Harry Lim Photography's Blog

A few months ago I heard about an upcoming movie that was shot mostly with the Canon 5D MKII. The movie is about the Navy SEALS and the characters are portrayed by real SEALs. I grew up watching war movies and I’m a huge military history buff. So while this type of film never gets much commercial success, the recent exploits of the SEALs might give this film a boost. With the movie coming out on the 24th, I’m starting to see more buzz on the web about it.

If you watch the YouTube clip carefully, you’ll catch some glimpses of the 5D rig beginning at :36 seconds, again at :38 and check out that telephoto lens at :43. Is that the 800mm?!

I knew an episode of “House” was shot with the Mark II and a lot of independent filmmakers are using it. But this is the first I’ve heard of a feature film shot with a DSLR.

I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who visited my blog in 2011. Some of you came by chance searching for something; others subscribe.

In 2010 the blog had 2,961 visitors. In 2011 that number was 14,793! This may not be as big as some well known photography blogs; but keep in mind, I am not a full time blogger and I make no money from the blog. I do it just because I like sharing what I learn. Honestly, I wish I blogged more often. So if you have any suggestions for topics or questions, please let me know.

Below is a report compiled by WordPress. Take a moment to look through it and remember it wouldn’t have been possible without you.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 14,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 5 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

I found this last week but forgot to post it and sadly, forgot the source. Vimeo user Lense posted this video of what the photography products you order from B&H go through before they reach your happy little hands. B&H, in New York City, is a photographer’s mecca and I hope to make my pilgrimage there one day and see this cool little system in action for myself.

From the good folks who take apart DSLRs, comes this video of a look inside a Nikon D7000 . (Don’t bother with the audio, it’s not in English).

It really reminded me of this:

In other Nikon news, Nikon Rumors is reporting that the D5100 release is just weeks away. It could have 11 auto-focus points and possibly a 16.2 MP sensor. Details here and here.

I would like to thank everyone who took the time to visit my blog in 2010. I started the blog in October of 2009 not really knowing what I wanted to do with it or where I would take it.  By August of 2010 I had grown a little discouraged by the number of visits and realized I had no one to blame but myself. So I took up the cause and with a renewed energy started writing more frequently. It paid off with month over month increases in traffic. I ended December with 698 views. It may not seem like much, but it means a lot to me. Below are some stats WordPress compiled. Again thank you and I hope you’ll continue visiting in 2011.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 2,800 times in 2010. That’s about 7 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 55 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 63 posts. There were 79 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 36mb. That’s about 2 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was December 6th with 45 views. The most popular post that day was Photographing a Rainbow in Orlando.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, digg.com, harrylimphotography.com, en.wordpress.com, and en.search.wordpress.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for camera straps for women, best photography watermarks, cheerleading photography, funky camera bags, and camera strap.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

Photographing a Rainbow in Orlando December 2010
2 comments

Gift Ideas for Photographers November 2010
5 comments

Camera Bags and Straps for Women November 2010
1 comment

Ironclad Protection For Your Images At Rock Bottom Prices! March 2010
4 comments

Photography Education and Inspiration May 2010
1 comment

In my last post, I mentioned a relatively inexpensive program to produce slow motion DSLR videos.

Well, let’s speed things up a bit.

Andrew Reese took 1400 shots in 2.5 second intervals then converted each pair into black and white HDR shots for a total of about 700 images. Then he made this video at 12 frames per second:

Over at PetaPixel.com, I discovered more time-lapse videos taken with Canon DSLRs. The first is of San Francisco taken with a Canon 40D. Here’s the description from the PetaPixel site:

“Photographer Simon Christen shot the various clips using a Canon 40D (10-22mm, 24-70mm, and 70-200mm) around the San Francisco Bay Area over the course of a year. His camera was always in manual mode, and he adjusted the settings as the light changed due to things like fog and clouds.”

I’ll share one more from Tokyo shot with a Canon 7D by Stefan Werc. I love the shots from the moving train!

On the PetaPixel site, under related posts, you can find many more time-lapse videos. If you’re really into it, then you’ll also love these over at TimeScapes.org.

Personally, I think these time-lapse videos are works of art. Interestingly, though, some people who commented on the PetaPixel site, feel that they lack originality; that they’re just pretty pictures with no story. What do you think?

