Time flies…

The month of July has just flown by.  Between work (both the typical stuff and special projects), moving my portfolio to Photrade, making the final push to finish the initial pass through the images from the Ocracoke trip last month (see my Ocracoke 2008 gallery at Photrade), and trying to figure out the best (and cost-effective) backup strategy for my images…well, this month has just about exhausted itself.  It seems like it wasn’t that long ago that Bea and I left Ocracoke…but it was almost a full month ago!

The first thing was work.  The first week of every month is always rough because of monthly scheduling.  Totally expected but still a rough week.  The good news was that there was a holiday at the end of that week. Four day work-weeks are always good.  I even got the chance to do a bit of shooting (camera, not firearms) that weekend.

After that there was the whole thing with Flickr/Myxer and the sense of urgency in getting my portfolio moved to Photrade.  At first it was a case of “gotta get everything from Flickr to Photrade” that kept me busy (my wife probably thinks the word obsessed is more appropriate) this week.  Then it changed to “gotta finish the initial pass through all of the Ocracoke images for processing” (that took some time because I shot about 1200 images during the week).

While doing that, I’ve been listening to various podcasts and realized my need for a good backup strategy for my images.  That’s what I’m thinking over now and the task seems quite daunting to me.  Oh, well, I’ll figure it out today and hope to get started on it sometime this weekend….as well as get out and shoot more images.

Which leads me back to what started this rambling post.  I just realized that all of the images I’ve shot since the Ocracoke trip are still on the camera.  I’ve not touched a single one of them and, frankly, don’t remember exactly what all is on there.  I guess I’ll find out this evening when I get home from work and download them to see.  I’m guessing there will be a bit of “what the heck is that?” and “what was I thinking?” but there is also likely to be a bit of “oh wow! I don’t remember doing that!”

Life’s too short for it to pass by this quickly.  Where’s the brake!  Shoot something so you can remember the fast times when you reach the slow times.  We have these memory machines for a reason–don’t just let yours sit there.  Use it!  Even if you wait a month or more to see what you’ve captured.

Ooops! I goofed!

Hey, folks!

My apologies for giving you a wrong email address in my last post.  The correct address is:  dbjohnsonphotography at gmail dot com.   If you emailed me regarding the Photrade invite, please do so again!

Thanks and sorry for the inconvenience.

Goodbye, Flickr! Hello, Photrade!

After the lack of response from Flickr regarding the copyright infringement fiasco by Myxer (see prior post) and asking the opinions of some folks in whom I have a lot of confidence, I have decided to move my online portfolio to Photrade.  Photrade is currently still in beta so getting in may take some time (due to having to get an invite either from someone in the beta or from the site itself), but it looks to be worth the wait.  I first heard about Photrade on the This Week In Photography (TWIP) podcast (#33, “Mostly Lisa”, June 13, 2008).

In addition to having galleries (not very different from those at Flickr), Photrade is set up to allow their users to sell prints and other merchandise (Have you ever thought of having your photo immortalized in the form of a ceramic tile mural?  Neither had I!), earn ad revenue from the site, and sell your work as stock.  Not only that, Photrade has structured their site to help protect the copyrights of their users.

Sounds ambitious, doesn’t it?  Well, I think so, too.  However, because it’s still in the beta stage the developers are seriously looking at the feedback that users send in.  This means that WE get to have some degree of influence (small, large, whatever) over how this site develops.  I don’t know about you, but I like the idea of the decision-makers listening to what I have to say about the service they offer.  Especially when the service offers the potential that Photrade aspires to attain.  I plan to stick around to see if they succeed.  If I manage to sell some of my work and make some money along the way…WOOHOO!  The biggest selling point for me is that they are doing something to protect their user’s copyrights!

For those of you who have managed to make it this far into this post, here’s the potential reward:  I have ONE Photrade invite left and will send it to the first person to comment here and email me at DBJohnsonPhotography (at) gmail (dot) com (make the appropriate changes so it looks like a real email address).

[UPDATE:  Due to lack of response here, I have given the invite to an old friend of mine from college.  Welcome aboard, Willie!]

Flickr: Asleep at the wheel? …or just plain indifferent?

With the flap over the Myxer situation, you would think that a company who constantly states that their “community” is of utmost importance (like Flickr does) would respond with some kind of reassurance that they are on top of the problem and are developing a solution.

Not so with Flickr.  Despite the fact that it was through their API that many people (possibly even yours truly) have had their legally-protected copyrights violated by Myxer, Flickr has yet to provide even an apology, much less a remedy, for this violation.  While Flickr did not violate the copyrights, they definitely “aided and abetted” Myxer to do so.  Myxer did the right thing by stopping the problem when it was pointed out to them, but they lost any credit due them for that by denying that they were guilty of copyright infringement (Hello, Myxer!  Distribution of copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright holder IS copyright infringement!  Ignorance (of the law or just in general) is no excuse!).

So…what to do about it.  Well, I’m in the process of figuring out where I will move my photos.  Yes, I WILL be leaving Flickr.  The only question now is where I will go.

Smugmug is looking like a favorite to win this race…..

For the best overall reference for background and other links concerning this, see Scott Bourne’s article at TWIP.