A word in your ear

Usually I don't like photographs where the majority of the image is out of focus - they just look like mistakes.

But every now and again one works.

I was experimenting, trying to set up an image which said something like couch potato when I caught this one:

It doesn't say 'couch potato' to me, but it says something else. I'm intrigued by the way the kid on the television seems to be speaking into my ear, as if asking me not to turn him off.

If there's one thing I regret about the image, it's that the background on the TV is dark. It would have worked much better had it been a lighter shade. As it is, there is not enough contrast between the zapper and its background.

However, the upside is that it seems to the sort of image you have to look at for a moment to work out what's going on. It doesn't immediately reveal its meaning to the viewer like a chocolate-boxy landscape, bundle of cute kittens or a bouquet of flowers does (do they have 'meaning'?).

Incidentally, I use myself as a model a lot. It's much cheaper and less hassles with model releases. I just need to be creative with remote releases or the delayed-action timer.

Extreme Sheepherding

Okay ... so this has nothing whatsoever to do with photography, other than the fact that a video camera was used to make it.

But as a Border Collie fan - and owner of this blog - I'm gonna pull rank.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Baa-Studs present

Extreme Sheepherding ...

They couldn't have done it without the dogs.

Border Collies forever!

Fruit Shoot? Shoot!

The California Rare Fruit Growers Association (CRFG) is running a photographic competition for images of rare fruit. They call it their Fruit Shoot 2009. First prize is $100, and the total prize money is $375.

But if you're thinking of entering, consider the rules very carefully. One section states:

All entries to this contest become CRFG property, and the contestant relinquishes all rights except the right of attribution.

In other words, whether you win or not, by merely entering you are giving away the copyright to your image(s).

Bear in mind that the vast majority of people enter their very best images for a competition.

That means, for a mere $375, the CRFG will be getting a selected photo library of rare fruit.

I guess that's a bargain from their point of view.

It's less of a bargain from the photographer's perspective. You may be able to sell a good shot of some rare fruit to an advertising agency (for example) for rather more than $100.

At risk of being boring I say again ... read the rules of any photographic competition carefully. There are far too many like this.

Spectacular sunset season

Watch out for spectacular sunsets over the next few days, and some wonderful photo opportunities.

Why now?

Because on June 12th the Sarychev Peak Volcano, in Russia, erupted and belched an enormous plume of sulphur dioxide and dust into the stratosphere.

(Copyright NASA)

This plume is now drifting around the world at northern latitudes.

It has already crossed North America and, at the moment, it is drifting across the North Atlantic. It will probably reach Europe over the next 48 hours.

When it does, if experience from other volcanic eruptions is anything to go by, the skies could show some astonishing colours at sunset.

Purple and violet are some of the colours you might see. They're caused by fine volcanic aerosols that scatter blue light. Other signs to look for include a bright yellow "twilight arch" and long sun-rays and shadows - all great opportunities for photographers.

So keep your eye on the sky!

(More details, and photographs, here.)

First Impression? Good!

Do you suffer from those computer programs that have every bell and whistle you could possibly imagine ... and then some?

How many of the bells and whistles do you use?

Here's a really neat program - a free image viewer that's so stripped down you've probably never seen anything like it. It's called First Impression.

No bells.

No whistles.

Not even a user interface, menu bar or toolbar.

In fact, no anything on display. Just the image. Here's a screenshot from my computer. I'm looking at a photograph of sunflowers that I took last year ...

... with Windows Explorer in the background (that's what all the junk surrounding it is). The image - nothing else - just sits in front of whatever other program you're using.

So, if there are no menus or toolbars, how do you do anything useful with it?

Everything is behind the scenes. You can move from image to image using the spacebar and backspace keys. And if you want to do something more exotic, like rotate, resize, or resample the image, all you do is right-click and a make your choice from the menu that pops up.

Without the bells and whistles it's very quick, and the program file is tiny - just 234KB. So it’s ideal if you're using a netbook that may be a bit short on memory. What's more, you don't need to install it, nor does it make any registry changes or add DLL files to your computer. It runs directly from an executable file, so you can carry it around on a USB stick if you wish.

Less is more!

You can download First Impression from here. I recommend it.

To Burst or not to Burst ?

Is 'burst mode' - when you set your camera to continuous shooting - the best way of catching high-speed action?

I'm not so sure.

Last weekend a big motor-racing championship race came to the tiny town where I live.