Take a look at this picture:

I took that picture last October for Central Florida Lifestyle Magazine.  The story, with a different picture, ran in an article a few months later:

click for larger image

A month or so ago, the editor contacted me and wanted additional photos from the shoot. I sent her the picture above (the first one).  Well, on Tuesday I noticed the magazine’s Facebook profile picture was from one of their edition’s cover*:

Look familiar? It’s the same picture I took, only the subject has been cut out and placed on a different background. At first, I was excited to see one of my pictures on the cover. But my heart sank when I saw the photo credit was given to another photographer. I contacted the editor and the Facebook image was corrected immediately; but the printed issue went out with the other photographer’s name. Apparently the other photographer took the image of the background. The editor said she would print a correction in the next issue.

On the same day, she asked if I wanted to take on another assignment. Here’s where I need your opinion. My gut says “no”. I’m still a little hurt and peeved by the mistake. A tiny correction inside the magazine which most people won’t read or care about does not compare to the COVER of a magazine which another photographer got credit for.  So, right now, I’m inclined to not take any more assignments from them. What do you think? Should I burn that bridge? Or am I overreacting? I understand it was an honest mistake (read below), but it deprived me of a lot of exposure.

I should note that I don’t get paid, per say, for the assignments. Each hour is worth a certain amount of ad space in the magazine.

I’d love to hear your thoughts….

*the magazine has several editions targeting different areas in Central Florida. Each edition is very similar but has a different cover image. So I understand how the mistake was made. They just replace the image and the accompanying headline, but leave everything else, including the photographer’s credit, the same.

If you publish images on the Web then you might wonder if someone is using them without your permission and violating your copyright. There are three services that will search the World Wide Web and let you know where it finds your images.

The first is TinEye.  It’s a reverse image search engine that uses “image identification technology rather than keywords [or] metadata” to find your image. It’s free to use for non-commercial uses. It’s pretty easy to use; just upload an image or enter an image URL and hit search. I entered a URL of one of my images on Flickr. The site came back with a few of my Flickr images and had me select the correct one. It then searched 1.6 billion images looking for a match. It didn’t find one and the site says it may be because it hasn’t crawled the site where it appears yet.

The second service is ImageRights. They’ll search 80 million web pages a month looking for your image even if (according to the site) it’s been cropped, altered or embedded in another image. Then, they’ll help you recover settlement fees. How much you get depends on a tiered system. You can sign up for a free account and get half of all fees recovered.  For $295 a year you’ll get 60% of the fees; and for $595 a year, you’ll get 65%. When you consider that statutory damages can be 150-to-200 thousand dollars, plus actual damages and attorney fees, you could be looking at a nice chunk of change. They’ll even register your copyright for you. Personally, I say register yor images yourself. It’s $35 for as many as you can upload in an hour and it doesn’t take that long.

The third service is Digimarc. For $49 a year, Digimarc will add a digital watermark to your image. This “fingerprint” identifies your image and communicates the copyright info. The “Pro” version is $99 and includes twice as many (2000 vs. 1000) images.

Of course these are only helpful if you register your copyright to begin with. Yes, you own the copyright the moment you took the picture; and yes, you have recourses to make the infringer stop using your image. But if they don’t/won’t and you want to take legal action, your case will be much stronger with that certificate that comes from the Library of Congress.

This post was inspired by a fellow photographer whos work I admire and follow on Facebook. She posted that one of her images was being used without permission for the second time in a month. She did not register the copyright. Judging by the comments most people thought A.) that watermarking your image would be enough and B.) That registering your copyright was expensive. To learn why both those comments are false, read my past blogs on the topics:

Ironclad Protection For Your Images At Rock Bottom Prices!

Failure to Register Copyright Cost Photographer $201,550.

Best Use of Watermark in a Photograph

I’ve also heard that professional organizations like American Society of Media Photographers and Professional Photographers of America can help members if their copyright has been infringed.

Aside from testing TinEye, I have not used the services I mentioned here; so take it as a suggestion only. I’d love to know your experience with any of the services or if there are others you know of.

Just a quick note that will hopefully clarify something for my fellow photographers:

I once heard a photographer say they were going on an editorial shoot, but it wasn’t being published. Another organized a “photojournalism” shoot, but the very act of staging it takes out the “journalism” part.

The American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) says there are three main categories of photography. They are: Commercial, Editorial and Retail. Commercial photography is used to sell a product or service. Editorial is for education or journalism and retail is for personal use.

So let’s say you get hired by a local business to take pictures for their website; that’s commercial. Shooting something for a magazine? Editorial (unless its selling something which is commercial). Wedding photography or portraits fall under retail.

This is where licensing your work (aka, getting a signed contract) becomes so important. You see,  the categories are not mutually exclusive. Let’s say, for example that you shoot a wedding (retail). Then, you submit an image to a wedding magazine (editorial). After running it, the dress designer decides they want to use it in an ad (commercial). Can you say “pay day”? By licensing your work you can make money each time the image is used, charging different amounts for each license.

