Saturday’s Song – Let’s Get It On by Marvin Gaye
I heard Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On early in the week and it stuck with me for days. It’s one of those songs that takes me back to the era in which it was released, 1973. It has a great R&B groove and the lyrics sound far more provocative now than they did to me when I was still in my teens. Maybe I hear it through a parent’s ears now.
I don’t know a lot about Marvin Gaye except that I love his songs and he died too young.
I did a bit of digging around for this post and encourage you to watch this 5 minute video – a tribute to Marvin Gaye by Diana Ross.
The Wikipedia page about Let’s Get It On gives a perspective beyond the blatant sexual overtones in the song. Let’s Get It On had layers of meaning for Gaye. Not much in life is simple for any of us.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let’s_Get_It_On
Photography, Copyright Infringement, Pirating, The Internet
I had a photographer’s internet high last week as well as a photographer’s internet low.
The High –
Mid-week I was emailed by a woman from Canada. She asked if she could use a Baltimore oriole photo (shown above) I had posted two years ago at my photo-blog, SilverLining-MaryMcAvoy. She wanted to use the photo in a children’s summer camp education program about bird nests. I was thrilled she’d found my photo-blog, a blog I stopped posting to in 2012 after moving away from the subject of the blog, which is a small pond in New England.
Of course I googled the site of the program she said she was representing and was assured that her interest in my photo was legitimate.
A similar request was made of me about six weeks ago. Interestingly, it was also a request for use of my Baltimore oriole images, this time at an educational tourist site in Ohio. Again, this was for a non-profit. So, again, I sent my photos in full resolution with no charge.
My SilverLining photo site clearly shows this message:
Both women followed the internet code of ethics by asking my permission to use the copyrighted photos. I happily gave permission and sent the requested high resolution photos – free of charge. I also offered additional and related photos.
One of the extra photos I sent to the woman in Canada is a male Baltimore oriole removing a “fecal sac” from the nest that contains his hatchlings. The image is below. I was fascinated by this bird activity and by the tidiness of nature – that hatchlings poop in neat, little sacs that the parent can pluck from the nest intact – like a biodegradable diaper – and remove from the nest. (The quality of this image is not great. The oriole nest is designed to sway in summer breezes, and it does, causing many of my 300 mm handheld shots to be a bit shaky.)
The Low –
Before sending the image to the woman I decided I’d better restudy about fecal sacs so that I could inform her with accurate knowledge. So, I googled the topic to refresh my memory.
My googling produced a link that led me to a flickr site where my wondering eyes beheld my own photograph, doctored into a watery looking image.
And, on top of this illegal use of my image, the flickr page indicated that the edited image was copyrighted to someone named Bryan Adams.
I used the contact information shown on this flickr page (an enterprise called “infoway” that builds websites and, it seems, uses photos like mine in their work) and requested that “infoway dot us” immediately remove my photo from use. A response came within 24 hours assuring me that the photo would be taken down promptly. And on Monday I was again contacted confirming that the image had been removed. I’ve checked and it has been. I’m grateful for their quick action.
The initial reply from infoway included an explanation that the image had been used only for “promotional” purposes, not “commercial” purposes. I wrote back saying that to use my copyrighted photo for promotional purposes that benefit infoway is commercial use.
Quite on purpose I’m not linking to infoway or the Bryan Adams flickr site in this post. I certainly don’t want to reward bad behavior by linking back to them and upping their SEO ranking. But please go have a look at the thousands of images they have on this flickr site. I’m guessing a good percentage of the images are pirated from photographers who have no idea of this use of their photographs. You’ll find the flickr site if you google this string of terms: bryan adams flickr infoway. You’ll know you’ve arrived at the right place if you see this (unless they change it in the meantime):
I guess that all photographers should take the time to periodically google their own image names to see if their images have been lifted to another site.
I reduce the size of nearly all of the images I put on the internet to minimize the likelihood that they will be reproduced. I imagine that all photographers know to do that. I guess the lesson here is that our low resolution photos can still be edited into a usable image for the purposes of others.
I suppose I should start to watermark all of my photos before uploading them. The thing about doing that is that in order to keep the watermark from interfering with the impact of the image, we all tend to put our watermark along an edge. It’s so easy to crop out the mark. So, I’m not sure that’s much protection.
Sunday’s Snapshots – Boston, Mass.
Several times during the past few weeks I’ve gone to Boston. Some of these trips into the city have been in the early hours of the morning (in an effort to avoid rush hour) while other times have been late in the day, resulting in my having to sit in my car through heavy, slow traffic jams.
I love Boston. And like many cities, Boston is a photographer’s paradise. This can be frustrating if I’m doing the driving and the traffic is going along at a good clip. Photo op after photo op passes me by.
But in the past week when I was in the city I did have the opportunity to take a few shots with my cell phone when the traffic slowed or when I wasn’t driving.
In this collection of a few photos taken with my htc one phone, you’ll see an early morning shot of a Boston Hubway bike station, a glimpse of Fenway Park (very out of focus…the car was moving), an obstructed view (by a truck) of the Charles River and Cambridge taken from Storrow Drive, and the ever-thrilling-to-me Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill (cable-stayed) Bridge.
