The Photographers' Corner 2013-2020

[Mr. Paul]

I'll probably hang in there with LR3 and CS5 for a while longer. $10 a month seems pretty reasonable though to be up to date with the current versions ...

This is an HDR taken yesterday after our mid may snow storm.

 

[Major Tom]

A street portrait from my archives. This was taken on Hollywood Blvd in Feb 2005. These 2 young men were in Hollywood for the day from Compton. They looked at my camera and asked if I was looking for stars to photograph.

 

[Major Tom]

Extras for the film Dreamgirls (a film about Motown and in particular, The Supremes) leaving the set. Downtown Los Angeles. Jan 2006.

 

[Major Tom]

One more for tonight before I bore you all to death. Downtown Los Angeles. Jan 2006.

 

[Walt34]

Playing around in PS last night I cut out one of the flowers with the pen tool. Saved one as a .jpg and another copy as a .png file (the background is transparent although it will display as white in a browser) and was a bit surprised to see a big difference in the images. Both are from the same .psd file.

Edit to add: Just noticed that clicking on the .png file here, the background displays as black.

 

[Major Tom]

Looks like you did a good job of outlining that background Walt. Bet you're glad you got that Wacom tablet!

 

[Major Tom]

I'm going to push my luck and post just one more image. Sharing these reminds me of the commitment to going out and shooting that I used to have, and I'm hoping to reconnect with that by revisiting these shots.

Downtown Los Angeles. Jan 2006.

 

[Walt34]

Bet you're glad you got that Wacom tablet!

You betcha! I'd have carpal tunnel syndrome without it and it's much more precise than a mouse can be. Very, very nice to have. The one I bought was the medium-sized one since I'd never used one, or even seen one IRL. If I had to do it over I'd get the small one since I ended up mapping it to use less than half the area of it. I use my fingers/wrist more than whole arm motions.

At the risk of sounding like a salesguy for Wacom I like it so much I bought a Bamboo (cheaper version) and a copy of Elements for my sister on her birthday and she loves it. She's just getting more into photography, grandchildren are the incentive, but she's on a pretty tight budget.

I'm going to push my luck and post just one more image. Sharing these reminds me of the commitment to going out and shooting that I used to have, and I'm hoping to reconnect with that by revisiting these shots.

Very nice! My first thought was that was a Photoshop composition then I realized that was a billboard behind the building. The composition is harder IRL.

 

[Walt34]

Nature and wildlife class shots. We wuz warned that the definition of "wildlife" might be stretched a bit. The afternoon/evening was heavy overcast, nearby hills in fog, very humid and just short of misting, I'm shooting at ISO 800 and not because I want to, it's that dark at 6:30 PM.

The horse was there (it's a farm) so naturally I shot a few. The bird in the tree was the only actual "wildlife" I saw. The dandelion was lit with a flash and then the shot was adjusted in Lightroom to make it look a bit more (I hope) like afternoon sun.

 

[Walt34]

Does anyone register their photos with the Copyright Office?

I got to thinking about it when reading Get Your Photography on the Web and later today when I ran across this post on Strobist, an admitted rant about a Realtor who wanted free use of one of David Hobby's photos for credit only. While there is a learning curve to registering photos it doesn't look all that hard and after doing it a few times it'd be pretty easy.

Admittedly I have not registered any but I don't post all that many either, here or elsewhere. I did stop posting photos to Flickr because their TOS say essentially they own your photos and can resell them, etc. if you post them there. But that's water under the bridge.

But if I ever get a bug to write a photo blog or something those photos will be registered, and probably Digimarc'd as well.

 

[Major Tom]

I was thinking of writing a self-deprecating reply along the lines of "none of my photos are good enough to warrant stealing anyway" but thinking about it, quite a lot of stock photos that get used for various reasons aren't necessarily that good, they just happen to fulfill the purpose.

I've had a lot of my photos on my Pbase site for nearly 10 years now and to my knowledge, none of them have been taken and used by anyone. To me, the advantages inherent in sharing them outweigh the potential disadvantages. None of them are watermarked or registered. If I were a pro, I'd possibly be looking at this differently.

