Month: September 2009

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Petition Supporting the Extradition of Roman Polanski

Over the past few days I’ve been watching the Roman Polanski story unfold. As much as I’ve been repulsed by Polanski’s 1977 rape of a 13-year-old girl, I’ve been absolutely flabbergasted and offended by the list of Hollywood elites and celebrities who have recently signed a petition demanding his release. Posting their names publicly in support of Polanski speaks loudly regarding their own lack of personal ethics and morality. Regardless of their friendships or professional affiliation with Polanski, by supporting him this way they are saying to the world that some of us are above the law. That some of us, due to artistic talent or past tragedy in life, or whatever, ought to somehow get a pass when it comes to the serious crime of raping a young girl.

Yesterday, for the first time, I read through the transcript testimony that Polanski’s victim gave shortly after he committed his crime. It is graphic and sickening. Although it is disturbing, I’d recommend reading through it should you have even an inkling of feeling of support for this man. Some of the relevant details can be found in this op/ed piece written by Steve Lopez over at the Los Angeles Times.

I’m just a small time blogger and have nowhere near the voice of Hollywood A Listers like Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, David Lynch and others. But it’s hard for me to just sit by and not react to the brazen, public ethical and moral failure that their signatures on their petition represent. So I’ve decided to create my own petition that people can sign. My petition is one in support of the extradition and criminal prosecution of Polanski. If you’d like to sign it feel free to indicate so by signing your name as such in the comments here at my blog or on FriendFeed and I’ll append them to the petition itself. If you’d like to include a link to your blog or to an organization that you represent or are affiliated with as well feel free to add that too.

Petitions carry no real legal significance of course, but they can matter in terms of public opinion in cases like this. And even if I’m the only one who signs this, as a father of two young girls myself, I’ll at least have added my voice in some small way to the repudiation or Polanski and his supporters.

PETITION SUPPORTING THE EXTRADITION OF ROMAN POLANSKI

Recently we have learned of the arrest of Director Roman Polanski on a 1978 warrant stemming from his fleeing a sentencing hearing related to a rape he committed of a 13-year old girl in 1977. We are outraged that Polanski has been able to escape justice this long for his crimes and that has been allowed to live as a free man abroad for over three decades. Regardless of one’s artistic achievements, regardless of one’s life tragedies, regardless if someone felt that they could travel legally in a neutral country, regardless of whether or not someone is being honored with a lifetime achievement award at a film festival, the crime of raping a child deserves punishment and the perpetrator of such an act should be brought to justice.

Money or powerful celebrity friends or political influence or artistic accomplishment should not have a bearing on one’s culpability for one’s crimes. All should be considered equal in the light of the law and Polanski should be afforded no special consideration given his status as a celebrity and artist.

As such, the undersigned fully support the extradition of Roman Polanski to the United States where he can finally be properly sentenced for his crimes.