I think it was from Boylston Street that I took a shot of one of the old buildings that I love to see in that area and along Storrow Drive, just after you merge in and head toward Government Center on Storrow. There are grand old buildings all along that stretch of Storrow. Unfortunately, I was both driving and going to fast to capture any more images along Storrow. Another time…when I’m not driving.
The quality of these photos is not good! I’ve cropped them to remove some distracting things, like the door mirror or a big chunk of the dashboard or the inspection sticker on the windshield. You can see reflection on the windshield and distortion and out of focus frames. But what I love about these photos is that they are “living” photos. They are taken in fractions of a second as these scenes pass by in peripheral motion. They capture moving views of the city that are not set up or planned. I like the imperfect elements in these images. They reveal that these are living, action photos.
Saturday’s Song – The Violent Femmes
I think I first heard the band Violent Femmes a few years ago. My exposure to them was through my children – children of the ’80s and ’90s. It might have been American Music (video above) that first caught my attention. When I heard Blister in the Sun (below) it sounded a little familiar so maybe I’d heard it round about the time it had air time.
I have come to love the sound of this band and the creativity in their music. How they’ve achieved blending some nice melody along with some really raw sounds and coarse lyrics is beyond me. But it works. They are classified as punk rock, alternative rock and modern rock.
This is one of my favorites, Used To Be.
Gordon Gano, the singer and lead guitarist is so talented and also so scary in the way he performs a song and delivers lyrics. Blister in the Sun is one of the best examples of this. So is American Music.
In the old clips of this band, Gano comes off as the bad boy you’re scared to love – with uncertainty and from a distance. I’ve read that he wrote songs for characters he invented and that his performance of a song goes beyond being a musician – he performs the song as the character. I think that’s talent.
I don’t know enough about this band to say anything about them with any credibility. So, I’ll let their music inform you. In this post are a few of my favorite Violent Femmes songs. Enjoy ~
50 Incredible Novels Under 200 Pages from ~
Today, I came across an article at FLAVORWIRE that lists 50 novellas or short novels recommended as must-reads. I’ve read some already but I think I’ll read several more through the spring and summer, both for enjoyment and as a study in this shorter form of the novel.
Many of my earliest favorite novels were short novels or novellas. Flowers for Algernon (Daniel Keyes), Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck), The Old Man and The Sea (Ernest Hemingway), The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald) come to mind immediately – all of which are on the list except for Flowers For Algernon – a book that I think should be on the list. (Be sure to read the comments after the article, link below, as many more books are recommended.)
When I began writing, I didn’t expect to write novellas but my first two novels (Love’s Compass and The Setting of the Sun) ended up fitting neatly into the novella length. When I finished each of them, the word count happened to be at about 25,000. I love writing in the parameters of the novella. It fits my style of writing.
I think of myself as being more of a storyteller than a literary writer – though I do think there are literary elements in my books. My phrase, sentence, paragraph and chapter structure is simple, direct and short. My focus is on the story. So, the novella was a natural for me. Though that’s not to say all novellas have the same style of writing as I have. I think, too, that I have a cadence that is comfortable for the reader.
At the time I wrote my first two books (2007-2010), no one was interested in novellas – “no one” meaning in the publishing industry. So, I made myself write a full length novel of 65,000 words. It didn’t feel as natural to me, but I did write a story (Love, Topaz) that I think is true to my basic style, just longer.
Lately, I’ve been hearing more about novellas. They seem to be making a comeback! Yay! I was really encouraged to come across Flavorwire’s list.
Here’s the list, which has fun and clever descriptions with each book.
50 Incredible Novels Under 200 Pages
Sunday’s Snapshots – Easter Dinner
Yesterday, I was visiting the site of an artist who goes by Matthew S as well as mathew992. His site is mejfote. I visit his site now and then. He does great sketches. Really inspiring fashion especially.
He’s done a sketch that I think is an entry into a design contest for an album cover for Florence & The Machine. I’m not really sure. But I love the sketch and seeing it reminded me of a song I love by that band. The song is Dog Days Are Over.
It’s above, as this week’s Saturday’s Song. The video is from Live On Letterman. Enjoy!
UPDATE: Please see the comments where Matthew S says that his drawing has been entered in a contest for an album cover for Florence & The Machine. I wish him the best of luck!
A Poem – Ascending Leaves by Mary McAvoy
Ascending Leaves
by Mary McAvoy
Wild winds worry two lifeless leaves, tumbling and turning them,
till lifting them high into the stark branches whence they’d come!
Like a pair of birds ascending, the leaves flutter upward and settle in the naked boughs of spring.
Impaled by or tangled within thin limbs, once again the leaves,
with no green, red or gold in their dead cells,
hang aloft for several minutes before being torn again from their original home.
At the mercy of nature they whip around on currents that give them one more ride
before depositing them on the bed of straw blades the melted snow has uncovered.
More Sunday’s Snapshots – Springtime In New England
I went for a long walk today – long mostly because I kept stopping to take photos…so it was long in time if not distance.
Like the photos already posted today, these were taken with my phone, the htc one.
About the tree – the photos don’t accurately show its size. It has to be 60 feet tall, at least. And the diameter (yes, diameter) is probably six feet. I’m not sure what kind of tree it is. The bark is smooth from about eight feet on up to the top. It reminded me of elephant skin.
It was a beautiful day. The sky was a gorgeous blue and there wasn’t a cloud in sight.
sublime days 