This photo essay by the NY Times of cities during the quarantine is eerily beautiful.
Tag: photography
Walking in L.A.
For the past 15 years, someone has been walking around Los Angeles, mapping and photographing their trips, and posting them online.
I am slowly making my way through them, but the walk from Union Station to Hollywood Hills is currently my favorite.
2017 – Of Goals and Hopes
Happy New Year!
I am not one to make New Year’s resolutions but as we enter 2017 I did want to share some goals I have for this year. Things that I hope to accomplish and hopes I want to strive for.
- Take more photos. I was looking through my 2016 albums and realized that I did not take nearly enough photos, so I am challenging myself with a goal of taking at least one photo a day and posting it on my Flickr page. I posted the image for January 1 below.
- Travel more. My travel in 2016 really fell off for a number of reasons but I would like to get back to seeing the world. A few of my destination goals in 2017 are the Balkans, Georgia, Namibia, Laos, Vietnam, and Japan.
- Read more. I have let reading really fall by the wayside over the last few years but my goal in 2017 is to read 50 books. I will be tracking my progress using Goodreads’ challenge tracker.
- Donate more. We have a few causes that we love helping and it is a hope and goal of mine in 2017 that we pursue those more closely both monetarily and with our time. I also want to be a source of encouragement for others to participate and contribute in charity and caring for those who are less fortunate.
So, those are my goals for 2017. I hope to post some of the photography work here, but definitely keep me honest via that Flickr page. Not seeing a new photo in a while? Send me a note on Twitter. What are your hopes and goals for 2017?
A Portland Sunset
The last week of storms have had amazing sunsets accompanying them. This one was particularly breathtaking, the clouds created a shadow over where I was taking the picture and completely backlit the hills you see in the distance. The deep orange and yellow were just too amazing to not take a photo. This was taken on my iPhone but I even ran back inside and loaded the battery and memory card in my DSLR camera and was able to get a few good shots with it as well.
West Texas
Tokyo: The Peculiar Traveler
Alex Cornell and his girlfriend Nikki Desuasido shot some amazing video in Tokyo and compiled it into a 7-minute montage. While I am not a huge fan of the voiceover, the video itself is well edited and produced and creates a fun little travel diary about Japan’s largest city.
On Image Use, Abuse, and Where We’re Headed
I think we have all done it, at least once, I know I have. Use an image on a website, blog, etc. without the permission or consent of the photographer. A quick search through this site shows an instance or two where I have done exactly that (they’re noted and will be dealt with). In my own experience it’s been about speed and ease of finding the images on search engines that make this such an attractive method of putting images on my blog. But, it’s wrong.
I’ve mulled over this post for the past few weeks and have actually rewritten it a number of times. My perspective is two-fold, as an (amateur) photographer I take pride in my photographs and want to see them well represented, but as a blogger I want an easy route to getting perfect images for my site. After a recent case of unauthorized image use, I thought it was appropriate to speak up on what I am beginning to see trend into a bigger and bigger issue.
Around January 19, 2011 I noticed this tweet by Twitter user Kyle Nielsen. I follow Kyle for his quick hits of Houston news and info and this particular tweet caught my eye because it involved Hubcap Grill, a local place I frequent. When I looked at the image, I immediately realized that it was the picture of Hubcap owner Ricky Craig that I had taken for a Loop Scoop article. At first, I was a little dumbfounded. The image had clearly been edited, as the original on The Loop Scoop has a green border. I contacted Paul at The Loop Scoop to ask if he knew anything about it, to which he replied that he did not. CultureMap had taken the picture without my consent or Paul’s.
Maybe my immediate response on Twitter was a little over the top. I let loose, asking others why CultureMap would do such a thing. They have a team of photographers, writers, and editors, why would they need to take an image from another website? The responses I received were from a few people who had similar experiences with CultureMap. Some were more vocal than others. As the night drew on, I decided that per my friend Patrick’s advice, the next morning would see me drafting a DMCA takedown notice.
While I was sleeping I received a couple of messages from CultureMap. One asking if I wanted the image removed and another saying the image had been removed from the article. I also had an e-mail in my inbox from Clifford Pugh, Editor-in-Chief of CultureMap. It read as follows:
Dear Mr. Segraves,
Your Twitter thread from last night was forwarded to me, so I wanted to reply to you. I was a bit taken aback by the tone of the comments and hope if this ever happens in the future — which I sincerely hope it doesn’t — we can have a civil discussion on the subject.Since CultureMap launched in 2009, we have posted 50,000 photos and I can honestly recall only two or three times that a photographer asked us to remove a photo. So the comment that this happens all the time just isn’t true.I’m proud of the fact that we make every effort to give credit where credit is due. We will continue to do our best to make sure we give credit and if we mess up, we will immediately address the situation.Your photo was very nice. I wish you the best in your future photography endeavors.—
Clifford PughEditor-in-Chief
Since they had removed the photograph I decided to not send a DMCA take-down notice and just go about my day, but I could not help but dwell on the above e-mail. Mr. Pugh seems to think that my comments on Twitter were uncivil. I am sorry he feels that way, I thought my photograph being used without my consent was uncivil and reacted accordingly. The two other paragraphs in his e-mail are very important as well. The second, stating that CultureMap has 50,000 photos and has only been asked to remove a photo a few times, is completely misleading. “Having” something means it’s yours. And the fact that only a few people have asked to have their photos removed could also mean a lot of people have no clue their photographs are on your website. The third paragraph is also unsettling. “We will continue to do our best to make sure we give credit …”, great, I am glad you are crediting photographers but what if the photo was sold to the original person using it? What if it was licensed (take a look around their website, there seem to be a lot of AP/Reuters images)? More than credit is necessary in those cases. As well as credit, is CultureMap paying the photographer for their work? Did they even ask if they could use an image? Had I not seen a tweet about the image, I would have never seen that CultureMap had used it. How many other photographers have not noticed their work being used on sites that had not requested permission?
