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Your pictures; your rights

Daniela Bowker — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 14:31:11 +0000

I have to admit, I’ve been giggling to myself at some of the comments that are popping up on the sites that have covered the Vampire Weekend image controversy. There seems to be confusion in monumental proportions regarding who owns the rights to a picture, to people’s images in a picture, and what you can—or can’t—do with a picture that you own. Confused much? We’ve put together the Small Aperture Quick and Dirty Guide to Photographs, People’s Images, and Rights. Just remember that we’re not lawyers.

Copyright

This one's mine!

If you shoot a picture, you own the copyright to it*. No one can reproduce it or otherwise make use of it without your permission.

*) The only exception is if you have explicitly signed away your rights. This might be part of your job contract at work – for example if you are taking photos for work, during work hours. In the UK at least, you can only sign away your copyright in writing, and you have to sign the document where you do so. Ticking a box on a website wouldn’t be sufficient.

Moral rights

You also own the moral rights to pictures that you take. In short, that means that your pictures should be attributed to you, and you can ‘protect their integrity’, or stop people from manipulating and distorting them.

Images of people: commercial, editorial, and personal use

If the picture features a person or people who are easily identifiable, you will require a model release, which is essentially that person’s or people’s consent, to use the picture for commercial purposes. If the picture of a yak farmer leading his herd down the mountain is just going to sit on your Flickr stream as part of your holiday snaps from Outer Mongolia, you don’t have to worry. Sell the picture to the publishers of the Encyclopaedic Guide to Mountain Yak Rearing, you’ll need a model release.

But, there are some exceptions to this. Inevitably.

Caveat number 1: Crowd scenes and itty-bitty people on the horizon whom you can’t make out properly (or similar)

You’re standing amongst the crowd at the London Marathon and you manage to snap the perfect shot of hundreds of spectators standing at Canary Wharf, cheering on the runners. It’s so perfect that Nike wants to use it in a commercial campaign. Do you need model releases from everyone in it? Not if they aren’t recognisable individually (even if someone says ‘But I knew I stood right next to that lamp-post all day’), in this instance it wouldn’t be reasonable.

These guys manning a laminating stand (in the middle of the street in Fez, at about 10pm) are probably obscure enough for me to get away with this shot. Probably.

Caveat number 2: Famous people doing famous-people things

It’s pretty much a given that famous people’s pictures taken when they are doing famous-people things, such as tripping the light fantastic up the red carpet at film premieres, opening yet another megalithic shopping centre with a false smile affixed to their faces, or taking an amazing catch at a cricket match, are fair game. But that’s only for personal (i.e. Flickr or your portfolio site) or editorial (i.e. news reporting or reviewing related to the picture) use.

You couldn’t use a photo of Tom Cruise attending a movie premiere to advertise toothpaste—no matter how shiny his teeth are—without a specific model release. And as far as Tom Cruise is concerned – good luck getting one of those.

Caveat number 3: Famous people doing stupid-people things

You’re out having a quiet meal with your best friend when you spot Cruella Manningly-Kneesup, Secretary of State for Juggling, Air Guitar, and Space Cadets locked in a passionate embrace with someone definitely not her husband. In fact, it’s Marco Poloco, whose company was recently awarded the government contract to supply rocket launchers and hover cars to the Space Cadet programme. Hmm. Is something fishy going on? Maybe! Obviously neither of these two is going to give you a model release for the picture that you snap with your ever-handy compact camera, but publishing it would be in the national interest – so you wouldn’t have to worry about privacy or libel too much.

Still the same applies as above: you couldn’t use the same picture of Manningly-Kneesup and Poloco in an advert for birth control. As much as you would like to.

Ownership of rights vs ownership of an artefact

I've turned this one into a card. Pretty, no?

Selling a copy of a picture is different to selling the rights to a picture. I use some of the photos that I take to make greetings cards. Mostly, I make them to send to my friends and family, but every now and then a misguided soul will ask me if they can buy one to send to their great aunt Marjory. I might’ve sold this person a copy of one of my pictures, but that’s it. All they own is the physical artefact, nothing else. They can’t reproduce it or make derivative works from it. Come to think of it, the same goes for the people to whom I give these cards.

