Copyright protection the Wal-mart way
Fire in the sky
…In addition, we will not copy a photograph that appears to have been taken by a professional photographer or studio, even if it is not marked with any sort of copyright, unless we are presented with a signed Copyright Release from the photographer or studio.
When I visited my friend Richard back in May we stopped at Wal-Mart to get a few prints made. While there, a young lady was trying to get copies made of a picture that her dad had taken of her for her high school graduation. Admittedly, the photos looked really nice and ‘professionally’ done.
This young lady had the images on a CD, but she brought some print copies with her for color matching, I assume. Anyway, she wanted to insert her CD to make the prints, however, a Wal-Mart employee was giving her a hassle about copyrighted images saying that the pictures that she was about to print looked professional and that they wouldn’t allow her to print/purchase the prints. After a short argument, the employee finally relented. After all, she did have the files and her dad had taken the pictures. They wanted her to have a copyright release form. Mind you, anyone can make this form for themselves, bring it to Wal-Mart and get anything made. I would guess that the only reason to have this form would be to eliminate any copyright infringement liability, not necessarily to protect the photographer.
Fast forward to an incident Richard, my friend, experienced the other day where a man was trying to scan a ‘professional’ looking picture. The Wal-Mart employees wouldn’t allow him to do it. It would seem that, according to Wal-mart, only ‘professionals’ have a copyright.
I applaud Wal-Mart’s attempts to protect photographer’s rights, even though it is a bit misguided, giving too much latitude to their employees to interpret whether or not a photo has a copyright. All photos have a copyright to the original owner unless intentionally signed away. As soon as you take the picture, you have a copyright. It’s just plain silly to assume that only professional ‘looking’ prints have a copyright. Naturally, this is a knee-jerk reaction to the 1999 lawsuit against KMart, filed by the Professional Photographers of America, or PPA. The PPA won a $100,000 settlement.
This is a slippery slope, I think. For example, should I want to have some pictures printed at Wal-Mart, for some reason, if I provide Wal-Mart with a CD of images that I want to print, even if I own them, they are within their rights to not print the images if they appear professional. I’d have to take my business elsewhere. Even though the policy deals with copying/scanning of copyrighted materials, it would appear that the employees have interpreted this as being anything that looks professional.
Perhaps Wal-Mart should get out of the picture printing business, except for printing unexposed rolls of film. That might be safer for them. Perhaps a better understanding of the copyright law is required. Perhaps they should have expert legal counsel running the photo lab! Perhaps…
Christmas Day
Moon over Lake Ray Hubbard. Heath, TX
Merry Christmas to all of you who may stop by. I’m still in Texas with friends and family. Well, all of the gifts are opened, there no longer remains any mystery. I did NOT get my Nikon D3, so, for the rest of the vacation, the D40 will have to do! 
The children, as well as the adults, are still snuggled all warm in their beds, the adults with visions of credit card bills dancing in their heads! For us, it was a cash Christmas! Yippee!
This morning, as usual, I got up before sunrise and went out to take pictures. It never gets old. As I was traveling light this time, I don’t have a tripod, but that just means that I have to live life at 1600 ISO. The mornings have been wonderful with temperatures in the upper 20’s and lower 30’s. When it’s that chilly, the sunrise has additional significance!
Christmas Flight
Some may call sunrise shots cliche, but that’s ok. they’re still special to me. Anyway, I hope that you had a very merry Christmas and that you were able to share that spirit and your abundance with someone that you love, or perhaps, someone that you didn’t even know. It’s never too late!
About the photos: From this morning’s shoot.
Meaning
Meaning?
…He said he was drawn more by the rope than the boat. While he agreed that the boat conveyed a strong message of longing toward the mysterious, “unknown” horizon, he suggested that the rope injects a deeper melancholy by reminding the viewer that even if the boat were seaworthy (which it may not be), the rope might still prevent a traveler from using it to escape. The two combined – dilapidated boat & rope – were enough to elicit very strong memories of his “longing for escape from entrapment” in his youth.
The above quote came from the blog, Tao of Photography. Andy, the blog’s author, was talking about an exhibit that he had a book store and about a particular comment that one of the viewers, who happened to be a local psychiatrist made about a particular image. You can see the image if you click on the link.
Anyway, it got me to thinking about various interpretations of my images that have come along upon showing them to someone. Sometimes I take pictures of pretty things, sometimes abstract things, sometimes people, other times landscapes, and yet other times landscapes with people, as in the above shot. Personally, I love to see lots and lots of sky in a picture, giving the picture a since of great height, for whatever reason. I guess that I’ve always been fascinated by clouds and space, which is why most of pictures seem to be taken vertically.