No, it wasn't Formula 1 (even though Michael Schumacher and Alain Prost live just down the road from here).

It was the 2009 European radio-controlled Buggy Racing Championships and, naturally, I went along to get some action shots.

The 'cars' were only about 40cm long. Their 'drivers' were in a stand beside the track. But, nevertheless, the racing was fast and furious. The buggies streaked down straights, skidded around corners, rattled over 'washboards' and leaped great jumps.

Now, the difficulty with any motor-racing photography, whatever the size of the vehicles, is getting a sense of action. Use too high a shutter speed and the cars will come out looking as if they're parked. Use too low a shutter speed and everything will be a blur. You want the shutter speed to be just fast enough to give some motion blur, but not too much.

Location is important too. A shot on the straight is generally pretty boring. To get an idea of the action you want to capture tyres skidding, smoke swirling ... something to give a sense of speed and drama.

I positioned myself where the buggies roared off a ramp an into a sand-pit. I wanted to catch the moment of landing at high speed, the sand flying.

I switched to 'burst mode', which gives me 9 shots per second with my camera (a Nikon D3), panned around to follow a selected buggy as it came into view, and operated the shutter button at the crucial instant.

This is the sort of thing I got, time and time again ...

Well, maybe my reactions aren't quick enough.

But also, I was panning with the car, then pressing and holding down the shutter button when I thought the action was about to begin.

Immediately my vision through the viewfinder flickered on and off as the shutter operated so it was more difficult to follow the buggy.

On top of that, do the maths. Let's be generous (and make the maths easier) by saying that my camera could take 10 pictures a second. That's one picture every 10th of a second. If the crucial moment of action lasts 1/100th of a second (which is not an unreasonable assumption) I only have a 1 in 10 chance of catching it.

Of course, I didn't calculate all that at the time. But looking at the images I was getting I could see I was doing something wrong.

So I changed tactics.

I switched off 'burst mode' watched where the cars tended to land and focussed on that spot. Then I still panned round smoothly with a selected buggy that was approaching, but only operated the shutter once, as close to the instant of landing as possible.

This is what I got ...

Now, I'm not saying that every shot thereafter was like that. I got a lorryload of duds. But I began to catch many more dramatic ones.

The human eye and human reflexes are still a match for modern technology.

The plot thickens.

I've been thinking about the 'Be Careful Out There' story I posted yesterday. It raises a number of issues.

First - who's been ripped off? As I see it, there are two parties here, the photographer, Gina Kelly, and the Smith family.

The photographer owns the copyright to the image, and appears (but see below) to have had it infringed. As a photographer you own the copyright to whatever photo you take, no matter who or what it is of.

The Smith family have no legal rights to the image (unless the photographer has ceded these) but they do have rights over their likeness being used for commercial purposes. This is why photographers ask for a signed model release if, for example, they intend to sell an image of someone through a stock agency. The release grants the photographer, and anyone assigned by the photographer, the right to use the model's image commercially.

But there is another puzzling aspect to this story.

The image on the store-front is huge, well over life-size:

(Copyright © Extraordinary Mommy)

To get a half-way decent image this size you've got to start off with something which is already pretty big. Most major agencies that can provide the material for adverts like this deal with images that are 45-50MB. What's more, the the background has been expertly removed from the original photograph to create the advertising version.

So where did the photo for the advertisement come from?

The majority of blogging and social networking sites don't allow large images to be posted. The maximum size here on Blogger is 8MB. On Facebook it's smaller. Even putting a large original photograph on your personal web site is pretty impractical. It can be done, but it will take a while to upload and then will slow down the page enormously.

Did the photographer submit the image to a stock agency without the family's permission? Danielle Smith assures us that she did not.

Did someone, somehow, manage to steal the original from the photographer, remove the background and submit it as a stock image? Seems highly unlikely (though not entirely impossible).

Did it genuinely come off the web? If so, how did they do it?

Or is there another possibility?

One thing we can be sure of - the shopkeeper didn't commission that poster in his window. The shop is part of the Grazie Company which is a big Italian food conglomerate. I'd lay good money that this same image appears on shops all over the Czech Republic. Maybe even further afield.

So, whilst you have to admire the Smith family for not reaching immediately for the bludgeon of litigation, there are a few unanswered questions here.

It would be interesting to hear from both the photographer and the Grazie Company in order too get to the bottom of this mystery - where did the photograph really come from?

Image theft is becoming more and more common these days. It wouldn't be a bad idea if a few salutary examples were made.