Signed,

Maureen Andersen
Anna K Anderson
Diana Aprile
Christine Arndt
Jordan Asfari
Stefan Baeurle
Johnny Barham
David Baron
Claire Batley
Andy Beal
Tony Bedell
Tresa Bennett
Shelly Bohannon
Daniel Brandt
Ramona Britt
Lauren Bruce
Christopher Budden
Amber Burrows
Gregory A. Butler
Glen Campbell
Kimberly Capece
Trevor Carpenter
Maria Castillo
M.C. Peggy Challen
Celine Chamberlin
Kombo Chapfika
Miriam Clarke
Fabian Corrado
Deborah Cowan
Dave Cridland
Sara Crowe
Richard Cutts
Joanne Dale
Mike Davis
Dr. Thomas E. Davis
Charles Delacroix
Mary Dempsey
Jeff DeVico
Carolyn Doughtie
Erin Duplessis
Holger Eilhard
Dr. Carolyn Erickson
Adriana Ericson
Walter Esparza
Kim Espina
Mikolas Fabian
Vinny Ferrari
Dorothy Figiel
Debra Fletchinger
Michael Foley
Todd Gillette
Dave Gilligan
Laura Good
Jeremy Goode
Rob Gorthy
Jeffrey Grant
Kim Grashoff
Donna Green
Jennifer Green
Sandra Grigoletti
Brett Hampton
Mary Hanrahan
Mahbuba Haque
Joanna Hardie
Steve Hauben
Thomas Hawk
Pamela Henderson
Ricardo Hernandez
Sarah Hewitt
Aaron Hilton
Anthony Homan
Mat Hughey
Richard Jervis
Sonia T Jonas
Ceridwen Keeley
Allison Kennon-Frink
Anthony Kerstens
Scott Kivowitz
Russell Klosk
Travis Koger
Scott Kuperus
Marcus Lancaster
Rob LaRosa
Reta Le Quesne
Alice Li
David Lloyd
Jose Lopez
Melanie Loudon
Gene Lowinger
Tom Lynch
Peter F. Madsen
Ivan Makarov
Jean Manning
Gladys Marquez
David Marsden
Joe Meiners
Andrew Metcalfe
E Mills
Shantanu Mishra
Candice Montgomery
John Moran
Amy Mortensen
Damian Moseley
Charlotte Mothers
Judith Murray
Matt Needham
Rhiann Nicole
Ernie Nitka
Chris Nixon
Julia Norton
Colleen Olsen
Christopher Adam O’Toole
Kate Paik
Kevin Palmer
Lauren Palumbo
Steven Parry
Steve Phillips
Nia Phipps
Jay Platt
Elizabeth Rainwater
Ian Randy
Ann Read
Bronwyn Reece
Tom Reestman
Justin Reho
Nicole Richter
Cole Rise
Brenda Rogers
Rebekah Ross
JoAnne Scherfel
Denise Shafer
Edward Shahzade
Daniel Shea
Susan Shepherd
Scott Shoemaker
Barbara Shores
Philip Silkoff
Gordon Smith
Julius Smith
Kenton Smith
Amanda Smothers
Niamh Soederlund
Erin Solaro
Tom Stauffer
Nicola Swaei
Mary Taggart
Kelley Thom
Kat Thomas
Bob Timmons
Robert Trama
Kevin Trotman
Dyanne Tsai
Mary Turner
Maria Virgen
Tahelia Wagner
Una Walsh
Anna Warren
Dick Whyte
John Wright
Chantal Zeegers
Suzanne Zelei
Lisa Ziems

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Flickr Galleries, An Update

Flickr Galleries, An Update

A few weeks back I blogged about the latest Flickr feature, galleries. I’ve been using and making galleries now for a few weeks and thought I’d take a second to record my follow up observations after my initial post on the launch. I’ve been making one new gallery a day since Flickr launched the service.

Conceptually I think the idea of allowing users the ability to curate galleries of images on Flickr super interesting — one of the more interesting ways to use the service actually. Practically speaking though I think that their are some serious flaws to how this service has been designed and I think that it could be significantly improved.

Problem #1: Flickr will not allow either moderate/restricted images or secretly NIPSA (not in public site areas) censored material to be put into galleries.

Flickr has three ways that they censor your images. The first is simple. If they don’t like your image they just delete it (and maybe your entire account along with it).

The second is a less harsh public way. Either you can voluntary mark your own images as restricted or if you don’t they might. When they do this your images are marked “moderate” or “restricted” on the image and you are made aware of the Flickr act.

The third way is a secret more nefarious way. Flickr uses a method whereby they will secretly mark your image NIPSA. Sometimes this happens even while to your face they will let you know that your image has been reviewed as “safe” by Flickr staff. You have no way of knowing which of your images have been secretly marked NIPSA and which have not. For a while Flickr had my entire photostream marked as NIPSA.

