photo sharing...ON A PHONE???

Photo sharing over the phone. Who would have thought that you would be able to send a picture to other people over the phone. Since time has passed we can do many more things than just send a photograph. The thought of this realating to the blog topic in general hit me this evening when a good friend of mine sent me a photo message from her phone to mine. She sent me a picture message that was a self-portrait of her laying back. The text below the picture said "I hate school...I mean love it... -NIC-." The overall message is very simple; simple picture and short simple text. It feels even more personal than a simple text because there is a picture of her from moments before you recieved the message. Most times it seems that she sends me pictures when she is in some sort of emtional state; Frustrated with homework, tired from studying, happy or even sad.

As I sit back and think, several of my friends and i used to send photos to each other over the phone. Most of the time is was random pointless things that we came across that day. It usually brought a smile to our faces when we were feeling blue.

This i feel is some of the best evidence of the power and impact photographs have on people. If something as simple as a snap shot with a camera phone can change a persons mood; what kind of change could we create with a ten story tall screen that rotates through a series of images depicting peace?

Flickr and its Communities

Flickr has to 2 objectives:

1 - We want to help people make their photos available to the people who matter to them.

2 - We want to enable new ways of organizing photos.

Flickr does these two things with communities and several other tools. For now I want to talk about the communities. As I started my blog I joined communites, read their info and posted some topics of discussion.

In these communites also know as groups, there is a photo pool on the front as well as recent topics of discussion. At the bottom of the first page of the group gives a little discription of the group. In a community page there are several helpful navigation tools. There is a discussion section, photo pool section, map section, members and invite. The navigation tool that i find that most interesting is the map tool. With the map tool it takes you to a view of the United States. With the map you can click on a dot on the map and it will take you to that person and their pictures. For my self its nice to find people in Oregon and even better in Eugene.

I have found it very dificult to become connected with people on Flickr.com. No matter how many groups I joined, or how many topics i post no one wants to reply. I went out a commented on several peoples photographs and recieved e in return commenting on my photographs. I was talking with a grad. student in the photo-lab, she was saying that she was havn't a hard to creating contacts on Flickr when she started. She said that it took her six months to gain contacts that she could keep in regular contact with.

In my attempts to create contacts in the past weeks has been a failure. I am not giving up. Even though the class is coming to an end I will still be attempting to create contacts that can give me criticism on my photographs that I have posted. My over all goal is to network with people in spacific communities where I can ask questions and further my study of photography.

istockphoto, The Money Maker?

istockphoto.com, is it the money maker? I have recently been introduced to this web site. I'be been reading all the information i can to find out if this site is a way for making some side cash or not. Here is a short sundown of the site.

istock is a site where people create accounts and upload photographs for sale. Figurativly speaking, on the other end of the scale, people can enter this site search for a certain type of photograph and purchase a digital copy of the photograph. Not only can you find photographs, you can also find vector illustrations, flash files, and video clips. Becoming a memeber is totally free there are no subscription fees or hidden costs, as stated on istocks overview page. istock has their own way of selling photographs. A person may buy credits which are equivalent to dollars. Where the web site gets you is a person has to purchase a minimum of twelve credits.

After reading istockphoto's civics companion i am confident that they are a very reliable site for selling photographs. making money on the other hand depends completely on the artist. If a person wants to submit photos to sell, they have to read a tutorial and submit three prints to be looked by an inspection team. So, not just anyone can sell, which is nice to know.

As I am writing I'm reading and going through the tutorial on istockphoto.com. The site goes as far as to tell you which photographs they have to many of and which they need more of from people. There is the saying, "you learn something new every day." It is true right now, I just found out from istockphoto that it is prohibited to resell photographs of the Eiffel Tower with its lights on. But, it is ok to sell photos of the Eiffel Tower during the day. This is one of the images that is not allowed to sell on istockphoto.com. Now, that I have finished the tutorial I have to answer several questions pertaining to the tutorial making sure that I read it.

