My Photo !

While it would be nice to live in a house where you don’t have to lock the door, it’s not practical these days. Likewise, here are 10 things you can do to help safeguard your images from being stolen.

#1 Use the copyright “notice” -the © with a date and name of the copyright owner whenever you publish your images. It may stop someone from copying an image, either because the person will be reminded that the image belongs to someone or because the notice impairs the image for the person’s use.

#2 Include with your copyright notice the words “All Rights Reserved.” Some additional international protection is added.

#3 Register your copyrights with the U.S. Copyright Office. While you own the copyright to your image when you click the shutter (in most instances), registration itself provides some evidence that the image is yours. Register it even if it’s already published. It’s better late than never.

#4 If you find a website that is unlawfully using one of your images, follow the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to contact the Internet Service Provider who must then remove the material from user’s website.

#5 When you provide copies of your images to someone else, put IN WRITING the specific rights of usage you are giving that person.

#6 Put a copyright notice on your website, such as: All photographs appearing on this site are the property of Carolyn Wright Photography. They are protected by the U.S. copyright laws, and are not to be downloaded or reproduced in any way without the written permission of Carolyn Wright Photography.

#7 Don’t steal others work, such as music. Get a license if you need a tune to accompany your slideshow. Teach your children and others to respect other’s work.

#8 Read the fine print whenever you submit your image to anyone/anywhere to make sure that it’s not a license agreement to use your image or to transfer the copyright.

#9 Include your copyrights in your estate planning, along with your other assets such as your house and furnishings.

#10 Sue those who steal your work. Send the message that you value your work.

Copyright 2005 Carolyn E. Wright All Rights Reserved

— ABOUT THE AUTHOR —

Carolyn E. Wright, Esq., has a unique legal practice aimed squarely at the needs of photographers. A pro photographer herself, Carolyn has the credentials and the experience to protect photographers. She’s represented clients in multimillion dollar litigations, but also has the desire to help new photographers just starting their careers. Carolyn graduated from Emory University School of Law with a Juris Doctor, and from Tennessee Tech Univ. with a Masters of Business Administration degree and a Bachelor of Science degree in music.

She wrote the book on photography law. “88 Secrets to the Law for Photographers,” by Carolyn and well-known professional photographer, Scott Bourne, is scheduled for fall 2005 release by Olympic Mountain School Press. Carolyn also is a columnist for PhotoFocus Magazine.

Carolyn specializes in wildlife photography and her legal website is http://www.photoattorney.com

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As a technology guy, I’m often asked about the software I use for various applications. The most recently asked for application is “How do I edit my pictures after I take them with this neat new digital camera?” The simplest, best program I have found is one called Picasa offered free by Google. Why Picasa? Ease of use is the first reason, as it’s just double click on an image and you can crop, reduce red eye, or brighten a picture in just a few easy clicks. My favorite reason for using Picasa is one that has nothing to do with editing pictures, and everything to do with finding my pictures on my hard drive. When you first launch Picasa, it asks you if you want to search your whole hard drive for images. Definitely say yes, and you’ll be surprised at where some of your pictures might be hiding, as not everyone is as disciplined as me and puts all their photos in their My Photos folder on their hard drive.

Just as important as image editing is image re-sizing. Just because you have a shiny new digital camera does not mean that you should e-mail full MB shots to everyone in your address book. Instead, take the time to re-size your pictures before you send them so they don’t take hours for your friends with dial up to download, and so it doesn’t clog up your and your friend’s families inboxes. The easiest way to do this is with a neat little program called PicSizer. PicSizer allows you to re-size complete folders of images with just a few clicks. This is also a free piece of software, and one that is quite simple to use. Simply select the folder with the big pictures, select a new folder to put the smaller pictures in, select the size of the pictures you wish to re-size too (I recommend 25% or smaller of the original size) and away you go. Simple as that.

The last piece of software is one that is a little more advanced, but one that you can easily learn to use and love, and it’s called GIMPShop, a take-off on the $599 Adobe Photoshop product used by image editing professionals. You can do some cool editing with GIMPShop, things you can’t do with many other free applications. Oh yeah, did I mention, GIMPShop is free, just like all the other software I mentioned?

To find these great resources, it’s easiest to just go to http://www.google.com and insert the name of the software you’re looking for (Picasa, PicSizer, or GIMPShop) and you should be transported to the site you need to get the software to make it great!

Phil Gerbyshak challenges you to stop having a nice day. Instead, Make it Great! While life might be tough, the only thing you can change is YOU! Whether you think the glass is half-full or half-empty, remember that both are only perceptions. What’s true is that you have a choice on how you want to deal with the 6 ounces of water you have in your hand. Read more of Phil’s ideas at http://makeitgreat.org

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The New Age of Editorial Photography . . .

In 1987, I can remember talking with a California stock photo agency director who waved his hand toward his office files with the exclamation, “Editorial photos? We have plenty of those!” The pictures he referred to, of course, were clean-cut models in a work situation, smiling at a computer screen, or a housewife pleasantly choring away with her modern vacuum cleaner. The viewing public in those days, it was assumed, preferred fairytale “editorial” pictures.

Catalogs of historical B&W photos from the post war era also reflect the aspirations of the public (or at least that’s what the art directors figured) to depict a wonderland society, peaches and cream, that, however, few people would ever experience.

Times have changed. Maybe it was the shock of 9/11 or the turmoil in the Middle East; or it may be the influence of TV that can portray reality as it really is. The public is growing up and getting real. Publishers are wakening up also. We are seeing a growing willingness of publishers to tackle controversial subjects with natural lighting and hand-held camerawork. Even major Hollywood films today reflect a cultural acceptance of the “real.”

Yes, the squeaky-clean advertising pictures we continue to see today have their place - in advertising. Magazine and book publishers have shifted to a sense of realism in the images they choose for production. They perceive that their readership wants the “straight story.”

THE OSCARS

The nominations for “The Oscars” in 2006 also reflect this willingness to tackle gritty, topical issues head on. The top nominations ranged from race relations (”Crash”) to the death penalty (”Capote”). In fact all four major nominees dealt with realism and the personal cost of making life decisions based on whether to conform to social norms or not.
If you are an editorial stock photographer, you can translate this present trend towards “realness” -as a marketing challenge. It means less or more sales (licensing) of your images based on your personal preferences.
Will the pendulum eventually swing back to the fairytale type of photos of the last decade? Probably so. I’ve watched this phenomenon over the last 40 years, and my bet is that it will continue in the pattern of shifting back and forth every ten to fifteen years or so.

Rohn Engh is director of PhotoSource International and publisher of PhotoStockNotes. Pine Lake Farm, 1910 35th Road, Osceola, WI 54020 USA. Telephone: 1 800 624 0266 Fax: 1 715 248 7394.

Web site: http://www.photosource.com.

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