APhotoContributor

Stolen moments of Dave Keating

By: Thorsten Overgaard

Here's a page that could be an eye-opener. When I look at my page statistics I see a lot of MySpace pages and others who deep-link to pictures from my site. I usually don't do anything about it.

But this one, a deep thinking blog of Dave Keating, I thought it was too much for someone to do a political comment type of blog - and then steal my picture of Angela Merkel (as well as the others on his page which are all deep-linked from newspapers, etc).

It's like there's a distinct line between blogging about and sometimes crediting, and then blogging and appear as one have bought in editorial pictures to support one's writings.

Anyway, this is how I redesigned his site. It's kind of mean but ... he's been showing my pictures like 6,000 times over the past six weeks.

Lots, actually, of people think that when someone has taken a picture, using it is not theft. It's anyways just lying there. The photographer should be kind of proud.

But thing is, when someone buy the right to use a picture, that is exactly what they buy: A time-limited and usage-limited right to use a certain picture. It doesn't make then the owner of the picture.

And as for lying around: The actual value of a picture is not the taking and archiving of it, but it's worth in "looking value." The more it can be used, the more value it has. And that is the exact value, one pays for. Not for the file or the photographer's time.

/Thorsten Overgaard

gear wanks...

gandy sent me a link to dxomark.  had no idea what the hell it was but when the first sips of coffee started working ... i figured it out.

very interesting.

i compared three cameras i use often:  canon 1dsm3 vs. canon 5d vs. leica m8.

gear wanks are going to absolutely love this.

about all that showed me is that i made a good choice with the canon 1dsm3.  there isn't anything i'd change about that camera.  there's plenty i'd change on the 5d but ... we'll have a new 5dm2 very shortly now.

seriously, photos soon! :)

hope you're all well!

disgusting...

actually, i'm disgusted that these disgruntled christian-conservatives have put up the words on this sign:

this is a sin?

you people are f*cking disgusting.  would jesus really spread this kind of hate?

just proves that these people are more responsive to hate than love ... any mf'ing day of the week.

[email protected] is the email address for general inquiries.

i think everyone should send him an email.

so sad that we have such narrow-minded idiots living in this country.

and the new zeiss zm ...

goes to ...

erik borst of amsterdam, the netherlands.  not only is zeiss sending him their zeiss ikon zm body but he's also getting the zeiss biogon t* 2,8/28mm lens.   edit:  i just saw that erik sent me an email about the camera settings ... canon 30d .. 16-35L/2.8 at f/7.1 and 1/640th.  see ... not only was it digital but it was also colour! ;)  i'm totally not biased. ;)

yes, i know ... it's in colour.  i know everyone would probably have thought a b/w photo would have won.  it was fun watching the votes coming in.

and the final tally ... resulted in the erik's photo winning.

not only do i love the fact the horizon is nice and straight ;) ... but i love how many different things are going on.  funny that after i've checked out the guy looking at his camera to the older guy making his photo to the woman doing something in the background i'm drawn to the guy in the center with his binoculars ... and i end up smiling because of the little girl looking at what i'm assuming is her mother.

patrick kahn also commented ... "This photo is perfection, composition and color-wise, it is stunning. It has a painting-like quality to it, the rich tones and the background which is almost surreal. The people in there bring life to this already beautiful setting, and they look almost vintage, as if this shot had been planned and cast. The dark-non descriptive clothes bring contrast and enhance the strength of the imagery without beeing a distraction. Just an incredible shot."

hoping to get some more quotes from the judges.  wanna thank ben roberts, bill pierce, severin koller, nhat nguyen, patrick kahn, laith majali, hossein farmani and elinor.  there is no real order to this list i just took it from the original announcement page on uber.  rip.

and a huge-huge-huge thank you to richard at zeiss for both sponsoring the prize and ... keeping his word even after uber crashed and burned.

yes, i'll have some words about that whole sitch soon.

again, thank you richard.  that was beyond cool.

we got 600+ entries.  there were some amazing photographs to look at.  the choices were difficult. 

soon ... i'll post a blog with photos representing all of the judge's choices.  in the meantime ... the two following photos -- even though there's no prize therewith associated -- represent 2nd and 3rd places...