When uploading photographs you give them 50 tag names so when people search your photograph will be in the right destination. istockphoto has a great what of filtering photos so you may find what you are looking for.

I can't call this the conclusion of istockphoto.com. I'm not finished reading about the company. Hopfully i'll find out how people get paid when they sell a photograph and what exactly the person purchasing recieves.

Continuation of the Myspace Culture

Now to go into more detail of each of the MySpace picture categories . . .

In the self-portrait, as stated before, there is usually no sign of a tripod. When there is no tripod available what do you do? Just use your left or right hand, of course! The camera is held out in front while the photographer/subject grimaces in a fake smile and tilts his/her head uncomfortably. If that isn't unique enough, the camera is held at a high angle above the head with a quarter view of the face. I'm not sure why, but people seem to think that this pose is adequate for a self-portrait. No one has tried anything new! The high-angle-cocked-head-shot has seemed to stick and has become the standard for "The MySpace Picture."

The glamour shot -- most girls seem to think that they are models on MySpace. I'm not sure if they are creating their modeling portfolio or simply putting on 10 pounds of makeup on a Tuesday night. 90 percent of the time the glamour shot is cropped very close to the face. There isn't much negative space (if any) around the subject. Pout-y lips seem to be a must and eyes that are "peering into your soul" (that's a joke).

Badly Photoshopped -- As I stated before badly photoshopped photographs are tacky. To many times people use either to many filters or one filter to its fullest. Its seems that the standard is a blown out extremely contrasty photo or colors that are overly intensified. Other options include cutting and pasting several images into one without smoothing out edges of edge blurring. Often the angle of the lighting it each photo has not had attention paid to it, there would be several different angles of sunlight (which is a dead give away to poor photoshopping).

The Muscle Man -- A mans way of show off "the goods". The photographs never have a natural state to them. Example: Being by a pool or at the beach with their shirts off. No, They are at home, in their room with their shirt off doing an acquared flex that is supposed to seem natural.

At this this time, this is still an on going study. I feel that there is much more to this than everyone thinks. I also believe that this MySpace culture will keep growing and developing into a certain way of life.

The culture of MySpace Photos

In this post, I would like to talk about the different categories of "the MySpace photograph." Some of these include: the self portrait, the glamour shot, the muscle man, the "I don't know how to use Photoshop" picture . . . and many more.

To start, I must say our world is based on aesthetics. Pop culture is where people look to decide what is beautiful. With that said, people want what they see in pop culture. They want to copy it. Most MySpace photographs are an attempt at being artistic without being obvious about it. Yet a good portion of these are overdone: too much makeup, trying to seem mysterious, too intense of colors, attempting to model (when the person hasn't a clue what they're doing), and a bad use of mirrors.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not totally bashing on the MySpace genre. It can be fun to be playful and experiment with photos and Photoshop. I am simply explaining the style, and pointing out that it can be a little overdone.

Now, getting into the meat of the subject: the MySpace photograph. MySpace photos have become a genre of their own. Friends of mine have said, and I quote, "That is such a MySpace pic." For myself, that is a generalized term for several categories of the MySpace photograph. I will now explain the styles of MySpace photos (listed at the beginning of this entry) and will go into more detail in upcoming posts.

First is the self-portrait. Usually there is no sign of a tripod, just the use of the left of right hand. Another study of the self-portrait shows that people like to seem mysterious -- that is to say, they like to turn away from the camera.

Second is the glamour shot. The glamour shot can also fall into the modeling category. Either way, it involves putting on pounds of makeup for the camera.

Third, badly photoshopped photos -- I know not everyone is a pro with Photoshop, and many are simply experimenting. Yet they look tacky -- using intense colors, color balance that simply isn't balanced, and high contrast.

