Friday Clicks

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I spend a lot of time online and see a lot of very cool things related to photography, Maine, multimedia, Portland and the like.  I thought I’d share a few of the cooler links from time to time, and Fridays are a good day to do it, being the end of the week and all.   How any work gets done on Friday afternoon, I’ll never know….

Enjoy!

Think First    Social Media and tribe-building from Out:think

Camera Cake    New social media site for and by professional photographers

Photoshelter Blog   Even if you don’t use the Photoshelter service, you’ll find something of value on their frequently-updated blog

Portland Food Coma   You may enjoy food, but trust me—not as much as Maine Magazine food editor Joe Ricchio.  His voice is entertaining, irreverent and worth a read.

Inspire Portland   Yes, it’s a bit self-serving—but what Colleen Wainwright calls my allotted ‘5%’.  Plus, I think you’ll think it’s cool.

The Art of Non-Conformity   blog by Chris Guillebeau.  You’ve got to just check it out.  There’s a cool writeup about a cool Mainah there today.

Nate Damm  The cool Mainah mentioned above.   He walked across America.  All of it.   What did you do this summer?

A man named Corky

1 Comment read Blog, News, On Assignment, On Location, Projects

My former next-door-neighbor Mike worked for a very mysterious-sounding tech company named Kepware Technologies.  Every so often, Mike would disappear to for a week or so and come back with tales of travels to Germany, Portugal or Eastern Europe for his job.   I recall a night at his place involving a couple of Russian business partners and some vodka.   He explained what they made—software drivers—leaving me as confused as before.

I thought again of Kepware when I started Inspire Portland after reading some articles about Kepware’s successes–and founder Corson “Corky” Ellis’ involvement in the promotion of entrepreneurship in Maine through ventures like the Maine Center for Entrepreneurial Development’s Top Gun program    I thought, I’ve got to meet this guy.   At a minimum, he might be able to explain what Kepware does in a way that my feeble brain can understand.

Two days after he agreed to the shoot, I found myself in the headquarters of Corky’s operation, above the Post Office in downtown Portland.   He looks a little like my good friend and photographer Brad Armstrong.   We had a good conversation, and Corky emphasized two things repeatedly:  one, the success of Kepware is entirely due to the efforts of many talented people besides himself; and two, that he is very concerned about the state of technology education among secondary school students.  From his perspective, the best way to keep and attract high-paying tech jobs here in Maine is to get our kids more interested in science and math.    He sees technology education as the key to creating a technology economy here in Maine.

The shoot went well and I had the run of their amazing space across from City Hall.   Corky is one of those talented entrepreneurs who actively chose to live in Portland and now, some 15 years later, is employing more than 60 people in highly-skilled jobs.    Almost as important, he finally explained to me what Kepware actually does in terms I can understand, comparing it to the printer drivers you download to allow your computer and printer to talk…just on a much bigger scale.

Read his interview and see the photos at Inspire Portland.   I chose the lead image because it seemed the least contrived, and the most revealing in terms of his expression.   You ask questions about what people carry in their pockets, and it tends to get people to drop their guard a bit.   See the outtakes and lighting scene shot in the gallery below (sorry, iUsers, you’ll need Flash).

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Do you Biba?

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Drink Biba!

Drink Biba!

I love this….one of my clients is making it big.  Biba, a health “smart drink” startup based in Boston, is now in full production after a couple years of very hard work.  I just noticed them in the local grocery store, too.  Biba is hands-down the best energy-type drink I’ve ever had—light, full of vitamins rather than sugar, and darned tasty.  Go Biba!

Lights on Location Workshop

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Mike and Molly Zubik, of Gorham, Maine. (Brian Fitzgerald)
Ferry Beach in Scarborough, the setting for the Lights on Location Workshop

It’s now October, which means that it’s time to start thinking about holidays, jackets and how to escape the coming cold.  It also means the final workshop of our 2011 series is almost upon us.

The Lights on Location Workshop is slated for 4-7:30 pm on Tuesday, October 18th at Ferry Beach in Scarborough.   This is a hands-on-cameras workshop focused on real, practical shooting with strobes (studio and speedlight) in combination with sunlight outside.

If you’ve ever struggled with portraits on the beach, or getting a great fashion style shot, this workshop is for you.   We’ll be shooting in full sunlight and at dusk using studio strobes with battery packs and with speed lights, with a variety of light modifiers.

The goal is to give you confidence that you can balance natural with artificial light to make a stunning, dramatic image for your portfolio or for your clients.

I love gear as much as the next photographer, but the focus here is unleashing your creativity.  As such we’ll delve into light basics, lighting with just one or two lights,  high-speed flash photography, and maximizing the effectiveness of your camera manufacturer speed lights. The focus is on maximizing the gear you already own, but we’ll show examples using more lights and some more sophisticated lighting controls.

To sign up for the workshop, click to pay here.   Space is limited to just 10 participants.  Hope to see you there!