Selling rights

Selling the rights to a picture means selling the rights to use a picture. There are different ways of selling the rights to use your pictures, because the number of times it can be used, and how, and where, will be dependent on the contract you agree, and that’s not really for this post. But the simple explanation is that if anyone wants to use a picture that you took, they have to at the very least ask your permission first. Then you can ask them for some money to do so. Okay?

And finally

Remember that you’re allowed to take pictures in UK public places without let or hindrance, and that we’re not solicitors, so all of this is for general guidance only, mkay?

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If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator or RSS reader, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. If you spot this, please contact legal@kamps.org so we can take legal action immediately. sarss31283940 / 20100729

Budding photographers wanted by the RHS

Daniela Bowker — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:12:51 +0000

We like to get photographers started young and a bit of competition along with the chance to win a digital camera can’t hurt. Little Ones and Slightly Bigger Ones can test out their garden-related photography skills in the Royal Horticultural Society Young Photographer of the Year competition.

Under 11s can submit up to five photographs on anything that catches their eye in the garden, from squirmy tadpoles in a pond to super-tall sunflowers. Under 18s can also submit up to five photos, but theirs have to fall into one of six different categories: a garden plants study; abstract; the seasonal garden; garden wildlife; gardens and gardeners; and fruit and veg.

The overall winner bags a digital camera as well as the title RHS Young Photographer of the Year. Come second or third and receive some photography vouchers. Not bad!

Entries are being accepted now until 31 August 2010. Head over to the RHS website for more information, an entry form, and The Rules.

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The model, the photographer, and the album cover

Daniela Bowker — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 21:03:01 +0000

Well, this is a curious one. It seems as if Vampire Weekend, whom I happened to see on Sunday when they headlined at Latitude, the photographer Tod Brody, and Vampire Weekend’s record company have found themselves in hot water over the photograph of a young woman used on the cover of band’s album, Contra.

It’s the sort of thing that happens when you use a picture of someone for commercial purposes without their consent, which is precisely what Ann Kirsten Kennis—amodel back in the 1980s and 1990s—is alleging. Whilst Brady is claiming that he took the photo as a test shot in 1983, Kennis’ lawyers say that it is more likely that her mum took the picture using a Polaroid camera. They aren’t really sure, though, and don’t know how Brody came to be in possession of the image. Even more odd: the model release that Brady submitted to support the photograph names the model as one Kirsten Johnsen.

Kennis is claiming $2 million in damages whilst Brady is claiming that Kennis has slandered and defamed him.

Hmm. I shall be intrigued to know how this one works out. It might be a while yet. The defendants have not yet submitted a response to Kennis’ allegations and a court date hasn’t been set.

(Thanks Photo District News)

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Small freebies up for grabs

Daniela Bowker — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 23:42:25 +0000

If you fancy playing around with HDR but aren’t really sure where to begin, something has just dropped into my inbox that might be what you need.

The dudes over at rawhdr.com have given us 10 free image sets (three raw versions of the same image: one under-exposed, one over-exposed, and one at the ‘correct’ exposure) to give away to our readers. They provide a selection of images suitable for HDR manipulation, you choose which ones you like and download them, and then away you go to manipulate until your heart is content. There are also eight tutorials available, exploring what HDR can do to images and explaining how it works.

The first ten people to get in touch with me by posting a comment below (remember to put your e-mail address in the e-mail field. We won’t publish it, but if you don’t, I won’t be able to contact you!) to win the freebies!

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One map and lots of photos at Historypin

Daniela Bowker — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:53:42 +0000

Photos can be a really important historical resource, and it isn’t just the pictures taken at significant events or of famous figures that are valuable. Those pictures stored in boxes in dusty attics or filed away in albums, your mother’s first holiday snaps and your great-grandparents’ wedding portraits, they all have a story to tell.

In fact, I’ve already written about how the images that we capture in our everyday lives will help to teach people living hundreds of years in the future about us. So how about making use of the photos that we already have?

If you head over to Historypin you can find thousands of old photographs pinned to a giant map of the world, and you can add your own together with the story behind the image. You can search by place, by subject, and by date. And you can even compare how an area looked then with how it looks now. Can’t you tell I’ve had far too much fun looking at photos of the area where I live?

The people behind it are We Are What We Do, a movement that aims to inspire social change through lots of people doing lots of little things. The theory behind Historypin is not just to build a resource, but to get different generations talking to each other. They teamed up with Google who supplied the map and the Street View capability that allows old and modern picture comparisons.

