Landscape, Nature And Travel Photography

One of the more interesting features off the San Francisco coastline is a small cluster of off shore rock formations near Sutro Baths. Under the right conditions they can take on an ethereal form for someone creatively inclined. For the thousands of birds that reside here nightly it’s just home.

Seal Rock, San Francisco

Technorati Tags: San Francisco, landscape, seascape, photo, stock, photography, bell curve, Seal Rock

As you may know I’m not a big proponent of using Creative Commons licensing for my photographic work (see Creative Commons: A Great Concept, I’ll Never Employ), but I do recognize it has value in some contexts (see EXIF and Beyond: Lawrence Lessig Interview). A recent development caught my eye that highlights one of the weaknesses of the Creative Commons model. That weakness is that the system of Creative Commons licensing is only as good or reliable as those that use it properly. If those using Creative Commons licensed images that don’t follow the license, the honors based system breaks down and becomes useless if not a detriment to the photographer releasing their work under it.

The latest story exemplifying this weakness comes from Corey Doctorow improperly using Creative Commons licensed photographs by Aaron Landry on the Boing Boing web site. To date Corey Doctorow has been a staunch advocate of Creative Commons and has written on the subject several times, often being referenced on the Creative Commons blog. If one of Creative Commons most staunch supporters doesn’t use it properly then what is the likelihood the average person will?

An Example of Creative Commons Not Working – Aaron Landry

Of course the next question raised based on Aaron’s licensing terms is Boing Boing a commercial site? Is the placement of advertising on the site enough to warrant identifying it as a commercial site and thus making commercial use of his photography? Joshua Benton shares an interesting experience in trying to determine the Creative Commons perspective to a similar question he raised sometime ago. Unfortunately Creative Commons clarifies little on what is considered “Commercial Purposes”.  This exposes yet another weakness of Creative Commons… an organization working to better define and protect image use, but still stuck in limbo on making the call or just unwilling to make the call on certain definitions. How is this an improvement over the ambiguity of copyright use and legal definition we see in our legal system?

Technorati Tags: Creative Commons, Aaron Landry, Boing Boing, photo, photography, licensing

This past week Adobe launched beta of Photoshop Express, a little over 1 year since Adobe announced its intention to put Photoshop online (see Photoshop In A Software As A Service (SaaS) Model?). Unfortunately for Adobe what proved to be most noteworthy about this new application is not its functionality, but the rights grab they’re making for each image that is processed in the online application.

Adobe makes available a very short and general Terms of Use document for Adobe Photoshop Express users to review. What new Express users see initially during the registration process is only the higher level Adobe.com Terms of Use. Surprisingly Adobe buries their Photoshop Express Terms of Use in a link from their general Terms of Use document concealing the following information:

8. Use of Your Content
a. Adobe does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, with respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services, you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in any format or medium now known or later developed.

For myself a few questions came to mind immediately after reading this.
1. “What the hell is Adobe thinking?”
2. “Are corporate lawyers really this out to lunch?”
3. “Why wasn’t greater thought put into supporting the rights of their users and managing the trust behind the Adobe brand?”
4. “Why would Adobe bury the meat of the Terms of Use as they’ve done?”

For the sake of full disclosure I have worked with creative agencies that have done work for Adobe in the past. It’s been a over 18 months since I last worked on anything Adobe related, but one thing is well known about Adobe… they take their brand very serious. By “brand” I mean the corporate perspective of what Adobe stands for and the reputation that they project. From a “brand” perspective this rights grab dramatically undermines the foundation in which their brand had been built upon namely “trust” and “empowering the creative professional”.

I’d like to think that Adobe’s lawyers made a mistake, but knowing how corporate lawyers work every clause of a contract is meticulously reviewed and approved. Nothing a corporate legal team does is an accident. Someone defined, reviewed and approved the terms with a lot of thought. What is certain is that effort was not brought in line with those that manage Adobe’s brand and products. With out a doubt Adobe’s staff was likely under the gun to produce and to give credit where credit is due… to turn out a product like this in a little over a year is an impressive feat. I have the greatest respect for Adobe to accomplish this, but with out hesitation I can say that Adobe really dropped the ball with their Terms of Use. In this day and age as an amateur or professional creative it is nearly impossible to not use Adobe software on a project. To this point an implicit bond and trust has been in place between Creatives and Adobe. If you can’t trust Adobe then who can you trust?

To quote Adobe from their Acquisition of Macromedia FAQ:

“What is Adobe’s mission?
Our mission is to revolutionize how the world engages with ideas and information. By acquiring Macromedia, we are strengthening this mission by making it easier for customers to create, manage, and deliver their ideas and engage with information of all types — in print, on the web, in video, and across mobile devices. We believe in enabling powerful, effective, and meaningful digital experiences across multiple operating systems in the broad span of diverse industries we serve.”

