Category: Uncategorized

I really hate the FeedBlitz emails because of the ads (btw, I get nothing… not a penny…from that) but I can’t find anything better. I apologize.

However, there is a better way to follow this blog overall: the rss feed. Point your reader here: feed://www.burnsautoparts.com/blog/feed/

Here’s an interesting article in the New York Times about a potential new money-making line for photographers: the professional portrait for use on social media. I rather hate how the NYT writer calls them “glamour shots” though. Ugh. Ick.

I’ve noticed that more and more people, at least men, are using professional photos on dating websites too (yes, I’m a single woman who uses those sites too… don’t judge me…ha!). It can make a big difference in how someone is perceived. If you choose to do that. though, go easy on the post-production. It’s bad enough when they lie about their age…

Anyway, this could be a fun and relatively simple add-on to your services if you are looking for a bump in your bottom-line. Partner up with a great stylist and offer package deals, find some great locations, could be a lucrative line of service.

One thing, though: make sure to use a good model release so that you can use the work at a minimum for your marketing, even if the subject won’t agree to let you license her/his likeness for stock.

The example above is one of several brilliant, simple cards that explain the value of copyright and the craziness of some of the counter-arguments. Although focused on the music side, they still apply for all creative pros.

Oh, I will say, however, that I disagree a bit with the one saying it’s not “stealing” (but still wrong) because I think you can steal the intangible as well as the tangible (trade secrets, for example).

If you aren’t watching Snapshot, with Tim Mantoani, you are missing out.

I’m lucky enough to know Tim and, besides his obvious talent, he’s just a super person. It’s really no surprise to me that he’s as successful as he is since he not only goes after what he wants to do, he does it with graceful passion. I mean, he’s absolutely passionate about his work and he knows he knows his stuff, but he is not a jerk about it. Instead he infuses that passion into the work so that you can’t help but get caught up in it.

If you want to learn to be a great photographer, watching these shows will help. No, not because you’ll learn anything about how to light or some technical thing. Rather you’ll see that Tim does the thing that makes the best connections: he is interesting and interested. Especially if you are a newer photographer who is still uncomfortable talking to clients or subjects, watch how he tells part of the story (especially but not only the visual) and how he frees up his subjects to tell the rest.

You can learn all the technical stuff out there but, in the end, even if you shoot things, you need great people skills to make it. Tim (possibly unconsciously) teaches those skills in these shows.

I rather love this brief interview with Michael Bierut. The whole series is interesting but his really seems to nail so many of the points I hear from all sorts of successful creative pros: take time off, read, use a notebook…

Oooh! This looks like something every photographer should add to her/his book collection. Not just to take up space on the shelf, but a book to read actively, to engage with. If the examples in the article are at all typical of this book’s contents, then you need to go buy this book now.

So many fascinating issues in this NYTimes article about the work left behind after a photographer’s death. In the digital age this will still occur, but not on the same level.

Although I doubt I agree with his evaluation of his friend’s work, I do rather love this quote from John Szarkowski:

To expose film is not quite to photograph.

I take that in a different way than he meant, though. He was talking about the process after exposure–editing, printing, etc. I think that we need to look at the process before exposure as well. It is the thought involved (conscious or not) that compels the photographer to “click” at that moment that, to me, is in first position when one looks for the artist in the photographer.

Still, I’m not ignoring the later steps. I love prints, especially ones from the darkroom. The choices made and the artistry in crafting those… breathtaking. But as one of my favorite sayings goes, you can’t make butter with a toothpick. Here, that means you have to start with something substantial first–the underlying image–and the more thoughtful that is the more one can do with it later.
Or not.
Depending on what the artist chooses.

 

One of the arguments I often hear made for weaker copyrights and lower licensing fees is that new industry will be stifled if the artist gets paid a fair (to the artist) rate. This line of reasoning has been bugging me more and more. The innovation-based companies have investment money that is to be spent developing the product and licensing is just one part of those costs.

Moreover, there is a certain hypocrisy to the whole “innovation needs artists to bend over financially because they are innovating and that will improve the economy” line of thought. They improve the economy by producing something of value. Okay, I get that, but so do artists and, I’d argue, with a better payoff on average.

Besides, new tech innovates anyway and those innovators would do that work even if they weren’t getting paid, right? I mean, innovators gotta innovate! Just like artists gotta create! That is what we humans do–we make stuff and do stuff we love; and then we try to find some way to pay the bills.

But what those innovators do get that artists don’t is venture capital by the truckloads, so they are paid to innovate. Paid to do what they love.