Whatever the case, neither moderate/restricted content or secret NIPSA content can be included in galleries. This is too bad. As a curator I should not be precluded from making galleries of whatever content I’d like.

Recently I made a gallery of images of Photo Realism painter Chuck Close’s painting “Mark” that hangs in the NY Met. If someone wanted to make a similar gallery of say Photo Realist Painter Mel Ramos’ work, they could not included two of my images of a painting of his that hangs in the all ages gallery at the Oakland Museum of California. The reason why? Flickr has marked these Ramos painting images of mine as “restricted.” It sucks that something that can exist in a real life gallery in an all ages major metropolitan museum gallery, cannot exist in a virtual gallery on Flickr.

This problem would be easy enough to fix by simply attaching a “restricted” or “moderate” rating to any gallery that held “restricted” or “moderate” images. There is no reason why if you’ve opted in to view this material that you should not be able to both create and view galleries that include this material. Precluding them prevents me from making a kick ass gallery of images by one of my favorite photographers Merkley (for instance). Even though Merkley had a real life gallery showing of some of his work at 111 Minna, a physical gallery. I cannot create a comparable virtual gallery of his work because Flickr won’t allow it. Flickr has a method whereby users can opt in to view material that is rated moderate or restricted.
Problem #2: User Created Galleries largely languish in obscurity. Once you go through the work of making a gallery there are no easy ways for other people to get to them. The people whose images you include in the gallery are notified of this fact on their recent activity page so they come and visit. But other than them, people largely don’t visit galleries. These are the last five galleries where people have used my own images. Plug1 (0 views), mannequin (0 views), Swoon worthy B&W (23 views), Galactic (2 views), and Cocktails (8 views). These galleries will likely have more views when you look at them, but that’s largely because I’ve posted links to them in this blog post. If someone goes through the work of curating a gallery it would be nice to see other ways on Flickr where people could access them.

The only method that Flickr has for promoting galleries right now is through a handful of galleries on the mostly stale gallery explore page which appears to be hand-curated by flickr staff, mostly, it appears, on the basis of whether or not flickr staff likes you or decided to include you as a user in the beta of the feature.

Problem #3: How can I see my friends/contacts galleries? At present there is no easy way to view the galleries of your contacts on Flickr. You are not notified when they make a gallery (unless your image is in it). There is no page like the “your contacts” photo page where you can go to see them. Without the tedious method of digging deep down into their photo page to find if (and most don’t) they even have galleries you’d never know that they exist.

I believe that these three problems above could easily be corrected. The first problem is easy. Simply allow any images to be included in galleries, rather than restrict publicly or privately censored images. There is no good reason why Flickr should not do this. It might not fit into staff’s vision of community shaping or moderation or whatever they call it, but prohibiting good users like Merkley from being included in this feature sucks.

In terms of the second problem, Flickr needs a central place where users can explore galleries. The page should be repopulated with new galleries as they are created every day and should rely on objective data around the interestingness ranking of galleries (rather than if Flickr staff likes your or dislikes you — they already have the flickr blog for that).

The third problem would also be easily solved by creating a tab on an explore gallery pages that featured all of the galleries created by your contacts/friends and family. If friends of mine create galleries, I want to see them.

Galleries on Flickr has enormous potential. Curation is an incredibly significant discipline that all artists ought to consider pursuing. But as it stands right now, the new service from Flickr feels half-baked. I’m still going to make a gallery a day on Flickr for a while and continue promoting my galleries elsewhere than Flickr on the web, but Flickr needs to consider that as it stands now the new feature lacks serious teeth, which is too bad because the feature does in fact have so much potential.

Here are the galleries that I’ve created so far on Flickr:

Hot Dog
The Owls are Not What They Seem
LJ’s Skid Row Photography
Tears of a Clown
Green Mind
Your Perfect Skin
Libraries
Cash for Clunkers
Jesus Saves
Infrared Spotlight
Neon Elephants
Architecture
Chihuly
This is Mark
Adam Infanticide
Motel America
Recent Favorites from the Lightbox
Bowling for Neon

You can see my galleries page where I am adding a new gallery every day here.