Yes, it is still in Beta, which means that there are a few kinks that need working out; and because it a community project some areas are devoid of pictures and others have hundreds, but, I’m completely charmed by the idea. Old pictures and little bits of people’s lives scattered over a giant map of the world. What’s not to like?

Now, I wonder if they have any pictures of where my grandparents were married…

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The good, the bad, and the ugly – free picture editing software

Maxwell_Lander — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 15:00:46 +0000

If you’re just wetting your feet in photography, or perhaps if money is tight, you might not want, or be able, to splash out on expensive editing software. There is, however, quite a selection of free editing packages out there. We thought that we’d give four of them a spin and tell you what we thought.

Testing out these wonders we have N. Maxwell Lander, a Toronto-based queer photographer and website designer, who also happens to be a bit of a picture editing genius. So, what’s to be said for Picasa and Picnik, GIMP and Pixlr?

The Little Guys – Picasa and Picnik

Picasa is handy. Picnik is similarly handy. Really, what you need in a photo editor will determine which program is best for you. If you need really basic alterations and really awesome organisation, as well as somewhere online to store and share, Picasa is for you.

I’m not gonna lie, I’m a giant Google fan. I use a whole lot of their products for a variety of things. Picasa web albums are my favourite way to share my photos with clients. I don’t, however, use Picasa as a standalone app. My number one reason? No localised edits, save for a retouch brush for blemishes. Picasa—as well Picnik—both do generalised editing, which for the snaps coming out of your point-and-shoot camera are fine. Although, I’m willing to bet your camera came with software that could do all the same things.

Here's what you can do with Picasa

The perils of online apps

Hands down I’ll recommend Picasa over Picnik. The features are similar, but Picnik is an online app, and I just don’t trust online apps – they get real slow, real fast. Since I can see no advantage of using an online one, it’s a lose-lose scenario for me. Realistically, you’re going to get similar edits out of both as all the basics are there: red eye removal, saturation, contrast, crop, rotate, those bits and pieces. For me, a huge factor in photo editing is how easy the program is to play around in, how much I enjoy being in there. I didn’t end up trying all of Picnik’s features, because I didn’t find it to be an enjoyable experience.

Based on user experience, and especially when we are talking about low-intensity users, I would have to choose Picasa. The layout of everything is easy and accessible, and there aren’t too many options to get overwhelmed by.

But effects can be fun!

There is one thing I will give Picnik – it has fun effects. I am hesitant to admit that since becoming an iPhone user I have gained an appreciation for overdone, stereotypical photo effects. While I think that these types of effects can become cheesy very quickly, I am getting sucked into their charm… but only, and I hope you will follow my example, only for playful snaps. Your slightly wonky party pics will look way cooler in the 1960s effect then a ‘correctly’ adjusted photo.

This is the sort of fun that you can have with Picnik

The Big Guns – GIMP and Pixlr

Alright, here’s where things get a little intense. GIMP and Pixlr. In comparison to the last two, they are both wonders. The features that exist in either far surpass anything Picnik and Picasa can offer. Both programs are capable of doing 90% of my Photoshop workflow, which is saying something.

Same same…

Things they both have to offer – localised edits (such as brushes and selections), layers (for “non-destructive” editing and adjustments), a wide variety of adjustment (contrast, saturation, curves, colour…), many many filters, and they both open raw files (although GIMP is the only one that can edit the raw). There are more, but already we’ve a hefty list of features that could keep anyone occupied for years of photography (and probably everything you need to be a pro).

How things turn out using GIMP

…but different

There are a good number of differences between the two, and some negatives to consider, because no program is perfect. With GIMP, the main negatives concern interface. It is irritating to work in. It’s possible that if I weren’t one of Photoshop’s biggest cheerleaders, I wouldn’t find it so, but I’ve checked in with a good number of people and almost everyone I’ve talked to agrees. There is something about the way it is set up that makes it unpleasant to work in, and who wants to be irritated by their editing software?

Trouble with GIMP

As far as technical negatives with GIMP, there are three major ones that stick out for me: limited size of the brush (which I’m sure if I could write code I could change, but really, what a stupid thing to do), no adjustment layers (all adjustments, in order to be non-destructive, must occur on a new merged layer), and, this one is only for Mac users I believe, separate windows for each item. Palettes, toolbox, and image are all separate windows, which means I have to click back on my image before entering a quick key… which makes it not quick… which makes it useful how?