I don’t begrudge them that, but let’s look at the reality of the hypocrisy here…

• Innovators are driven to innovate because it is just something they are compelled to do. They love writing code, figuring out new things, and challenging the status quo.
• Artists (including musicians, writers, etc.) are driven to create because it is just something they are compelled to do. They love writing music/drawing/painting/making art, figuring out new things and new techniques, and challenging the status quo.
• Innovators would invent new tech even if they didn’t get paid. In fact, many of them create stuff all the time on their own then try to figure out how to monetize it.
• Artists would invent new art even if they didn’t get paid. In fact, many of them create stuff all the time on their own then try to figure out how to monetize it.
• Innovators need money to live.
• Artists need money to live.
• Innovators will work crap jobs while they innovate on their own time.
• Artists will work crap jobs while they create art on their own time.
• Innovator-based companies often do not show a profit for years, if ever.
• Artist-based companies often do not show a profit for years, if ever.
• Rarely, an innovator’s company can get valued at millions of dollars, even though it isn’t “worth” anything.
• Rarely, a work of art can get valued at millions of dollars, even though it isn’t “worth” anything.

See, they are identical… except that venture capitalists throw huge sums of money to the innovators on the bet that they might get that rare hit company that pops out a massively successful IPO and makes a ton of money, regardless of the company’s actual “worth.”

You know what I’d like to see happen? Venture capitalists should start giving huge sums of money to artists (of all kinds) on the bet that they might get that rare hit. Imagine having backed Lady Gaga or Ai Weiwei or Annie Leibovitz before anyone knew who they were. Sure, we’re not talking Google IPO numbers but we are talking a greater investment-payoff ratio.

I’d argue that on average the art created by a $500,000 grant (or hell, even only $250,000) to an artist will have a greater market value than the same amount given to an innovator. By that I mean if 100 artists got that grant each and 100 innovators did, I bet the value in the marketplace for the resulting art would be greater on average than that of the innovator. Also, the VC-types create the market value when they buy the art on the secondary market. Look at how much a Warhol gets today!

So, any VC investors want to take me up on that? I know plenty of artists who I bet would be willing to sell some equity ownership for the right investor.

Of course, that art will only be of value if the innovators don’t force licensing rates of less than a penny per play or $50 a photo, etc. And if that happens, the only artists we’ll have left are Justin Biebers and your half-cousin who “knows Photoshop.”

 

People are still wasting their efforts trying to get this Amazon patent “reversed.” We have serious issues facing our industry, but still this is the crise du jour. It’s not worth any of this attention.

Some reports/articles I’ve read note that somewhere around 80% of patents are held invalid in court. As my very knowledgeable friend noted in my previous post on this topic, this is one that would like be so held. And note that language “held invalid in court”–the way this (and any) patent will get tested is in court. You can’t go to the USPTO and make them take back a patent (not to my knowledge and teeny bit of research I’ve done–but I’m not a patent lawyer). Petitions are useless. It is up to the courts to resolve whether or not the patent is valid.

For a court to hold a patent invalid, first there must be a suit and, usually, the patent holder will sue, which is very unlikely here. It is possible for someone to bring a declaratory action in a patent case. That is where someone tries to get the court to say, for example, “this patent is invalid and Amazon cannot sue for infringement.” This is not as easy as it sounds and would cost a ton to do. In order for someone to bring a declaratory action, though, a plaintiff (photographer) would have to show a real “case or controversy”–not just that s/he might be harmed by the patent but that it was imminent/happening. Pretty much, the photographer would have to show that Amazon was, in fact, about to sue her/him. Again, that would mean Amazon would have to make the first move and that is very unlikely to happen.

So please, stop. Just let this go.

If you are a photographer, you have no doubt seen that Amazon has apparently obtained a patent for a specific methodology for shooting on a white background. Everyone has been up in arms about it but, in spite of my lame patent knowledge, I thought there had to be more going on here. Or, actually, less.  I thought that even if Amazon had the patent, it had to be somehow not enforceable. At the very least, it seemed to me that it would be essentially overwhelming for Amazon to even attempt to litigate against each individual (mostly broke) photographer who uses the same set-up and it wouldn’t be cost-effective unless they only went after large photo-factories, but there really aren’t so many of them anymore so that seemed unlikely too.

Even so, photographers are a worrying lot so I thought I’d try to find out the skinny on the patent. Luckily, I have a friend who is a brilliant patent lawyer so I asked her for her general impression. Here is what she told me (of course, none of this is actual legal advice–just her impression):

If this technology is as old as the article indicates, then the patent is likely invalid. Invalidity and non-infringement are the two primary defenses in almost every patent case. Amazon cannot receive a patent to an old technology. They have to establish something is novel about their invention. They have to conceive the invention. But you can argue it existed in the prior art or was obvious from prior art and thus the patent is invalid.

So, it seems that in the patent world, the first defense is similar to the copyright world: invalidate. And here, even though my friend is not from the photo world, even she can tell that the technology likely pre-existed the patent and so, boom, the patent would likely be found invalid.

In other words, Amazon may hold a patent, but that piece of paper is essentially worthless. Might as well use it to wrap a book for shipping.

Whatever the reality, I’m not going to get in a lather about any of it until or unless Amazon not only attempts to enforce its patent, but succeeds in doing so. We have bigger, much more threatening fish to fry.