Looking for design inspiration?   Browse our curated collections!

Return to Main Discussion Page
Discussion Quote Icon

Discussion

Main Menu | Search Discussions

Search Discussions
 
 

Jeremy Rognlie

9 Years Ago

I Would Like Some Advice.

Hello everyone! I would like some advice. Long story short, I am new to selling photography even though I have tended to appreciate fine art in any given form whenever I have seen it. Some time ago, I was on a plane ride from Anchorage to Fairbanks. It was January, the lighting was excellent, and I had a digital camera on hand. The plane reached a cruising altitude of 20,000 feet and the route we flew gave me a front-and-center view of Denali National Park without a cloud in the sky (quite rare). The scenery was so spectacular, it is truly beyond anything I can put into words. I took several pictures ranging from the time that Denali (the highest point in North America at 20,320 ft.) and its sister peak, Mt. Foraker (altitude of 17,400 ft.) were clearly visible to when I could no longer take pictures due to an impossibility of getting the camera into an appropriate position to take a picture.
I am curious to see how well these pictures do on this website. I have searched through hundreds of pictures of Denali on the internet and I have never seen anything like the pictures that I have. I have uploaded one of the pictures onto my profile and am open to any and all suggestions. One of the things I am a little curious about is copyright laws. As far as I understand with copyright laws, the pictures we take are all protected by copyright from the moment we take the picture. However, when put online, keeping others from stealing them can be practically impossible; but proving that they were stolen even if we saw them somewhere else can also be extremely difficult to do, even in the case of these pictures I have of Denali. I have been busy familiarizing myself with this website and done some research on the copyright laws, but I also think that getting any and all advice people would be willing to give me could also help out a lot as well, even if it does not have anything to do with copyright stuff. Does anyone have any advice they can lend?

Reply Order

Post Reply
 

Mike Savad

9 Years Ago

can you add some paragraph breaks?

its impossible to tell you if it will sell or not. you have to advertise, and if the images are well done, maybe it will sell?

there is no way to give advice unless you do upload them. if they look smeared, noisy etc - they may not print it. and just because its unique, or rare, doesn't make it interesting. copyright is always yours. there will always be thieves, its the chance you take when you use the internet. if your worried you can batch them up and pay money to the copyright office to get them registered, but this will only be useful if you plan on suing people and getting money for it. otherwise if someone takes it you tell them the source is here and they take it down, maybe.

anyway send the image first, impossible to give advice otherwise.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

 

David Bridburg

9 Years Ago

The copyright is automatic. Registering your images officially with the US copyright office costs $35 per image
or $55 per group of images up to 170 MB last time I looked.

I probably am one of the few here that registers his images for a broad variety of reasons.

I think you should register your images as groups with copyright.gov

You have up to three months after publication to do so and the statutory damages can still be applied in a court of law.
If you have some really kewl image that a large soft drink producer would want and mistakenly take you can sue his arse off
for statutory damages of up to $150k per infringement.

Most of the time, almost all of the time, you will do absolutely nothing even with the registered copyrights. Other than getting people,
websites, or ISPs to take things down that infringe.

Dave

 

Mike Savad

9 Years Ago

if you were to add up lawyer costs, time spent, etc - its never worth it. despite the claimed money, you can be wrapped up in court for years. and you would have to prove its yours totally. i'm not sure how it would work with a PD image if all you did was remove a background. anyone can do that. for other images there is a chance, yet all you need is a slick lawyer, and you may still lose. the lawyers win, the copyright office wins.

you can still sue a company without registering, and the thought that you can just sue a person, is usually living in fantasy land. partly because you have to prove damages before you can even get there.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

 

Joseph C Hinson

9 Years Ago

It's actually pretty easy to prove someone stole your photograph especially if you shoot raw. Not as easy to get damages. But not putting photographs online because they might get stolen Is pretty silly

 

James B Toy

9 Years Ago

If anyone here was afraid of images getting stolen we'd all put them in the closet and leave them there. Sure, you take some risk posting anything on the internet, but you want your photos seen, right?

People can steal low resolution images off this site, and I don't mind if someone "lifts" a 700 pixel photo and uses it for their computer wallpaper. But nobody can make much money off a low res photo, so don't worry about that. I use FAA's watermarks so casually lifted photos can be traced back to here.

Your high resolution images are reasonably safe from theft because nobody outside FAA staff can access them.

 

CHERYL EMERSON ADAMS

9 Years Ago

Dave is right, going forward you should try to register your images with the U.S. copyright office, it's much easier to enforce copyright if you've registered your images with the copyright office. All this is assuming you're planning to use U.S. law - not the law of a different country - to assert your copyright claims. Really, this is a messy enough situation that if you really want to try to get these people to stop using your photos, you should talk to a lawyer. And Mike is right, that could be a long, expensive battle. Talk to a lawyer to see if it's even do-able at this point.

And... if you're considering a legal battle, it's a bad idea to talk about the case on a public forum like this, anything you post could be used by your opponents against you in court.

Disclaimer: as always, this is just my opinion, not legal advice.

 

Richard Reeve

9 Years Ago

I would suggest spending less time fretting about people stealing your images and more time uploading and promoting them so that they have at least some chance of being seen and purchased... sigh.
If you don't want them to be stolen then don't put them on the web...

