General | Time and Time Photographer

Jun10 4

Sharing photos on Facebook is good for you

Posted by Philip in General, Photo Philosophy

I just ran across an interesting article: http://blog.exposedplanet.com/why-sharing-photos-on-facebook-is-bad-for-you/ I almost didn’t want to post an actual link because it’s very short sighted and legal fear mongering.

There’s nothing overly surprising or devastating here. Nothing in this article has me the least bit concerned or worried and I will continue to post select photos to Facebook. As photographers we have known since the beginning of online photo sharing that if you put something online, people/companies can download and use the image you have made available. It doesn’t matter if it’s legal or not, it can be done and there’s nothing you can do to stop it from happening other than to not post your photos. No amount of watermarking or javascript will keep away a screen grab and content aware fill for the determined downloader.

What the Facebook lawyers have done is legally cover their collective butts. Could they turn around and sell your images? Sure. Will they? Most likely not, but it is possible. Will they use the photos in promotional videos and online advertising? It’s possible. Will they give you credit or compensation? No, it’ll take too much time and effort. That’s why they paid their lawyers for the extensive terms of service. Facebook is the number one photo sharing service online. But it’s not the number one highest quality photo sharing service.

So, as a responsible photographer with a modicum of common sense we need to do the following:

Know that anything you post online will be available for anyone to download and use.
Only post images that you are comfortable with this happening.
Make sure your meta data contains your contact information, so responsible companies can (and many do) contact you to license your photography.
If you do share images that you want to sell, license or otherwise profit from, post a reasonable sized image on a site you control or one designed for marketing and selling your photography.

Facebook is a marketing tool for photographers. Every time I post my portrait or model works, I get more awareness in my local community and more customers. . I get at least one new customer for every post. If Facebook want’s to use any of those images for promoting their site, that’s fine. I’m sure one of my friends will tell me about it and I’ll use that to my advantage. If what I put on Facebook is worth stealing, then you need to look at the photos I don’t post, they’re worth a fortune.

Apr04 0

Site changes coming

Posted by Philip in General

I’ve been having some issues with various things on the site, so I’m taking the time to reorder, reconstruct and redo the site. So things might be kind of funky for a bit.

Feb22 2

I’m no expert

Posted by Philip in General

I know it’s been a while since I posted anything. Life is full of complications and I’ve had quite a few hit me all at once with a couple more on the way. But I read something today that made me think about people that pose as something that they are not. I don’t think I fall into that category anymore.

I don’t tell people that I’m an expert.
I don’t tell them I’m a guru.
I don’t even tell them that I’m better than anyone else (at least I don’t think I do.)
I don’t even say that I’m the best there is at any one thing. There are definitely people out there better than me at any one thing, I just have an interesting set of things I do.

But what I do say is that I study what I do and have a genuine enthusiasm for my work, be it photography, website development or social media. I say that I’m dedicated to fixing problems and producing the best work possible. I’m rather humbled when people give me a compliment. You see anyone can say they are an expert, or say they wrote a book or say they do a radio show or even have an expertly designed website. Nothing that anyone tells you can be taken as truth until you see their results.

I just wanted to say that you should take a look at the results or what other people say about someone or even you and take that to heart.

Jan23 2

Unscheduled hiatus

Posted by Philip in General, Podcast

Unfortunately I have to take a break from the regular podcast for a few weeks. It is not my custom to drop things, so rest assured that I’ll take the time to recharge and come back soon with more tips and instructional videos.

Dec19 2

Photography Tip of the Week #092

Posted by Philip in Featured, General, Podcast

Conserve Power
092 Photography Tip of the Week (audio)

I have just finished weathering some of the coldest days of December and am finally glad that the temperatures are above freezing during the day. I’ve had the pleasure of waking up to some extremely clear days. So clear you know that it’s not just really cold, it’s freeze your aperture off cold. The type of cold that can take your normally 800 exposure battery down to 200 in no time. So here are a few tips on conserving power when you venture out in the cold.

Turn off the LCD. The LCD is the single biggest drain on battery power. Many digital cameras will allow you to turn off the automatic preview of the image you just made. I probably look at 1 in 10 photos in the field. Generally the preview isn’t up long enough for me to make any real judgements in the first place. So it does me no good to have it on and I suspect if you really think about it, you are the same way.
Use your fastest memory cards. Memory card have a speed rating, either in “so many times” or MB/s. This is a rating of how fast (on average) you can transfer data to and off the card. The faster you can do this, the faster your internal memory buffer can clear and your camera can return to a resting state. One positive point about being in the cold, the cold is the best conditions for the memory card, so they will be at their maximum normal transfer rate.
Rotate batteries. Batteries, like most people want to be warm. In the cold they lose the bulk of their chemical reactivity and rundown really fast. But if you keep a spare with you and close to your body, when your other battery runs down swap them. Even as the first battery warms back up it will regain some of it’s potential and you can rotate them again to continue making photos.

And one more thing… there is something to be said for knowing what images you want before stepping out in the cold. A good plan can conserve not only your battery power, but it can also keep you from spending too much time in the cold. So take a few minutes to make a shot list or optimize your travel path so you get what you need quickly.

Dec07 5

Self Standing Umbrella

Posted by Philip in General

Necessity is the mother of invention. Last weekend our town had it’s big Christmas parade and we were blessed (cursed or whatever) with snow. A lot of times photographers don’t think much of snow because it doesn’t instantly get your equipment wet. But you should protect your equipment during snow just as if it were raining. I’m not that fond of covering up my camera with plastic, so I take the umbrella approach. But if you don’t have an assistant to hold your umbrella for you over the hour and half long parade, fasten your umbrella to a light stand using gaffers or painter’s tape. Fortunately I have a “broken” regular umbrella that’s missing it’s handle so this was extremely easy for me to do. You probably don’t want to use your studio umbrellas for this task.