Tristan just asked me if he could read Lucas a bedtime story, instead of being read to by Beloved.
These are the moments that make it all worthwhile. Blogged because I want to remember this one.
Month: January 2012
Social sharing of photos – are you giving away your rights for free?
I have been posting my pictures on the Internet forever, going back to the first website I built back in 2000 or so, and I’ve always known there were inherent risks. I’d always figured, though, that the biggest risk would be that someone takes one of my pictures and misappropriates it.
However, as I’ve become more serious about photography, I’ve realized that there are a lot of ways you can unwittingly give someone (or more nefariously, a big corporation) the right to use your pictures in any way they choose, commercial or not. Did you know, for example, that each time you use Instagram or Hipstamatic or TwitPic, you have granted “a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, worldwide, limited license to use, modify, delete from, add to, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce and translate such Content”? (Taken verbatim from the Instagram terrms of service you agreed to when you signed up for the service, but the others are pretty similar.) They need a certain amount of rights to display and back up your pictures, but these terms seem to go above and beyond what would be requried for that.
So what does this mean? Well, most importantly it means that they can use your picture or any part of it in pretty much any way they like — advertising, derivative works, etc. It also means that if you happen to go pro and start licensing your images through a stock agency like Getty Images, you’ve limited the kind of licensing model that can be assigned to that photo. The photo loses some of its attractiveness to certain buyers who might want (and pay big bucks for) an exclusive license. And this isn’t just limited to fine art photography — you might be at the right place at the right time and capture an editorial photograph that a newspaper, magazine or television station might pay to use, but once you sign away your rights, you instantly lose control of a significant part of your negotiating power.
For more information on social sharing of pictures, copyright and licensing models, see Jon Boyes great blog post on the subject. There’s also been a huge amount of discussion on Facebook and photo rights, and more recently on Google +. It’s a minefield for sure!
And if you’re an amateur shutterbug looking for more, ahem, exposure for your pictures, you might want to think twice before submitting your pictures to any photo contests. Read the fine print and you’ll find that a lot of contests are simply what photographers call “rights grabs” – watch out for wording in the rules and regulations that says you grant the contest organizers any kind of royalty-free license if you have even the faintest aspiration of licensing that photo at any point in the future. For example, the rules and regulations of National Geographic’s 2011 photo contest has this clause at the bottom of a long page of jargon:
By entering the Contest, all entrants grant an irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide non-exclusive license to Authorized Parties, to reproduce, distribute, display and create derivative works of the entries (along with a name credit) in connection with the Contest and promotion of the Contest, in any media now or hereafter known, including, but not limited to: Display at a potential exhibition of winners; publication of a book featuring select entries in the Contest; publication in National Geographic magazine or online highlighting entries or winners of the Contest. Entrants consent to the Sponsor doing or omitting to do any act that would otherwise infringe the entrant’s “moral rights†in their entries.
Even something as simple as uploading your sunset pictures to the Weather Network will require you to sign away your rights:
You hereby grant to PMI a world-wide, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and licence to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, distribute and sub-licence any and all material or information submitted by you to this Web site or by e-mail to PMI and/or to incorporate it in other works regardless of form, medium or technology. In addition, you hereby waive any moral rights you have in any and all material or information submitted by you to this Web site or by e-mail.
So what does all of this mean? Just be aware of what you’re agreeing to before you allow someone to use your pictures. You may not care where they end up or how they’re ultimately used, but I really had no idea about most of this stuff until recently. You may find that entering that contest will be more valuable to you than keeping the rights of a photo you cherish, or that you’re comfortable sharing your iPhone snaps via TwitPic, and that’s entirely up to you. It’s making an informed decision that counts!
Monetizing Mommyhood – coming this weekend to a radio near you
When I was in Toronto for the Blissdom Canada conference, I had the chance to speak to CBC’s Ira Basen about mom blogs, sponsorships, advertising and working with brands. It was an interesting conversation, especially as I tried to mentally juggle my relationship with Fisher-Price and Mom Central Canada (the sponsors who brought me to Blissdom Canada) and my own strongly held opinions on the matter. You can tune in this Sunday to CBC Radio’s The Sunday Edition to see how it all turned out. Here’s the aperçue from the Sunday Edition web site:
There are four million mommy bloggers in North America, women sharing with other women the trials and tribulations of bringing up babies and making more and more money at the same time.