 

Jeremy Rognlie

9 Years Ago

Keep the feedback coming! I appreciate it. I just uploaded the best picture I have Denali from the sky a little while ago.

 

Mike Savad

9 Years Ago

as far as selling it - you still have to find the buyer. but you have to compare what other images people have from other sites. most people get it from the ground, sunset, sunrise, at night etc, may look far more interesting. but you can always try. add more keywords. and be aware that cards are about the same size as a small print so many will increase the single card price.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

 

Murray Bloom

9 Years Ago

I'm not impressed by the picture. It's too flat (limited contrast range). Too much haze and atmospherics, as well as a lot of grain and stripes in the sky. FAA probably won't print it. A lot of build-up and not much delivered.

Photography Prints

 

David Bridburg

9 Years Ago

Murray the stripes in the sky? Might as well be banding?

The composition is actually the thing I am much more trained in assessing. I like it, but
the contrast is limited. Shadows in the foreground and lit up in the background. (I stumble every
time I take the short cut and call something a background, not supposed to use that word.) lit up on the distant
mountains. That is better.

This is possibly your grandest pic. I dont know if it is your best. You have limited worries about copyright.....
Just my quarter cent, so take it for what it is....an opinion.....not advice.

Dave

 

Melissa Bittinger

9 Years Ago

Jeremy, was this shot in raw or jpg? Also how familiar are you with post processing images and what software programs might you be using to do so? Some of the issues with this can be adjusted in post processing. Give us some more info.

 

Jeremy Rognlie

9 Years Ago

I can't say for sure, but it was probably shot in jpg. I just looked throughout my camera and I could not find any settings for shooting in raw. If it helps any, it is a 16 megapixel camera. I am mildly familiar with post processing images, but there is someone I know who could probably help me with that if I asked him--good chance I could use the help but I don't know what programs he would be using. It would be interesting to see what the pictures would look like if various issues were fixed.

 

Melissa Bittinger

9 Years Ago

Define 'mildly familiar'! Is this a point and shoot camera? Talk to your friend and/or do some researching on editing images.

 

Mike Savad

9 Years Ago

its a point and shoot, you can tell by the texture it leaves behind. i find my slr doesn't focus through a window of a plane, must be a polarizing effect. but ideally, unless the image is really good, it probably won't sell. everyone on the plane will have this shot and people on the ground will have the advantage. often an interesting thing to you, doesn't always make a good picture. often people get caught up in the excitement of getting the shot, that their memories taint what the image actually does look like. the questions is - do you or would you hang this in your own house?

you would know if it was raw, because partly it would say so, you would have to set the camera that way, and process the image in a certain way. if you uploaded it direct, its a jpg. whether its a high quality or not, hard to know.

i think it will print, but it should be cleaned up a bit, mostly in the sky. it could use a contrast adjustment, and i'd make this a black and white to boost the contrast. it will at least stand out better that way. i think the banding has more to do with a moire/compression effect.

if you plan on selling, you'll want to be more familiar with your camera, and the processing of images. you'll need more than 1 image.


---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

 

Mike Savad

9 Years Ago

Art Prints
this is heather's mountain - this is your competition. those that love the mountain, will want the view they normally would see - which is on the ground, and not floating in the air. if there was a cool cloudscape or something like that in yours, it would stand out better.

http://fineartamerica.com/art/all/denali++mountain/all

go through the others. you'll see they pop better, have more contrast, or land features. or something to do with the clouds and such. also people who don't sell, are in the back or close to the back. so there may be high views like this and not many would see it.

---Mike Savad
MikeSavad.com

 

Edward Fielding

9 Years Ago

Don't fall into the trap of thinking art is about selling something rare and unique. Or that your subject hasn't been covered already a zillion times. They have cruise ships to the polar ice caps these days.

If you have something truly unique you won't have any trouble tracking down thieves. But with a landscape, good luck trying to tell one artist from another. It not like you are Charles Linberg flying over something for the first time.

 

Travel Pics

9 Years Ago

I'd crop out all the blue sky in the Denali photo; then at least the foreground leads up to the mountain

 

Chuck De La Rosa

9 Years Ago

My initial reaction is that it doesn't matter that this might be a rare view, but that the mountains are dead across the center of the frame. That doesn't make for a very compelling shot (think "rule of thirds" on a shot like this, less sky, more foreground). I'd like to see some of your others to make a better judgement of your photographic skills.

It really doesn't matter that 10,000 other people can and have gotten the same shot. It doesn't matter that Heather's shot or anyone else might be better than your own. What counts is how good you can put your spin on the shot, and how you reach potential buyers. If your work is decent and you find the right buyers, they may pick your work over someone else.

When critiquing your own work, walk away from it for a while and try to remove as much emotion from it as you can. Mike has a great post on self critique with the goal of leading to sales.

Make sure to never make the mistake of thinking that people will be knocking your door down to buy your work. The folks that sell a lot here have been doing it for years, have an established market that took them years to build, and they know how to reach that market. Disclaimer, I don't sell a lot, but I do make sales. I just don't do a lot of marketing.

 
 

Travel Pics

9 Years Ago

I'm seeing those links so often, I really should click on them one of these days.

:)

Michel
Top Travel Pics Group - Travel Photography Contest.

 

This discussion is closed.