Sheila Smart Photography

David Hoffman v Drug Abuse Resistance Education (UK)

2012-01-27T09:16:00.004+11:00

It would appear that there is now a legal precedent in the United Kingdom regarding websites publishing images without prior licensing the images from the photographer, even if they believed that the images were "covered by Crown copyright and understood that the text and images could be used". An excellent precis of the judgment is given by Alamy photographer DavidC on the Alamy forum

US Copyright Small Claims Court Proposal

2012-01-27T08:34:00.002+11:00

Click on title link above. It would appear that the US Copyright Office is looking into the feasibility of a small claims court to assist photographers whose intellectual property rights have been infringed. Makes an interesting read. Comments would be appreciated.

What get's up my nose is the indignant ones

2012-01-23T19:52:00.008+11:00

You know the ones. Those who, when caught out infringing one's work, come up with "well it was not watermarked" and then suggested that all images should be watermarked. Like all products on a supermarket shelf should be marked "do not nick". Today, this came from a person (a journalism student who should have known better) who nicked one of my images from one of my stock libraries (which are not watermarked for obvious reasons) and when confronted, disputed the fact that it was taken from GlobalEye images when the metadata stated exactly that. Along with the metadata of all the other images on the site. (And I have a screenshot). And offering the gem "I think the lesson here is to ensure that your images are watermarked or similar - just a suggestion. That way it would be clear from the outset, irrespective of source origins of the site (web trawling via search engine versus deliberately and maliciously ripping off a web library notwithstanding)." The delicious irony of the last sentence did not go unnoticed!

All I did originally was politely suggest to the person in the comments section of her website that she should obtain permission of the photographer before publishing images.

Tumblr, Photobucket and Facebook - multi-infringements

2012-01-03T10:32:00.003+11:00

I am so tired of seeing my work plastered across sites such as Tumblr, Photobucket and Facebook. Whilst they are quick to respond to my requests to remove the images, I am mighty tired of having to go through the rituals of removals. I sent the following email to Tumblr after asking for the removal of one particular image which was all over the site.

Your site massively infringes the copyright of photographers. You cannot truly believe that all the images on the site are owned by the individuals who post them or that they are part of a creative commons license? With this particular image, it is apparent that it was just passed around your website with gay abandon without any thought by your contributors that they were infringing a photographer’s copyright.

Tumblr, Photobucket, Facebook and many others are responsible for the images published on their sites and you cannot hide behind “sorry, we were unaware” garbage when it is blatantly obvious that images are being infringed. One hopes that one day, one of your “contributors” places a Getty exclusive image (which has been registered with the US Copyright Office) on your site and the first you will hear will be from Getty’s lawyers with a damages bill in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Well, one lives in hope! Maybe photographers who get their work constantly infringed on these sites should start a class action against them and then maybe that they will actually monitor more closely the images placed on them with a less laissez faire attitude.

**Responses from infringers of copyright

2011-11-30T15:20:00.004+11:00

I thought I would start a post on responses I get from those who are caught out using my work without the benefit of payment to me, or, as a last resort, permission from me. One of the latest, and probably the most amusing (and less well informed), was one from a company which had published one of my images of a rack of old, but colourful, clothes on their website (no trade marks or trade names visible). They did apologise but were most indignant and pointed out to me that they had not claimed copyright of the image (so that was OK by them!), and in any event, that I could not really sell the image as it contained "product" - hmmm... a rack of old clothes. They also advised me that "product owners have copyright of images and you are a photographer"....and "Any product image(as is in your image) belongs to product owners so it seems that you are taking pictures of other peoples products and saying it is yours and asking money for it. i dont think you can even sell these images because you are not a manufacturer of products." My response was "nonsense"! In a further email they also advised me that "next time you will take image of Statue of liberty and say you can sell it because you have copyright of image. i dont think so.in that case you will need permission of new york city to even make one penny of it." Not having a single image of the Statue of Liberty, I was much relieved but I did respond as follows:

"Darn. That is where I have been going wrong all these years. I am so glad you, a purveyor of coat racks, has enlightened me, a professional stock photographer of many years, a Getty Images contributor and other stock libraries, of the laws of copyright. I will be in your debt and will write off to Getty this minute and advise them that half of their stock library of images cannot be used. I will give them your name so they may thank you personally, especially regarding images of the Statue of Liberty " and sent them a link to the Getty search engine showing at least 1,800 images of the Statue of Liberty.

I wish I had a dollar every time I received the response that "I found this on Google and thought it was free as it did not have a watermark embedded" I really do think that the word "free" should be removed from royalty free image sites.

This brief response from an Australian commercial website who had one of my images on their site "The image has been removed, it was NOT from your website, it was a library photo I do not wish to use it - we have our own" Sigh. Of course, if they had their own, they would not feel the necessity to nick one of mine! No response to my second email and this will probably be passed on to my IP lawyer. Another US web developer who had used one of my most popular images and had sold it to a client, was most apologetic, pleaded that he did not realise it was copyrighted, was a single father and actually sent me pictures of his kids. I have since registered this particular image with the US Copyright Office and I recommend this course of action!

**List of intellectual property lawyers to assist photographers with copyright infringements

2011-11-22T10:17:00.004+11:00

Photographers would have to carry out their own due diligence regarding the lawyer's/law firm's credentials published in this blog.

United States: Carolyn Wright PhotoAttorney
Australia: Sydney lawyer Phil Argy of Argystar
Australia: Sydney lawyer Peter Knight of Banki Haddock Fiora
Canada: Toronto Doug Deeth of Deeth Williams Wall
Germany: Dr Frank Marcus Doring of Jensen-Emmerich
UK: Dave Tyler of Intellectual Property Protection
UK: Piers Strickland of Strickland Law
UK: Scott Gair : Mayo Wynne Baxter

Please feel free to contact me with recommended IP lawyers to add to this list. Please give contact name, name of firm and country.

**Stolen photographs - what to do - Article by EPUKs Simon Crofts

2011-11-21T11:30:00.005+11:00

Many thanks to Simon Crofts for his article in Editorial Photographers UK and Ireland for his take on tackling infringers. Click on link above ...and learn!

