How many photos are taken each year?

A fascinating statistic is that Facebook users upload an entire Flickr's worth of images each month!

Second fascinating fact - the quality of images worsens as the colour lightens ;)

via: 1000 Memories

Stages of a photographer

How to photograph gridiron - Sports Illustrated style

Sports Illustrated Photography at Super Bowl XLV from Max Morse on Vimeo.

iPhone magic

This is a photo from a studio shoot taken this past weekend.  It was taken not with my $$ setup but with my iPhone.

I find it amazing that a simple iPhone & Hipstamatic can produce a shot like this with the tap of a finger.  Suddenly anyone can be an artist.  Check out more on my Flickr.

Shutterbug Photography contest winners

The Shutterbug Photography Festival is an annual event held in Sydney for up and coming photographers.  This year's winner is Mark Tipple with his collection called The Underwater Project.

Mark created a great collection of underwater photography that reminds me quite a bit of the stuff that Eugene Tan produces each day with his fantastic Aquabumps updates (join his mailing list or Facebook).

The two runners up also created some impressive works, check out the collection over at the Shutterbug website.

iPad, the photographers friend

It's been a few weeks now since I laid hands on my iPad, and to be honest, there was a little bit of "what the hell did I just do" when I walked out of the Apple shop with my brand new 'designed in California' piece of kit.

I'm not an Apple fanboy in the traditional sense; meaning I don't own a Mac of any description. I do however have various iPods and I'm on my second iPhone, so I guess I'm more into the 'i' stuff purely cause of the geeky, gadgety, gotta have it cause Uncle Steve told me so. Plus the packaging is always cool :)

Anyhow, the reason why I was a little regretful was the fact that it really did dawn on me that I'd just slapped down a grand for what was really just a 'big phone' as my niece calls it. What could this iPhone Maxi really give me that I didn't already have on my phone? I mean pretty much every function on the iPad is identical to the iPhone - and pretty much every app for the phone runs on the pad. It's just more cumbersome and sucks up slightly more power.

In the past few weeks, I've really now learnt to love this tiny laptop. It's funny cause although it's is just a big iPhone in so many ways, I use it completely differently. Firstly it's an e-reader. I read Wired, The Australian, BBC News and ABC iPad editions every day. Although a little heavy, its big, bright screen is easy on the eyes and a cinch to use.

I also use it as an email reader, the mail application is really easy to navigate and really fast.

Of course there's a stack of games on there too, but for now they're pretty much ports of the iPhone versions. However Scrabble gets the thumbs up for its 'party play' mode that hooks up the iPhones as your tile holder. Nice.  Unlike my phone and iPod, I rarely use it for playing music.

But the single best use for the iPad for me is for photo viewing.

As an amateur photographer, I love to show off my work to family and friends. With the pad, this is now so much easier to do because of its beautiful, 1024x768 132ppi, 9.7inch screen. Photos really come alive on such a large display.

Putting your photos onto the device is really easy too, you can either use the Camera Connection kit and copy photos straight from an SD card or your cameras USB port, or you can just use iTunes. I prefer the iTunes method as you can keep your albums nicely organised. Just create a subdirectory on your PC and it will appear as a new album in the photo viewer - just like the iPhone.

By way of apps, there's quite a few good photography related apps available that do a variety of things from connecting to Flickr to manipulating images. Of these, really like Colour Splash and TiltShift Generator. The first allows you to add spot colour to a photo, the second helps you create an artificial tilt-shift for that miniature effect (check out my Flickr photo set for some examples).

When it comes to having a bit of fun, the camera sharing apps such as Duplicam do things like letting you control one or more iPhone cameras straight from the pad itself. You can even do some cool Matrix 'bullet time' effects if you have enough iPhones lying around ;)

I'm not saying that it's a replacement for a good PC (or Mac) and Photoshop or Lightroom, but the iPad really holds its own when it comes to portable image viewing, backups and quick and simple editing.  Now if someone were to develop an adaptor that allows you to use the iPad as a camera remote like Camera Control from Nikon, I think we pretty much have the perfect companion for photographers at every level.

Go iPad!

Little town

Little town

One of my favorite photos from a recent trip. This one has been given the tilt-shift treatment that makes it look miniature. I think it works really well.

Check out more in my flickr channel over on that right hand column :)

Tourism Australia changes comp T&C's

The recent uproar over the restrictive and unfair terms and conditions of the Tourism Australia "There's nothing like..." photography competition has finally been heard.

The AIPP reports that it, together with the ACMP and  has successfully lobbied to have some amendments made to remove the exclusivity aspect of the entry mentioned in clause 11.

They have also removed clause 45 in which the entrant surrendered all their intellectual property to the promoter.

Well done to the AIPP, the ACMP and to the numerous other organisations and forums that have gotten together and caused enough of a stink to make the changes happen.

Marketers take note.  This is how social media should be used...and feared!

A shared sadness

So the 3.5 inch floppy disk is officially to be come extinct with Sony deciding it will stop producing them next year. :(

It seems that some people are taking this pretty badly...

Photographers and their rights

Further to the discussion around the unfairness of the copyright grab by Tourism Australia, comes this interesting article regarding the rights of photographers for shooting in public spaces, courtesy of Onlineopinion.com.au

While I can somewhat understand the issue around using/exploiting public spaces and buildings for commercial purposes, it gets really hazy when we start to talk about what's permissible at all.  Many of these regulations are not really specific whether an image uploaded to Facebook or Redbubble are breaching their guidelines/laws.