Meaning, I guess, depends on the mood or experiences of the viewer as to their interpretation, similar to what one might see in a Rorschach ink blot test. One might view the above picture as a stormy day, another as lonely, and yet another a beautiful morning walk. Who knows how it will be viewed. It kind of reminds me of the high school English literature classes where we had to decide what the writer of a story or poem meant. There’s just no way to do it. Meaning, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. An image can have broad appeal, but I would imagine that not many of those that it appeals to will have the same interpretation of the image. Interesting, indeed!
Traveling light this time
Relax
Well folks, I’m off to Dallas for a bit. We take off Thursday evening 12/20, and will return on 12/31, New Year’s Eve. My family and Richard’s family will merge to become one for about 10 days. I know that it will be fun! It always is. During that time, I think that I will take some serious time off away from the blog. I’m going to try to go for the entire 10 days without a post, though I am sure that there will be stories and pictures to share, they’ll have to wait.
Usually I travel with my camera (D2x), tripod, laptop, Epson P-3000, extra batteries, chargers, the whole works. This time, the laptop stays at home, as well as the D2x, tripod, etc. I won’t be going naked, however, I will take the D40, P-3000, and chargers. That’s it. This time is to be spent hanging out with friends, sleeping in a little bit, and just enjoying myself in general. I have to take a little bit of equipment because it’s hard to resist those sunrise, sunsets, and interesting shadows. So, without a tripod, it looks like I’ll be shooting at high ISO levels! Also, it’s an exercise in using what you have. I won’t have my usual full arsenal of lenses, etc. I’ll have to survive!
Hmmm, I have two assignments due for my online class … they’ll have to wait too! I’m chillin!
Things have been rather slow around blog land anyway, as they are typically around the holidays. I hope that all of you have a very merry Christmas and I’ll catch up with you in the new year.
Paul
Backups
Backups! Very important!!!
I guess that it was bound to happen, eventually. I’ve seen it happen to others, but it was my first experience. “Honestly! This has never happened to me before!!!”. I was shooting pictures of Tony’s basketball game on Friday evening. Things were going well for both the team and myself. They were beating their opponent, South Mecklenburg High School, by a healthy margin, and I was getting some decent shots. Suddenly, my camera started to respond slowly when I pressed the playback button to ‘chimp’ at a few shots. I thought nothing of it at the time.
I continued to shoot and things continued to go well. The team pulled further ahead and I accumulated more photos. Suddenly, and cannot say ‘without warning’, because in retrospect, I did have warning, I got a message on my camera that said: “This card cannot be used!”. Uh, oh!!! I quickly went into my bag, grabbed another CF card, swapped, and was back in business in about 20 seconds. Shooting continues!
I kept shooting. Tony kept shooting.
The 4 GB card is ‘old’ technology. When I got my camera, some 20 months ago, there was no such thing as a 4 GB CF card. 2 GB was the largest, however, Hitachi made a 4 GB micro-drive, which holds 4 GB of data but is not flash memory. It is actually a micro hard drive. Therefore, it has moving parts and is subject to failure. It gave a good run. I used it almost exclusively for all of my sports shooting. I think that I’ll retire it and put it out to pasture now. “Fool me once, shame on you! Fool me twice, shame on me!”. Looks like I’ll have to get another 4 GB card; this time it won’t have to be a micro-drive!
Earlier in the evening I had considered taking only my camera and one CF card with me. I’m glad that I didn’t. I learned a valuable lesson about being prepared, that’s for sure! In the end, our team won by a healthy margin and I was able to recover all of the pictures off of the other card. I hope that cards don’t fail frequently, but just in case they do, I’ll keep backups and software on my laptop and desktop that can recover files from corrupted cards! I suggest that you do the same!
Any suggestions for CF cards that are both reasonably priced and provide good performance? Is there really a big difference between a 133x and a 300x? Thanks!
Phases: This Christmas
This is what they remember!
~~~I promise you that I’m a good mom. I love my kids to DEATH!! But I admit they are just a teeny bit spoiled, and last Christmas they drove me crazy with the “I want this…â€, “I want that…â€! Ughhh! I want to give them everything, but I want them to have a little perspective too. So when the I-want’s got to be too much, I made them look at this website. The photography is incredible… the subject matter is not for the weak at heart. It brought all three kids to tears, and they didn’t ask for a single thing after that. I felt bad, but it was worth it. Once they saw how other children live in other parts of the world, they immediately began to appreciate how we live here. It gave Christmas a whole new meaning to them. Ahhhh, perspective! It’s a beautiful thing.
The above quote came from Chantal Stone’s blog and her post, Off-topic Randomness. This time of year seems to be natural for gaining perspective and for us, like Chantal, to want our children, if we have any, to be appreciative of what they have or get for Christmas, or at any other time of the year.