The core problem in this entire situation is that it is implied that it’s the onus of the photographer to protect their work. That notion is utterly ridiculous. Sure, some responsibility of ownership does fall on the photographer but if every photographer completely protected their work then all you would see on the internet is pictures with giant watermarks through the middle of them. The key is for websites, bloggers, etc. to use images that they have either created themselves or those that they have permission to use. That allows photographers to focus on the image thieves.
Had CultureMap taken a few minutes to send a note to The Loop Scoop to ask who took the photograph and for that person’s e-mail, I could have denied permission and they could have moved on. Instead, they searched Google, got an image they liked, edited it, and used it. What this takes is honest people doing honest work. If we are going to stand up against things like SOPA and PIPA then we need to be willing to look at our own websites and say, “everything on here is what I’ve created or asked for permission to use”.
Just like I am sure CultureMap does not want their words used by someone else on a different publication, I do not want my images used places I have not explicitly given permission. Certain things do not fall under Fair Use, images is one. Looking at my tweets and thinking about my response, maybe it was not over the top what I did. Something was stolen from me. Sure, credit was given (though to the website I took the photo for), but I surely was not compensated and I’m guessing CultureMap makes money from the ads they serve on their website. My photograph had a cost associated to it. It took coordination with Ricky, time to take multiple shots and more time to edit the photographs that would be used. CultureMap bypassed that. The work was already done for them.
Bottom line, let’s get back to creating and publishing our own content and then we can work together to take-out the spammers and image thieves that bottom feed. I should not have to worry about my work being used on a legitimate and well-staffed website, I should be able to focus on the places that are selling my images illegally and other shenanigans.
What’s your take?
I would like to thank Patrick O’Keefe and Jonathan Bailey for helping me during this fiasco. Their understanding of the DMCA, plagiarism, and Fair Use was a tremendous help.
[Addendum]
There have been some Tweets put out by the CultureMap team but these two caught my eye:
@jaylee @groovehouse @sensestorm @mikerastiello @reiswigphoto We apologize for any mistakes we’ve made in the past. We’re learning! – link to tweet
And then this gem:
@MikeRastiello @jaylee @groovehouse @sensestorm @reiswigphoto For some photogs, credit is enough. Clearly not for all. #lessonlearned – link to tweet
The notion that CultureMap is “learning” and that’s why these mistakes were made is a poor excuse. Even if they have only been “asked a few times to remove photographs” then that to me would be a red flag that maybe I should consult with an attorney and figure out what the correct way of going forward is.
Jay Lee, who takes some amazing photographs has a great commentary going on Twitter and he gave me permission to repost the tweets here. They are posted in reverse chronological order and each one is linked to the tweet itself.
Obviously this is my fault for taking so many pictures of Houston and Houstonians.
@Bitspitter @wynkoutloud Is there such a thing as a class action invoice? Or an invoice flash mob?
Looking for a Good Camera/Laptop Backpack
For the last year or so I have been using a North Face backpack to carry my laptop, Canon T2i DSLR, and small accessories. This has been sufficient but I am finding that I like to keep my camera put away until I want to take a picture, then return it to the bag. This helps make me less of a target for petty thieves and less of a tourist.
I have not had a lot of luck finding a replacement so I thought I would reach out to others for suggestions. My criteria are fairly simple:
- Ability to hold a Canon T2i DSLR
- Ability to hold a 13-inch laptop
- Ability to hold a few accessories (mostly chargers, a notebook, etc.)
- Rain cover provided or at least rain cover ready
- A small footprint – I would rather it be more compact if possible
A nice to have feature would be the backpack’s ability to hold a single change of clothing on top of the items listed above. It’s not a necessity but would definitely be nice.
Any ideas?
The City Limits
This has been posted all over the internet, but it is so well done, it deserves to be posted again. Dominic Boudreault‘s personal project took a year to complete. It’s a timelapse of Manhattan, Montreal, Quebec City, Chicago, and Manhattan as well as some nature photography. Just wonderful stuff.