2nd place was ...

by markus hartel of new york city.  very nice moment, mate.  thank you so much for entering.

and last but certainly not least 3rd place goes to ...

by christian rollinson of the united kingdom.  i think you'd be stoked, christian, if you know who liked your photo the best out of all of them.

maybe i'll tell.

maybe i won't.

we'll see.

i'm stoked for erik of amsterdam!  it's so nice knowing you used your contacts and were able to get a photographer -- a deseving photographer, of course -- a new piece of gear and an amazing piece of glass.  i wonder if wank ever did anything like that? ;)

again, thank you judges, submitters and, of course, zeiss. 

yes, i have lotsa photos to share.  scans.  some digi.  that said ... i've been beyond busy.

good stuff.

but beyond busy.

hopefully, i'll be able to post more over the next couple days.

archiving has been taking up a lot of time.  it's been nice, though.  tedious.  but.  nice.

hope this finds you all well!

thank you all for your patience with the contest.  i know many were anticipating the results.  me, too, actually. 

cheers from the not-so-smoky-la.

p.s., guys ... everyone who posts stuff on the web should learn about iptc and including at least copyright information on your photographs.  aperture does it very well.  so does photo mechanic.  photoshop is clunky.  dunno about light room.  but ... seriously ... when your iptc information is in there all someone has to do is see the file info and at least have a clue as to who made the photograph.  i'm just saying.

death block.

that's what's usually on the computer screen when i check into 1 of 2 hotels.  i've always thought that was odd.  guess that's why i always get the same hotel rooms.  this trip was a total blur.  then again, i like to blur shit...

i also think it's funny when someone tries to talk to you and you have buried earplugs in your ears making it hard to hear the loudest of noise.  which is why ... i have no idea how jonathan davis and some of the members of korn performing korn songs sounded.  no idea.

geometric shapes in a rectangle.  that's all i was paying attention to.

he was definitely singing something.

as much as i would have only loved to have used fast ambient glass there was no way.  i mean, yeah, you could have, but no magazine on the planet would publish that muddy shit.  i'm sure it would have looked cool on flickr or dA, though.

that canon transmitter thing is permanently in my bag.

i looked over and saw some hack from 944 trying to bounce.  um, yeah, the ceiling was about 50 feet up and ... black.

sure that recycle time was great.

love watching other shooters (and i use this term loosely for vegas) when they see some of the shit i do.  i'm not bragging ... i'm just laughing.  it's funny.  i love when i come back and see some guy with the same transmitter as they saw me using -- and these aren't even strobist-bitches -- and they continually get blown out frames.  hint:  use manual mode only. ;)

i know that's mean.  just amazes me that there are clients out there who have been snowed by some dumb-ass with spiky hair who could afford semi-pro-level gear ... having snowed some other clients into giving him jobs to afford it in the first place.

no, hew, i wasn't talking about you.  i actually think you can make photos.  just so you know.

to me ... 944 magazine spawns the same kind of photographer/videographer that harvey spawns through tmz.

sorry for the tirade. ;)

that's what ambient wide open looked like.  yep, looks cool but only on the web.  mags want something a bit brighter which doesn't "block up" the page.

there were plenty of people there to see the performance.  again, no idea what it sounded like.

off topic.  not really. but ... it appeared as though there was this girl with some huge criss angel-inspired plagiarized tattoo came into a lot of money and bought her and her not-so-attractive-friends a big-money table.  she spent almost us$10,000 for the privilege.  guess you would have had to have been there.

forgot one i shot with the 85/1.2.

halloween is so odd.

i honestly wonder what all of those photos look like with those crappy little sensors. ;)

i know what the worst joker costume looks like.  ;)

still not sure what that chick is supposed to be.  i know that halloween really brings out the "inner slut" of most, though. ;)

yes, walk through a casino in that outfit; i'm sure security really appreciates it.

you won't have trouble walking through the casino looking like this.  unless ... there's some domai guys prowling about with point-and-shoots.

they're supposedly actors.  i captioned their names from a voice tag and still don't remember. ;)

actually, i don't remember a lot of names.

 

craig (l) , my friend, and dj casanova.  i know their names. ;)

andrea (r) ... and her friend.  they called each other before they went out.

blurriness.  yeah ... i've totally boycotted the word bokeh when i found out who coined it.

randoms.

not-so-random but i still don't remember their names.  brunette on the right had an interesting problem with her devil tail making very interesting movements whilst walking.

homegirl wanted her drunk friend to come with her.  clearly.  that was a hipshot with off-camera flash. ;)

i'm not sure if this is the real palin, though.  asked her name and she said "sexy sarah."  i still don't think the alaska gov is all that sexy.

knowing what she stands for she could be like all top ten models of nyc and paris rolled into one and i'd still think she was "anything but hot."

that was the only palin-inspired costume i saw.

thought there would have been more.

nice and short trip out to the desert and back.

was kinda nice that halloween was on a friday, yes?

what else ... thank you guys for all of the suggestions, comments and other stuff about a photo community.  i would say i've defined what a community is by participation in a certain community when it was more about community and less about pageviews.  i still think that their direction at that time wasn't the best in that the photographic community wasn't lead by the strongest of people.  that being said ... it was such a great community "back in the day."

i mean ... then flickr came around.

i'm not sure if stand-alone blogs really hurt the community more than flickr or there was a combination of both.  dunno.

i do know that we need something new.

kinda had something new in uber but ... well ... ciao-ciao-uber.

okay ... i gotta shower and get my day going.

hope everyone had an amazing halloween!

cheers from the finally-feels-somewhat-like-fall la.