Smoke And Ice

A couple of games ago, my photo buddy Richard Allan wrangled us onto the ice pre-puck drop. We were going to photograph the guys charging onto the ice as their names were shouted out after the intro video.

The only problem I have with this is that my camera doesn't like low light and shooting through the smoke. My camera is slowly crapping out on me, like the last one which isn't fun. So, I decided to give another camera a whirl.

The other camera, which belongs to my dad, is a Lumix G3. It is a mirror-less DSLR, which I'm not really a fan of. The camera is too small and I don't like what I see through the view finder, but I'll pass that aside for the fact that it can shoot in low light just great! So along with that I was using a fixed focal lens of 45mm which stopped down to F/1.8.

Before we hit the ice, I gave it a try:

It seemed okay, but when they turned the lights out and the lad on the smoke machine got going....how good was it going to be? Well, there was only one way I was going to find out.

The lights went out, the music played and then the boy on the smoke machine got a bit trigger happy. It looks nice, don't get me wrong, but it is like photographing through fog. It is annoying during the first period, you end up with hardly anything!

ANYWAY.....back to shooting.

It was a bit hit and miss, as the boys move so fast when leaping out onto the ice and it is so dark...and you have the smoke to contend with. So with all these factors, your camera has a pretty mean job of focusing and shooting fast to get the images you want.

I missed a couple of the guys coming through the smoke out onto the ice because every now and then the camera struggled to focus, which is no worry as long as you get some of the other boys stepping out.

Some of the photos I had on the memory card were just the empty door, no players. There's a skill to it, you have to know your camera, what it does and how the settings you choose will affect the final image. Your basic settings, aperture, ISO and shutter speed are all interrelated. So how you set one will affect the others.

I am pleased with images I captured. The first of Luke Boothroyd being the best out of them all...I would like to try again without a fixed focal lens, so I could zoom in that little bit closer. However, I wouldn't be able to use my own camera due to the reasons stated above.

Although, having said that, these shots give me an idea for a photo shoot.



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Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

So the weather has gone a bit crazy. The back end of last week it started to snow, it never snows over here but when the east coast of America gets snow....we get it 5-7 days later.

Of course, over here when it snows everything stops. People act like it is the apocalypse, and all act surprised that it is snowing in winter. To think! Snow in January, who would have thought it?

I don't get what the big deal is. Be prepared! Be careful, don't drive like a loon box and dress properly. I never see or hear Canada or Norway making this much fuss. It is snow, try to enjoy it!

I took the dog for a walk in the snow and diverted to the back trail which cuts through the forest and took my camera along. I'm no landscape photographer, far from it. But when it snows, it makes the place look so pretty, so much better!
So I thought I'd have a crack at some 'snow-scape' photography.

After padding through the forest we took a detour into the local nature reserve. Back in the 1930s through the 40s it was used to test bombs for the war, which was convenient seeing as across the road were the bunkers where the bombs were stored.
There are a few ponds in the reserve, we stumbled upon one that was frozen over. It was very nice. Although I couldn't help but wonder if the pond was created because there was hole too big to fill which was left by a bomb.

I don't think the pond would have been much good for hockey though! It was too small, and the ice was probably not thick enough either.





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Test Shoot, Photographing a Photographer and Jessops

Test Shoot

So! Last week I went down to sunny Staffordshire to meet up with my photo buddy, Richard Allan. We were going to do a test shoot for a photo session that I'll eventually end up doing with the team.

While writing an essay at university, I was researching a photographer and their work, and I saw a couple of photographs that I thought the fans would like.....and the hopefully, the boys would like too! These photos will be different from anything either set have seen before, and its technically the most difficult shoot we'll probably ever do.

Having been taught like a Canadian, I deconstructed the images and came up with a plan of how I thought the photographs had been taken. So, Richard and I set about putting my theory into practise. After about an hour and a half, maybe two, we'd tried two different methods of capturing similar images. We came to the conclusion that there was a very large possibility that the final image was a photo shop job, as we couldn't quite get it like in the original image. I mean, I don't think you'll ever take a photo and get it 100% bob on, you can get very very close though.
The important thing was, we had the test shots in the bag. We'd taken the original images and made them our own.

We should be getting underway taking them later this month....hopefully.

Photographing a Photographer

After completing the test shoot, I photographed Richard in his hockey gear. Richard plays for the Blackburn Buccaneers, a recreational hockey team. We set-up the lights and the backdrop and away we went!

It is always nice photographing some you know, someone you're friends with. I find you have more to talk about, and it's more relaxed. That's something we don't when photographing the players. It's normally an hour (or maybe less) before warm-up, and the rink is full of the general public and the 'DJ' is playing some god awful music way too loud....so even if we wanted to talk to the boys we were photographing they couldn't hear us anyway!

