man & nature # 3 ~ the f***ing scumbags never quit

After the sun goes down • click to embiggenFYI for those of you linking from adirondackbasecamp.com - you may want to read today's ... what you pay for entry as well.

On my recent entry, living large in the Adirondacks, Sean wrote : "Our last economic development officer kept suggesting that I should "donate" images to her very well funded (using my tax dollars) office ... I told her I would be thrilled to just as soon as my much anticipated "donation" of a 1Ds MkIII arrived from Canon. I'm still waiting for it."

It's hard to criticize too severely (but not without some vigor) someone for trying to get something for nothing while stating so in a forthright manner - that seems to be part of human nature - but when they do it with a slight-of-hand photo-rights grab photo contest they have stepped over the line. At that point they are nothing more or less than scam artists.

Copyright and use-right issues can be an expensive and tricky business when dealing with most professional photographers and with a substantial number of informed amateurs. Corporations and professional organizations, to include tourism organizations, are acutely aware of this. Rights-grab photo contests are their way of avoiding the issue.

What easier way to get pictures for nothing than to prey on and take advantage of the uniformed.

Although, greater legal minds than mine will have to grapple with the legality of this practice. What I do know is that copyright law states that:

§ 204. Execution of transfers of copyright ownership

(a) A transfer of copyright ownership, other than by operation of law, is not valid unless an instrument of conveyance, or a note or memorandum of the transfer, is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights conveyed or such owner's duly authorized agent.

Whether a mouse click check mark on an online Terms & Agreement statement qualifies as "in writing" and "signed by the owner of the rights conveyed", is probably open to question. Maybe it's legal, maybe not. I don't know, but, there's "legal" and then there's "ethical".

Some major corporations - HP and Adobe amongst them - have been caught with their hand in this cookie jar and been roundly castigated for it. For the most part, their response has been to issue a 'humble' mea coupa, then blame the lawyers, and then to promise to never do it again. There is little doubt that they didn't know exactly what they were doing. The only thing they didn't know was the amount of outrage that they would encounter.

That said, the practice is not about to go away any time soon. Sad to say, a tourism organization in the Adirondacks - The Adirondack Regional Tourism Council - has been conducting an ongoing photo contest with exactly the same MO. In order to merely submit a picture to the "contest", a person must agree to terms and conditions that state (in part):

... I agree that all photographs submitted shall become the property of The Adirondack Regional Tourism Council (ARTC). ARTC reserves the non-exclusive right to use any photograph(s) in publications or for promotional purposes...

In the pre-rights grab past, no such blanket conditions existed just to enter a photo contest. Winners were often required to grant use rights to the contest sponsor for promotional use relative to the contest but rarely, if ever, to the sponsor for use in their business advertising. It should also be noted that, even in the era of the rights-grab, there are still many photo contest sponsors who do not practice such scam-artist grabs. More power to them.

As an example, from the T&C of a photo contest sponsored by Nikon:

The organizer reserves the permanent nonexclusive right to publish, reproduce, display, distribute, and show on screen any winning photograph on Web sites, photo exhibitions, tradeshows, or any other media which is under the management of the organizer for the purpose of promoting the contest .... A separate agreement will need to be reached should the organizer, its subsidiaries or affiliates wish to publish a submitted photograph for purposes other than the promotion of the contest (my emphasis).

As for the people at the ARTC and those who convinced them to engage in rights-grab activities under the guise of a photo contest, I hope they all lose their jobs and have to beg on street corners. And, as long as I'm hoping for the best, I hope they all lose their jobs and have to beg on street corners for rest of their lives. Seriously. Hell, while I'm at it, I hope they're all young so that the rest of their lives is a really, really long time.

Any questions about where I stand on this issue?

Update on Monday, March 31, 2008 at 05:12PM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: TourPro wrote: "I will be the first to admit that the boilerplate agreement that folks are forced to 'agree' to is lame ... I'm all for rewarding people for their work, but with the changing technological landscape, new business models are a must."

TourPro also asked: "How would you counsel a business when it comes to User Generated Content?"

my response: before I answer TourPro's question, I want to address this notion - that, under the guise of a "changing technological landscape", the "lame" practice of forcing folks to "agree" to "boilerplate agreement"(s) that negates "rewarding people for their work", constitutes a "new business model"?