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DMU Visits Byron Hot Springs

Swinging From the Chandeliers

On Saturday night I joined six other photographers from the DeleteMe Uncensored Group on Flickr and spent the evening exploring the former Byron Hot Springs Resort in Byron, CA. This was our fifth recent DMU outing and one of the best yet. Plug1, Jeremy Brooks, Ivan Makarov, DLH65, Rumnose, funkandjazz, and myself all spent several hours shooting the abandoned and rumored haunted resort.

The Byron Hot Springs used to be a resort where movie stars and superstar athletes (including Fatty Arbuckle and Clark Gable) used to resort in the early 1900’s. The SF Seals held training camp at the location and SF socialites would frequent the resort in the early century for the hot springs and golf. Early versions of the resort were destroyed in fires, but the last resort built (in 1913) was built as a four story structure out of bricks and the structure is largely intact, albeit abandoned, still today.

Apparently the resort was abandoned shortly after the Great Depression due to financial difficulty. The resort was later leased to the United States government in 1941 where it was renamed Camp Tracy and used by the military as a POW camp to interrogate Japanese and German POWs, according to wikipedia.

Troy Paiva (aka Lost America) has a good write up and an early set of images on the Hot Springs and cites 1,500 POWs as having gone through the facility during WW2. Apparently the militiary didn’t like the smell of sulfur at the Hot Springs so at that time the Springs were sealed.

After WW2 the resort was sold to the Greek Orthodox Church who purchased it for $105,000 in 1947 and used it for several years as Monastery St. Paul. Bearings has an interesting write up on this era of the resort here.

More recently a developer has purchased the property with plans to restore and rebuild the resort. You can find the new page on the resort here, which also includes more history on the location.

DLH65 served as our guide out there having shot the resort several times in the past. DLH65’s got some great photos (including some amazing infrared photos) of the resort as well that you can check out here. There’s a short documentary on the site on YouTube focusing on it’s haunted status here . There is also a book out on the resort here.

Mostly we focused our outing on light painting while at the resort using colored gels and flashlights to paint long exposure photographs. The resort, which is covered in graffiti, has a beautiful master staircase and balconies in the main lobby, a ktichen, a crashed elevator shaft and a fair number of hotel rooms worth exploring. Cattle graze around the resort which features a fountain at the entrance to the hotel.

Night photography takes a lot of time. Most of the exposures I shot ranged from 20 seconds to 3 minutes in length. When you screw up on a shot it’s painful because you have to wait so long to try it again. I used three mag flashlights and colored gels that I got from a theatrical supply store. Rumnose brought some magnesium fire starters and did some experimenting with them that turned out great.

Final ScoreRoom ServiceNo BodyStacks

While we were shooting the site several teenagers showed up to explore the haunted resort. The place seems to be a popular place with the local kids who show up there to hang out and explore. The resort itself is about half a mile in off the main road.

I will say that Byron was one of the more interesting abandoned locations I’ve shot recently. I plan on heading back several times in the future and hope to shoot it both during the day and definitely at night many more times. I put together a small set of 11 of my images from Saturday night here. I’ll add more as I have time to process them.

It was really cool also to finally meet funkandjazz. I’ve admired his stuff online for a long time. He’s probably the most prolific graffiti photographer on the web today. There wasn’t much serious graffiti out at the Hot Springs. He told me that the sort of gang/youth/tag scrawl that was mostly out there was called pedestrian graffiti. I’ve wanted to meet funkandjazz for a while and it was great to finally do that.

Thanks to all who came out. We’ll do another DMU meet up in October. In addition to my own shots, check out the DMUmeetup092609 tag on flickr to see more great shots from our evening.

