Stuck In Customs

Non-Profit is not Non-Commercial

By the way, some people brought this up in yesterday’s post about the Austin Airport Not Support Artists. Not that the Ausitn Airport is a non-profit… but it did spawn a good opportunity to talk about this, since I think it will be helpful to people that are interested in licensing.

We do a lot of licensing… and I mean a lot… we handle dozens per week, and sometimes a lot more. It generates significant income from all sorts of licensees, so we have a lot experience in this area. Since all my work is Creative Commons Non-Commercial, many people think, “Oh, well that means non-profits can use it for free!” And this comes across in many emails.

However, we still charge non-profits full price. Non-profit does not mean non-commercial. Non-profits are still money-making organizations that can have significant revenue and significant expenses (often in the millions). Many non-profits want to use my imagery on websites, brochures, advertisements, and the like to generate revenue for the company. They then use these revenues to pay expenses like salaries, cars, food, air travel, and whatever other business needs. I consider buying image advertising rights to be on par with all the other expenses.

Daily Photo – Dead Tired in London

I really over-scheduled myself on this day.  It started out early and was 100% full of photography activity!  I don’t remember having a spare 5 minutes just to sit there and zone out…. I do try to plan a little zone-out time, but this day I didn’t.  I kind of build my day like I was playing an RTS game, making sure I never had any idle workers.

After I got off the tube at Marylebone station, I exited into this scene. This is the little area I crossed every day to get from the tube into my hotel. It looked so perfect in the rain that I just had to take a photo…even though I was dog-tired.

Austin Airport Not Supporting Artists

This one angers me… especially since I am supposed to live in a city that respects and supports artists. Anyway, you won’t believe this story…

So, I was coming through the Austin airport many weeks ago, and in the PRIME spot at the bottom of the escalators is a huge light-up photo display. Inside, I saw a photo that looked HDRish and so I went over to investigate. Down in the corner, it said simply “photo by mapaolini.” So, I recognized that “name” because Mike had taken one of my workshops back in a 2010.

About a month later I saw Mike at the Austin photowalk during SXSW and congratulated him on getting his art up in the airport. He said, “What?”

And so then I got very very interested. After my most recent trip to Florida, I took this photo with my iPad while waiting for my baggage and sent it to Mike so he could see! We then got into a big email conversation while I was trying to figure out what happened… it was pretty much immediately obvious to me, but I wanted to see if my suspicions were correct.

So, get this:

1. Mike was never informed that his photo was in the airport
2. Mike was never paid a dime (placement like this should be worth several thousand dollars to the artist, especially if they are going to use it for many months)
3. Mike’s name is not even correct in the corner of the photo.  His name is not “mapaolini” – that is his Flickr codename!
4. They made the WORST CROP EVER.  See his original Flickr photo!

Any one of those things is annoying — but all of them together are just embarrassing for the airport and the city of Austin.

Mike did some detective work and called the airport, who said they got it from the Austin Tourism Bureau.  They said this is considered Non Commercial.  HORSE MANURE.  Is all art in the airport non-commercial?  Does no one get paid?  How much did they pay for that huge bronze of Barbara Jordan (who looks like she is waiting on her baggage)? How much did they pay for those gut-wrenchingly awful paintings above the checkin counter for American Airlines?

It’s an insult to Mike, and, by extension, to all photographers and artists in Austin. They know what they did, and I think it’s pretty lousy…

Daily Photo – High-Tech Dining in Beijing

Beijing has some of the funkiest restaurants in the world! I think that some of the interior designers and architects really take some risks to do all sorts of things with lighting, textures, and styles. It doesn’t always work, but I  think it works pretty well here.

This restaurant was right next to the opera (see my blog post on “Amazing Opera Discovery in Beijing“). This was also built inside one of the old imperial bans in this old sector of Beijing.

And, below is the photo that was taken next door at the opera just after the amazing dinner.

New Review – PhotoLooks

I’ve been working on the PhotoLooks Review here, and now it is finally ready for release!  If you decide to grab it, the team there said my readers can use the code  STUCK20 to save 20%.  Or, you can just grab a trial at: Red Giant Software – Magic Bullet PhotoLooks.