Lastly (this is one of my favorites): the muscle man. Almost every guy has one of these on MySpace. The t-shirt is off and he isn't acting like he's in a muscleman competition, flexing everything . . . but he is flexing, and acting like he doesn't notice the camera, when he really does. Oh, it just makes me laugh every time.

These are not all of the styles of MySpace pictures, just the most predominant. As I stated above, I will go into more detail with these categories in my next post. I hope that anyone reading this can get an appreciation for (or simply an understanding of!) the MySpace photograph.

"The Times Are A-Changin' " - Bob Dylan

A friend Steve Smith sent me an article on digital photography from wired.com. The article is about digital photopros and photo(shop) realism. Keeping in mind that the article was written in 1995, the technology they are talking about is brand new and now its the norm. It only took the first paragraph to get me thinking.

When President Clinton went sailing off Martha's Vineyard with singer James Taylor last August, Associated Press photographer Stephan Savoia took pictures of the seafaring celebrities from a boat 130 yards away. Nothing unusual about that, except that when Savoia finished shooting he didn't develop his film - he had no film to develop. Instead, he removed a pocket-sized hard drive from the side of his camera, slipped it into a docking station attached to a PowerBook, and reviewed all 30 of his shots on the laptop's screen. After selecting his favorite image, he fine-tuned its colors, wrote a caption, and then, using a cellular phone, transmitted both image and caption to a central computer at AP's New York headquarters. Even though Savoia was slowed by bouts of nausea as he worked in the cabin of the pitching boat, the process took him only 15 minutes. The photograph was in newsrooms around the country long before Clinton ever reached shore.
- Jacques Leslie

This is a perfect example of what transitions photography has gone through. The photography industry is interested the newest, fastest product on the market. Now that the digital camera, more specifically the digital SLR, has become the new standard in cameras, all equipment revolving around it are only one step behind. ..."he removed a pocket-sized hard drive from the side of his camera"... pocket-sized hard drive? That is amazing when thinking that in the 80's a portable hard drive was the 5 1/4" floppy disk. Now there are portable hard drives the size of a quarter. The drives also go up to several gigs of memory.

For now, this is one of several photography accessories I will be talking about. As i said before, the photography industry is interested in the newest, fastest product on the market. Even with the obsticales Stephan Savoia was able to shoot 30 frames, upload them to his laptop, render the photos and send them to a central computer by phone in only 15 minutes. As said by Bob Dylan, "The times are a-changin'. "

Stealing Photos Online

Famous Face
Originally uploaded by yakifung.

People have the rights to their photos. Yet it seems very easy for anyone to copy and paste a photo and call it their own. I am interested in knowing just how many people have stolen a photograph claimed it?
Is there has a difference between down loading a photograph for a back ground or screen saver and down loading a photo to make a framed print? Perhaps there is no difference. Maybe it takes selling another persons photograph for it infringe on the copyright laws. I took a look at guidelines for being a Flickr.com member and a gettyimages.com member; here is what their sites had to say.
Yahoo! respects the intellectual property of others, and we ask our users to do the same. Yahoo! has no responsibility for content on other web sites that you may find or access when using Yahoo!’s products or services. Material available on or through other web sites may be protected by copyright and the intellectual property laws of the United States and/or other countries. The terms of use of those web sites, and not the Yahoo! Terms of Service, govern your use of that material. It is Yahoo!’s policy, in appropriate circumstances and at its discretion, to disable and/or terminate the accounts of users who may infringe or repeatedly infringe the copyrights or other intellectual property rights of Yahoo! and/or others.
In accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") and other applicable laws, Getty Images has adopted a policy of terminating, in appropriate circumstances and at Getty Images' sole discretion, account holders who infringe the intellectual property rights of Getty Images or any third party.
Both companies explain them selves well. Click this link Flickr’s Copyright and Intellectual Property Policy to read more and to read more about gettyimage’s Copyright infringement Policy click this link.
This is still an open topic of discussion. I will find the details of copyright laws and break them to decide if the laws should change or if the fit with the digital era.