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Flickr from Yahoo! Censors Inoffensive Basketball Video, Calls Censorship “Error”

Why does Flickr from Yahoo! always want to hate on basketball?

Take a look at the Youtube video above. It’s pretty boring in my opinion, just a few guys playing basketball. Nothing to see here, right folks? Move along.

Apparently somebody somewhere from the censorship division at Flickr from Yahoo though felt that this video needed to be removed. The user who uploaded the video tried to go through the proper Flickr from Yahoo channels to figure out just why in the blazes somebody would want to delete his inoffensive video and what follows feels like a scene straight out of Abbott and Costello.

==== From Flickr ========

Hello atchang_2001,

As per our Community Guidelines, “restricted” video content is not allowed on Flickr . We’ve removed your video.

If you continue to upload videos that contain “restricted” content, we may take further action on your account.

==== From atchang_2001 ==========

Hi, could you tell me which video you removed (title or filename and the set that it was from) and what was the “restricted” content? On Aug 12, all I uploaded were a lot of videos of my friends playing basketball (pretty poorly I admit, but I don’t see how that is restricted).

Thank you!

==== From Flickr ========

Thank you for contacting Flickr Member Support.

The best places to refer for clarification on what is and is not allowed are the Community Guidelines and Terms of Use. We cannot reinterpret these documents but staying within the letter and spirit of these terms and guidelines is the best way to maintain a happy and healthy Flickr account.

==== From atchang_2001 ==========

Hi, can you tell me which video was removed (filename and what set it was in).

==== From Flickr ========

The video that was removed was the one that has violated
the Terms of Service.

==== From atchang_2001 ==========

Hello, yes I understand it violated your ToS… but I uploaded over fifty videos during the time frame in questions and it is difficult to be to figure which one was removed on my side.

Can you please tell me the name of the video that was removed. If possible what set the video was in would also be helpful.

==== From Flickr ========

Thank you for contacting Flickr Member Support.

I am very sorry but at this time, we can’t release this
sort of data.

Thank you for your interest in Flickr.

==== From atchang_2001 ==========

Hello, I wish this case to be escalated to a more senior representative in an effort to have this matter resolved. To summarize the situation:

1. On the morning of August 12, 2009. I uploaded several dozen videos of my friends and I playing basketball (videos have no sound).
2. A few hours later, I receive an email saying that one of the videos has been removed because it contains restricted content.
3. I wish to know what video was removed (the current representative appears not to be able to tell me what video was removed or why it was labelled as restricted).

Thank you

==== From Flickr ========

Hello atchang_2001,

The file that was removed was the one under file name:
CIMG0271

Thank you again for contacting us. If you have any other
questions, please feel free to reply to this email.

==== From atchang_2001 ==========

This video is of four of my friends playing basketball at an outdoor basketball court, it has no sound. Can you or a more senior representative assist me in explaining why this violated the Flickr Community Guidelines so that I can avoid this from happening again?

Thank you,

==== From Flickr ========

Hello,

To demonstrate that you understand what content in your
photostream is not appropriate for the “safe” areas of the
Flickr site, we ask that you moderate all the public,
private, and friends/family content in your photostream
within the Flickr Community Guidelines.

So, tired of the above game of incompetence, atchang_2001 decided to escalate things and posted his problem and exchange to the Flickr Help forum (where I’m still permanently banned). Finally atchang_2001 got a thinking person’s response to his inquiry. Zack Shepherd (who is probably the best in the customer care department based on my observations, and seems to care more than most of them) fielded the issue saying that the video deletion was probably an error.

From Zack:

“If the video that was removed was the same as the one you linked to than it was taken down in error. Unfortunately you also didn’t get the right response when you initially wrote in and we usually do release the photo/video name. I can assure you there are no bots but as humans we do make mistakes sometimes. I’m sorry that this happened twice on the same case making it even more frustrating.

You are welcome to upload this video again. We are going to circle up with the team to make sure everyone is on the same page.

