Author Archives: Dave Frost

Haven’t had one of these for ages……

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Been a while since anyone got in touch on Flickr asking to use any of my photos, so was quite a surprise to receive a request. Given that people usually tend to just grab and run requests for usage are becoming quite rare, especially when all that’s on offer is ‘writing my name’ on the images. In hindsight, I should have watermarked them already – then they’d be fully prepared for free use.

As an amateur (albeit with sales and publication) I’m quite happy to give images away for free under certain circumstances, friends family and colleagues are obviously on the freebies list, as are certain images for anyone (images specific to a very certain event or place that holds little values to me, or resale). What is quite irritating is that people who would be using them commercially expect to be able to acquire usage rights for them for free.

The following is a precis of the email exchange so far. Can’t see this ending in payment, unless I find out that they’ve been used without my permission or without payment…..

Hi Dave :-)

I just saw your pictures of the shih tzu !
They are adorable!
I wondering if i could use some of them pictures on a website It is a virtual stable with virtual pets :) Where you can go for virtual contest ;)
I can write your name on the photos :)

Best regards xxxxx

“Hi xxxxx,
Had a look at the website and wouldn’t have a problem with any of my images appearing there. If you let me know how many you’d need and how long you’d be using them for I can work out a competitive rate for licensing.

Thanks and best regards
Dave”

I will use the puppys pictures. I dont know how many, it depends on how popular they will be. But I will start with three or four :-)
They will be used until they get deletet by someone. So I cant say how long I’ll use them.
Do you want me to write Dave Frost on the pictures? so people know it is your pictures? :-)

Mads

“Apologies for the delay,
Have been away for a while and not had a chance to get online.

Thanks for the additional information and on this basis would be happy to offer you a licence for up to 5 of these images for web use only on an unlimited period basis for a one off fee of £50, with any future additional images supplied at a discounted rate to be agreed if required.

If this is acceptable, please let me know and I’ll forward a licence agreement for you to complete and return with payment. If you let me know which 5 images you’d like to use, then on receipt of payment I can forward you the files.

Hope this OK
Thanks and best regards
Dave”

Got the expected response a moment ago

Subject: Re: Hi
Date: 9th February, 2012

I am a danish boy only 14 years old. So some of the things you write i dont understand. But do you say i can use 5 images, but if I would like to use more, then i have to pay? :-)

For which I responded with;

Apologies if I was unclear.

I am willing to offer you an indefinite license to use up to 5 images for web use at a cost of GBP 50.

If you were to require more images, I would be happy to offer any additional ones at a reduced cost

To clarify – 5 images will cost GBP 50, 10 images would cost GBP 70 (not GBP 100)

Hope this helps
Thanks
Dave

or in Danish –
Undskylder hvis jeg var uklart. Jeg er villig til at tilbyde dem en ubestemt licens til at udnytte op til 5 billeder til nettet anvendelse til en pris af GBP 50. Hvis de var at kræve mere billeder, ville jeg være glad for at tilbyde enhver supplerende stillinger til nedsat pris at få afklaret – 5 billeder vil koste GBP 50, 10 billeder ville koste 70 pund (ikke GBP 100) håber dette hjælper takket være

Reminded me of a couple of great ‘rants’, explaining in detail why images aren’t free – you can read that on these blogs;-

http://www.petapixel.com/2012/01/10/this-photograph-is-not-free/

http://ridexc.wordpress.com/2011/12/04/i-dont-work-for-free-please-dont-ask-me/

A suite life……..

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Feeling a bit low so thought I’d try something different for a change. As always, time limited and not much interest here at castle canvey so grabbed a bicycle light and a pack of cards, dusted off the tripod and set this up.

A Dearth of Hearts

If anyone’s interested, this was set-up on a kitchen work-top.
The cards were held in place using blue tack with the camera set up on the tripod.
As there was a light and a television on in the same room I had to go to F18 to get a 6 second exposure.
On release of the shutter I weaved a small LED bicycle torch in and out of the cards, then reversed it onto the cards themselves to highlight them.

Post processing is minimal – Lots of spot healing because the cards are well used, little bit of dodge and burn and a light dusting of contrast tweaks before a quick sharpen and save.

Apparently it’s officially my Day in Meerkovo !!

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Annoying as the adverts are they do tend to stick in your head, so on receipt of me Annual renewal notice for my house insurance I thought I’d at least have a look.
I wouldn’t normally have bothered, but this year my renewal premium had increased some 100%. Admittedly I had a claim last year when some wanker smashed the downstairs window of the house, but 100% increase – I think not.
Ran my details through the Meerkat people and the cheapest quote available was around the same price as last year – With the same insurer (WTF ????). Rang them this morning, and just on the strength of a phone call they miraculously managed to knock off £500 (why not quote the ‘best’ price in the first place – Tossers).
Still not impressed, that one’s now marked as not renewed and the Meerkat people got a few more clicks on their website. I’m happy. Fully insured at the same price as last year (under £700) and a stuffed Meerkat is on it’s way to my house.

Young Meerkat

Trapped

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It’s a bit early in the year for negative thoughts !!! – Not really sure why I did this, but stumbled across an online Photoshop Tutorial and thought I’d have a crack at it. Was a lot more difficult than the 4 step tutorial suggested to try and make the final image look less like a cut and paste job than I ended up with. Image processing remains a bit of a sticking point for me, and I despair that I’ll ever really be able to do it without butchering the original file. So, for now (and this is the closest I’m likely to get to a new years resolution) I think I’ll have to stick with trying to get things ‘right’ in camera and keep the processing to a minimum.

Trapped !!

This isn’t the tutorial I used (in fact I wish I’d found this one before) but if anyone else fancies a crack at it there’s a useful step by step you can find simply by clicking this link clicking here