**"We have no budget for photography"

2011-11-09T16:15:00.002+11:00

Oh, those wonderful words or text in response when photographers send prospective "buyers" (and I use that term loosely) a reasonable quote for use of images. Click on link above for an article by photographer Tony Wu on how to respond to requests to work for nothing but, "hey, but we will give you credit" (which most do even for paid work). Why is it that it is only photographers who are expected to donate their work - no editor, graphic artist, magazine executive, or newspaper magnate expects nothing in return for their work.

**Why are photographers expected to give away their work?

2011-10-28T20:06:00.004+11:00

Yesterday, I received the following email:

hello, i'm french and i'm an artist.
I love this foto and i would like to peint it if you give me your agreament.
After, this painting will be sold . (ce tableau sera à vendre).
I wait your answer et i hope you will agree.

I responded thus : The fee for using this photograph as a subject of your painting is 50 euros. If it becomes a commercial proposition (such as prints for commercial usage), my fee would be 10% of the selling price of the print. I would require an annual audit of sales.

The response: I thank you for having answered me.
But I shall not thus use your photo

Sigh. When I am approached by "artists" wishing to use my work as a basis of their paintings, I always respond with a reasonable fee but always place a condition upon the use that if it should become a commercial proposition, then an additional percentage is incurred. If they are making money out of my work, I do not see why I should not also! I always think of Alberto Korda, the Cuban photographer who received very little for his famous iconic image of Che Guevara, mainly because Castro did not recognise the Berne Convention.

I can only recall one painter, based in the US, who happily paid my fee for painting several of my images. If only there were more like her...!

**Article by Paul Wallbank regarding copyright on websites

2011-10-18T09:18:00.003+11:00

A handy and informative article by Paul Wallbank of PC Rescue (click on link above) advising website owners about avoiding copyright infringement. Long overdue and thank you Paul.

**Australia's shame*

2011-10-14T12:46:00.003+11:00

Recently, a letter of mine was published in the Sydney Morning Herald regarding the arrest in Bali of a silly 14 year old boy who was found with a small amount of cannabis on him. The usual thing that happens to tourists in Bali. Someone offers you a good deal on some dope. Wisely, you decline because you just know that around the corner are the police just waiting to arrest a tourist on a drugs charge. The 14 year old was on holiday with his folks and stupidly fell for the sting. My letter to the Herald was thus:

What a heartwarming response from the Federal Government on the plight of the 14 year old boy in jail in Bali. But what a shame that is not shared with the many 14 year old asylum seekers in detention whose only crime was to get on a boat to escape persecution in their homeland.

The sight of politicians falling over themselves to come to the assistance of a teenager arrested by Indonesia was a tad sickening and smacked of populism (which is not foreign to this Labor Federal Government, nor of the Coalition Government before them). They care little for the many 14 year olds who are in manditory detention because they arrived by boat, rather than by plane.

How to track the source of infringements

2011-09-21T07:50:00.003+10:00

There is a way you can, on some occasions, track the source of the infringement or the website where your image is legitimately appearing such as photo galleries, photo sharing sites etc. When you find your image on a website, right click directly on the image > View Image Info and you will get the URL address of the source of the image - sometimes! Recently I tried to stem the flow of an image which had gone viral. As the image was not watermarked, I knew that it was not from my website but there was a constant clue in the View Image Info on all the infringing sites that the image was uploaded at one time to my Photographers Direct site but PD always watermarks images so I was at a loss to understand the reference to PD. To explain, the View Image Info came up with the following

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_fFKa-EEht4k/S-iLoTDhOBI/AAAAAAAACks/5VtWw1M8Mm4/s1600/2792kids_in_pool_pd.jpg

The clue was 2792kids_in_pool_pd.jg because this is how I name images to be sent to Photographers Direct to identify low res images on Windows Explorer which PD requires. I wracked my brain as to where else I would send the same image that I sent to Photographers Direct and then I remembered! My Gallery at fredmiranda.com
Are you still with me!? Sure enough, FM used this reference when I uploaded the image some four years ago. I have since, on the advice of Carolyn Wright, added a watermark to the image on FM and I will probably remove all other images in my gallery at FM that are not watermarked.

Using this tool, on another occasion, I tracked the image to two different State Government image libraries.

No more Mr Nice Guy - or Girl

2011-09-09T14:38:00.017+10:00

After finding so many infringements and getting responses such as "Oh, we didn't see a watermark and so thought it was free" or, the best "Sorry, cannot afford your fee as we only buy images at $1.00 to $3.00", I have decided to pass on the infringements to my US IP attorney and let her deal with it. I am also about to contact an old friend who is a partner of a law firm in Toronto to follow up on the mounting Canadian infringements. Many do not even respond to my emails but then remove the image without any sort of apology or acknowledgment that they have done the wrong thing. So it's No more Mr Nice Guy or Girl and the first they will hear about infringing my copyright will be an email or contact from my lawyers pursuing an infringement of copyright suit. Even when I sent them an email advising that "an apology or removal of the image is NOT an option" and requesting payment of my account, I still get the "Sorry, have removed image" and they think that is the end of it. But no more! I am also tired of sending DMCA notices to Facebook, Photobucket, Imageshack et al although FB is quick to remove the images from the offenders' sites. I am even debating adding bloggers to my list of infringers but they are still infringing my copyright and it should be a lesson to them all.

For those interested in having someone else do all the leg work, a company called
Imagerights has recently been formed - probably because of the new Google Image Search engine - a vacuum always gets filled!

It has been suggested by one of my fellow photographers, who read my blog, that it would be a good idea if an organisation could direct photographers to intellectual property lawyers to prosecute copyright infringement actions on behalf of the photographers as it is very difficult for togs to find overseas lawyers. So if anyone knows of such an organisation, please comment. Alternatively, if you know of good IP lawyers, please list them by Country and contact details. Do not publish their email addresses as I don't want them to be spammed. I suggest that you obtain permission from the law firms to publish their contact details. Let's get the ball rolling. Here is the legal bit "Photographers would have to carry out their own due diligence regarding the lawyer's/law firm's credentials published in this blog". Phew (pays to have a legal background for 30 years)!