By the way, “photojournalism”,which falls under editorial, means to observe and document an event without interfering. It’s a personal pet peeve of mine when it’s misused having spent the majority of my adult life in that field.

Another pet peeve of mine is when someone photographs a “trash the dress” shoot and the dress is not actually trashed. I’m just sayin’.

Ok, got that off my chest.  Here are some reading suggestions:

ASMP Professional Business Practices in Photography, 7th Edition

Best Business Practices for Photographers, Second Edition

My last blog post was about copyright. I was planning to next write about “creative commons” license and why sometimes you might actually want to have your picture “stolen”. I’m still planning on writing about that, but something happened yesterday that kind of goes along with that concept.   

The Baldwin Park Arts Festival took place Saturday, March 13. As a photographer for Baldwin Park Living Magazine, I have an understanding with the editor to document as many events as I can for the publication and the community Web site photo gallery.   

The Arts Fest features local artists selling their work on an entire block in the heart of Baldwin Park. So I get there and I’m just not feeling it. I walked up the length of one side of the street and started down the other without having taken a single picture. Maybe these arts and crafts shows just aren’t my thing. Then I get to a lady painting and I think “great, an action shot”. A shot of someone doing something. So I take a picture. I walk a little farther and there’s another artist painting. I snap another picture…   

click for larger image

He turns around and says, “Thanks for the exposure.” I take a second to figure out if he’s making a photography pun. I decide he’s not and tell him I’m with Baldwin Park Magazine. He says thanks again.   

Ok, so now I’m warming up. I’ve taken a few pictures at this point when I see a girl with some money in her hand. This would be a great opportunity to get a shot of a sale. I spent almost a decade in broadcast news and I know that photojournalism is about telling a story; and isn’t the whole idea of this thing for artists to sell their work? I mean, it’s not a gallery exhibition. Let’s face it, if no one buys anything today, the event is a failure. This is literally “the money shot”.  

So I take a picture…   

click for larger image

I realize I didn’t compose properly; cutting off the girl’s head and getting an arm in the shot. So I recompose and I’m waiting for the right moment when the lady whose arm is in the shot turns around and says “no pictures please”. I tell her I’m with Baldwin Park Magazine and she says the artists don’t want pictures taken. I explain to her that this is a public area and that I have the right to take pictures. We go back and forth for a few minutes and I walk away.   

First of all, I wasn’t taking pictures of the art work; some kind of jewelry I suppose. I was taking a picture of the transaction. Secondly, the picture is for editorial, not commercial use. Third, as a former journalist I know all about expectation of privacy and fair use. Lastly, if you don’t want your work seen, then stay home, don’t display your work in public or on the web and pray to god that someone finds your art. Is the fear that I’m going to go home, study the picture and copy the creation? 

Hey, I get it. I’m a photographer. Everytime I post a picture online, be it my web site, Flickr or Facebook, there’s a chance someone will “steal” it. But there’s also a chance that someone who’s never heard of me will see my work. To protect myself, I take steps to guard my copyright. But I don’t take pictures so I can stuff them in a lock box. Isn’t that the proverbial ostrich with its head in the ground?   

So I walk around a bit more and take another picture…   

click for large image

Again, the artist comes up to me and says “no pictures”. I tell him who I am and he says it’s ok. I asked him why I wouldn’t be allowed and he says, “with a camera like that, people can make good copies”. Ok, so I guess the thinking is that I’m going to sell a picture of his work? And would it be ok if I took a picture with, say, an 8 megapixel point-and-shoot? Couldn’t I make a good copy with that? What if I wanted to take a picture of someone with the art in the background? Would that be offensive?   

This reminded me of a similar event I attended last year. A photographer had a booth set up and his pictures featured black and white images of statues. I thought, wow, that’s interesting. He didn’t sculpt the statue, he just took a picture of it and is selling it.   

That issue is actually at the center of a lawsuit. You can read more about it at the Photo Attorney Blog. That case is a little different because I am there strictly for editorial reasons. Taking a picture of your art does not violate your copyright. What I do with that picture may or may not.   

Bottom line: That first guy got it. He thanked me for the exposure. He took a look at my DSLR and assumed I was with some media organization before I even told him who I was. The pictures I take will be featured on a magazine spread that goes out to tens of thousands of Baldwin Park residents. What’s that you say? You don’t want free advertisement?   

So now I want to hear from you. What do you think?