 

[photoguy]

I've registered photos as both published and unpublished with the copyright office. It's $35 per registration but you can do a bunch of images as a group. They have an online form which should be simple, but I've run into annoying snags with uploads of the images and various browser specific issues with the forms.

I've never had to use the registration as a stick to enforce payment (but I always make sure I receive payment before sending out high-res versions). Personally I think it would be rare that a company seeking to use images for major commercial use (where the licensing fee could be quite high) would just grab an image off the web without trying to acquire reproduction rights legitimately. In most cases, the resolution is too low to be useful for any print use. However, I did receive a signficant sum of money from the Authors Coalition of America for an infringement on a few of my pictures. But in this case the registration of the images was not a factor.

But if I ever get a bug to write a photo blog or something those photos will be registered, and probably Digimarc'd as well.

I don't think digimarc is worth it given google's search by image feature. There's also tineye.

 

[Walt34]

I was thinking of writing a self-deprecating reply along the lines of "none of my photos are good enough to warrant stealing anyway" but thinking about it, quite a lot of stock photos that get used for various reasons aren't necessarily that good, they just happen to fulfill the purpose.

I've also seen photos used in ads that I know I and others here could have done better with. That's one of the things that made me think of it. Stock pays so little it hardly seems worth the bother to even upload them. I guess if I had thousands of images on a site enough might sell in a year to buy a dinner. At least that's my impression.

But here's the thing. Assume for the moment that one of your images was stolen and used in an ad. The penalty for not registering the photo is many thousands of dollars that you don't even have to spend any money to recover. The law specifies that attorney's fees, in addition to damages, are to be paid by the copyright violator. But if the images are not registered you don't have a case.

I'd sure be kicking myself in the butt over that.

 

[Major Tom]

I know nothing about these matters, but if you have the original RAW file, surely you could prove ownership of the image that way? In theory you could, but perhaps there is no mechanism in place for proving copyright that way.

 

[Walt34]

I know nothing about these matters, but if you have the original RAW file, surely you could prove ownership of the image that way?

It doesn't matter. There is a clock ticking from the instant a photograph is published, register it too late and well, you're too late and you have lost the right to sue. Copyright enforcement is funny that way, not like other areas of law. This is an excerpt from one of the Kelby Training videos. The entire video was about an hour. They explain the "why" of registration in the first five minutes. I think this is important stuff for everyone who owns a camera to know.

Here's a short (a bit over 9 minutes) video that describes why it's important: KelbyTraining.com - Why Register Your Photos with the Copyright Office? - YouTube

This one is an hour and a half. I watched it quite a while ago but it is worth the time, but even I couldn't do it all at once. Registration Counts: How to Copyright Your Images - YouTube

 

[Ronstar]

A red winged blackbird

 

[Mr. Paul]

These were all taken in the last couple of days with a Canon 5DMKII, 300mm f4 lens and 1.4 extender, taken through single pane glass (from the living room). Cropped and edited in Lightroom 3.

Stellars Jay


Junco


Hairy Woodpecker


Rose-breasted Grosbeak




Female Grosbeak

 

[Walt34]

Nice view from the living room!

I wandered out in the back yard to the edge of the wooded area, shot some with a macro lens. And later on got this shot of the burned out house that I've been wanting to do for a while. DW says I am insensitive.

 

[Ronstar]

Great Blue Heron

 

[Walt34]

Got a set of close-up filters in the mail yesterday so had to go out back and play with them. The first one is cropped to show more detail.

 

[Mr. Paul]

This is 7 miles north of Westcliffe looking south ... Monday afternoon



Luckiest dog in the world ... Tues afternoon

 

[mathjak107]

took the fuji x100s back into history.all shot raw

 

[johnnyfuego]

Fresh out of the oven!

 

[Walt34]

Mr. Paul, I'd print that one of the dog and hang it on the wall!

Jognnyfuego, what a capture! Hard to find those.

A few days ago I bought some foamboard for tabletop photography and bought this little orchid this morning. Playing around with the lighting gets some interesting results.

 

[ajs56]

Wall mural on building on old route 66 in Pontiac, Illinois

Nice shot Ronstar! I've actually been there and seen this "garage" on my R66 travels.