In the past decade, social media for mommies has gone from a nurturing, supportive, chat-across-the-back-fence virtual village to a massive marketing vehicle for everyone from toy companies to the makers of minivans.
On the site you can also hear a quick promo of the show, featuring one of my biggest bloggy crushes and the woman I coincidentally befriended on the shuttle ride from the airport to Blissdom, Bonnie Stewart. Thanks to Judy Gombita on Google+, here’s a list of some of the others featured in the documentary:
PhD In Parenting – Annie Urban http://www.phdinparenting.com/
5 Minutes for Mom – Janice Croze http://www.5minutesformom.com/
Common Cents Mom – Hollie Pollard http://commoncentsmom.com/
Crib Chronicles – Bonnie Stewart http://cribchronicles.com/
Mom Central Canada – Cora Brady http://www.momcentralcanada.com/
Fisher Price play panel http://www.fisherpriceplay.ca/moms/
Child’s Play Communications –Stephanie Azzarone http://childsplaypr.com/
Judy also quotes Ira Basen’s summary of the 27-minute documentary:
“It is basically about the pros and cons commercialization of the social media space, and mommy blogs are the best example of that. On the one hand, the bloggers who have chosen to monetize their blogs by hooking up with brands via sponsorships, sponsored posts, compensation etc., are being rewarded for the work they do and are providing a service that many readers must find valuable. On the other hand, as one person (Bonnie Stewart of PEI) says in the piece…
‘There are people now who are perceiving that social media is a great way to build platforms so that you can get a corporate job being a brand spokesperson for Kraft Foods, but they are not necessarily as interested, and possibly not even as aware of the creator/consumer model on which original social media was based. I’m not sure that the “I’m here as a consumer of opportunity, in a space that’s crowded with marketers†is social media. I have a feeling that that might just be an interactive way of getting eyeballs and shilling for traditional corporate interests. And if enough people allow that to become the norm, then I think a lot of the power and potential of social media goes away.’
Heh, you can totally tell why I have a blog crush on Bonnie after reading that, eh?
I’d almost forgotten about this and was pleased to hear that it wasn’t relegated to the cutting room floor. If you’re curious, tune in this Sunday to CBC Radio One. It’s currently scheduled to run at 9:13 am, barring interference from pesky world events and breaking current affairs. You can stream it from CBC Radio, too, or catch the full-length podcast after the fact.
Winter break family fun ideas
With back to school starting so late this year, it seems like Christmas was ages ago. I don’t know about your kids, but at our house the kids are twitchy. Most of the gifts have been examined and played with, the family visits are past and the Christmas decorations stashed away for another year — and we still have a couple of days to kill savour together before the kids go back to school.
Are your kids getting squirrelly too? I thought I’d pull a few ideas from my archives to share, in case you missed them the first time around.
1. Digital camera scavenger hunt
You don’t need to use a camera for this – the low-tech version is just as fun – but the kids love the added element of the camera. Maybe they got one of these for Christmas? Make up a list of things outside like “blue car” or “tall tree” or “mail box” or whatever is in your neighbourhood, and then set the kids free to find the things as a team. It can be as short or long a list as you think they have the attention-span to complete, and by using the camera you don’t have the problem of what to do with the stuff they collect (a problem we’ve had with other scavenger hunts, and on a daily basis simply because my kids are natural scavengers!) Rainy day or freezing cold outside? Make it an indoor scavenger hunt with things like, “Daddy’s socks” and “blue shampoo bottle.”
2. What’s in the bag?
You need a bag about the size of a shoe box for this. A fabric bag is best, like a shoe bag, and a recyclable shopping bag works well, too. You have to do a bit of advanced legwork for this one. Collect a bunch of stuff that has interesting shapes, sizes and textures. Dinky cars, a carrot, a bar of soap, a sock — whatever! One at a time, put an item in the bag and see if your child can guess what it is by feel alone. So simple, and surprisingly entertaining. We always end up laughing.