It’s very easy to use, but I don’t want to steal all the thunder from the full review.  I’ve included a ton of photos and samples so you can get an idea.  I’ll put a few of them here below and link each one to the review.  Some of these are photos that I worked on in the Webinar and then put a finishing “touch” on in PhotoLooks.

Above is a good example of the interface and power.  To the left are a bunch of different preview thumbnails.  I found one called “Unbloom”, clicked on it, and then it very quickly rendered the big version of it to the right.

Above, you can see the detailed control panel appearing on the right whenever the mouse moves over to that side of the screen.  As opposed to the left side of the screen, this is where you can add even more granular effects to your creation.

Above is the effect of the “Miami” filter, which is the same filter you see on CSI: Miami when that soulless redheaded detective says something campy like, “Looks like what we have here…[dramatic pause as sunglasses are whipped off]…is a ceramic cat that’s got himself one hell of a hairball.”

New YouTube Channel – What do you want to see live?

Come subscribe to my YouTube Channel! We’ve just been upgraded to a full YouTube partner, which is pretty exciting. It means we can do live shows and stuff… so let me know what you’d like to see live, and maybe we can plan something for the future. I don’t have a lot of time, but I’m always up for experimentation.

Daily Photo – The Unknown Land

After a while, my boat driver thought I was insane. We started before the sunrise and kept going, and going, and going, and going… he kept giving me the international head movement for “we really should be returning for a spot of tea,” but I kept motioning him further up the river.

To me, the river got most interesting when we saw no more people, except for the occasional fisherman that still had remote hut for his family along the river. I had plenty of battery power, amazing music on my iPod, a full array of snacks, a ton of drinks, and nothing to do for the rest of the day and night… so I was perfectly content just going until our gas tank reached 50%. And that took a long time… and who would want to stop with views like this around every other turn?

[And yes, this was made with effects from my textures tutorial, in case you were wonderin’]

The Unknown Land

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2010-10-08 18:32:19
• CameraNIKON D3X
• Camera MakeNikon
• Exposure Time1/10
• Aperture5.6
• ISO125
• Focal Length15.0 mm
• FlashNo Flash
• Exposure ProgramAperture-priority AE
• Exposure Bias+2

Daily Photo – The Gaudi Cheesecake Factory

I was stuck doing handheld shots all over this awesome Gaudi house because the PR staff would not let me use a tripod. They also said I was not allowed to post any photos of the house on my blog. I told them this was absolutely ridiculous and of course I would post photos on the blog. They said it was not ridiculous and I should really listen. I then said, “But everyone else is here taking photos and posting on Facebook and Flickr!, right?” And they said, “Oh, well, they shouldn’t be doing that either.”

Anyway, I just don’t deal well with that kind of insanity… I found this place to be quite beautiful, and I wanted to share it with you anyway. If you want to see it yourself, visit the CASA BATLLÓ in Barcelona. Oh, I know…. PR team at Gaudi… this is so terrible… #1 Travel Blog in the world showing a beautiful photo of your property and encouraging people to go… This really is as horrible as you imagined.

http://stuckincustoms.smugmug.com/Portfolio-The-Best/your-favorites/10668747_AuyBk#1306587446_PsPxCGD-A-LB<

New Video Interview – While at NASA…

I did this video interview with Jesse from Aputure. I did this one while waiting around for the shuttle to go off last week… and you can see some other behind-the-scenes stuff I suppose. BTW, I am the worst at doing interviews in a timely manner. Jesse sent me this in November of 2010, and I am just now getting used to it… I have many other interviews queued up in my inbox… and I’ll get to them eventually. Sorry it’s just a busy time.

Daily Photo(s) – A collection from Cape Canaveral

I still have many unreleased shuttle photos, but I thought you might enjoy some of the other bits and pieces that I have posted below. I’ll put captions under each one for you.

18 minutes till the launch. Newsmen from around the world go live while they go through their Ron Burgundy vocal preparations.