Bullshit. You can put any kind of spin you want on the age-old practice of getting something for nothing, but one thing it is not is a "new business model". Scam artists, operating under all manner of guises, and outright thieves have been doing that for centuries. Calling it a "new business model" is simply consummate huckser-ism at its best.

As for stretching the definition of UGC to include the self-serving mining of sites that have UGC content - discussion boards, blogs, social networking sites, experience or photo sharing sites - for out-of-site and uncompensated commercial gain, I don't buy it.

If the ARTC were interested in building an online site devoted to the sharing of Adirondack pictures, UGC, from which they gained a significant amount of PR value, I have no problem at all with that. IMO, that's a smart and ethical business practice. Then, "the masses of folks that just like to share the pictures they take" can, in fact, share them with their peers.

But, to cynically grab reproduction rights, without any compensation whatsoever, from those who are motivated to connect with peers, achieve a certain level of notoriety, fame, or recognition ("nice photo, dude"), or to simply express themselves, is, IMO, preying upon the desires of others.

To my knowledge, I have never heard one of those "folks" state that one of their life-desires was to take pictures, without being rewarded for their work, that others could use, BTW - for ever and ever, for commercial gain. Really. I've never heard anyone say that. Have you?

man & nature ku # 1/2 ~ one day to the next

24 hours • click to embiggenFYI, I have decided to drop the 'urban' from my Adirondack landscapes with signs of man. After scanning many of my earlier 8×10 negatives, many of which are truly urban landscapes, it made me realize how totally un-appropriate the word is for pictures of things here in the mountains. Not that I'm thrilled with the phrase "man & nature" but, in any event, there it is anyways.

As you know, I rarely talk about anything technical, photography-wise, especially about gear. Nevertheless, I have been thinking about a relatively generic gear issue related to digital cameras vs. film cameras. And, in fact, the issue is really only part of the bigger picture about techno babble. By "babble', I don't mean "yakking", rather, I am referring to the tower of babble of competing proprietary technologies.

You know the kind of babble I mean. As an example, consider web browsers. Each of the various browsers sees content differently and, not uncommonly, to the point where some content is either mangled or completely missing or unavailable. There is no commonly shared standard. It's as if, when you are reading the morning paper, you need a different set of eyewear to see the type properly, depending on what kind of press it was printed on. Plain and simple, this situation is just flat out stupid.

That said, let's get on to cameras. Back in the good ole days of film cameras, the standard for photographs print result-wise, was film. For instance, no matter which camera you loaded your Kodachrome into, you got a 'Kodachrome' picture. The difference in lens quality aside, it did not matter whether you loaded your Kodachrome into a disposable camera or a flagship Nikon SLR, you always ended up with a Kodachrome picture.

In the digital camera world, that is simply not the case. The is no standard. Every camera manufacturer has a different standard regarding how their products 'see' color, tone, contrast, sharpness, etc. And, just to make matters even more babble-ish, there are none too subtle differences in how different camera models within the same manufacturer's line up 'see'. Plain and simple, this situation is just flat out stupid.

I can understand (up to a point) differences, from manufacturer to manufacturer, in the way cameras 'see' relative to color, tone, and contrast, but not relative to sharpness. Isn't that suppose to be the domain of optics? Apparently not. Not when, in the case of the 4/3rds domain as an example, I can put a Leica lens on a variety of different manufacturer's cameras - Olympus, Panasonic, Leica - and get different results sharpness-wise. Plain and simple, this situation is just flat out stupid.

I also understand the relentless 'advances' in sensor technology. Although, the cynic in me suspects a certain amount of incremental release of such advances in order to keep us buying. That not withstanding, I don't understand why manufacturers, let's consider Olympus DSLRs, can not, once they have introduced a new and improved sensor together with its companion color engine, put that sensor in all of their current production models. Why? So that all Olympus DSLRs have identical Olympus color, contrast, tone, and sharpness.

If I were to buy the Olympus flagship E-3, the only Olympus I could have a a legitimate backup is another E-3. If I were to use any other Olympus DSLR as a backup, I would have to sacrifice all the sensor / color engine advances of the E-3. This is true of every other camera manufacturer. Plain and simple, this situation is just flat out stupid.