We’ll also follow up with you directly with more info. “

Flickr by Yahoo! has recently had a horrible rash of censorship problems. From nuking user’s accounts who write critical comments on President Obama’s photostream, to deleting a Professional photographer’s images of clothed male models, to deleting controversial anti-Obama imagery, to kicking me out of the help forum and placing secret flags on some of my inoffensive images to hide them on flickr by Yahoo, to locking down forums where folks post critical comments about their censorship, to censoring photostreams of people because they contain photos of feet — but this one probably takes the cake.

Unfortunately for atchang_2001, the harmless basketball video that he says he uploaded to Flickr that you see above (along with any comments, faves, tags, or other meta data around it) is long gone. See Flickr has no way to restore content that is deleted by their staff even when it’s by mistake. You’d think that this would be a feature that they’d be working on, especially given that former Flickr Chief and co-founder Stewart Butterfield admitted that it was a “mistake” for Flickr not to have this sort of functionality over two years ago. But unfortunately not only do they not have that sort of functionality they are not even working on it — apparently they’ve been too busy working on their new logo for the site to deal with messy little things like protecting user data.

Frankly, the email exchange above is pretty unacceptable. I’m not sure if the problem is Flickr by Yahoo management or simply Flickr by Yahoo’s Censorship Division management, but if Yahoo! is really serious about implementing their marketing hype that the new Yahoo! is “You,” then they should probably consider getting this part of their network cleaned up a little bit. One idea might just be to stop censoring users in the first place. Then you don’t have to worry about mistakes like this happening at all.

Deleting user content should be something that is only done as a measure of last resort, not because some underling in the censorship division didn’t get enough sleep last night or hates anti-Obama imagery or basketball.

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The Prelinger Library, An Appropriation-Friendly Community Resource

A Wonderful Place to Explore

Prelinger Library
301 8th Street (corner of Folsom Street), Room 215
San Francisco, CA

I spent some time yesterday afternoon visiting the Prelinger Library over on 8th Street in San Francisco and have to say I was super impressed. The privately owned library was started and is now maintained by Rick Prelinger and Megan Shaw Prelinger who open it up to the public every Wednesday afternoon from 1-8pm for Fall of 2009 (and some Sundays). The library is also sometimes available via appointment if someone is coming in from out of town or can’t make another time. The Prelingers are very cool and welcoming and made me feel very much at home on my visit.

I’d never heard about the library before and had found out about it when I saw a photo of this fantastic “free speech” neon sign that they have hanging in it on Flickr. I wanted to shoot the sign to add it to my neon signs collection and then learned a bit more about the library from their website and decided to visit.

Free Speech Fear Free

Philosophically the the library is right up my alley. Not only do they allow you to bring in your digital camera and take photos of the pages of their books (which include some really cool graphically rich material), they actually encourage it, publicly identifying themselves as an appropriation-friendly place. The community spirit there is also engaging — it’s a very comfortable place to hang out, browse, chat, and explore.

Rick and Megan operate the library mostly by selling licenses through Getty images for some of their content and through other outside jobs and freelance work. They’ve designed the library to be a causal comfortable fear-free place where discovery through browsing is encouraged. The books and other material aren’t loaned out like other libraries, rather If you find something that you like and want to use for your art or for other reasons you can simply photograph it with your digital camera or scan it there using one of their scanners.

I asked Rick about the copyright issues surrounding their policies and he told me that many of their works are out of copyright or are orphan works, but even where they are not, that the type of appropriation that goes on there would largely be considered fair use. People aren’t really copying entire books to recreate them and sell them, rather people are using the material in the books to create new works of art or for other projects.

From the Prelinger Library’s website: “Most important of all, people wishing to copy library holdings for research and transformative use often face difficulties in making legitimate copies. Since the act of quoting and recontextualizing existing words and images is indistinguishable from making new ones, we think it’s important for libraries to build appropriation-friendly access into their charters, and we’re trying to take a big first step in this direction.