Introducing…Inspire Portland

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Inspire Portland

 

Inspire Portland

Five years ago, my wife Beth and I drove 3,090 miles from Washington State to Portland, Maine.   I had recently been transferred by my employer, the Seattle Times Company, to become the photo director at the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram.

In my career as a journalist, I’ve lived a lot of places but the goal was always the same:  to make my mark at the newspaper, and when it was time, move on.    It never really mattered where I lived, from Korea to Yakima, Washington, but Portland was different.  We were as excited about our new hometown as I was about the new job.

After a couple of years I decided to leave the newspaper to focus on my photography business.   We were faced with a decision:  stay in Portland, or move again.

We chose Portland.

Almost everyone, it seems, has had to ‘choose’ Portland at some point.   From the 20-something working several ‘joblets’, to the entrepreneur who decides they’ll build a business here, almost everyone, at some point, has to make a decision whether to stay.  Portland isn’t made up of people who just end up here—this isn’t Phoenix or Florida or L.A.   The winters are hard and long, and jobs can be scarce.  It’s a place where, to succeed, you have to work hard and be creative.   Not surprisingly, it’s filled with some pretty interesting, driven and creative people.

Which brings me to Inspire Portland.   Years ago, our family decided to live, work and play in Portland.   Inspire Portland is a sampling of people—people you may know about, and people that you should.  This site is based on my desire to get out on the streets with my camera and talk with people who make Portland such a cool place.    Every other week I’ll feature a new portrait along with a short question-and-answer session.  That’s 26 portraits and interviews of some pretty cool people that have inspired Portland.

On this blog, I’ll announce each ‘issue’, tell the backstory for the portrait and may publish additional photos from the shoots.   The project kicks off with three portraits dating from September 1.

The first portrait is of Rich Connor, CEO and Publisher of MaineToday Media.   I start with him because our paths are intertwined—The Press Herald is what brought me to Portland.  It hasn’t been that long since national media ran articles about how Portland was on the verge of losing its only daily (non-free) newspaper.   Connor is responsible for the paper’s continued survival during a very difficult time for newspapers.    Next up is Nan Heald, executive director for Pine Tree Legal Assistance.  Through an army of volunteer laywers, the PTLA has changed lives for the better here.  I end September with Chystie Corns, who takes the idea of ‘invent your dream job’ to a whole new level.  Her talent is that she makes it look so easy.

Let me know what you think.

Just in time for Halloween….

0 Comments read Blog, On Assignment, On Location

I recently had a fun shoot for an e-book project called The Witch’s Code by author P.J. Mann.  Earlier this week, the book was published for sale online, so I thought I’d share the cover as well as some photos that didn’t make the final cut.    This is the first time I’ve gotten to work directly with my good friends Arielle Walrath, Kevin Brooks and Sean Wilkinson of Might & Main.  As it turns out, after searching for an appropriate model who also would fit the author’s well-defined notions of the main character (uh, let’s see…a 20-something female detective from Salem, Mass., with wavy long brown hair, who can channel her inner witch….).    After everything was said and done, it turned out that Laura Flood —my makeup and hair stylist of choice—was perfect (and willing, which was definitely a plus).   I also have to thank South Portland P.D.’s Steve Webster (a bona fide real detective) for his expertise and help as well.

The finished cover, with post-production provided by Might & Main is pretty cool–definitely my favorite photo of the bunch.    Here are a couple of others I liked a lot (Laura is holding her hand out as if it contains a glowing spell as in the final finished book cover).   Great job all around, and a way fun shoot on location in the bewitching city of Portland.

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Ebook photography

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I’ve had the pleasure this year of working on projects for several authors (both traditional print and e-book). Several were environmental portraits of the authors themselves—shot on location—for their printed book projects.  The third is a conceptual image for an established author who is branching out into a series of e-books.

Whether for traditional, physical books printed on paper or those destined exclusively for ebook readers, these types of images need to be impactful and must fit the genre and author’s personality.   A couple of the authors are career emergency services workers, so a certain grittiness was called for due to the subject matter—namely crime scenes and emergency calls.

The E-book, a Twilight-esque fiction novel, was all about a striking image—in this case sexy but dark—that would get the attention of potential readers.  I’ll show that image when it’s actually published and the book’s for sale.  Now that Border’s gone, you’ll need to get your books somewhere…

[photoshelter-img width=’400′ height=’621′ i_id=’I0000MhChkU_4m0o’ buy=’0′]

Your photos are being used illegally. Now what?

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Last year I wrote about the importance of copyright registration.  Recently this practice helped me both protect against—and collect for—unauthorized use.

Last spring, I photographed local celebrity and Extreme Couponer Chrystie Corns.   For those who don’t know, Chrystie is the sister of Ashley Hebert, this  past season’s star of the Bachelorette reality tv show.   As her outspoken sister, Chrystie was featured prominently on the season finale.    I’ve photographed Chrystie a couple of times now and she’s been nothing but gracious and kind.