In the good ole days, I had my flagship Nikon and I could choose any Nikon SLR as a backup because, no matter what backup I chose, the image quality would be exactly the same from camera to camera. And, it didn't matter if my Nikon flagship was not the latest and greatest flagship because image quality-wise, they produced exactly the same results. For that matter, I could use any manufacturer's camera as a backup and, guess what, the results would still be exactly the same - a Kodachrome picture would still be a Kodachrome picture.

If film and, more importantly, the means to get it processed weren't disappearing into the sunset, I'd chuck the whole digital camera thing, the whole kit and kaboodle, into the trash. That said, you'd have to pry my mouse out of my cold dead hands when it comes to getting me out of the digital darkroom.

PS - it should go without saying, but I'll say it anyway - all of my Plain and simple, this situation is just flat out stupid statements are plain and simple, just flat out stupid for the consumer. Because, on the other hand, camera manufacturers are, plain and simple, just flat out laughing all the way to the bank.

ku # 508 ~ Spring? #2

Spring? # 2 • click to embiggenAnother sign of Spring? from Friday's all-day snowfall.

To be honest, these pictures were created at the higher elevations of the villages of Lake Placid and Saranac Lake. Some of the lower elevations don't have quite as much snow on the ground, but that is not to say no snow. Far from it.

Even though I'm a Winter guy and love the snow, I'm ready to break out the golf clubs - we were playing golf last year at this time. James' memory about last Spring is correct - it was early and very Summer-like in fact.

In any event, there's no use complaining. I'm just taking it one day at a time.

ku # 507 ~ Spring?

Spring? • click to embiggenYesterday it snowed all day. Tonight's (March 29) forecast low is 8 degrees. Somehow it just doesn't look or feel like Spring.

While a late-March snowfall isn't uncommon in these here parts, what is exacerbating the problem, spring look and feel wise, is the 12-18 inches of hard frozen snow on the ground - the result of a 3 day ice storm a few weeks back. The ground cover is rock hard and has seemed impervious to melting - not that we've had many daytime highs above freezing.

There was one really cool thing about the ice storm - late one night during the event, Hugo and I went outside and rolled marbles across the frozen snow. They rolled for 20-30 yards before hitting something that brought them to a stop. Cool.

Update on Saturday, March 29, 2008 at 06:23PM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: James wrote: "... while I enjoy your decay series Mark, I miss the unique beauty of "the ku". And while I understand the need for change, I hope you continue to return to this project from time to time."

my response: Thanks very much, James. FYI, I haven't abandoned ku by any means - amongst being very busy with work, scanning and posting my early 8×10 pictures, and some uninviting weather, I just haven't gotten out to picture recently. No need to worry, there's plenty more ku to come.

living large in the Adirondacks

Summer travel guide - front and back covers • click to embiggenMiguel Garcia-Guzman, on his blog, [EV +/-] Exposure Compensation, has an entry, Photography to promote tourism in which he states:

There is no better way to promote tourism than to use great photography to convey the beauty of the location, the experience of the place, and the charm of the people living in the region. Strangely, it is very uncommon that organizations in charge of promoting tourism will ever use photography effectively. It seems that photography is not an area of expertise in tourism boards.

Miguel is certainly correct about the "no better way" part. He is also 80-90% correct about the "uncommon that organizations .... use photography effectively" part. But, regarding the "photography is not an area of expertise in tourism boards" part, he 100% right and 100% wrong. Since this field - tourism marketing / tourism photography - is how I butter my bread, I thought that I might shed a little light of experience on the subject.

The truth of the matter is that most tourism organizations do not have anyone on staff who has an area of photography expertise. The best that can be hoped for is that someone in the organization, at the very least, knows the difference between a good picture from a bad one. Unfortunately, in most cases, even that minimal skill is well beyond hope (it's hiding somewhere behind "despair"). Fortunately, in some organizations, there exist people with the skill to hire ad agencies, photographers, and creative types who can tell the difference ....but .....

The truth of that matter is that most tourism organizations are greatly underfunded for the task at hand. The net result is that they can not hire the best and the brightest of ad agencies, photographers, and creative types. Consequently, the marketing materials that are produced (to include photography) do not, in fact, look like they were created by the best and the brightest. That's the sad reality.