United States: Carolyn Wright PhotoAttorney
Australia: Sydney lawyer Peter Knight of Banki Haddock Fiora
Australia: Sydney lawyer Phil Argy of Argystar
Canada: Toronto Doug Deeth of Deeth Williams Wall
Germany: Dr Frank Marcus Doring of Jensen-Emmerich
UK: Dave Tyler of Intellectual Property Protection
UK: Piers Strickland of Strickland Law
UK: Scott Gair : Mayo Wynne Baxter

Tips on dealing with infringers

2011-09-02T16:25:00.019+10:00

This is an update on my previous blog post regarding copyright infringements found by the Google Search Engine. Well, after a series of negotiations, the police department eventually put up their hands and I settled with them for an amount which bought me a nice couple of L lenses. I got an apology from the assistant of the TV personality and another apology from the Sydney television network but I was sorely tempted to forward it to "Media Watch" but I accepted the apology anyway. Because they were not actually commercial blogs, I don't usually bother hassling them for payment. At the moment, I am pursuing several web developers in the US who have knocked off my images without licensing them. You always know if there is a long delay in their response because they are attempting to find out why it happened and whom to blame. My US IP attorney, Carolyn Wright of PhotoAttorney advises that "both the website and the web developer are liable for the infringement but you can only get one award. The company is likely to seek indemnification from the web designer if held liable". A week or so ago, I found one of my images on the front cover of a Turkish book publication but despite numerous emails, I have yet to receive a response. I then checked out a couple of lawyers in Istanbul to pursue the matter on my behalf but, yet again, no response. Amazing! Back to Google! After many emails to an Israeli online newspaper, they settled my account for the princely sum of $250.00 for one of my images on the web newspaper. When they wanted me to send the signed document releasing them, by certified mail to Tel Aviv, I told them that I was certainly not going to spend money on certified mail but they said unless I did so, I would not be paid. I told them that they had a nerve in requiring this as it was THEY who were infringing my copyright and they were getting off lightly. The next email, they backed down and said it was not required. The weird thing was that they wanted me to also fax the documents to them - fax? What's a fax!!! I emailed them a PDF.

So a few tips on what to do after finding an infringing website. For PC: Firstly, take a screen shot. (Keyboard PrtScn) then hit Start > All Programs >Accessories> Paint > Control V and then save the screenshot in My Pictures (or where you can find it again). I am advised by a helpful Fred Miranda member that for Mac, you can take a screen shot by pressing Command + Shift + 3. If you want a screen shot of just a specific area of the screen, you can use Command + Shift + 4 and select the region of the screen to capture. Both of these methods will place an image on your desktop. Secondly, you need to know how long the image has been on the offending website. For this you should go to the Wayback Machine. Here you will find the various pages on the websites on certain days, months, years. You will get the picture as soon as you try it out. This is very handy as many times, when infringers are caught, they tend to tell porkies about how long the image has been on the site. Having the actual dates handy is good ammunition should you require it. Don't get bogged down on blogs. If they don't have any money (and most don't), and its not a commercial blog, demand that they remove the image or alternatively, they place a link to your website. Most are happy to do so. If they don't remove the image or you don't get a response, then send them a DMCA Notice. Here's a link how to do this from National Press Photographers Association

I should add that if you have images on stock libraries, you should couch your email to the possible infringer that "should you have obtained this image through one of my stock libraries, please advise". You don't want to look silly if they have licensed the image but your stock library has been tardy in advising you!

Happy hunting.

Outbreak of hostilities at Alamy

2011-08-02T22:22:00.005+10:00

Huge furore going on over at Alamy between the stock library and their contributors, me being one of them. It would appear that Alamy is going to ignore the difference between rights managed and royalty free and sell images for $49.00 a pop with no restrictions.

And this is the Alamy pitch to certain buyers:

Regarding photo rates we’re working on a new package called the Alamy Premium Account, the benefits are:
$49 (US) per image
Unlimited repeat below the line use over 10 years, worldwide*
Un-watermarked “try before you buy” downloads.
No print run/impression limitations.
Unrestricted file size (typically 50MB).
22 million images available on http://www.alamy.com/bespoke and growing.
No credits, subscriptions or volume commitments.
Unlimited shared access to your library of purchases.
No differentiation between Royalty-free and Rights Managed images.

I am now thinking of placing all encompassing restrictions on my Alamy images until some sort of sense returns to the industry which will probably be never but I feel photographers must take some sort of stand or slowly the industry will just fade awaaaaayyyyy.

Warning - this site downloading images for free

2011-07-20T13:56:00.003+10:00

Yet another site allowing downloading of copyrighted images for free. I have sent them an official complaint and also on their Twitter page. I know its "finger in the dyke" stuff but its time we made a stand against this. It's an Indonesian site so I don't expect any sort of response but there you go.

Just had my 10 millionth view on my website

2011-07-08T09:43:00.003+10:00

I never saw it click over but I have just had my 10,001,226 hit on my website. Time for a champers or three.

Second place in Digital Camera Warehouse/Canon EOS photo comp

2011-06-25T21:41:00.003+10:00

Just won second place in the Digital Camera Warehouse/Canon EOS "Low light, black and white" competition and just looking at how to spend the $2,500 prize money to be spent at DCW. Probably will sell my 70-200 f/4 L and replace it with the Canon 70-200 f/2.8 L IS II. The image is Akubra Man in the right hand column of this blog.

Theft of images but now a tool to find them....!

2011-06-20T11:26:00.014+10:00

There is now an excellent way to find out how many of my images are being used illegally and without permission from me. It's called Google Image Search. While there may be issues with the TOS of this site, it is still worth a try. I have downloaded the Firefox extension so I can right click my images on my website and hey presto, up comes the image and the location/website of same. Always check "All sizes" of the particular image because sometimes they show there and not in the Google pages. I have found many on Facebook without attribution or permission, hundreds on blogs which I don't really have a problem with but I have found a lot on commercial websites around the world. I have over 4,000 images on my PBase site so it will take a fair amount of time to find them all. The most ironic to date was to find one of my images of a silhouette of a bicycle being published on a UK police website about stolen bicycles. I pointed out to them the irony of finding an image on their site which was actually stolen from my website and that images should have the same protection as cyclists! I also noticed that a brochure on this website also had the same image on the front cover so it would appear that it was infringed on a hard copy publication rather than website use. It will be an interesting read when I get a response. I have also found one of my images of the Sydney Opera House on the blog of a UK television personality (who was once a resident of Sydney) but have yet to received a response from him. Another found on a religious surfer website and I pointed out that I thought one of their commandments was Thou Shalt Not Steal and received an immediate apology. Yet another on an Australian television station website which has a "foot in the door" approach to shonky tradesmen and who has since apologised for publishing an image of mine illegally on one of their webpages. And so the list goes on. I did get a positive response from one dentist in Hollywood who offered to pay (and did with 24 hours) for two years use for one image of mine and hopefully will renew the license when it expires. A pic of mine of the Richmond bridge in Richmond, Tasmania seems extremely popular with travel agents specialising in Tassie who seem to have group memory loss as to where they may have purchased the image as it was not from Tourism Tasmania (as a couple of them stated) as I have checked with them and they are horrified that their name is being used as a source. A real estate company in Sydney was most indignant that I sent him a "ridiculous" (according to him) bill for $120.00 for use of one of my images of the Rocks and offered me 10%. Sigh. It does not seem to dawn on those who nick images that it is theft, pure and simple.