One of the things that really surprised me is that Waverly Council in Sydney requires a permit for any filming and photography undertaken in their public open spaces.  What?  I need a permit of up to $300 to take snaps of family or friends at Bondi or Centennial Park?  Not surprisingly the actual wording and terms of the permit are completely hazy and makes no distinction between commercial and private use.

Activities requiring permit

You will need a permit to engage in any of the following activities:

• Film and photography
• Organised sport
• Picnics or other informal gatherings of over 50 people
• Wedding ceremonies
• Erection of any structures, including marquees, jumping castles, etc
• Use of any equipment, including barbecues, public address systems, scaffolding, etc
• Corporate promotion, product sale, charity events
• Fitness training: please see Fitness Groups & Personal Trainers Policy

Please note that users of Council property can be asked by Council officers to produce a valid permit.

Even the famously restrictive Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority seems to allow commercial photography in most areas around the harbour without a permit as long as you have under 10 crew members and only use handheld or a tripod.  This is fine for the weekend gaggle of wedding photographers - but the more interesting aspect is that they might not realise that having the Opera House or Harbour Bridge as the backdrop for that shot is probably breaching copyright - a different conversation altogether.

And finally, if a wedding photographer thought that they could go anywhere in Sydney Olympic Park and take a few shots, they could do it free of charge.   Oh, sorry, as long as you apply in writing and pay a $500 bond!

The Arts Law Centre of NSW have more detailed information on what rights we actually have as street photographers right here.  It seems to imply that some of the regulations that local councils and authorities try to implement are apparently not completely binding.

Crikey goes at Tourism Australia

Crikey has also picked up the story on the unfairness of the Terms and Conditions of the new Tourism Australia 'There's nothing like...' campaign.  Much like the article discussed right here recently.

So far there seems to be no response from TA or the agency on the subject of every entry, regardless of it being a winning one or not, becoming the exclusive, perpetual property of TA.

Top 30!

A couple of my shots from my recent photography course have been selected for the top 30 for this semester :)

Check the set out here.  If you're interested (and in Sydney), the gang at SPW run really good courses and one day workshops.  I've done one of each and highly recommend them!

Adobe CS5 goodness!

Register for a preview of what new goodness the new CS5 will bring.

One of the most impressive features in Photoshop is the new Content Aware fill feature which basically takes cloning to a whole new level.  It's really impressive what this software can do.  Check out this video for a walkthrough of this amazing tool!

There's nothing like...

Tourism Australia is launching its new advertising campaign, and this time, it's asking ordinary Australians to do the work for them.  They're launching a competition that asks entrants to upload a photo and finish the tag line, "There's nothing like..."

While it smacks a little of laziness on the part of both TA and their agency, DDB, I can see where they're going by trying to crowdsource their advertising.  Kraft famously cocked it up with that cheesy vegemite 2.0 garbage so I guess TA thinks it can do it better with their effort.

Good luck with this TA, cause that tag like is just begging to be abused.

But one of the things that I have a problem with in the competition aspect is that it stinks of an attempt to build a royalty free image library.  Often brands will run these types of photo grabbing competitions in which every single entry, upon submission, belongs to the promoter - regardless of whether it wins or not!


Checking out the terms and conditions reveals clause11 that says:

11. By entering the Promotion, Eligible Entrants absolutely and unconditionally assign (and agree to use their best endeavours to procure any relevant third parties to absolutely and unconditionally assign) to the Promoter all right, title and interest in all intellectual property rights in their entry, including ownership of intellectual property rights in any photograph that forms part of an entry.

And refined further in clause 12:

12. By entering the Promotion, Eligible Entrants acknowledge that their entry may be used by the Promoter, the Promoter's related entities, agencies engaged by the Promoter, or any other third party nominated by the Promoter, for the Promoter's current and future promotional and marketing purposes without further reference or compensation to them.  Eligible Entrants unconditionally and irrevocably:
(a) consent to any act or omission that would otherwise infringe any of their moral rights in their entry (as defined in Part IX of the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth)) and present and future rights of a similar nature conferred by statute anywhere in the world whether occurring before or after this consent is given (Moral Rights); and
(b) waive all Moral Rights in their entry that arise outside Australia.

And in case you don't bother to read all that, they sum it up again for you nicely in clause 45:

45. Entrants agree and acknowledge that all entries and any intellectual property rights subsisting in their entries become and remain the property of the Promoter.

Note the word Entrants, not Winners.

While the prizes sound more than fair if you win, why should I give up the rights over my photo if I don't win? That hardly seems fair whatsoever as TA and their agents can use it for free, forever.

The cynic in me also questions whether this will be a competition at all when they can use any and every image  uploaded for promo purposes.

On a final note, a very interesting side-effect of this type of promotion is that all images become the property of Tourism Australia.  ALL images.  This means that if anyone uploads an image of something offensive, or even illegal (child porn for example), TA then own the rights over that image and are therefore legally liable for being in possession of such material... interesting.

There's nothing like.. claiming copyright over everybody's holiday snaps - even the offensive and illegal ones!