Close to 1,000 tripods set up inside the NASA "circle of extreme lenses and egos"

last-minute preparations are made are the launch pad for Endeavour

Some Tweetup celebrities…

The Tweetup had a few people there that maybe you’ve heard of… First is Seth Green, who I first started watching on Buffy and Greg the Bunny (of which, I have seen every episode, I’m happy to say – see the Tardy the Turtle compilation for an idea of the show). Second there is his wife Clare Grant, who you might just enjoy in Geek and Gamer Girls video. The third photo is Abraham Benrubi, who you might remember from ER and Parker Lewis… also, don’t you think Abe should play one of the roles in Game of Thrones on HBO? I think so! Plus, like me, he’s memorized most of the book! Also, Abe is a regular visitor here to the site, which was a nice surprise to find out after meeting him.

Seth Green runs up the stairs at the Tweetup after some lame photographer tried to get a photo of him while inside the port-o-potty.

Clare Grant tweets away on her computer while sitting by Seth inside the Tweetup tent.

Abe Benrubi makes a face at his wife Nicole Solomon while she musses his hair to show how unruly it's become ever since he started growing it out.

More NASA & Space Shuttle Photos

I have many more NASA shots that I have posted and many more in the future…. to see them all, just visit the NASA category here on the site!

Your Favorite Inclement Shooting Conditions?

Okay, let’s take perfect weather, sunrise, and sunset off the list. So, do you prefer a rainy morning, a snowy evening, a good lightning storm at night, or what?

Daily Photo – The Gentle Path to the Beyond

The little train that carried me into Hakone started winding through misty mountains. The trees were thick and a fog was rolling in. I had a feeling that it would stay wet, moody, and fairly perfect. It had that heaviness that made you feel like it would remain like that for a few days, and it did.

Before I get on train rides, I have a wonderful but dangerous habit of loading up with pastries. Train stations seem to have nice little selections of all sorts of foreign twists on the usual subjects. And, since I consider myself an explorer, I thought it would be good to get a TON of pastries and try them all. It’s very nice… sitting there… looking out the train window at a new land… rain falling… eating pastries… (and I’m only a little ashamed to say that, upon arrival, my pastry bag was empty.)

The Gentle Path to the Beyond

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2009-10-02 00:00:00
• CameraNIKON D3X
• Camera Make
• Exposure Time1
• Aperture11
• ISO100
• Focal Length28.0 mm
• Flash
• Exposure Program
• Exposure Bias

Game of Thrones

Are any of you all fans of The Song of Ice and Fire and watching the new Game of Thrones series on HBO? What do you think?

(If you don’t know what I’m talking about, which is the more probable case… then I’m talking about one of my favorite fantasy series from George R.R. Martin. I encourage you to go grab it at Amazon if you’re looking for an amazing read!)

Daily Photo – Details in the inner cloister of Notre Dame

I’ve continually asked people to do this, even though I rarely follow my own advice! It’s great fun to take an image and re-crop it in many different ways. Sometimes you can take a single photo and make multiple versions of it. The other strategy is to take a bunch of different photos inside these areas, but that can require many lens changes… and I’m usually more interested in moving quickly from spot to spot throughout the day rather than spend time running through several lenses in each individual spot.

New Video – PSDs to JPGs

That is maybe the worst title for a video ever, but it does get to the non-romantic heart of the matter. I’ve gotten this question a lot… well, I get a lot of questions a lot… so I figured I would just go ahead and make a little screencast video that shows how and why I manipulate files in one particular area of my workflow. Enjoy!

Daily Photo – Gentle Green Slopes to Rocky Curved Crags

After you are driving around Iceland for a few weeks, you get so used to wild landscapes that it’s hard to be objective. I force myself to wake up and be objective about the matter… and then, I suddenly come to my senses and I realize that scenes like this are entirely unique! So, that helps me to pop out of my truck and go on a short hike to get a good vantage point. And then I get back… process it many months later… and I am happy that I took the time to recognize it was indeed a special place.

Charity Update

Thanks again everyone for contributing to Team Stuck In Customs on Kiva. I think we are over $11,000, and that is great. What have your experiences been like? Are people paying you back and you are reinvesting? I think all of my little loans have been paid back, so I gotta get back in there and find some new good entrepreneurs to support!

Daily Photo: The Golden Horse in Iceland

We worked on this one tonight in the webinar, and I hope people didn’t get too bored. It’s very strange, because I am talking to myself for over an hour, and I only get occasional feedback when Andrea stops watching reruns of Ricki Lake. Anyway, I’ll just assume that people like seeing it, since people keep showing up.