There's a great article posted on a blog today about creative commons.
Take a look at the little girl in the above picture. Then think about these questions.
1. Who owns the photo?
2. Who can use the photo?
3. Does Blogger (Google) have any interest in this photo?
4. What are the stipulations for use of this photo?
5. What would you have to do to protect the photo from others using it?
These are many questions that come to mind when you post a photo on blogger or on Flickr.
Flickr states: "Respect the copyright of others. This means don't steal photographs that other people have taken and pass them off as your own. (That’s what favorites are for.)"
What this implies is that you're free to link to other's photos but not free to borrow them if without linking back to his/her site/posting. But does this mean you should ask the person who took the photograph if you can use it? I say, absolutely!
Creative Commons sets guidelines for photographers to use with regard to the photos they post on the Internet.
"Creative Commons provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. You can use CC to change your copyright terms from 'All Rights Reserved' to 'Some Rights Reserved.'"
In other words they let you change the automatic* stipulation that any photographs you post are all-rights-reserved photos to other stipulations that you can choose from, "like some rights reserved."
*According to templetons.com, "all major nations follow the Berne copyright convention. For example, in the USA, almost everything created privately and originally after April 1, 1989 is copyrighted and protected whether it has a notice or not." This is known as the Berne Copyright Convention.
Moral of the Story: Read the fine print. Don't go posting on a site that lets them have your rights. And don't take others' photographs without asking!
I sure would like to go back to Paris for a while. I’ve been there twice - no, three times, and have a nice big box of negatives that I look through once in a while. It’s been at least 10 years since my last visit. But I love the Paris morning. On a slightly chilly April morning - the light envelopes you.
Next up in my web world - among so many things to do - is a gallery where I can put my non-New York work - hopefully without scaring off too many customers. I’m also working on an inexpensive proof book (with WHCC) that can be used as a portfolio and sent out to some of my design firm prospects. I have to say that I have fallen in love with WHCC - if you can fall in love with a vendor. Another vendor I’ve got a crush on is Uline. You’d be surprised how emotional I can get about corrugated cardboard (200 lb).
An “electrico” or traditional Lisbon tram. There are many expensive tours on double decker buses, but a ride with electrico 28 will also bring you to most attractions and actually get much closer to some of them.
It’s also much cheaper - and more fun!
The sign on the tram says “colinas de Lisboa” - “Hills of Lisbon” and indeed, it has a steep hill to climb.
Like Rome, Lisbon is built on 7 hills and there are “Miradouras” (”golden views”) almost everywhere.
Two shows are highlighted in Newsweek's recent article, "Is Photography Dead"
The show at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, "The Art of the American Snapshot, 1888–1978 and the show at Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, "Depth of Field" are two shows the show how photography has evolved since its inception.
Peter Plagens, the writer of the piece states that a "mimetic new medium" was formed in 1839 when a print was made from a negative. In other words he describes photography during that period as realism--real subjects and objects that the lens captures.
He then goes on to talk about the changes in photography that occurred when everyone started taking pictures with their Kodak Instamatic and Brownie cameras.
Last he moves to the postmodern days of Photoshop, image manipulation that's easy and, well...fake.
Basically Plagen's asserts with reservation that photography is an "easy" medium in which to work. You take a picture with your digital camera, and, if you frame it right, you might get posted on the Internet.
I think a point can be made that there is a difference between a photograph and a snapshot. One is planned from finding the right time, place of the shot to adjusting camera settings to framing and shooting. The other is a picture taken casually without much thought.
Plagens focuses on post-processing (using Photoshop) as the beginning of the end of photography.
It would be better to say that photography's last step (using Photoshop) is a small part of what a photographer does and when it is done it's no simple task.
You've probably seen pictures of a gondola.
But have you ever taken a good look at the gondolier, the gondola's driver?
A gondola, if you don't know is a boat that gets you around the city of Venice.
The laws in Venice state that you have to have been born there to row a gondola.
The gondolier faces the bow and pushes with one oar.
Long ago, there used to be thousands of gondoliers rowing their gondolas, but today there are only a few hundred, and most of them serve the tourists.
Five Hints to Create a Sepia-toned Photograph Filled with Motion
I always play with my camera. One of the things I like to do with it is move it in different directions when the shutter is open.
Here are some hints to do just that...
1. If an object, such as a horse and carriage are moving at night, set your camera to Tv mode and then set your shutter speed to 1/2 a second, more if you are daring.
2. Follow the object you are photographing as you shoot, kind of like how a seagull follows a boat. Your objective is to get the object clear among a moving background.
3. Take the photo in Raw format if at all possible so that you can get sepia from the Raw workflow in Photoshop CS 2.
You can do this with any object from your dog catching a frisbee to your baby crawling on the floor.