When shooting someone you know, you can play around a bit more with the kind of images you want to capture. If something goes wrong you can take the time to figure out what and why, instead of doing a quick fix so the boys can be on their way pronto.

I thought Richard was an excellent model, even if I did have to stand on a chair for some of the shoot!

Jessops

As I type this, it has just been announced that photography chain store Jessops has gone into administration.

Yes, it is sad because of all the staff could potentially lose their jobs. But this is what happens when stores fail to diversify quick enough, and what happens when large supermarkets like Tesco and Asda start their own photo services.

Jessops have had to diversify into photo gifts because Tesco and Asda sell photo gifts. But those supermarkets are cheaper than Jessops and more convenient, you put your photos in for an hour and then go and do your shopping and pick them up on your way out. You can also go on about online retailers too, they're pretty convenient too and probably a lot cheaper.

While I don't use Jessops, I buy anything photography related online from other retailers, it would be sad to see it go. Not just because when you start out in photography, its a first call. But because, once Jessops, a shop dedicated to photography, where else can you go to see what you're thinking of buying? Places like Asda, Tesco and PC World only carried a limited stock of cameras and photography equipment, they aren't specialised retailers at all.


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Orphan Works: How Will This Effect Your Copyright?

According to the Copyright office orphan works are where the owner of a copyrighted work can't be traced or identified.

Both America and the UK are looking at revising copyright laws that involve these so called orphan works, that will allow them to be freely copied and merchandised providing a diligent good faith search has been made.

However, it is very easy to remove the extif information from digital images lifted from the internet. the extif data is the digital tag that can be placed on a photograph to identify you as the owner and contains your copyright statement.
It was reported in the magazine "Photo Pro" that advertisers and publishers are increasingly obtaining images from non-traditional sources, such as Flickr.

The Berne Convention for the protection of Literary and Artistic works was signed in 1886 by the then leading industrial countries. This convention is now applied across most countries of the world. But the United States and the UK are looking at the legislation covering orphan works which could cause confusion and a reduction in protection should the changes become law.

Currently the responsibility is placed on the prospective user of an image to preform a diligent good faith search to trace the copyright owner before using that image. Even if a search has been made and have documentary evidence of the search preformed, you could still be subject to legal action if the copyright owner makes themselves known.

To make things more complicated, America has made a modification to their copyright laws that got rid of the need to use the copyright symbol or copyright notice for all works published after 1st March 1998. This change made users assume that all works marked or unmarked are unprotected by copyright law. The US Congress also changed the Copyright Term Extension Act, which extended copyright protection for a large amount of works that were soon to enter the public domain. When images are classed as within the public domain they can be used without copyright permission.

The proposed changes in the US still requires a diligent search but it has greatly reduced the amount of damages awarded for infringement of copyright. The infringer still has to pay a reasonable sum of money to compensate the copyright owner of the image. This has opened loop-holes proving what reasonable compensation would be.
The proposed legislation gives immunity to non-profit organisations like museums, libraries, public broadcasting companies and schools. Providing those organisations stop using the image after receiving notice from the copyright owner no action can be taken against them.

Within the proposed law it is up to the copyright owner to register their copyrights to prevent their work being declared orphaned. This is not to gain a copyright but to prevent the work from being deemed orphaned.

The Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008 was voted in by the American Senate, Senate bill 2913. This act has since gone onto The House of Representatives, House bill 5889, named "The Orphaned Works Acts of 2008". The difference between the Senate and House version of this act is that it requires anyone who is trying to avoid copyright infringement must file a Notice of Use on a work they deem to be orphaned. This notice must be filed with the copyright office before use.

In the UK the government's treasury department conducted a review into intellectual property law and included two recommendations for orphaned works:

1. The intellectual property office in the UK should publish guide lines to highlight what and in-depth search is.
2. The UK IPO should make a voluntary register for copyright.

These recommendations were made in 2006 and so far nothing has happened. According to the Intellectual Property Office work to identify what action constitutes a good faith search has been undertaken in Europe under the 2010 European Digital Libraries. On the 4th June 2008, a set of due diligence guidelines were published by the European Commission.

Scale Of The Problem

Senator Patrick Leahy from Vermont and Senator Orrin Hatch from Utah requested a report on Orphaned Works from the US Copyright Office. The report which was released in January 2006 concluded that there is a need to address the issue of Orphaned Work but could not provide evidence of how often the situation involving Orphaned Works occurred. The report gathered evidence from a number of universities. Sara Thomas, university librarian for the University of Cornell, said that they had a collection of 350,000 unpublished photographs that they would like to make available but only 1% have any indication as to who owns the copyright to those photos. Brian E.C. Shottlaender, university librarian for the University of California, San Diego, has more than 100,000 photographs in the Scripps Institution of Oceanography archives, of which only 4000 are available online because they are unable to find the copyright owners. The Oceanography archive is the only one of eleven libraries accessible over the internet.
So it is understandable where the immunity clause in the proposed bill came from.

