Creative Commons

How would you mind giving away some of your photos for free? In return all you will be getting is some new friends around the world and that warm glow in your heart that you have helped someone around the world. Welcome to Creative Commons.

You may not have heard of Creative Commons yet the concept is growing fast. And you'll certainly want to learn about it if you want to access loads of free pictures (and other stuff) for your own projects. Since Day One of the internet it's always been part of the ethos that the net community help each other. So when photographers joined the net, it was not surprising that they were willing to share their pictures free of charge. International copyright laws are overly complex so the net community came up with their own very simple version: Creative Commons.
Essentially you mark your photos as any one of these (or a mixture of them):

• OK to use wherever and however you like as long as you credit me (give me a byline)
• OK to use how you wish - only not for commercial purposes
• OK to use but no 'derivatives' - and by derivatives, they mean altering it in Photoshop.

You'll find it all explained on Flickr along with the ability to search for Creative Commons photos in case you want one. For example, you may be wanting to create a poster featuring the Statue of Liberty - just search for such a picture with the appropriate Creative Commons license and help yourself.

Is it really free?
Yes, as long as it's appropriately marked with a Creative Commons licence. Just abide by the rules (give the photographer a byline) and you may wish to drop him or her a line of thanks.

It changed my life
Well, okay that's a bit of exagerration but I found marking my photos as Creative Commons has meant many more hits for my pictures and lots of nice messages from websites around the world saying how grateful they were and showing me the page with my picture on it. They usually link to my photo as well -which means even more hits/fame for me! There are, of course, some Flickr photos of mine that are so brilliant that I don't want to share them freely - that's not a problem. I just alter the licence for that photo to copyrighted.
This is one of my Creative Commons pictures - click on it and you will see the various comments from folk around the world who have picked it up for use.

Go to Explore/Creative Commons on Flickr and you'll find instructions on how to change your licence (it will set it as a default if you wish for all photos you upload). One final tip: make sure you include lots of tags with your photos as that's how people will search for a suitable 'piggy bank' picture or whatever.

Posting your picture on to a Flickr discussion

Flickr does not explain very well how to post a picture onto a discussion thread so here's my go at a step-by-step account.

1. Click on your picture that you wish to post onto the discussion thread and then click on the All Sizes button above your picture...

2. Choose Small size (preferably!) or whichever you prefer by clicking on the appropriate option...


3. You will now see below the picture a box with a lot of horrible HTML coding in it. Don't worry, you don't have to understand it, just highlight it and copy it. As soon as you click in the box it will highlight it (make it black) or you can drag your mouse over all the coding to highlight it. To 'copy' it press Ctrl-C once you have highlighted it. That will keep it in your computer's short-term memory. NOTE: Don't copy the URL at the top of the page but the coding under the picture....


4. Now go to the discussion thread you want to post the picture to. At the bottom of the thread you will see a box that says "reply to this topic". Click your mouse cursor in that box.


5. Now 'paste' that coding into the box by pressing Ctrl-V. You can also add after it your own message. I've added "My favourite picture" as you can see...

6. If you press the "preview" button first (the blue one on the bottom left) it will show you what it will look like. Then you can post if it's okay, change it or cancel all together by just deleting all the text....



Still having problems? Email me on alan.cleaver@whitehaven-news.co.uk or ring me on 01946 595130 and I'll be happy to help.

Copyright - nice and simple

A Snapper's photograph was recently used without her permission. She asked me what the situation was regarding copyright and I thought it would be helpful to state the basics of UK copyright law for you all. Photographic copyright is part of my job and, in addition to being trained in this aspect of law, I deal with it on a daily basis. However, I'm not a lawyer so I must advise you to always check with lawyers. The 'dispute' has since been resolved to the satisfaction of both the Snapper and the third party).
If you take a photograph, it is your copyright. You don't need to 'register' it, stamp your name on it or put a copyright symbol on it - it is your copyright. Fullstop!
This means other people cannot (without your express permission):
* Copy the picture* Display the picture in public (in an exhibition or shop window)* Show the picture on TV or internet* Adapt the picture (such as altering it in Photoshop).* Sell copies of it (or even give them away free).
That's it. Nice and simple! But for the full Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 see here.
If someone has 'stolen' or 'adapted' one of your photographs, have a polite but firm word with them (if need be print the above to show them). If that fails see a High Street solicitor. Their letter will only consist of one paragraph:
"You have breached my client's copyright. Please cease straightaway and pay £150 (or whatever fee you want!) in lieu of damages by 5pm today or we will commence court proceedings".
Court action will be swift and not particularly expensive. You could send the letter yourself but it looks better on a solictor's letterhead!

The relevant part of the Act is:

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (c. 48)
Chapter II Rights of Copyright Owner
The acts restricted by copyright

The acts restricted by copyright in a work

(1) The owner of the copyright in a work has, in accordance with the following provisions of this Chapter, the exclusive right to do the following acts in the United Kingdom—

(a) to copy the work (see section 17);
(b) to issue copies of the work to the public (see section 18);
(c) to perform, show or play the work in public (see section 19);
(d) to broadcast the work or include it in a cable programme service (see section 20);
(e) to make an adaptation of the work or do any of the above in relation to an adaptation (see section 21); and those acts are referred to in this Part as the “acts restricted by the copyright”.