If you look at it, it’s really the journey, or the chase that is exciting for them. They want, they want, they want, yet, when they receive, they are happy but for a moment in time, and then a new list begins. It’s the same for most things, it seems, the journey is the fulfilling part, the destination, or goal is mostly anticlimactic.
In looking back through the years, we see that as a family, our Christmas celebrations have changed. No, we are not Christians, but still celebrate the thought and spirit of the holiday, of giving, sharing, and loving. For a few years, we adopted a family each year and bought presents for them and, if the situation warranted it, we took to their homes. That was when we attended a church, now we try to help out through the year with donations of money or clothes, but it is not so enjoyable as the direct contact.
As our children grow older, we start to downsize in all sorts of ways. We’ve already downsized our house once and are talking about doing it again when Tony graduates. We have also greatly downsized our Christmas expenditures. Now, we only buy gifts for the kids, Tony, Pedro, nieces, and nephews. Every one gets gift cards so they can get what they want. So the entire hassle of trying to figure out who wants what, run to the mall, order online, etc. has been eliminated and guess what, everyone is still happy.
Don’t forget the grandparents!
This year, the bulk of our expenditures will be on plane fair. We are headed to Dallas to spend 10 days with friends and relatives. I will be spending the entire time at my good friend Richard’s house. Last year, we did something similar, but we spent our Christmas at the beach. Each year is becoming less about gifts and hassle and more about spending great times with friends and family.
When we lived in Texas we had a pretty big house and every Thanksgiving and Christmas celebration was held at our house. People would arrive the day before and stay the night and all of the next day. This year, the kids told us that they missed that celebration and wanted to have such a party this year since we were coming to Dallas. Since we left, they haven’t done it. So, the party is on! I’m looking forward to it. It won’t be hosted at our house, of course, but we will be there to carry on a tradition. Notice what the kids remembered. They couldn’t tell you one gift that they received, but they will always carry the memories of those sleepovers and they fun that they had on Christmas Eve and Christmas day with their friends and family.
In the end, isn’t family, friends, love, and togetherness what it’s all about? It’s all that I remember from my childhood, save for one or two toys that I really liked.
About the picture: These are some pictures from our last Christmas in Dallas, Christmas 2003. We moved away in June of 2004; however, we are going back this year to continue on the tradition. I think that perhaps next year’s present to all will be a collage of this year’s festivities … hmmm.
Finding a niche
My boys
I like to read a lot. Most times I read fiction. Sometimes spiritual books. Rarely, anymore, do I read technical books. I’ve been reading a fiction book called ‘Next’, by Michael Crichton. The story is about genetic experimentation, specifically transgenic work. Transgenic work is taking the genes from one species and injecting them into another. In the book, for example, they have injected a human gene into a parrot. The parrot is now self-aware and not only mimics speech, but can reason as well. I see photography heading this way. No longer is the natural photograph appreciated, it has to be more and more stimulating to even get a look. Eye candy! More to this later.
I guess that I’m in one of those mid-life things. No, not a crisis, but a deep desire for a gradual career change. I’ve had a glorious run with software development and have throughly enjoyed it; however, I think that it is time for a change.
Within about 2 years, our younger son, Tony, will be headed off to college. Again, we will downsize and our income requirements will be less … we hope. By that time, we will have one who will have graduated college and one just entering. Changing careers and ‘downsizing’ in money, at least temporarily, I hope, will then be an option. I’ve started investigating the ‘income’ side of photography.
I’m pretty familiar with the technical and aesthetic side of photography, I think; however, the business side is somewhat mysterious. I decided to sign up for a course at BetterPhoto, called Making Money with your Photography. The course is taught by Jim Zuckerman. You can see some of his work here. I’m on week one of an eight week course. The topics for the first week have to do with showing / submitting your work.
One of the axioms stated early on in this course was that “Color sells!”. People want to see bold, daring color. Personally, I’m not into the hyped up, super reality color shots, as seen on most calendars and in travel magazines, etc. It’s just not my thing, so perhaps that area is not for me. “That area” being selling images to magazines and calendar companies, etc. In looking a some of Jim’s work, it is very nice! Some of it is amazing; however, a lot of them are composites of multiple scenes, transgenic! That said, this is the new ‘reality’. This is what art buyers and editors want to see. I would assume, this is what the public demands.
My heart, I believe, is still with the idea of teaching, especially beginners. I love to see that light come on. If I never get published, it’s fine. I also am thinking that a goal for next year might be to participate in an art show or two, just to get the experience. Craig Tanner told me that it is a humbling experience to have someone critique your artwork right in front of you as if you are not even there!
Anyway, still trying to find a niche. I think that the course will be helpful and enlightening. I may even take a Photoshop course to increase my skill there. I’ll keep you informed.
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