That said, in my case, there are people in the Essex County Convention & Vistors Bureau (Lake Placid) who know an assh*** from a hole in the ground. And, fortunately for them, I (one of the best and brightest) am willing to do what I do for them - photography, creative direction, ad / marketing materials design and production, and assorted other related things - for very modest $$$$ (relative to a full-service ad agency). It's a win-win situation. They get great stuff and I get to do my thing in the place I love best on this planet.

FYI, the picture on the top of this entry is part of this year's print media advertising. You can find it on page 94 of this month's National Geographic Adventure magazine. And, btw, that's the wife and one of our dogs, Ron (short for AdirRONdog), perched on the rock.

Picture window ~ less is more

Picture window with fruit • click to embiggenIn the Vanity Fair article about Robert Frank, he opined that, "There are too many images ... Too many cameras now. We’re all being watched. It gets sillier and sillier. As if all action is meaningful. Nothing is really all that special. It’s just life. If all moments are recorded, then nothing is beautiful and maybe photography isn’t an art anymore. Maybe it never was."

After which the article's author opined, "And maybe it is his fault. Who would believe that a hairy little man could take snapshots of nothing and make millions of dollars?"

Now, we all know that Frank was not taking "snapshots" but, in fact, his pictures do project the appearance of snapshots. That appearance is a big part of their power - the picture's haphazard casualness implies that finding and picturing so many Americans (28,000 photographs) who didn't fit the mold of the American Myth was not a difficult task. They were everywhere, rather commonplace, in fact. Which, as it turned out, was what really pissed off those who were clinging to the Myth.

But, that said, back to Frank's statement about "too many images, too many cameras". This not exactly a new sentiment. Much has been said on the subject and there is no denying that we live in a visual-media saturated world. Throw in the zillions of people with cameras, many of whom lay claim to the moniker of "photographer" and you'd have to be blind (literally) to not notice the overwhelming clutter of pictures - a Tower of Visual Babble, of sorts.

Sifting through the babble is nigh unto impossible. There's no denying that some of the cream still rises to the top but one has to wonder if the embarrassment of visual riches, when taken together with all the visual garbage, doesn't have a deadening, or at least numbing, effect on the senses.

I have been thinking about this notion for a while. My interest in it has intensified recently as I began to scan my 'old' 8×10 color negatives. What I have realized is that during my 8×10 heyday, which spanned 2-3 years, I made approximately 50 negatives. That's a total of 50, not 50 keepers. Aside - I'm quite pleased to say that, upon revisiting these 50 negatives some 25 years later, virtually all of them are keepers.

Compare that number to the over 600 digital-format ku keepers that I have amassed in just the last 5 years - not to mention the thousands of slight variations thereof (bracketing, 'working' the subject, etc.). Of course, this vast difference in 'output' is not totally attributable to digital. These days, I'm working less and enjoying it more, so to speak - I do have much more time to picture for myself now than I did then but ....

Working with an 8×10 view camera, much more so than even with a 4×5 vc, is a very deliberate thing. One must be much more selective in one's selecting if for no other reason than the time it takes, start to finish, to make a single exposure - everything from loading film holders, to setting the camera up, focusing and composing on the ground glass, and, in the case of many of my 8×10s made at dusk, long exposure times (up to 20 minutes). It's not an exaggeration to state that exposing a single sheet of film can take between 45-60 minutes.

That said, it's the being "selective in one's selecting' that I wonder about with digital. The ease of digital - everything from shooting to viewing the 'contacts' - encourages blazing away in manner that, well, discourages being "selective in one's selecting'.

Does this mean that the mere act of being picturing prolific diminishes the prospect of making good/great pictures? I don't think so. Does it mean that there will be more pictures than there might be if everything were still analog? Most certainly, yes. But, does that mean that 'pictures, pictures, everywhere' will cheapen photography as an Art form? I don't know, but I do suspect that that is the real question in all of this.

Wanna venture a shot at an answer?

PS - does the notion of "too many images" being raised by a man who made 28,000 of them in 3 years seems just a bit odd to you?

urban ku # 180 ~ myth and daggers

kodak cameras and film • click to embiggenThere is a wonderful article in Vanity Fair about Robert Frank. Like my recent viewing of the Ansel Adams film, I enjoyed the Frank piece because it's not really about photography per se. It's about Frank, the man.