(2) Copyright in a work is infringed by a person who without the licence of the copyright owner does, or authorises another to do, any of the acts restricted by the copyright.

Snappers at large

Don't you just hate the blogs that always begin by apologising for not having posted for months! So do I, so I won't! We're nearing 200 Snappers members now and a quick browse of the site reveals that probably about half of them are active all the time. Others drift in and out - which is absolutely fine - and a few others have probably left, hopefully to return one day in the future.

You may also notice that if you put a post up at 3pm on a weekday afternoon or midnight on a Monday, you'll get about five responses within half an hour! Which means some very sad people are logged on for 24/7!

Our members range from the teenager to the pensioner, from the DX1 user to the camera phone user. And from the absolute beginner to the more expert. You're all welcome.

As I write this, our next big event is a trip to Rosehill Theatre on the evening of Wednesday, April 1st (5.30pm onwards) for some behind the scenes shots. I'm really looking forward to this as it's a gorgeous building and I'd like to try some moody shots of the theatre and some PR shots of the staff and volunteers posed up. Do join us if you can. At 7pm, there's an Open Stage event in the Barn to which the Snappers are welcome. And you can even jump on stage and give a song, dance or whatever if the mood takes you!

HDR - so that's what it is

I am a big fan of HDR - high dynamic range photography but I'm also aware there's a lot of confusion over what it is, when it should be used and how to do it. Confusion shared, not least, by me. But I thought I'd have a stab at an idiot's guide which people can feel free to correct.

The picture of me in my office illustrates one of the problems of 'normal' photography. Light shining in through the window at the camera would normally throw the subject into shadow. To get round this you would use fill-in flash or a reflector. But in this instance I used HDR - it takes the dark shadows and the bright window and blends them into something more akin to what the human eye sees.

How is it done? I took three exposures (normal, -2 and +2) and software from Photomatix merges the three into the result above. It is also possible to create an HDR image from a single RAW file but I find the results better from multiple jpegs.

Here's another example:

This is St Pancras station and not surprisingly all that light flooding through the roof through everything into a mucky grey colour instead of the bright blue the human eye saw. HDR has returned the proper exposure for the statue and the blue ironwork while keeping the tourist in the centre of the picture also correctly exposed. This shot was created from a single RAW file and the result is not too bad.

But I know what you are thinking. These all look like 'normal' pictures whereas the HDR shots you see posted up on Flickr normally look like something created by Roger Dean. Well that's because people couldn't resist taking software designed to overcome the problem of heavy contrasts and use it for artistic effect. Push the buttons on the HDR software to the limit and you end up with something like this:

Now, you and I know that the Ratty steam train doesn't look anything like this - and yet the heavily HDR-d effect is not displeasing. HDR can be used to push colours and tones to their limits to create some very arty photographs but it's worth remembering that it's original purpose was simply to create more 'real' pictures.

How do I find out more? I'd suggest visiting Photomatix and downloading the free version of their software. The website includes manuals and you'll also find tutorials elsewhere on the web. But in short, take three different exposures (typically -2, 0 and +2) of a subject that doesn't move (and use a tripod) then use Photomatix to merge all three images and create the finished HDR image.

Here's a gallery of good HDR images, and in particular I'd look at Jakub Kubica's work.

Plenty of ideas

There's a lot bubbling away with the Snappers - and hopefully much of it will come to fruition before too long. The plan to have a workshop for absolute beginners is definitely on and I just need to sort out dates with Horrgakx. Malcolm has suggested an exhibition for the end of the year which would be nice to pursue (hopefully The Whitehaven News coughing up some money for it!). And I'd still like to have some sort of 'arts and crafts' convention for the Snappers and other groups at some point in the year. But it all comes down to time! Bear with me...

Stock photographs

You'd think by my photos on Flickr that I spent all my time walking the Lake District taking photos but I have to confess I spend most of my time indulging in a very niche style of photography - one that can even be profitable! It's stock photography and for those who think they might like to try it, here's a quick introduction.

First of all, this is what it looks like...


It most definitely ISN'T this...


Note the subtle difference! One is a pretty picture of Wasdale and the other is an image created with designers in mind. Stock photographs are those images that designers, sub editors etc can use to illustrate a feature or advertise a product. It's easy to imagine the three mugs advertising coffee, illustrating a feature on our cafe culture or similar.

Designers need stock photos that are clean, simple, usually without a background and above all a strong image. Here's a few more...


Getting the idea? It's sometimes easier to think of what designers might need to illustrate and then come up with a photograph for them. A feature on summer holidays, an article on depression (how would you illustrate that?), an advertisement for a beauty product and so on. If you look in the business pages of Sunday newspapers you'll see how sub editors sometimes struggle. A feature on increasing mortgage rates might be illustrated by someone climbing a mountain or someone holding their head in their hands. But with a little imagination you might come up with a photo of an origami house made out of a £20 note. The sub will be delighted by your imagination and you'll get some money.

So how do you sell these pictures. There are a number of photo libraries that will sell them for you (for a cut of course). I must declare an interest here and say that I use Redstock Images because my friends Chris and Amanda run it (!). Other picture libraries are available etc etc! I upload my pictures to their site and hopefully they get used on occasion netting me some pocket money.

This style of photography isn't for everyone but you might like to give it a go and expand your portfolio and push your photographic skills.