The morning after the show’s airing, I noticed huge spikes in traffic on my blog post on Chrystie.   I started doing some Google searches and came up with several sites—including prominent news sites—using my photo of Chrystie without permission and minus my watermark (clearly visible in my published photo) cropped out.   This is a clear violation of my copyright, the terms on my site and was done without my or Chrystie’s knowledge or consent.

So, what’s a photographer to do?  It may be enough to contact violators and letting them know that you are the copyright holder.  It has a lot more weight behind it if you’ve actually registered your images with the US Copyright Office and gotten proof (the registration certificate) back in the mail.  Coincidentally, I got this certificate just three days before the final Bachelorette aired (though I had registered the images months before, it took a while for the request to process).

Photographers can collect only actual damages (hard to assess, but certainly not amounting to much in the age of digital) for a proven copyright infringement.  If the image is officially registered, statutory damages up to $150,000 may be awarded.   That’s the kind of consequence that gets people to stand up and pay attention.

Another helpful—make that necessary thing—is a well-crafted cease-and-desist letter, written by an attorney.  I have one that I use in such cases as the first salvo.   The second, if necessary, comes directly from my lawyer.

In this case, it took me more than two weeks to chase down and get responses back from all the infringers (there are also legitimate users, approved by Chrystie and allowed based on our license agreement).    In the end, I got immediate take-downs in all cases and an agreement to pay from one site that turned out to be the place many of the others got my photo from.  They are also the ones who cropped my watermark out, incidentally.

Some people may ask why I as a photographer care, or wonder if it’s about making more money for the photographer.   I answer that my primary purpose isn’t to get abusers to pay, it’s to stop the infringement, both to protect my copyright and my client (the subject of my photos).   I will invoice them if they’ve already gotten use out of the image for which they’d normally have to pay but I won’t press the issue usually if they respond quickly and decisively to my notification.

A side note:  I got one polite response from a news site apologizing for their use, and stating that they take copyright violation ‘very seriously’.  They mentioned that they had done a Google images search and that the license indicated it was a royalty free image.   I’ll take them at their word that they are apologetic, but when I searched on Google Images filtering only for “free” images, my image did not come up.

For added protection and tracking of my images, I’m currently in the process of incorporating the Plus registry into my workflow.

So, even if you shoot subject matter that you may not think will require the level of protection needed and afforded by us copyright registration, it’s worthwhile to prepare yourself now before you’re tested.

Know your rights, and register, register, register.   It’ll be the best $35 you ever spent.

 


[photoshelter-img width=’250′ height=’400′ i_id=’I0000eSeUn8UIvxs’ buy=’0′]

Use the web to find your stolen camera gear

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Professional photographers are familiar with insurance, which protects expensive gear from loss or damage.   But if you’ve ever had gear stolen, you know that while replacing it is obviously nice, nothing beats actually nabbing the crooks responsible.

Using a free online tool called GadgetTrak, you may be able to do just that.

How does it work?  Once you submit  your camera serial number, the site searches the web for images published with that serial number embedded in the EXIF metadata that resides inside the image file.   If you’re lucky, they’ll return images taken by your camera.   That’s what happened to LA photographer John Heller, who was able to recover more than $9000 worth of stolen camera equipment using this online tool (see video, below).

The state of (ME) sales tax and your photography business

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Collection of sales tax is one of those things that photographers should be charging but may not be charging correctly.  This is because it can be hard to find information online, because each state approaches the issue differently and because as photographers we may (or may not) deal with things like prints, electronic image delivery, sitting fees, out of state clients and license and usage fees.  It can be very confusing.

I’ve directly contacted the state of Maine in the past to ask questions about sales tax, and have had many discussions with other local photographers including Kathleen Kelly, a Scarborough-based commercial photographer who has gotten answers from the state.    Recently I corresponded with a tax section manager, Peter,  from Maine Revenue Services regarding my most oft-seen scenarios.

His responses revealed a few surprises.  I’ll explain further, but must note that I’m not a lawyer or a tax professional.   You should hire a good CPA to handle your business taxes and if you have further questions, contact the state directly.

First, some things I already knew:   I don’t charge tax to my out-of-state clients, but I do to my in-state ones.  Sometimes I don’t charge tax as a separate line-item to clients in-state.  In these cases I’m still required to pay the state the appropriate state sales tax.  Electronic file delivery is considered a tangible product, just like a CD of images or a box of prints.  It’s taxable.

If you charge usage or license fees, however, it gets interesting.  If your license is unlimited in terms of time, then it’s subject to tax.  If your license is restricted to ten years or less, it’s not subject to state tax.  This is a recent decision on the part of the state of Maine to treat photography licensing like software licensing.  Note that they use a length of time (10 years), not type of use (brochures, web, etc) to define the restriction.

A couple of things to make sure of:  Make sure to apply sales tax to line items in your invoices.  Things like postage using common carriers (USPS, FedEx, UPS) are not taxable.  Reimbursed expenses aren’t either.

As always,  consult a professional when deciding how to approach state sales tax, and actively seek answers that pertain to your specific situation.  remember that just because you didn’t know the right way to go doesn’t make you immune from being held responsible by the state later.