I found myself this week

Ever since I started out with photography I knew I wanted to do landscape photography.
When I was still being schooled as a darkroom black and white photographer, my teacher was always complaining about how dark my skies and pictures where. I'm happy that I did not listen to him all the time. It just felt natural back then to burn skies really heavily. I did it instinctively. Not because somebody told me to. It's a bit hard to explain but I guess you could say it came from the inside, from the heart. I guess people call that vision.

Fast forward 10 years. I am now living in the most beautiful part of the world, Canada, where I can pursue that vision even further. And I am happy to say that I found my little niche where I can be who I am and I can do what I love doing. Even where I am proud of doing what I do.

Sure my landscapes are not photographed in the most scenic spots of Alberta and they are not taken at sunrise and or sunset. Yes they are dark and full of blacks with a lot of contrast. They do have a particular look. But that look just came naturally. This is what I like to look at.

For me it is more about the light itself. How light interacts with the sky, with clouds, with air even. Not how spectacular a mountain scene is.

I leave you with my favourites from this week so far.

Aurora Activity July 20th

So, last week a few shots got de-watermarked and re-uploaded to Twitpic.
I just like to share the album I've made yesterday with all the shots I took that night.
Just so you all have an 'official' link to share. And please DO SHARE!

As you notice, I am still very p*ssed there are actually people that lower themselves to the point of stealing someone else's efforts and claiming them for themselves.



Aurora Borealis 20 July 2011 - Images by Olivier Du Tre

Copyright anyone?

This morning I went through my Twitter account and saw – just by luck – somebody posted pictures of 'auroras boreales en Canada'. I was like 'hey, somebody else took shots last night! Let's check'em out'.

One of the original tweets.

My stomach turned a little when I saw that as a matter of fact it were MY images I took on the night of July 21st, but with no watermark! I could swear I watermarked them before uploading them to www.spaceweather.com.

The two shots without ANY watermark, link back or just any hint of my name.

After checking that (I did in fact watermark my 4 shots and you can see the original post here), and some more digging, I ended up at the 'original' posters' Twitter account. A – what looks like – a genuine science and technology site.

Now I do LOVE science and I would do almost anything to help these usually under funded people out. But grabbing shots and removing watermarks (and NOT giving ANY credits or link back) is just plane old stealing in my book.

I sent a tweet out to them asking them to remove the photos from Twitpic but haven't recieved anything back yet.
I don't mind sharing pictures. As a matter of fact how would you otherwise get your work out?
But when I am missing out on potential clients that have no clue where pictures came from, that is another thing. Then you are pushing me into a corner and I have no clue how I will react.

If you look at the stats of these two images you'll see those shots got viewed approximately 9,000 times and got retweeted in about 1/10 of the views it got.

And to top that, they felt that they could repost this to their Facebook page as well.

SO here is my question. How would you handle this? Would you let this slide? Or would you sent them the bill? This is copyright infringement right? But I have no clue what I can do to people like this. Do I contact TwitPic?


Update 1
Here's the issue I am having. Thanks to all the privacy laws in place I can't see Twitter or Facebook page owners email addresses. I rather handle this through email though than shouting it in Twitter-space. So far they are not quick to react.
I got one tweet back saying, and I quote "we didn't remove it, our followers send us all the pictures, we just post them, send us the originals and we'll post them". So who did remove the watermarks then I question?
I tweeted again asking them (for the 2nd time now) to remove these shots. I am also filling in the Twitter Copyright Infringement form, but I'm not sending this off for now.
I like to believe these guys will remove the pics before I am forced to use more drastic measures.

Update 2
The owner of the page took the images down. SO that part of the issue is solved.
They claim they received these from an outside source and they were not the once that cropped the watermarks out. Could be, but how are we going to prove that?
I still like to find out who that 'source' was and go after them.

Update 3
The two pictures from yesterday were taken down. BUT I just found another one of my shots on their Twitpic page. This time around I sent them a simpler email. Asking them to take them down in 24h or I am filling a complaint through Twitter, and filling a complaint with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office.

Update 4
After 24h the picture is still up and I am putting the wheels in motion. Yes it is a weekend (but I don't give a damn). I gave them 24h to comply OR...
So here goes.

Update 5
I just got a reply from the CEO of Twitpic notifying me that as of 7:30pm the photo has been taken down.
I also filled a complaint with Twitter. Awaiting the response of that.

Don't they Look Moo-velous?

A few weeks ago I felt to need to print me some new business cards. Actually I never owned business cards before and more and more people where asking for them. I always had to scribble something down. And that does NOT look very professional of course.
Now I am happy to say that I own business cards that have the same look and feel as this blog and my website.

A colleague of mine actually found MOO one day. And everybody in the office here was impressed by how the samples (which they happily provide) looked like. After some debating I finally ordered a small batch as a test.

I ordered 50 and used their printfinity option. Which means you can basically have multiple fronts over a single generic back. Like a mini portfolio on your business card if you will. I designed the back using Illustrator and uploaded 10 different photos for the fronts.
When I was designing the cards, I ran into a bit of a technical thing about using blacks in print. MOO offers a Live Chat support function through their website and that worked flawlessly. I quickly had a rep on the line and had my answer in 2 minutes. Now that is a company that cares and knows what they are doing!

The cards itself are super heavy weight stock. They have a beautiful satin finish on them and they are made from recycled materials! Plus they came in a nice little holder. Pretty neat.
It is also very interesting to see what images are picked. This way you can keep a top 3 of what works and what does not. ;)

Overal I can't say anything bad about these guys and I just wanted to share my experience with you. For me this was a very enjoyable and satisfying experience (and cheap too! I payed just over $30 US). I am sure I will be using them again when I run out of cards.