Fun with fisheye lens

2011-06-05T21:21:00.005+10:00

Just bought a Canon 15mm f/2.8 fisheye lens and I am having a lot of fun. The lens is fairly sharp but it does suffer from CA which most of the time can be fixed in Photoshop but I do avoid shooting anything with backlight. Images above were taken in Sydney's historic Queen Victoria Building.

Yet another stoush between Getty and its photographers!

2011-05-23T10:50:00.003+10:00

There is outright revolt by Flickr/Getty professional photographers who are appalled by Getty's "take it or leave it" contract wherein RF images will be transferred to the microstock Thinkstock (yet another Getty acquisition) without any input by the photographers. (Click on headline link) There have been such vague answers by Getty personnel that images may or, there again, may not, be transferred to MS. Another aspect of the new contract advises that if an RM image has not sold for three years, it will be changed to RF and again will end up in Thinkstock. While I only have 26 images on Getty, I have done fairly well over the past 18 months but I certainly will not sign any new contract and will just wait until my contract expires in December 2011 and that will be the end of it.

**A photographer's paradise*

2011-05-01T13:21:00.006+10:00

We have just returned to Oz after spending six days at Kaikoura, South Island, New Zealand visiting friends who returned to New Zealand after living in Australia for 30 years. They had bought an old cheese factory last August and have converted it into an upmarket bed and breakfast cum beach/guest house. It is not your normal B&B and caters to those who would like to get away for a week or weekend and spend it in luxury surroundings. The three bedroom accommodation is fully furnished and self contained, and has top of the range furniture and kitchen facilities. For those interested, here is the link Hapuku guest house accommodation End of ad!!!

The weather was fine for the first three days which was great and we took a whale watching cruise out of Kaikoura and saw a couple of sperm whales and a large pod of very frisky dusky dolphins. We spent a lot of time eating and drinking (not to excess I hasten to add) but most NZ wine is very drinkable (apart from Sauvignon Blanc which I just cannot drink) and enjoyed the hospitality of New Zealanders who are always happy to chat to tourists like us. Then the legendary South Island weather set in and the temperature dropped to 8 degrees and it rained...and rained. But, we did have a good time and bad weather can make some quite good snaps. Here is link to my gallery of images New Zealand 2011

Expected to live on air!

2011-04-04T09:56:00.003+10:00

Increasingly, it would appear, that buyers of images seem to think that professional photographers can live on air. A week or so ago, I was contacted by someone who was setting up a slide show on a plasma screen in a restaurant in the UK with an Australian theme. I don't know if the restaurant is actually owned by Aussies or this is just a one off thing. They asked if they could use several of my images but and now I quote from the email "We are on a v limited budget and don't have lots of money to play with sadly. Not sure how you will feel about this request but images are so great and we'd love to showcase them. Would it possible to get even a few as donations as a one off?

Look fwd to hearing from you,

I quoted a very reasonble fee per image and suggested if they bought four, I would "donate" the fifth. Never heard from them again.

And about a year ago, I was approached by our national television broadcaster asking me permission to use some of my images for a staff development website. I always know when I see the term "permission to use" really means a freebie! I quoted a very reasonable fee and I received a short "we don't have a budget for photography". I suggested to this young woman that the ABC has a budget for her salary, her producer's salary and the web developers fees but strangely they don't have a budget for the photographer. Of course, I received no response.

Sigh. I am always at a loss to fathom why folk expect photographers to constantly donate their work. They appear to think that we are not a profession at all and we just wander around the streets and countryside snapping away in the hope that someone will send us an email asking us to donate our work. Oh joy! Never mind the enormous expense of professional digital cameras and good glass plus the ever ending updating of Photoshop and computer gear. And when on the rare occasion they do expect to pay, the fees they offer are ludicrous. A couple of days ago, an Indian publisher (part of a large UK publisher) approached me via one of my sites asking my fee for an image to be placed on a front cover of a new title. He said that their fee for front covers was 3,000 rupees which I thought was a nice sum until I checked a currency converter to find it was $65.00! I told him to get back to me with a more realistic offer but he said that was what they paid. By the way, the average fee for such use using a couple of stock library calculators is around $600. Now I know that was a reasonable fee back in the good old days before microstocks but to be offered 10% is a joke. Conversely, I get surprised when one does work out. A Rumanian casino contacted me, asked for a fee for use on a small poster in one of their shopping centres. The image was model released, I quoted a fee, they didn't quibble and I got paid within 24 hours. No worries. I'll definitely send him a Christmas card. As will I to a German medical company who paid for their image within two hours of my quote.

Sorry about the rant. It's Monday morning here and we are back to standard eastern time and our beloved cat Dougal's body clock is still an hour ahead and he demands to be fed his breakfast even though its pitch black outside.

Follow up on Brick Lane Gallery

2011-04-04T09:54:00.001+10:00

Spectacularly unsuccessful as far as sales of mounted prints are concerned but hopefully someone will have noticed my work. Back to the drawing board!

Slideshow of some of my work

2011-03-23T10:07:00.002+11:00

Brick Lane Gallery, London

2011-02-18T11:08:00.004+11:00

A week or so ago, I was invited to exhibit some of my work at the Brick Lane Gallery, London and after much deliberation (as I vowed never to hold an exhibition again!), I took the plunge and have booked space at the gallery for an exhibition which starts on 16 March and ends on 28 March 2010. I will arrange with RedBubble to print mounted work and to deliver them to the gallery. The Gallery will do all the promotional work including creating catalogues, contacting press, etc etc - all the stuff which makes exhibiting a nightmare! All I have to do is decide on which images to hang which is no mean feat I can assure you. It will probably be a mixture of candid street images and commercial (and hopefully purchaseable!) prints so at least I can claw back some of my expenditure. One certainly does not hold an exhibition to make money and all I want to do really is to obtain some recognition of my work outside Australia (although "inside" Oz would be good too!).

