Refreshed ImageMaven Web Site

Today I finally had the chance to refresh and simplify my ImageMaven web site. The main look hasn't changed much, but I've combined a few of the pages so that there are only five menu selections: Home, Portfolio, Stock, Blog and Links. I purposefully haven't gone the route of the "large image" portfolio sites that most photographers now use. My site might be butt-ugly in some people's eyes, but the fact is I rank high on search engines and I'd hate to screw all that up by investing in a Flash generated site. Yes, I know Flash can be optimized for SEO, but I don't have those skills at this time, nor the time and money to invest in that right now. Truth is, my client base is not typically art directors. Sure, I sell some stock to art directors now and then, but most of my income comes from established corporate clients and the images are used in-house for very specific technical things. For the rest, I shoot a bit of travel, plus I just shoot what I love and flog everything I can through my PhotoShelter Personal Archive using rights-managed and royalty-free licensing models.

My role model in this is Dan Heller, SEO expert and sucessful stock photographer, who also has a butt-ugly web site (sorry Dan). His site is however, highly functional, and that is the most important thing. I originally wanted to sell stock directly from my site like Dan does, but I'm no web programmer. I just tinker with html and Dreamweaver. That's why I chose the PhotoShelter Personal Archive route for self-serve selling. It's cheap and efficient. Sure I give up 10% on every sale, but with all that back-end support I consider it a small price to pay for all those features. By the way, PhotoShelter is SEO friendly.

I have finally learned over the years that shooting what I love makes me happiest, along with a couple of good corporate contracts, some teaching, some family portraits and some work for artists to keep me afloat financially. PhotoShelter and Dan's expertise have helped me realize this, plus, as my mom says, "Do what you love and the money will come."

Farewell Nova Scotia

Left Nova Scotia today. What a great time, great people, great food, great shots. I will be writing a "best-of" entry soon to summarize my trip.

Nova Scotia's Treasures

Another wonderful day touring around Nova Scotia's South Shore! Not far from Halifax we hit Lunenburg, where the Bluenose II was in port. We were able to climb around on the sailing vessel and appreciate the grandeur of the ship that's on the Canadian dime.

Before that we stopped at Rissers Beach. We got a second chance at swimming in the Atlantic Ocean. What a great feeling to be bobbing in the warm salt water. After our beach visit, we hit the Lobster Wagon in Lunenburg for the best haddock fish 'n chips I've ever tasted. Another highlight was the cable ferry trip across the river at LeHave.

Peggy's Cove and Lobster - Nova Scotia

Yes, they are clichés, but some things just have to be done! On a trip to Halifax you have to do the typical touristy things. If you go to Calgary, you need to eat Alberta beef and visit Banff, and when you go to Halifax you need to eat lobster and visit Peggy's Cove.

Luckily for us it was a glorious sunny day absent of tour buses. Peggy's Cove is smaller than a postage stamp, but it has an immense amount of charm and appeal. The surf is mesmerizing and wildly dangerous. Sitting on the granite rock formations and watching it is like being on another planet. There are a few kooky types around - the woman at the base of the lighthouse on her squeeze box and another welcoming you with bagpipes. The whole experience is somewhat surreal.

The drive back to Halifax included a wade into the Atlantic Ocean at a roadside beach. At 19 C it was practically tropical. After that, we picked up a couple of live lobster at the SuperStore and created a feast. A walk along the Halifax boardwalk under the full moon completed a superb day!

Image Theft - A Rant

I was checking my web stats last night, when I found a site using one of my images (shown here) without my permission. Amazing what you can learn from your stats! It wasn't a big multi-national or anything, but a blog. The person took a stock image off my portfolio site. It had my copyright symbol clearly on the top of the image. It wasn't even cropped off. There was no credit, no link back to my site (in fact it was linked to Nike's site), nor was I asked if they could "use" it. Needless to say I was a bit taken aback at first, and then I became angry. This is what I wrote to the blog:

I noticed that you poached a triathlon photograph from my commercial web site and posted it on your blog. This is in violation of International copyright law. The photo that you stole, even has the copyright symbol still on it, which is not necessary under law, just a friendly reminder in case people don't know.

I am a commercial photographer. I make my living shooting and selling images. I give many free hours of my time and photographic expertise to amateur sports associations and athletes, however since you didn't ask my permission, nor gave me a link or credit back to my own website and/or stock photography library, I must bill you for the usage of this photo.

This photo can be purchased with a Royalty Free license at web resolution for only $20. Please do so from the link here. As a courtesy to me I would also like the Nike link removed from my photo and instead paste this link in its place.

Just because you can access and "right" click "just a picture from the web" as you call it, does not mean that you can or should do this. Just like it's illegal to download copyrighted music, it is also illegal to download photos without consent and in most cases payment to the artist. Triathlon costs a lot of money to participate in. The cost of traveling to races, wet suits, running shoes and especially bikes keeps many people out of the sport. Surely you can afford $20 to support someone who cares deeply about supporting athletes, especially women in sports.

I get sick of people not respecting copyright and just thinking that everything on the internet is free for the taking if you can. There are enough $1 images around that there should be no need for anyone to steal any photographs anymore.

Sure, I could build a flash website to prevent this type of thing, but they aren't as SEO friendly as HTML sites. I would lose my high ranking in Google, plus, the updates would be slower to do and I'd probably have to hire an expert to make changes. I just want people to "get it" and stop poaching photos of people's sites. Do you steal food off the shelves in the grocery store - just because you have access to it?

If this person would have asked me for the photo instead of stealing it, I would probably have given it to them in exchange for a link to my PhotoShelter Archive. As it stands now, I'm just ticked off! Possession, as they say is 9/10 of the law. They stole it. I found it. Now they must pay!

Balzac, Alberta - Heritage Day

I'm sure many of you have seen the hit TV series Corner Gas. Many small towns on the prairies have similar set ups. One of those is the store in Balzac, Alberta. The Balzac Store has a wonderful café full of nostalgic decorations with old movie star photos, horse tack and saddle sales, and of course gas (which sells for less than in suburban Calgary only a few kilometers away). On the east side of the gas station along the railway tracks, sits a traditional prairie grain elevator housing the Balzac Seed Cleaning Plant. On the west side a couple of churches.

The fate of this corner is precarious as the Balzac mega mall and accompanying exit ramps have already forced the closure of the nearby garden centre. I was in the garden centre the other day hoping to find discounted perennials and it was already looking like a ghost town. I also noticed that the Balzac store had a "For Sale" sign on the side of it. I don't know what the fate of the store is as I didn't have a chance to speak to the owners about it during the busy lunch hour when I was there, but I suspect they will also succumb to the suburban "progress" of nearby Calgary.

If you get a chance, stop in and have a club sandwich special at the Balzac Store, fill up your car with gas, and enjoy the nostalgia while it exists. The Balzac Store is at the Highway 566 exit on the west side of Highway 2 (QE2) just north of Calgary.

UPDATE: The grain elevator of the Balzac Seed Cleaning Plant has now been leveled. I'm so glad I was able to get some photos of it before that happened.