Not that I ever doubted it, but the more I learn about photographers as persons, not as photographers, the more I am convinced that good/great photography comes from 'within'. Just about anyone can learn the craft of photography but only a relative handful (relative to the total number of photographers out there) can make good/great pictures. By the phrase, "good/great pictures", I mean those pictures that are rich with meaning for more than just the photographer him/herself. Pictures that will survive the test of time. Pictures that have power that does not necessarily reside in what they depict but, rather, communicate a vision that offers something to think about and maybe even an occasion for wonder.

Robert Frank is, quite obviously, one such person. A person who, when he pictured what it meant to be human in 1950s America, created a seminal work, The Americans, that changed the face of photography and laid bare the myth of America. When the book was first published in 1959, Frank's portrayal of the American landscape and street corners was so contrary to the prevailing American Myth that no American publisher would touch it - it was first published in France. The work was roundly panned by all manner of commentators including Popular Photography magazine which called the book a "meaningless blur, grain, muddy exposures, drunken horizons and general sloppiness" and then went on to label Frank as "a joyless man who hates the country of his adoption." - a consummate act of denial and killing the messenger.

50 years later, the work is currently being republished for the 5th time and it is now being considered as the groundbreaking work - both as social commentary and photographic innovation - the really is/was. I like the comment from the VF piece which states that "... the genius lay in editing them (28,000 photographs) down to 83 daggers which he plunged directly into the heart of the Myth."

And, "... Before Frank, the visual orientation of photographs had been straight, horizontal, vertical. The subject of the picture was always obvious. You knew what the picture was about and what it meant to say. Frank, the shadowy little man, came along and changed the angles, made graininess a virtue, obscure lighting a benefit. His pictures were messy; you weren’t sure what to feel, who or what to focus on ... Frank intellectually changed photography—that is, what a photographer was supposed to look at. If Ansel Adams chose to capture the mightiness of nature, how could you argue with that? Where’s the fault in stone and sky and snow? There is no fault. And therein lies its fault. Frank snatched photography from the landscapists and the fashion portraitists and concentrated his lens on battered transvestites, women in housedresses, and sunken mouths. Life is not boulders and snow and perfume and chiffon. Life is difficult and sad and ephemeral. Life is flesh, not stone ..."

All of that said, here's what really interested me about Frank, the man.

He is quoted as saying about his children, "I wish I would have given them something ... their Jewishness or something." because, as he and the author of the piece agreed that the fantastic and fatal blessing of the American life [is] One can choose to be whatever one wants in America without the constraints of societal mores ... In America you might throw away ... old structures and live however you choose. But if you do not replace the old structure with a new one, this freedom will explode in your face like a car battery."

It should be noted that Frank states that "There was no agenda" when he set out on 3 successive Guggenheim grant-funded cross country car trips in the mid-50s. I don't doubt his words but I can't help but think that in his heart and soul he knew (an unthought known) that the American Myth was just that - a Myth. That, for a great many in America life, was indeed "difficult and sad and ephemeral". That in America, old structures and social mores had been thrown away not replaced with "something new". That, in fact, our freedom to live a life of the cult individuality had begun to "explode in the American face like a car battery".

What Frank did was nothing more than the seemingly simple act of picturing what he knew (consciously or not) to be true. There was "no agenda". The Americans was, in his words, "... a book of such simplicity." In fact, agenda-wise, He states that "It really doesn't say anything. It's apolitical. There's nothing happening in these photos ... I just went out into the streets and looked for interesting people."

It seems perfectly obvious to me that Frank was just being himself and the pictures flowed from within.

But there is one more very telling anecdote about Frank. When asked, "Do you carry any photographs in your wallet?”, Frank answered:

“One maybe.”

He removed his billfold from his back pocket, flipped through some receipts and a medical-insurance card. There it was. The only picture the master carried was a business-card photograph of Niagara Falls with block lettering underneath it that read, Niagara Falls, in case its holder should forget what it was he was looking at.

“It must be very beautiful, very romantic,” he said somewhat hopefully. As it turned out Robert Frank had never been to Niagara Falls. “Is it? Romantic?”

“Yes, quite romantic,” I lied. Let the old man be happy.

