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There is more information on the Orphan Bill here.

Impact

The US just passed the Orphan bill. This means that unless images have a watermark on them when posted to an open viewing site such as flickr they could be downloaded by a third party and used without permission. So, for example, a company could download one of your images to use in an advertising campaign instead of hiring a photographer to take the image and then claim that they could not contact the creator and were able to use this image because of the Orphan bill. The impact of this is worldwide not just in the US as everyone uses flickr or some similar type of site for posting images for the world to see. I am not slamming any of these photo posting sites, it is up to everyone posting to make sure their contact information is embedded in the images along with some type of watermark is visible on the image itself. It is indeed unfortunate for those of us trying to make a living at this wonderful business that a bill like this can be slipped in while everyone is waiting to hear about a billions of dollars bailout that died on the floor. It will impact us all!

Summer?

This weather we have been having lately is unreal. It feels like summer. I would be happy with this until December 24th but alas this will not happen. It would be nice if it stayed until this Saturday at least as it would be wonderful in Fernie with this weather and the leaves changing colours. So, where ever you are get out and enjoy the nice weather while it is here because before you know it we will be shoveling snow dreaming about when the nice weather will return.

Further

To add to the wonderful day of free shooting done last Tuesday in Fernie and area. The friend who I went with sent me this image last night. It was taken while we were scouting locations for a wedding that he is the main photographer and I am the secondary. This should be fun as I have never been the second shooter at a wedding before.

OK so I need a haircut and I have to stop frowning!

Grilled cheese

So I am standing here making grilled cheese sandwiches and fruit cocktail for my boys to take to daycare tomorrow. It is my one day of the week to get stuff done that cannot be done while they are at home. Usually I will go for coffee with a friend and we will talk photography for a couple of hours. But lately I have been really cutting back on my coffee intake and I have found that it has really calmed me down. I used to drink about a pot of coffee a day and some days I could actually see my hands shake (not good for a photographer). Now I find I am much calmer and more aware of my surroundings. Oops gotta check on the sandwiches! OK they are fine in case you were wondering. I have also been thinking about my photography. Last week I went out taking personal images with my coffee friend. See below post. And I loved it. Some of the shots are on my flickr site.

I need to do more of this type of photography. I also enjoy the commercial work that I do and would like to do more of it. Don't get me wrong I still enjoy photographing weddings but there are so many photographers in this area who will photograph a wedding for next to nothing to get the exposure, not thinking long term which investments that are needed to maintain equipment.
I am sure I will figure it out by the time I am too old to do this anymore.
Oh the sandwiches are done!

Imagine

Just imagine for a moment that you have hired a professional to photograph your wedding day or a release of a new commercial product. You are now looking at a video of one of the above. You pause the movie and say "I would love to have that photograph hanging on our wall." or "We could use that image on our packaging or website or brochure" But this is video and the quality of video stills is horrid. No longer! The technology is currently there to give professional DSLR quality from video. 12 megapixel resolution from a video camera. So you can have the best of both worlds as early as next year. Not 5 or 10 years from now, next year. And I am not talking about what Nikon and Canon are playing with with their new crop of DSLRs that happen to offer a bit of video, I am talking about RED.
All this means is that a new name for these camera operators. Will they be called phodeographers, vidotographers, or if they are also journalists will they be called phodeojournalists. I am sure that someone with way too much time on their hands will think up a new name for this new era.

Fads and Trends

There used to be a time in wedding photography when the posed formal portion of the day was just that, posed and formal. Everyone would line up assembly line style and the photographer would just snap the photograph. Then came the stylish poses, such as sitting on a fence or posed over an old tractor in a field with mountains behind the subjects but it was still posed. Then black and white came back into vogue and wedding were mainly photographed in black and white with maybe a bit of hand colouring. Clients starting asking for more, they did not want their wedding photographs to look like their parents wedding photographs and photojournalist wedding photography was born. Now almost every wedding photographer lists their style as photojournalistic, which begs the question what is next as far as style of wedding photography?
A current up and coming offering in addition to the usual wedding coverage is a Trash The Dress session which takes place after the wedding day. Brides are no longer cleaning and packing their wedding dress for their daughter to use so what else do you do with the wedding dress? Trash it! The sky is the limit as far as what can be done during this session. Jump in a lake, jump on quads and head for a mud bog, roar down the street on a motorcycle, you name it! The web is assisting in this style becoming more popular, with a flickr group devoted to it. And there is a dedicated website to Trash The Dress. Is it a fad? I don't think so. It is just another option that couples have when designing their wedding photography coverage.
So what is the trends in wedding photography? If almost everyone is doing a photojournalistic type of coverage then in 15 to 20 years is the trend going to revert back to a more posed formal type of photography because the couples who will be getting married then going to be sick of the casual style used now? I guess time will tell but right now I love doing to current style. But I have always been adaptable with my photography and look forward to trying new things requested by my couples.