We are interested in exploring how libraries with specialized, unique, and arcane collections such as ours can exist and flourish outside protected academic environments and be made available to people working outside of those environments, especially artists, activists and independent scholars. ”

Rick and Megan told me that they get about 1,000 visitors a year who visit the library. They have a guest book that you can sign there when you visit.

In association with the Internet Archive, the Prelinger Library has also digitized a number of the publications in their collection. You can browse those here.

I spent some time looking through some old magazine collections on advertising as well as some old photography magazines from the 1920s. There are some great images in these publications and I’m looking forward to many future visits to photograph more of this imagery and include it in my own collection of photographs.

There have been other write ups on the Prelinger Library and I was a bit embarrassed that the first time I’d heard of them was when I saw the neon sign that hangs in their space. I try to keep my ear to the ground, so to speak, for cool places worth exploring in the Bay Area, but alas, now I’ve discovered them and am sure that I’ll be back for many additional visits in the future. It really makes you feel good about people when you see folks like the Prelingers so generously make such a fantastic resource available and free for the community.

If you haven’t checked out the library yet, definitely plan a visit. The stacks of books are a wonderful place to get lost in and a great place to hang out. I put together a small photo set of images from the library here. Thanks again to Rick and Megan for making me feel so comfortable on my visit there yesterday.

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Did Flickr Add the Yahoo Bug to The Flickr Logo To Quell Rumors That Yahoo Was About to Pull the Plug on Flickr?

Did Flickr Add the Yahoo Bug to The Flickr Logo To Quell Rumors That Yahoo Was About to Pull the Plug on Flickr?

Flickr and Yahoo sitting in a tree
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
First comes love, then comes marriage
Then comes WHAT THE HELL IS THAT GOD AWFUL LOOKING THING SITTING AT THE TOP OF MY FLICKR PAGE!!!!!!

TechCrunch has a report out on the new Flickr logo that showed up yesterday. For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, Flickr tacked on “by Yahoo” at the top of every Flickr page. As you’d suspect, the Flickr Community pretty much unilaterally hates the move. You can read more Flickr Community reaction here in the help forum (where I’ve seemingly been permanently banned now, despite my letter to Yahoo! Marketing Exec Elise Steele on Monday).

From a design perspective the new logo looks pretty fugly. The colors clash and the Yahoo! part feels pixelated. I think whoever designed it did the scaling wrong on the Yahoo! part. Makes me wonder if someone at Flickr didn’t go out of their way to purposely make the new logo look bad as a sort of quiet protest against being made to add it on by their corporate parent.

In terms of why Yahoo! has done this, Heather Champ was the first Flickr employee to speak up officially, suggesting that Yahoo! did this to “quell those weird intermittent stories that bubble up that Yahoo! is on the verge of pulling the plug on the Flickrverse.”

Personally I follow Flickr pretty closely and haven’t heard any rumors like that, but I suppose that’s easier than saying that Yahoo! would like to smack you in the face with their branding every time you look at any page on Flickr. Feels a bit disingenuous to me though.

At least one ex Flickr employee Eric Costello seems to like the new logo piping in that he “loves it.” I have a feeling that Costello’s being sarcastic though. But maybe not. Costello also suggested that they change the logo to read Flickr loves Yahoo.

Another Flickr user suggested that maybe Yahoo! should change the new logo to Flickr(TM) by Yahoo(TM) with search powered by Bing(TM).

Me personally? I don’t really care one way or other. I just wish Flickr would tone down the censorship. It sort of sucks being permanently banned from the Flickr Help Forum and having secret hidden flags put on some of my images to bury them on the site. It feels sort of personal at this point. It also sucks when they delete your friend’s accounts from the site.