Kinda makes you wonder, despite what he knew to be true back in the 50s - ant, most likely, for his entire life, what it was he was looking for when he made all those pictures.

urban ku # 179 ~ objectivity vs passion

The Famous Grouse Scotch # 1 • click to embiggenDoug Stockdale asked (on his blog, singluarimages) "... what constitutes Contemporary Landscape Photography?" Past Landscapist guest host, Chantal Stone offered this answer -

Contemporary photography, I don’t think, is easily defined. But it’s more like photography without emotion…like a “way I see things” kind of thing. I think the idea of CP is to simply show the world, or snippets of the world, as objectively as possible. No easy task, imo ....

But in terms of landscape photography, I think CP is the best way to approach it. Contemporary landscape photography, I feel, is the most truthful way to show our world, as it is…the good, the bad, the pretty, the not so pretty. There’s no pretense with CLP, and with how rapidly our landscapes are changing I feel it’s important to document the world just as it is.

Chantal went on to opine that I - that's me, gravitas et nugalis - am "one of the best contemporary landscape photographers around" which implies that I might actually know what the hell it is that I am doing and, by extension, what 'Contemporary Landscape Photography' is as well. However, even though I rarely shrink from issuing forth with grand sweeping pronouncements, I am not going to rise that particular bait. That said, I would like to comment on the "photography without emotion ... show the world, or snippets of the world, as objectively as possible" thing.

IMBC&EO (In My Brilliantly Considered & Educated Opinion), there is an overwhelming and ubiquitous tendency, especially amongst those photographers given to pictorialism excesses or hopelessly romantic themes, to label landscape photography in which the referents are neither "spectacular" or iconic nor embellished with velvia-esque qualities (however attained) to be "without emotion". It also seems, IMBC&EO, that the emotion most cherished by the same crowd is that of "WOW!!!!"

From that reasoning, it is also assumed that photographers who make such 'non-conforming' photographs are doing so "objectively" - that is to say, uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices. The way this notion is most often articulated by the pictorialist excesses crowd is, "... looks like the shutter was tripped by accident ...".

Now, I don't know about you, but the only way that I can conceive of a photograph being created, uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices, by a person (as opposed to, say, a surveillance camera) is for that person to be in a coma and hooked up to some sort of devise that trips a camera shutter every time that he/she twitches involuntarily- leaving aside the fact that a non-comatose co-creator who is influenced by emotions or personal prejudices (how ever weird) would have had to set the whole thing up.

Of course, I, as do many others, make pictures that give the appearance of being 'cool', 'detached', or 'unaffected' observation, but, as we all know (or should), that appearance is an illusion. And, it's worth stating that 'cool', 'detached', and 'unaffected' are all actual emotional states - the opposite of 'impassioned', perhaps, but emotional states, nevertheless.

Why adopt such a so-called 'emotionless' appearance for my photographs? It's very simple, really. While my personal prejudices come to the fore in my act of referent selection, that is to say, in choosing that to which I am attracted and to which I wish to direct the viewer's attention, initially, I want the viewer to react to my pictures influenced by their emotions or personal prejudices. However, ultimately, I hope that my pictures will also cause the viewer to question their emotions or personal prejudices regarding the referent(s) presented in my pictures.

In my experience, and especially when viewed by those who are not hopelessly enthralled with pictorialist excesses, my pictures do just that. They often cause those who view them with an open mind to say things such as, "I never noticed that before" or, "I never thought of that in that way before", or even "I'm not sure about this, but I'll have to think about it."

It is my belief that they have this reaction because I give the viewer room to move, both emotionally and intellectually. I do not put them in an emotional / intellectual stupor by bludgeoning them with first-glance, nearly overwhelming 'shock and awe'. I treat the viewers of my pictures with intellectual and emotional respect - a sort of 'freedom of (thinking) choice', if you will. I assume they have a brain and that they know how to use it without me telling them how to use it.

And, on the subject of 'passion', I am very passionate, no matter how emotionally and intellectually dis-passionate my pictures appear to be, in the pursuit of making those pictures.

I don't know how well all of this goes towards defining "Contemporary Landscape Photography" but it's does define (in part) the how and why I make my contemporary landscape pictures.

PS: if you're listening, Chantal - thanks for the compliment.