirty posts were reported by the same exact user, @gaelvish. At the moment, everything finally started to come together. That Gael Flores, the famous photographer, had placed a copyright claim on the photos she worked so hard to shoot. Rose had always dreamed of being noticed by someone of value but certainly not like this.
An online work portfolio, that is what Instagram was for photographers like Rose and Gael. Rose could feel her name in the photography industry being tarnished bit by bit through every single comment and she's actually quite surprised that Instagram hasn't deleted her account due to the thirty warnings issued against her. She slides out of the bed and hides away her phone inside a drawer in a small side desk from beside her bed with a sigh.
In all honesty, she did not know if she was angry or just upset. All Rose knew is that
she had better things to do other than sulk. She must handle this situation properly and hopefully with a levelled head, maybe not blow up or cry like a baby in someone's face. Scratching her head, she walks over from one side of the room to the other where most of her work is processed.
On that side of the room, there is a table topped with messy photography equipment from last night's photo opportunity. In effect of tiredness, Rose just threw her equipment on the table all willy-nilly and lazy last night. She didn't bother to clean it up this morning either.
Stringed along with her equipment is her desktop computer that was still open with
Photoshop on the screen. She edits her own photos, she won't dare hire an editor in fear of not capturing the aspired look and feel of the shot. Well, that's what she says to whoever asks. The main reason is that Rose is incredibly cheap to an extent and questions why she would hire an editor when she could do it herself for free, right? Just above the table is a cork board filled with some of Rose's favorite polaroid shots she's taken for the past years she's been in the university and a few sticky notes scattered here and there to remind Rose of her overdue projects and similar tasks.