Results using Pixlr

Those are three really big things for me, and coupled with the annoying interface I was irritated beyond belief when trying to complete my whole edit in GIMP.

The ups and downs of Pixlr

Pixlr, on the other hand, only shares the lack of adjustment layers from that list, and isn’t at all obnoxious to work in. I found it an easy and accessible interface, and, would you believe it, the quick keys work! The downside to Pixlr? It’s an online editor. Sometimes it’s slow and it even crashed on me a couple times when I started getting into larger file sizes and more layers…. oh wait, did I forget to mention that GIMP did that too? They both got overwhelmed with serious editing, which is a shame because they could both be amazing options. As it stands, they are more like curate’s eggs: excellent in parts.

The verdict?

Ultimately, you get what you (don’t) pay for. The free suites offer basic editing, some clever effects, as well as some serious technical capabilities. But they also come with speed issues, reliability issues, and in some cases user interfaces that aren’t so user-friendly. But if you’re prepared to persevere, they will do what you need them to.

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When is a camera a professional camera?

Daniela Bowker — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:10:33 +0000

I’ve just come home from a great weekend of music, poetry, and theatre at the Latitude music festival. There were heaps of cameras floating around Henham Park, from 8 year olds with disposable ones that you can buy in Boots for a few pounds to Nikon D3Ss toted by the press, via mobile phones and all shades of compact camera. But if you were an ordinary paying member of the public, you weren’t allowed to bring in a dSLR.

You see the powers-that-be at Festival Republic—organisers of Latitude and several other big name festivals—had deemed dSLRs as ‘professional’, and that makes them forbidden. If you want the exact text from the website, it’s this: ‘Cameras are normally permitted for personal use. Cameras with detachable telephoto lenses will not be allowed through the three arena entrances. Professional cameras and video/audio equipment are strictly prohibited. Live video/audio recordings made without the permission of the artiste/promoter are prohibited.’

It got me thinking: what exactly is Festival Republic’s logic here?

It seems as if Festival Republic want to protect their professional interests by preventing the commercial sale of images from the festival. In order to do that, they’ve felt that they’ve had to draw a line in the sand regarding what constitutes ‘professional’ equipment. Their distinction is a dSLR camera. I can understand that, to a certain degree: their security personnel can’t be expected to know a zoom from a prime lens or a Canon 1D from a Nikon D3000, so it’s easiest to say dSLRs aren’t allowed. But in many respects, they are doing themselves a huge disservice.

For a start, have they checked out the zoom capabilities on a high-end compact camera? Or even on a lower-end camera, for that matter. Yeah, they have pretty impressive specs.

So this camera would be allowed.

Have they considered that using a dSLR is going to cause less disturbance to performers than common-or-garden variety cameras because the flash doesn’t need to fire to produce an image in low-light settings?

Plenty of compact cameras are able to shoot videos. In fact, I saw a good number of people doing that over the weekend, despite it being prohibited.

This one takes video, but that's still okay.

There are plenty of people out there using dSLR cameras because that’s what they prefer to use. They’re not professional and they don’t even hope to become professional. Their cameras are for personal use. Find a better distinction; realise that a dSLR camera doesn’t make someone a professional, and a professional doesn’t always use a dSLR.

I wonder what would happen if someone tried to use a manual SLR?

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What is a small aperture?

Daniela Bowker — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 23:48:01 +0000

Seeing as the site is called Small Aperture, we thought that we’d give an explanation of the concept of a small aperture. Aperture is fairly important in terms of photography, but it isn’t exactly straightforward as altering the aperture can have a dual effect on your pictures. So, here’s our guide to the small aperture.

Aperture and light

Aperture means ‘hole’ or ‘opening’. In a photography sense, the aperture is the gap that allows light to pass through the lens. The bigger the opening, or the aperture, the more light passes through. That’s pretty intuitive. So if you’re taking pictures in low-light settings, a bigger aperture will help you to take a photo where you can see something. If you’re taking pictures in bright sunlight, using a smaller aperture will help to prevent the image being one mass of white.

With me so far? Excellent!