I will update this post when I have decided which images to have mounted.

**Photodeck affiliation with Photographers Direct*

2010-12-23T12:33:00.005+11:00

Today, I received an email from Chris Barton of Photographers Direct with the news of their affiliation with Photodeck Click on header link above for info.

I have been a member of Photographers Direct ("PD") for a long time and over the years, have been fairly successful in selling stock images via PD. Of course, the plethora of "freebie" and cheap image sales from microstock sites have affected all stock photographers and while I do not consider myself a "stock" photographer per se, my income has plummeted somewhat alongside many other pro togs! The news that Photographers Direct has now affiliated itself with Photodeck comes as good news as it does broaden the client base of both PD and Photodeck photographers considerably. I guess time will tell if it works out for us all. Please feel free to comment on the affiliation and how you think it will pan out.

My Photodeck website

A spider's tale

2010-12-19T20:21:00.002+11:00

I sit on our deck in my pod chair after dinner on a balmy Sydney summer's evening and watch an industrious garden spider start to weave her web. It's not a dangerous spider - just a common or garden spider. Having lived in Australia for over 35 years, one tends to know dangerous spiders and this is not one of them. She starts on the support lines - one from the Indian carpet (bought in the Dali Llama shop in Dharmsala many years ago)near my feet and up and away she shoots across towards the passion fruit vine about three metres away. She then links up all the support lines by weaving between them in ever decreasing circles. I am amazed at her level of industriousness. Of course, this web will have been destroyed at sunrise when several rainbow lorikeets use our deck as a flight path towards the bird feeder.

**Collages

2010-12-12T07:18:00.004+11:00

There comes a time when "ordinary" presentation of photography becomes a tad less challenging. So I am now looking at ways to present my work a little differently with some help from Photoshop. Recently I found an old copy of Better Photoshop Techniques issue 2, 2005 (published in Australia by Better Digital Magazine Pty Ltd) and found an interesting article on montage joining (better known as collages). As I have no idea how to paste screen shots, you might have to bear with me so I will keep the instructions on how to collage photographs as simply as possible.

Bring an image into Photoshop (I use CS5)and using the Rectangular Marquee from the tool pallette, make a selection on the background, holding down the Shift key. For some reason, the first selection is square but after that, the selection can be rectangle of any dimension. Keep holding down the Shift key until you have selected several rectangular sections. The first selections are going to be the "top" level of the photographic collage. All other selections after that are going to be placed under the top layer selection. After you have completed the selections, copy the selections (Edit>Copy) and paste it as a new layer (Edit>Paste). When you paste anything into Photoshop, it automatically appears as a new layer. Then add a Drop Shadow layer style by choosing Layer>Layer Style>Drop Shadow. Don't be alarmed when your selections disappear - you will see the selected areas when you adjust the distance and size settings in the Layer Style. Its up to you how you want the drop shadow or collage to look. An important tip is that each time you produce another layer for selection that you do this from the original background layer. I found myself tearing my hair out when layers would not work as I had wanted to but found that I had missed the important step of producing the further selections by selecting the background layer. So select the background layer and continue to make the selections for the various layers. Make sure that the new selections overlap the originals. To place the collage against a white background (or any other colour for that matter!), create a selection that surrounds all of the parts by holding down the Control and Shift keys while you click on all of the thumbnails in the layers palette. Once all are selected, pick Select>Inverse, choose the Background layer and hit the Delete key. For the image above, I used the eye dropper tool and selected the sand in the pic to be the background colour.

Ipad

2010-12-03T17:23:00.005+11:00

Just testing my newly acquired toy. So far, so good.

Photodeck discount

2010-10-29T15:51:00.003+11:00

Photodeck has just announced a Reward Program for their new and current photographers. The following code YF@UVIJIJ (my code) gives fellow photographers who join Photodeck, a 10% discount on their first subscription (that's about a $30 value for a 1 year PRO subscription!) and for current Photodeck photographers, every time a new member uses this code, Photodeck immediately adds 1 full month to their PhotoDeck subscription. A win-win situation.

The scroungers

2010-10-25T18:57:00.022+11:00

I am under siege!

2010-10-25T16:35:00.005+11:00

While busy keywording images for my stock libraries, I am aware of being watched. I look up from my PC and there are two faces staring through the verandah windows. They are two Australian magpies (bottom right) who, presently, are feeding their three young. I get up and head for the fridge. They watch me with anticipation. I open the verandah door with beef mince in hand and immediately four kookaburras crash down onto the balustrade. Now I have six mouths to feed. Yet another flurry of wings and feathers, and lo and behold, two currawongs I have been feeding for the past ten years, arrive. Although they know me, they are still not brave enough to feed out of my hand. Which cannot be said for the magpies, who, on occasion, I find strolling through the lounge, past our two cats, and into the kitchen to check out if there is any leftover cat food available. Having fed the carnivores but not enough to allow them to get lazy and find their own food, I now have a dozen or so rainbow lorikeets, squabbling amongst themselves, waiting for a handout of bird seed. They alternate between the handout and finding natural food from the many native shrubs we have in our garden. Their favourite is grevillea or the bottlebrush at the bottom of the garden. When the grapes (which amazingly survived our builders) surrounding our verandah are in season, both the rainbow lorikeets and the currawongs check out the ripeness of the fruit. Within minutes, half a dozen galahs arrive and the squabbling between the birds continue. Each frantically chasing the other away. During all this confusion (and noise) a sulphur crested cockatoo ventures nervously on to the deck but although I love them dearly, they are not welcome as a few months back, one cockie completely destroyed a cane chair on the deck and then started on my cane pod chair. I have a water pistol at the ready and I only have to walk towards it, and they take off to the safety of the large gum in the middle of the garden.

I go back to keywording (sigh) and now I hear a familiar whistle coming from the rondelitia next to the deck. Its a crimson rosella which has only recently been visiting us. They are not that common on Sydney northern beaches as their main environment is the much cooler region of the Blue Mountains, 100 kms west of Sydney. They are beautiful parrots and have become tame enough to eat out of my hand. Next to arrive is a male king parrot (top left).

By this time, there are various piles of seed on the deck and balustrade and I make a mental note to hose down the deck after they have finished. Now back to keywording!

