Category Archives: Online Photography Community

Yahoo! Silences Rebekka In Photo Theft Outrage

By Chris Garrett | Published May 16, 2007

Thomas Hawk has news of a bizarre decision from Yahoo! over at Flickr regarding the theft of Rebekkas work

So what’s got me pissed today? What’s got me pissed today is that according to Rebekka, Flickr has removed her image from their site. That’s right. Not only did they remove and kill her image and her *non-violent* words of protest, but they censored each and every one of us who commented on her photograph, who offered support to Rebekka, who shared in her frustration by wiping every single one of our comments off the face of the internet forever.

According to Rebekka, Flickr’s explanation?

“Flickr is not a venue for to you harass, abuse, impersonate, or intimidate others. If we receive a valid complaint about your conduct, we will send you a warning or
terminate your account.”

WTF?!?

So a flickr photographer gets ripped off. Dares to complain about it. Has an outpouring of support on the internet over it and Yahoo decides censorship is the way to handle this? This is the worst I’ve seen from Yahoo yet.

Many of us worried when Yahoo! took over Flickr. It seems some of those worries might be well founded.

Popular photographers like Thomas and Rebekka are people who built Flickr into the community it is (yes community, not just a picture hosting site). Even if they were not known at all, Yahoo! should be helping them not silencing them. To pour injustice on injustice is …. well, regardless of right and wrong, it’s bad for business.

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JPG Magazine Imploding?

By Chris Garrett | Published May 16, 2007

Recall JPG magazine, the glossy magazine that took contributions from Flickr users? It seems there has been a corporate falling-out and Derek and Heather (the founders) are leaving …Derek tells his story

Unfortunately, issue 10 will be the last one that Heather and I will have a hand in. We are no longer working for JPG Magazine or 8020 Publishing.

It’s a great shame, the magazine had a lot going for it. Probably still does. But you have to think a magazine founded on community support is at the mercy of that community. A community that loves Derek and Heather …

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DPReview bought by Amazon.com!

By Chris Garrett | Published May 14, 2007

Amazon has only gone and bought dpreview.com

We’re proud and excited to announce that Dpreview has been acquired by the worlds leading online retailer, Amazon.com.

They must have really been cooking with those digital camera affiliate links!

Seriously, congrats to Phil and the guys over there, fantastic news.

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Nested Sets Coming To Flickr

By Chris Garrett | Published March 7, 2007

I have long wanted to organise my Flickr sets into some sort of hierarchy. It seems Flickr have heard the transatlantic whining and set about giving us the ability to put sets in sets.

Thomas Hawk quotes Stewart Butterfield:

“We’re doing the final testing and design tweaks now :) ” and “You’ll be able to go five levels deep (beyond that seemed a little silly, but we’ll see how people end up using it).” .

I’m sure this will be a much used (and abused) feature. It got me thinking though how cool it would be to have much more control of the layout.

Right now your flickr page is organised pretty much chronologically as a stream. Wouldn’t it be nice to have the ability to perhaps put up a welcome message? Highlight your best stuff as well as your recent stuff? Your top tags? When a visitor arrives at the moment there is nothing to orient them, unless your recent stuff is good they are unlikely to go much deeper.

I realise the way most people find my flickr photos is through my blogs or through flickr groups, but I think more people would promote their Flickr URL if they mutated into something more useful.

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Flickr Rethinks Contact Limit

By Chris Garrett | Published February 3, 2007

Thomas Hawk has reported that Flickr has rethought the cap on Flickr contacts. Now reciprocal contacts will not be counted towards the limit, allowing people to amass larger numbers of contacts.

More info at Thomas’ blog post.

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Flickr Losing Lustr

By Chris Garrett | Published January 31, 2007

Flickr have decided to downgrade their service. First downgrade won’t affect most of us, I don’t know many people who will be too upset with this one:

the new maximum number of contacts is 3,000 contacts (good luck with that), and each photo on Flickr can have a maximum of 75 tags.

It’s the second that has me upset:

On March 15th, 2007 we’ll be discontinuing the old email-based Flickr sign in system. From that point on, everyone will have to use a Yahoo! ID to sign in to Flickr.

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Flickr ups space limits, Christmas Easter Egg

By Chris Garrett | Published December 13, 2006

ho ho ho meFlickr has dropped an early Christmas present, upping accounts space limits

unlimited uploads — the two gigabyte monthly limit is no more (yep, pro users have no limits on how many photos they can upload)! At the same time, we’ve upped the limit for free account members as well, from 20MB per month up to 100MB (yep, five times more)!