Aperture and depth of field

However, aperture also has another pretty nifty effect on pictures: it alters the depth of field of an image. That means that the aperture controls how much of the image is in focus. Use a small aperture and you’ll have a greater depth of field, meaning that things in the foreground and the background will be in focus. A bit like this, really:

Using an aperture of f/8 meant that the varder (or pile of rocks) is in focus, as well as the mountains in the background.

If you want to take a picture that includes lots of detail, you’re probably best using a small aperture. And yes, that’s why we called the site Small Aperture. We wanted to look at photography with a greater depth of field. We wanted to bring lots of different things into focus.

Well, we thought it was groovy.

An aperture of f/5.6 meant that lots of the boats were in focus, not just one or two.

Measuring aperture

So, how do we measure aperture? That would be in f-stops, which doesn’t tell you very much, does it? Well, when you hear people throwing around numbers such as f/1.8, or f/22, they are referring to aperture. F/1.8 is a very big aperture and f/22 is a very small aperture.

Does that seem a bit confusing? Maybe it’ll help to think of like this: those numbers correspond to fractions; the fraction being how big the aperture – or the opening – is. F/4 corresponds to a quarter and f/8 to an eighth. An eighth is obviously smaller than a quarter; this means that it is a smaller aperture, it lets in less light; and gives a greater depth of field.

And now, after all that, you probably want to know what these random fractions are fractions of. They’re fractions of the length of the lens you’re using. The aperture of a 28mm lens at f/1 will be 28mm. Similarly, the aperture of a 50mm at f/4 will be 12.5mm. The bigger the f-stop, the smaller the aperture.

How about a quick summary?

Aperture means hole, gap, or opening
A smaller aperture lets in less light, good for shooting on sunny days
A smaller aperture also gives a greater depth of field, so you can see lots of detail in the picture and the background can be in focus
Aperture is measured in f-stops
F-stops correspond to fractions
The higher the f-stop number, the smaller the fraction, and the smaller the aperture

You know what, go out and take some photos altering the aperture value on your camera. Then you’ll see what we mean!

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Feedback on your photos at Focussion

Daniela Bowker — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 22:22:54 +0000

Feedback on photographs can be a funny thing: of course you don’t want to be shot down in flames and told that it’s an awful picture, but more often, you don’t just want to hear: ‘Great shot!’. Knowing why someone thinks it is a great shot, or what you could have done to make it that bit better is far more valuable. But with so many millions of images up for critique in the usual haunts, it’s easier to just say the obvious, or say nothing at all. So how about a site that actively fosters sharing feedback?

This is precisely what Focussion has been designed to encourage: photographers leaving other photographers feedback on their work. Sign up to Focussion (it’s free) and you’re awarded 250 credits. Those 250 credits will allow you to post 10 pictures to the site. In order to be able to post more photos, you need to leave comments on other members’ photos. Each comment that you leave earns you five credits. It’s a feedback economy.

What kind of feedback will this one get?

The focus is on the photographs, not on features, and making sure that they gain feedback. The most recently uploaded images appear on the front page and the most recent comments are on the right side bar. There’s nothing complicated about it, although I would like to see a less clunky method for being able to view a given member’s entire catalogue. Right now, this can only be done by finding one of her or his photos and clicking through from there.

And the cynic in me can’t help but think that it is all too easy to leave ‘Great shot!’ comments, rather than something properly constructive. Perhaps by introducing a second layer of critique, whereby the recipient of the feedback rates how useful it was, the feedback process can be strengthened. But maybe this moves away from the simple model that inspired it. If you give constructive feedback, you’re likely to attract it, too.

Focussion went live on 4 June and already has about 80 members. You should head over there, sign up, and share a little picture-love.

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PhotoEngine: edit in real-time

Daniela Bowker — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:44:45 +0000

If you’ve ever wanted to turn off or dim a light in a photograph after you’ve taken it, or if you’d like to be able to adjust exposure as if you were still behind the lens but aren’t, then the people over at Oloneo might have just the piece of HDR software for you. What’s more, it makes the adjustments in real-time.

PhotoEngine allows you to alter the lighting in your pictures, for example to switch on or off light sources or adjust their white balance. It also gives you the capacity to recover details lost to over-exposure, or to restore areas that have been under-exposed. And there’s a noise reduction tool, too.

PhotoEngine is still in Beta and is only available for Windows, but you can learn more about it and download it for free from Oloneo.