Photos of the week

2010-10-25T15:54:00.006+11:00

A couple of my pics taken this past week. The surf life saving club at Queenscliff Beach and an abstract of people at Manly Beach, New South Wales.

**Leopard seal with two children

2010-10-25T15:49:00.004+11:00

The Wayside Chapel

2010-10-25T14:07:00.003+11:00

Every Monday afternoon, James Valentine's afternoon show in Sydney, broadcasts the Rev. Graham Long of the Wayside Chapel "letter to the Inner Circle", which makes me stop what I am doing and sit down and listen to Graham's broadcast. As someone who takes a great deal of candid and street photography, I certainly empathise with Graham's homeless folk who are living (and dying) on the streets of Sydney. I contacted Graham, as I was concerned that I had not seen one of my "subjects" for a long time and had heard awhile back that someone with his name had been found murdered. To my delight, Graham responded saying that he really liked my work but had no knowledge of the person mentioned in my email. It would appear that homeless folk tend to stick to a particular area and never the twain shall meet. I have always been in awe of people like Graham who dedicate their lives to the less fortunate on this planet. Graham mentioned that the Wayside Chapel were about to publish a book about their work with photographs and text from the letters to the Inner Circle.

**Getty/Flickr*

2010-06-18T10:57:00.003+10:00

Awhile back, I joined the Getty/Flickr invitation to license my images. Although I only have five images on Getty to date, one image has sold twice in the first couple of months, one editorial and the second commercial. Today, Getty has announced "Request to License via Getty" wherein all images on my Flickr site can be sold via Getty if I elect to do so. Nothing ventured, nothing gained but.. I have questioned Getty via their forum, if the same appallingly high commission rate is to be charged - 70% for RM images and 80% for RF. Under this new scheme, Getty will act as a conduit between clients and photographers. Other than this, there is little Getty will have to do - no keywording, no storage of high resolution images and no need to have editors as the client has done the "editing" for them! This is how in the past they justified the high commission rate and also being one of the largest stock libraries on the planet.

A major "plus" I believe is that it will be up to the photographer, once being contacted by Getty, as to what licence they choose, ie RM or RF (which at present the photographer cannot choose), the pricing of the image and its use. I am sure there will be some negotiations between Getty and photographers where in the past there was none.

**Follow up on Photodeck

2010-06-10T21:20:00.003+10:00

I have just received the pricing of Photodeck. To quote from their email

Pricing plans after commercial launch:

- All launch features with 30GB storage: $24.99 / month

- Limited customization and features, with 10GB storage: $9.99 / month

No setup fee, and PhotoDeck takes no commission on sales that originate on your website. Options for additional storage will be available.

This is fairly reasonable in my opinion for e-commerce on my website and hopefully I will get a return far in excess of my monthly fees.

I'll keep you posted.

Photodeck - adding ecommerce to your own website

2010-05-30T22:14:00.006+10:00

I was recently contacted by Photodeck which is "a service for photographers to create professional stock websites...We support RF, RM (with customizable prices naturally), fully automated purchases, full layout & design customization, SEO... and we keep adding features on a daily basis".

In effect, what Photodeck offers is an ecommerce addition to photographers' own websites which incorporates pricing of images (both RF and RM), shopping carts, and a customised website. Photographers upload full resolution images to a personal web gallery provided to the photographer by Photodeck. After uploading, the ID of the particular image on Photodeck is pasted on the image in the photographers own website with a link back to Photodeck. So Photodeck acts as a conduit for clients and prospective customers requiring pricing of images where the photographer's website does not offer this type of service. For example, here is an image on my website. If you click on Click here for rights managed pricing, it will take you to the Photodeck site, and pricing of the particular image. All prices are able to be edited.

Photodeck is in Beta at the moment and its by invitation only. I have always wanted shopping cart facilities on my website and this probably covers it all. Its free at the moment but I am sure that it would be well worth a subscription, depending on the fee of course!

Photobooks

2010-05-27T10:44:00.006+10:00

After much procrastination and always thinking that I have many more "masterpieces" yet to be taken, I bit the bullet and produced a photobook, courtesy of Momento

The Momento software is easy to use - just picking the images was the hard part. I uploaded all high res images to Momento and waited. Less than two weeks later, the book arrived via Australia Post. The book is wonderful. The paper is high quality as is the printing and its beautifully bound. My goodness, I sound like an ad! For all those putting off self publishing, I would say Go for it. It looks good on the coffee table and having a weblink to the book is handy if one is thinking of getting it published. Unfortunately, it's not cheap. The 66 page book with dust jacket and hard cover cost $275.00 (with a 15% discount because I am a Momento Pro member)but to me its well worth it. I am now looking at doing a black and white book - but I need a couple more masterpieces first!

**Copyright infringement*

2010-05-14T20:15:00.003+10:00

Yesterday, I found that a large Sydney university had published an image of mine on their website. As I did not recall selling them the image directly, I emailed them asking them how they obtained the image as it could be that one of my stock libraries was yet to advise me of the sale. Imagine my surprise when I received an email from them advising that "It was used inadvertently by the previous Administrator. We request your understanding in this instance as it was not deliberately done". I sent them an account for 12 months website usage when they advised me that they had removed the image and had no further use for it. They did not appear to understand that they had infringed my copyright. What I found astonishing was the comment that it was done "inadvertently" and "not deliberately done". So how did the image get their without anyone actually going to some trouble to remove it from my site and place it on their website? How can this act be inadvertent? I advised them that they were getting off lightly as I was only charging them for the use of the image and not punitive damages, which is what I would be entitled to in a court. As it appeared that they were not going to pay my account ($250), I suggested that they send it to their legal department. Their response was that this was being done. Years ago, I worked for an intellectual property lawyer in Toronto, Canada so am very familiar with copyright laws. Also, having worked for a large Sydney law firm for the past 20 years, also helps!

Doesn't anyone understand copyright infringement these days?

Revenge of the photographer!

2010-04-18T11:11:00.002+10:00

On Detroit based photographer, Blake J Dischers' blog there is an interesting and amusing article on a "cheapskate" builder looking for a "free" photographer.

Sadly, it reflects the mentality of some businesses who don't appear to understand that photographers also have to make a living.