I’m sure this will come in very handy and is a welcome improvement. While most people I know on the basic accounts do not really reach their account limits very often it can be frustrating the one time they need more. This will make the chance of this happening even more rare.

Much more fun is the Christmas Easter Egg (if there is such a thing!), add a note to a photograph in your Flickr stream saying “ho ho ho hat” or “ho ho ho beard” for a festive treat.

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DSLRBlog Updates – In the post

By Chris Garrett | Published October 3, 2006

Every day for a couple of weeks has been like my birthday, I have gotten to look forward to the postie arriving every morning to see what he might bring me. This has mainly been because of my (admittedly excessive) eBay activities, but also this morning two special deliveries cheered me right up.

My latest eBay arrival was actually one of my first purchases. Big tip, if you want something quick do not pay by cheque, move on to the next auction where paypal is accepted. I “won” this SB-28 flash on the 9th of September, it arrived on the 30th! I will be doing a review of these flashes along with the SB-26 and how they compare to my 580ex soon now I have got some use out of them.

The surprise parcels this morning were my moo cards and my first ever published photograph.

First the moo cards. They are really really nice. I will definitely be buying a set even though I don’t really have a pressing need for them like Mark.

I’m not sure what the done thing is with these cards, do you just take a random selection of your recent pictures (as I did with the free 10) or choose only your best work (if not your own choice, in who’s opinion? interestingness?) or is it better to actually design an image to use?

The best parcel has to be the British Airways in-flight magazine with my picture in it! For the professionals who see your work in print all the time you will probably think this is really lame but it was quite a moment for me when I opened up this magazine and saw my name under my photograph.



Maybe next time someone might be willing to even pay me…

Seeing as I didn’t win the Strobist competition (boo!) I have ordered a set of Dean Collins DVDs and am also considering buying a set of “ebay radio slaves” so hopefully soon I will have another “birthday moment” soon, heh.

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BBC Ripping Off Flickr Photographers?

By Chris Garrett | Published September 28, 2006

It seems the venerable bastion of public-funded media, “Auntie” BBC, is being a bit naughty when it comes to sourcing photography from Flickr users according to Editorial Photographers UK

Mark’s or Sparks’ clever wheeze was to sign up with the photo sharing site, then attempt to persuade his new friends to hand over their work to the Beeb – for free naturally. Of course there’s nothing new in cheapskate editors scouring Flickr for freebies. And the Beeb has excelled in its pursuit of license payers for free content for its viewers’ galleries, all under the terms of an infamous contract that allows the BBC to earn money from the pictures while placing any uncomfortable legal repercussions firmly on the contributor. But the Sparks scam has a whole new spin to it. He doesn’t just want pictures for the viewers’ gallery; nor is he asking if he can use existing material to illustrate BBC stories. He wants people to agree to give him unfettered access to all future material that might be posted on Flickr, thereby creating a constantly updated pool of images that the BBC could access at any time for free, and of course resell at a profit. A picture library for free in fact.

.. it seems also they are not above just taking what they want either …

But oh dear, what’s this then? Why, it’s a picture lifted without permission and used on the BBC Scotland news website! It’s not as if Sparks and Co couldn’t have asked. The original image had an almost indecent amount of copyright and contact information, not only in Photoshop’s File Info, but underneath it on the website where it was first published. Presumably BBC Scotland work at such a fast pace they simply can’t keep up with the number of pictures they lift without permission.

You can see how a photographer would be flattered and would be willing to offer up their work just for the portfolio/resume potential and bragging rights. The BBC though should be above this kind of thing, they should be leading the way in fair treatment of the public as they are supposed to be there to serve the public. They will get nowhere arguing they are under funded, they are certainly well funded in comparison to other media outlets who do pay and are not propped up by a television tax.

Personally I see nothing wrong with the BBC asking for free contributions. The pictures are submitted voluntarily after all. They just need to get their legal people to be a bit more fair with what they have people agreeing to.

See the full discussion at flickr here

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Picasa Easter Egg

By Chris Garrett | Published September 22, 2006

Those Google guys do have a sense of humour!

Open up Picasa 2.5, hit Ctrl + Shift + Y to see a teddy bear.

Source: Adidap

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