When Viewing A Landscape Lighting Designer Builders portfolio make sure it is their work !

When Viewing A Landscape Lighting Designer Builders portfolio make sure it is their work !

By  Mike Gambino

A Matter of Integrity.

Misrepresenting somebody else’s work as one’s own is fraudulent and very unethical. Unfortunately it goes on and is not all that uncommon.

In my years of designing and installing landscape lighting systems I have seen some not so honest service providers who do shoddy work, disappear and do not stand behind their projects when things fall apart. But when it comes to the subject of passing off project photos of other designer’s work as one’s own I feel this ranks up there as one of the worst deceptions possible.

A lot of work goes into each project — design consultation interviews, project design and planning, Installation and project management, adjustments and ongoing maintenance. It’s a multi-layered process. The true masters incorporate a seemingly endless number of factors into their creations, make several rounds of changes, and perform extensive fine-tuning to make everything the best they can.

So it anger me to continually hear about fellow contractors posting photos of others’ masterpieces onto their own Websites. When this happens, a few clicks of the mouse translate into stealing and misrepresenting hours of somebody else’s work, on which they base their reputation and living. In my opinion this is nothing less than theft of intellectual property and nothing short of stealing.

This is not a gray area. It is stealing and lying. In an attempt to justify this behavior, some may argue that they’re not claiming to have done the work, but merely showing examples of what they could do. Does that then mean I can include somebody else’s Pulitzer prize-winning article in my portfolio as an example of what I could do? I don’t think so.

Other scenarios are less black and white. Maybe you built the lighting system, but didn’t design it. In those cases, I strongly believe credit should be shared with the designer, whether it be on your Website or in the media. It doesn’t diminish the impressiveness of your own work to say it was done in collaboration with a design specialist. The same holds true for those who installed one portion of the project, . Don’t imply that you built or designed the whole thing.

Competition has made things ugly out there. Though I don’t agree, some may characterize the underbidding and bad-mouthing as necessary evils in this competitive marketplace to win jobs. But misrepresenting somebody else’s work as one’s own has no place. It is deceiving, fraudulent — and very unnecessary. For the record, every project photograph that appears here, on Gambino Landscape Lighting’s website, social media pages or anywhere else has been designed, built and photographed by me owner operator Mike Gambino.

This landscape lighting blog is published by Mike Gambino of Gambino landscape lighting inc. all rights reserved. Mike is a professional landscape lighting system designer/ builder and has been designing, installing and maintaining landscape lighting systems for more than 29 years. Mike resides in the Los Angeles area with his wife and 2 sons. To visit his website go to www.Gambinolighting.com . To inquire about hiring Mike please click here .

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