Converting images to black and white or monochrome

2010-04-14T15:10:00.005+10:00

I have been asked on more than one occasion regarding converting colour images to black and white and/or monochrome. There are various ways of doing so either by Adobe Photoshop (I use CS4) using Image> Adjustments> black and white and then moving the various sliders to get what you want. For starters, I find that images that are high contrast when in colour, convert much better to black and white. One can also use various black and white filters which can be downloaded via the internet, most of which are free. A favourite filter of mine is Optikvervlabs which is also free (compatible with CS3 and above) and apparently soon to be available in Mac - well, they have been saying that for years! This filter has greatly improved over the years and gives one a high degree of variations in tone, colour (sepia etc) and contrast. There are also black and white filters for sale at Fred Miranda. Early on I used Fred's wonderful plugins and filters, especially the infrared filter which, although probably not as good as buying an infrared filter for the front of the lens, they are quite good and a lot of fun. I do have an infrared filter (er..somewhere) but it only fits my now long departed 50 f/1.8II and on the whole, it was difficult to use as it was soooooo dark and needed extraordinarily long exposures! One of my pet hates is a tripod but you really do need one to take infrared shots.

It would be difficult for me to actually post how I do the conversions as it depends on your taste (high or low contrast etc) but you can see the converted images in my black and white gallery. In all honesty, I don't recall exactly what I did on each occasion. I just keep tinkering until I get what I was looking for. Converting images to monochrome is certainly not rocket science and can be done easily with Photoshop using the filters as outlined above

Video of My Sydney

2010-04-08T21:47:00.002+10:00

Below is my video of images of Sydney and its people. It runs for about 8 minutes. The didgeridoo music accompanying the video is courtesy of Russell Dawson from his CD entitled Evening Star.

2010-04-08T21:04:00.003+10:00

What lens to buy?

2010-03-21T16:16:00.003+11:00

I am often asked via email or via various forums, what lens to buy. Of course it depends greatly on what budget you have and what purpose for which you intend to use the lens. Firstly on budget. My advice is always "by the best you can afford". While there are many photographers who take superb images with cheapie lenses, they are very few and far between! With the exception of the reasonably priced Canon 100 f/2.8 macro, all my lenses are "L" lenses and for one main reason. They are good. And secondly, they hold their price. I have bought and sold camera bodies over the past ten years and they do not hold their price. My first digital SLR camera was the Canon D60 and I went to great lengths to find one. I eventually tracked one down to a CameraHouse store in Hobart. They were the only store in Australia which had this much sought after camera. I paid the extraordinary price of A$5,200 - for a six megapixel camera with the dubious distinction of being one of the most "noisy" (grainy) cameras on the market. But it was a good introduction to digital SLR photography. I have since bought (and sold) the Canon 20D, Canon 5D (the first full frame dslr) and now I have superb Canon 5DII which hopefully will last me for a long time..unless...no never mind!

Back to lenses. I don't shoot a great deal of landscapes, but I have had the Canon 17-40 f/4 L for as long as I have had digital cameras. Its clearly one of the best landscape lenses and is very reasonably priced (for an L lens). While one may not like the "distortion" one gets with this lens on a full frame camera, I love it. For portraits, you cannot go past the Canon 135 f/2 L, one of the best prime lenses that Canon has produced. For a walkabout lens, I have the Canon 24-70 f/2.8 L and its rarely off my 5DII. Its great for assignments also. I also have the Canon 70-200 f/4 L IS telephoto zoom lens which is also good for portraiture and even good for landscapes. I used to have the non-IS version and to be honest, I cannot find a great deal of difference between both versions. For zoo shots, my lens of choice is the Canon 300 f/4 L IS, a tad heavy but an excellent lens. It was one of my first L lenses. For macro work, of which I do little, I have my only non-L lens but the Canon 100 f/2.8 macro holds its ground amongst its L brothers! It's also good for portraits. You can find my various galleries dedicated to Canon lenses on Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 5D and Canon 20D. You can also find reviews of most cameras and lenses (Canon, Nikon, Olympus et al) on review site at Fred Miranda

Another image theft

2010-03-12T15:07:00.002+11:00

Through Tineye this morning, I found yet another theft of my work on a website of a French journalist (who should surely know better). I have sent her an email and await her explanation as to why she neglected to either approach me for image use and/or asked me for my fee for its use. The image in question is the image below of the sulphur crested cockatoo in flight. I'll post the results in my next blog.

**Image theft*

2010-03-12T08:27:00.003+11:00

On Fair Trade Photography blog Chris Barton found multiple companies using the same stock image by using the image search engine called TinEye. I thought I would relate here my experience with TinEye finding an image of mine. A couple of years back, I had a bit of time to spare so I was going through my online images to see if any of them were appearing on websites. For this I used TinEye. I came across one image of a young woman with a black umbrella on a beach with her little dog. I was surprised when TinEye,a Toronto based company, came up with a hit! It was a Romanian library which showed that my image was on the front cover of a book. With a little detective work, I found that the publisher was a large company based in Bucharest. As they had never paid for, or even contacted me for use, I sent them an email advising that they were infringing my copyright and before I took legal action, I would like an explanation from them. Surprisingly, almost immediately I received a most apologetic letter from one of their directors, advising that they are "a very respectable and serious publishing house, having published many top rank authors and titles. However, as in any active and busy editorial office, it is possible that such an incident had occurred with our graphics department" They did have the time to crop and remove the watermark though! After much negotiations (and with a threat by me to retain a Bucharest law firm), we arrived at 1,000 euros (A$1,700). I had contacted a Bucharest law firm who advised me that under Romanian law, general damages for illegal use would be around three times the fee had they bought the image in the first place. Here in Australia, its normally around five times the price. But rather than argue the toss, I accepted their offer of 1,000 euros. Apparently word got out and I received a telephone call from a Canadian newspaper who interviewed me regarding the infringement and my pursuit of the publisher. An article appeared in several Canadian newspapers.

TinEye searches around 1.3 billion sites and admits it has a long way to go to index all websites. As an aside, one image of mine, of a young attractive woman dressed in hijab is on 29 Islamic blogs. I don't have any real problem with blogs using my images as most of the time, there is no commercial use but I draw the line at publishers. I felt I was lucky that the publisher came to the party which is more than can be said for a US based website which still has one of my images on its site and refuses to respond to my emails for its withdrawal. Maybe one day I will take the time to submit a DMA notice for its removal.