Potential Solution

The Canadians have their own solution to the use of orphaned works. The Canadian Copyright Board examines the search made by users to ensure it has been diligent and been carried out in good faith. If satisfied the Board issues a none exclusive copyright license, including a licensing fee. The fee is held by the Canadian Copyright licensing agency. If the copyright has not been traced within five years of the license being issued, the collecting agency is permitted to use the fee for the benefit of its general membership. However, the arrangement only operates in Canada for Canadian copyright holders.

This solution to orphaned works does not breech the fundamental rules of copyright ownership stated in the Berne rules. In particular the part of the Berne rules that state copyright ownership must be automatic and must not, therefore, involve registration.

Registration is the biggest core difference between the Canadian model and the proposed recommended changes in the US and the UK copyright law. If artists are required to register their work to prevent them from being deemed orphaned, it would create a great administrative burden. Not only would artists have to register every image there would no doubt be a charge or registration fee. Photographers, illustrators, graphic artists, designers and print makers can produce large amounts of work in a short period of time. So to register each piece of work would take up large amounts of time and to pay for each piece of work would be too costly.

Taking steps to identify your images and the public domain

Identifying your images can be accomplished by using the metadata in your image file and / or adding a branded frame or watermark to your images. This metadata us embedded within the image file, the data can contain not only your name but your contact details.

Even though an image is viewable by the public on the internet it is still not in the public domain in the copyright sense. Public domain defined by copyright means that the copyright has expired on the image or the image was never eligible for copyright in the first place.

Conclusion

As the bill regarding orphaned works is still under review in the House of Representatives in the United States of America and still under review in the United Kingdom, it is hard to know what the final legislation will be concerning on this matter. Whatever the final outcome, photographers and those in the graphic / visual arts, will need to be aware this legislation as it will impact on the way copyrights are enforced.

Probably, the most sensible way to deal with the problem of orphaned works is to adopt a similar system to the Canadians. This is because they only issue a license to the user once they are satisfied that a due diligent search has taken place. This would prevent users from declaring works as orphaned prematurely and without carrying out a diligent search. They also charge a fee for the granting of that license and this will be held in trust for the copyright holder for five years.


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Live On Air

So last night I took a trip with fellow team photographer, Richard Allan, to Media City UK which is located on the Salford Quays.

We were to be guests on the BBC Radio Manchester's sports show presented by Ian Cheeseman. Our hour was shared with two basketball fans and two fellas involved in the cycling world. The aim of the hour was to highlight and promote minority sport.

I'd been on the radio once before. I was 14-years-old and it was a pre-recorded interview, but that didn't stop me stuttering and my mind going a complete blank. I was to be a story on the news as I was in the top 28 out of around 30,000 other kids who'd entered a photography competition.

This time however, it was different, as we'd be live on air! Before leaving to go to Media City, I checked the points and stats of where the team currently lay in the league just in case we were asked.
I was really hoping they'd be easy questions and I wouldn't draw a blank...or worse, swear.

When our part of the show started, the presenter went round the desk and got everyone to introduce themselves and talk a little bit about their sport. I instantly thought that Richard and I should swap places, as it was a guarantee that when it got to me, I'd be asked about the
Manchester Storm (the team that came before the Phoenix). Inevitably I was asked when it was my turn but I simply said that he'd have to ask Richard about it as I wasn't around then. By that I meant hadn't even heard of ice hockey, but the presenter took it to mean that I hadn't been born and we had a short conversation that went something like this:

Me: "You'll have to ask Richard Allan about the Storm, as I wasn't around back then."

Presenter: "So how old are you then?"

Me: "You can't ask a lady her age!"

So, Richard talked about the Storm days and the first few years of the Phoenix. I waded in about how I think films like Slap shot and Goon have a lot to answer for, in terms of stereotyping to which the presented replied: "That's a very robust defence of your sport." Well, quiet, yes.

All in all, I didn't cock-up or swear. Richard and I were Team Awesome, we also managed to plug this weekend's clash against MKL and the website address!

After the show, Ian Cheeseman gave us a mini tour of the floor we were on. He took us into the studio used by the BBC Breakfast crew, which is also the same set that is used by North West Tonight. Of course we sat on the sofa and stood in front of the weather map and had pictures taken. Let's face it, who wouldn't?
We saw where 5Live is broadcast from, along with where the BBC Sports news is broadcast. We also saw a few of the news presenters and the lady who presents the weather.

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