Adobe consistently walks a fine line on many issues facing their customers and partners, but in this instance they have egregiously treaded on their customers rights. To give Adobe credit they’ve recognized their mistake and are trying to make right as noted in John Nack’s blog post A note about PS Express terms of use. None the less once treaded on users undoubtedly will be and should be sensitive to this point and should rightfully keep a close eye even on Adobe.

I hope that Adobe is able to avoid making this mistake twice and given their leading role in this industry perhaps to re-establish their trust and leadership they could take it upon themselves to spearhead defining thoughtful standards and Terms of Use that are respectful of the rights of Creatives; standards and terms that other companies might then adopt as the norm rather than the exception.

Now to watch how quickly Adobe moves to revise and correct their Terms of Use. How fast they move surely will be a sign of how serious they’re taking the issue.

Kudos to fellow JMG-Galleries blog reader Ben Bailey for raising my awareness to this development.

Technorati Tags: Adobe, Photoshop Express, rights, copyright, software, technology, web, terms of use, rights grab

Mirror Lake is one of my favorite locations in Yosemite National Park. In fact in the early 90’s I took  a photo of this view and became entranced with nature and landscape photography. The photo I took of Mirror Lake then, is now framed and displayed in my office. It is by no means special in comparison to my current work, but it is a constant reminder of my photographic roots that keeps me grounded. I look at my first landscape photo of Mirror Lake and am instantly enveloped with the feeling of nature. Now when I visit Yosemite no matter what the conditions I visit this same location and capture the same view. I keep thinking that by doing this I’ll someday capture an even better photo of this view, but I think sentimentality runs too deep with the original for it to ever be dethroned as my favorite.

 
Here’s my latest of Mirror Lake taken earlier in March of 2008

Technorati Tags: Yosemite, National Park, California, Mirror Lake, Mt. Watkins, reflection, winter, snow, landscape, stock, photo, photography

Sometime ago there was discussion of adult trees near the Tunnel View lookout into Yosemite being cut back. I had heard there would be public hearings to discuss the matter, but apparently that time has come and gone with minimal public notice. Mid-March the trees were removed. YosemiteDonn has posted a recent photo of the view less the trees on Flickr. The decision to remove these trees was a really bad call in my opinion. I am saddened to hear and see the news of their removal.

Below are a couple of my favorite photos of this view point with the old growth trees.

Yosemite Sunset Breaking Light, Yosemite National Park

Yosemite Valley Winter View, Yosemite National Park

More Yosemite photos and blog entries…

Technorati Tags: Yosemite, valley, view, trees, removal, landscape, photography, photo, National Park

One of the neatest areas of Maui is the northeastern portion of Haleakala National Park. To get to this side of the island you have to brave the road to Hana, but its well worth it. The lush tropical landscape is a lot of fun to hike and explore particularly the bamboo forest that turns day to night.

Hiking Through A Bamboo Forest
Haleakala National Park – Maui, Hawaii

Technorati Tags: Maui, Hawaii, Haleakala, National Park, photo, stock, photography, bamboo, forest, nature, lifestyle, Hana, hike, hiking

From time to time a lot of buzz will surface about GPS devices for photographers that will track, map and embed GPS coordinates in the EXIF metadata of captured images. I use a GPS in the field when I’m out in remote locations not just for safety but to mark locations I’ve either photographed or plan on revisiting. To date I can’t say that I’ve missed having this information embedded in my EXIF metadata. I suppose it would be of benefit so that I wouldn’t lose the information, but a good photographer is also a good note taker.

This weekend I started to ponder, assuming this information were more commonly embedded, would photographers really be open enough to reveal it on a regular basis for geotagging? I can’t talk for others, but I can talk for myself and I more than likely would not be an open book with this information. For obvious locations I wouldn’t have a problem in sharing the information, but for special areas I’ve spent a great deal of time researching and/or exploring to find I’d likely keep it to my private notes. There is always the possibility of exceptions and I might open up for some friends, but even still it wouldn’t be the general public. Of course I run the risk of playing my cards here and looking like a real hardcase, but I’m just telling the truth. The more effort I’d put forward to find a location the less likely I’d be willing to share it.

What about you?

n

Technorati Tags: photography, GPS, EXIF, metadata, geotagging, gadgets, philosophy

Today’s Bring Your Own Big Wheel event in San Francisco was in a different location than last years BYOBW on Lombard Street, but it was just as fun. The crowd is always a blast to photograph. Below are a few favorites and more of my photos from the event can be seen in this Flash slideshow BYOBW Photo Highlights. Enjoy!

Check out the LaughingSquid site for more pics and a video (with a brief cameo with me in action). Scott (aka LaughingSquid) was next to me during most of the runs. Great guy and a great site.

Technorati Tags: BYOBW, Bring Your Own Big Wheel, San Francisco, California, McKinley Square, photography, photo