**Photodeck affiliation with Photographers Direct*

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

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

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

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

Photodeck discount

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

I am under siege!

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

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

The Wayside Chapel

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*

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

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

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

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*

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!

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

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

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.

What lens to buy?

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

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*

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**

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

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

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?

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

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

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!

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!

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

G'day

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.