Permissions

The other day a friend of mine was looking for a way to protect her property.  She was finding her photographs on various sites across the web without credit or permission.  Her pictures are well composed, often deeply moving, and she can make the simplest thing appear to be tinged with magic.  Often I can tell it is hers just by the feel of the picture, before I note whose it is because they are like looking into a dream.
So imagine my surprise when, last night while searching for the answer to a random question that arrived by email, I stumbled across this:

That's my kitchen with my still in my picture from my blog.  No credit.
Later, looking for something about making tinctures, I found this:

Come on now.  I can recognize my own handwriting on this picture of my tinctures from my blog.  I ate the salsa that came in that squatty jar behind the holy basil tincture.  No credit, but the author IS asking for tips.  I have one...
We're not naive enough not to realize that putting things online means they can be considered up for grabs, but seriously now, would it be that hard to note where the picture came from?  Give the person who did the work a little notice?  In the past, I've run across entire blog posts copied with pictures included, and pasted to another blog.  That's a whole different animal that required some reporting to the host, but pictures shouldn't be this tough.
8 years ago this blog was started, and pictures are often the catalyst for a post.  A camera is nearly always with me, and when my childhood friend Patty showed me the macro setting 3 years later (yeah, really...) all hell broke loose.  In that time 1000's of photos have been posted here on the blog or on the magazine's Facebook page.  I am not alone.  All of my herbie friends share this penchant for showing each other the offerings of nature and what we create with those leaves, blossoms and roots. For many of us, it's part of what we do for a living.  So there's a very easy answer.
Just add credit.  Better would be a link because often that gives your reader even more information.  The pictures above led to A) a full step-by-step pictorial view of a distillation and B) simple ways to preserve herbs. 
You want to make a friend?  Ask for permission.  Who knows?  Maybe the originator will even want to link back to your piece, but at the very least they won't feel like you ripped them off.  I don't know anyone who would deny permission for their photos to be used with proper crediting (although I probably shouldn't try to speak for everyone).