3. Beads
Don’t just buy bulk beads from the craft store, though; bring them to an actual bead store and let them pick four or five “special” beads from the bins, and then make up the difference with pony beads or other plain beads. You can also get a mixed bag of discards… my boys loved the ones that looked like crystals in a bag I thought was rather uninspiring. Letter beads are also a hit if you don’t mind forking over a bit more cash. And make sure you don’t choose the cord that is plastic and stretchy – it’s impossible to knot. Get nice thready cord.
When they finished making necklaces for everyone in the house and bracelets for Granny and Papa Lou and the rest of the extended family, all the Webkinz got new collars and we made enough bookmarks to last a year. You can also get little key rings to make backpack decorations. My kids LOVED the bead craft!
4. Treasure maps
This is similar to the scavenger hunt. One year our nanny made up a treasure hunt for each of the boys for their birthday gift, with ten rhyming clues leading them throughout the house. If I didn’t love her before this, when I read the work that had gone into her clues I knew she was terrific. Sample: “Under the place you sit to dine, you will find clue number 9!” The treasure at the end can be something small, because it’s the hunt that makes up the fun. If you’re feeling less wordy, you can just draw a treasure map with a nice big X that marks the spot.
5. Magazine cut-out books
I could spend hours doing this when I was a kid. Find some old magazines and catalogues destined for the blue box, and some construction paper. Cut pictures, words and letters out of the magazines to create a little story book. So simple, but creative and entertaining.
How are you planning to spend the last few days before the kids go back to school?
This week in pictures: holiday retrospective
I‘m still on the fence as to whether I will be doing an official 365 (erm, 366) project in 2012, but I still seem to be taking a picture each day, and I do enjoy writing these posts, so let’s keep on keeping on for now. I posted a boatload of pictures over the last week, partly because I have had time to go through my archives and find some new favourites and partly because I have not really put down my camera at all this week. And really, how could I resist this ridiculously photogenic time of year?
This is what our Christmas looked like:
One of my favourite gifts this Christmas was a creative aperture kit for my Lensbaby. I’ve done shaped bokeh before, but this makes it very easy by providing a bunch of different cutouts you just pop into the Lensbaby, so any out-of-focus areas (known as bokeh) take on the shape of the aperture. Here’s the effect the heart-shaped one had on the tree lights:
And here’s the star-shaped one with the neighbour’s Christmas lights. (There is a part of me that worries about being known as “That weird woman with the camera” in my neighbourhood.)
It can be more subtle when the lights are not as bright or contrasty. You can see the faint stars in the right fence post on this one, too:
Here’s what it looks like on the camera:
Not for every day, but a lot of fun when used sparingly. 🙂 And speaking of bokeh, here it is without the shaped aperture. The glass ball is part of a decoration my mom bought for me ages ago — in fact, it was in my first 365 picture back in 2009. I keep meaning to play with it more:
On a side note, if you’re killing time and looking for something cool to watch, check out this amazing time-lapse video that combines shaped bokeh, a glass globe just like this one and Los Angeles. I found it after I’d taken all these pictures and laughed at how they all came together in this video — I’ve watched it a couple of times and really love it!
Snow Globe Los Angeles from All Cut Up Films on Vimeo.
I’ve been noticing these lights on a fence in Manotick since the beginning of the season, and that gorgeous snowfall on Christmas day made for the perfect conditions to finally capture them. I love this picture!
And no week in pictures would be complete without at least one portrait, right? Here’s Lucas, hard at work. He’s spent most of the week at the table doing exactly this: cutting, colouring, gluing and drawing.
I’m not quite sure yet if this is another 365 project or not, but one thing is clear — I’ve no plans to stop taking pictures any time soon! 🙂 This post is getting a little long, but I thought I’d cram in this last one while it’s still fresh:
Happy 2012 from us to you!