After dinner musings

2010-03-08T20:28:00.003+11:00

While my husband happily tinkers in his garage (or shed as he affectionately calls it), I sit on our deck after dinner with a glass of Australian chardonnay (no, I have not yet acquired the taste for the latest fad of sauvignon blanc) in my hand and watch hundreds of flying foxes (or fruit bats which are the world's largest bats) meander through the sky advancing on fruit or flower bearing trees nearby. Silently they fly, sometimes being noisily upstaged by sulphur crested cockatoos screeching their way to the garden of our friends half a kilometre away where they will keep them awake and most of their neighbours. I sit in my "pod" chair which I call my cogitating chair and wonder at my most fortunate life in this most beautiful country in the world and the most beautiful suburb of this most beautiful city etc etc. Our beloved one-eyed cat sits in the lounging wanting to join me outside but he and his brother are restricted to being inside at night as we have a plethora of small wildlife in our garden (the endangered long nosed bandicoot, small ringtail possums and the occasional rat - well, they can't help being rodents!) The brushtail possums, of which there are many, are not threatened by the cats as they are fairly large and can certainly look after themselves. They live in the possum boxes that we, and our neighbours, have installed in the gum trees in our gardens and while still classified as "wild" have all the conveniences of domestic animals. They are housed, fed and even taken to the vet on the odd occasion. One of our matriarchs, who has long gone, even let us remove ticks from her back, us being ignorant of the fact that ticks, although dangerous to dogs and cats, are not a problem for brushtails. The current matriarch, H,(a one eyed possum) has been visiting us for around eleven years. She is long past her due by date but every night she turns up, stands to her full height and scratches on our verandah window and we feed her bananas. My husband is restricted to tinkering with his motorcycles as he has broken his collar bone (for the third time..first two times the right and now the left) while riding down through the high country of New South Wales to attend the SuperBikes at Phillip Island. He didn't make it last year as well as he was knocked off his bike two days before by a blonde in a Beamer who neglected to check in her mirror for motorcyclists - but thats another story.

The sun has now set. In this part of the world, we do not have a long twilight as Europe does. Our sun plonks down over the horizon in a couple of minutes like a cherry in a glass of vermouth and its now dark. I can still hear the bats who are now chattering in the palm trees in our garden. And so another day in paradise ends. Cheers

I am returning to being a photographer

2010-02-14T22:04:00.000+11:00

I have thinking for a long time now that I have lost the ability to be a photographer rather than shooting for "stock" photographer. Today I was looking at the images I took between 2003 and 2006 and it dawned on me that I am not the photographer I was then. Since joining stock sites such as Alamy, Photographers Direct, OzStock, OzImages etc and lately Getty, I seem to have lost the ability to see images as a good photograph rather than "will this image sell?". During dinner this evening, I brought up this subject with my husband, Fred, (bless him) and he said that he thought I had lost focus. The pun was not intended. I must have realised this for awhile now as I have not uploaded to Alamy (one of the biggest stock libraries) for five months and thought that I must be losing interest in photography but in reality, all I have lost is an interest in stock photography. This has really nothing to do with the downturn in stock photography as I am still selling "stock" images in this somewhat depleted market but its not what I do best. I feel that a heavy load has been removed and I can do what I do best...shooting images that I like and not what stock libraries want.

Another rights grab

2010-02-11T06:59:00.002+11:00

Chris Barton, the owner of Photographers Direct (of which I am a member) has posted this on his website Great British Life

Please don't fall into the trap of submitting your work to magazines without getting paid and especially if they have complete control over the publication of your images.

Enhancement - is it really necessary?

2010-01-30T15:44:00.000+11:00

Many photographers, both amateur and professional, use Adobe Photoshop to enhance or sometimes correct such things as exposure, sharpness and a myriad of other elements of an image. Please feel free to comment.

Photographer loses 10,000 pound prize due to "fake" photograph

2010-01-24T09:48:00.001+11:00

Spanish photographer Jose Luis Rodriguez may lose his 10,000 pound prize for allegedly using a tame wolf for his prize winning picture. There is quite a healthy debate over at the Alamy forum regarding this. The image is superb and one which any photographer would love in their portfolio but should it have been entered in a competition which apparently does not allow "tame" animals? Which begs the question: Is it a fake? It would appear that Rodriguez may have "set up" the tame wolf to jump over the gate. Most photographers set up images at one time or another. Everyone sets up sunset images. They wait for the most extraordinary sky and then take the snap. I moved an upside down shopping cart away from a power pole so I wouldn't have to clone out the pole. I know this is on a much smaller scale than having a wolf jump over a fence! I don't know how many times he had the wolf jump over the gate to get the shot but I am in awe of the outcome. Your comments would be appreciated.

No budget for images

2010-01-23T08:39:00.000+11:00

Time and time again, I get the following response, after submitting a very reasonable quote for my work: "Sorry, we don't have a budget/funds for photographs". This is mainly for editorial use. They apparently have a budget for the picture searcher and/or the website but they are very reluctant to actually buy images. My response is, basically, if you get paid, I would also like to be paid. Yesterday, I received the same response from a very large and prestigious US university who I am sure pays the researcher (who has a PhD) who wanted an image of a chimpanzee for their anthropological website. My quote was US$150.00 (heavily discounted) - hardly breaking anyone's bank account. I had a similar response from the Australian national broadcaster who also didn't want to pay for images. This, of course, is down to the advent of microstocks which is supported by photographers who accept a dollar or two (and sometimes less for downloads) just to tell their mates/acquaintances that they have been published, unaware how this has dramatically affected the industry. I am aware that market forces prevail but we photographers would just like a level playing field.

Microstocks - how to almost give away your work!

2010-01-19T16:47:00.002+11:00

As a professional photographer, I absolutely loathe microstocks which I am not going to name as it will just give them publicity. If you want to sell your work for a dollar, then do so but I do hope that one day, you don't look up to find an image you sold for a couple of dollars adorning a large billboard, with no attribution of course. I appreciate that market forces rule but this is one photographer who won't demean her work and that of others. End of rant. Well, until the next one!

Now I'm getting the hang of it!

2010-01-19T15:37:00.001+11:00

My photographic galleries can be found here http://www.sheilasmartphotography.com.au

G'day

2010-01-19T15:02:00.003+11:00

I am sitting staring at my monitor wondering what the heck to write as this is my first blob .. sorry, blog! I am a Sydney based professional photographer so most of my posts will be on a photographic theme.