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Eureka

Eureka

A few weeks ago I was driving around the town of Eureka at night. It was the third night in a four day trip exploring Northern California. Everything just felt right that night. The sea air, the fog, the fact that Bob’s Used Car Lot kept it’s neon signs turned on even after everybody had left and gone home late on a Sunday night.

Sometimes you live life and it really feels like living. Earlier in the day I’d watched my four great children running up and down the beach. The joy of being 5, 6, 7 and 8 and slinging seaweed and feeling the water rush over your legs as the surf pulls in and out. Now they were back at the hotel fast asleep with the Mrs. and the night and the Buick were mine.

I found an old motel that had gone out of business. It was dark, the neon sign busted. Graffiti covered what used to be the motel’s plaza. Another neon sign flashed a giant ice cream cone on top of an establishment beckoning all who love the pleasure in life that is soft serve. I could only think how welcoming a sign that must be to the truly stoned.

I decided to drive back up North to Arcata. The fog was as thick as it gets on that little highway between Eureka and Arcata.

Arcata’s an interesting little place. I was hit up for money almost immediately. I snapped my first $2 portrait of the trip. The drunk was too drunk to even tell me what his name was. He tried to sell me a skateboard after I took his picture.

I dropped into a little college bar. The bar maid spent 30 seconds or so closely examining my driver’s license before she’d serve me. Something nice about being carded when you’re 41.

Driving out of Arcata I stopped to shoot some old liquor store. The proprietor came running out of the store and gave me a big "Hey, What do you think you’re doing?"

"The Sign," I said, pointing up to his sign. "The signs, I like the signs." He relaxed his demeanor a bit and nodded his head understandably and turned around and went back inside.

I’m not sure where I was exactly, but at some point that evening I decided that if I ever dropped out of life, Eureka is where I’d end up. Big enough to have one or two or three movie theaters, but small and cozy enough to still feel like home with a hell of a lot more little cafes than Starbucks and damn good radio to go with it.

All the radio in Eureka felt like really good radio. As I drove back South from Arcata Jackie Greene came on some station. I’d never heard Jackie Greene before.

"well maybe you’re wrong and maybe you’re right, and maybe we could sit here and argue all night, but maybe you just better turn out the lights, cause honey i’ve been thinking about you."

This photo isn’t from Eureka. I’m so horribly behind on my processing that those won’t be close to ready until maybe sometime after Fall next year. This photo is one I took yesterday at UC Berkeley — but I was thinking about Eureka when I shot it — all out of focus through this mammoth iron gate. Cal State Humbolt’s a long ways away from UC Berkeley, but somehow it all made sense at the time.

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Adobe Releases Photoshop Elements 8 for Windows and Mac

I’m not really using Photoshop much anymore as 98% of my workflow know goes through Lightroom now. Adobe is out though with a press release today regarding the new release of Photoshop Elements 8 (the cheaper version of Photoshop):

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Sept. 23, 2009 – Adobe Systems Incorporated today announced Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 software available for Windows and Mac, providing automated and intelligent photo-editing technology across both platforms. With the newest version of the No. 1 selling consumer photo-editing software,* Adobe continues to make cutting-edge innovation accessible to users who want powerful yet easy-to-use tools to tell compelling stories with their photos.

“With nearly 20 years of Photoshop innovation under our belt, we are able to leverage industry-leading technology that the professionals use and make it accessible to our Elements customers,” said Doug Mack, vice president and general manager of Consumer and Hosted Solutions at Adobe. “We’ve simplified the editing process, without taking away any of the power, and incorporated smart tools with built-in intelligence to bring once difficult tasks, within reach of everyone.”

Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 for Windows

With the enhanced Organizer, Windows users of Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 can easily manage media and find photo and video clips even faster than before. The new Auto-Analyzer automatically analyzes and tags media so users can quickly find the most interesting and highest quality content and People Recognition identifies people in photos, becoming more intelligent over time, as it learns to associate names and faces. Also, consumers can now automatically synch all their media across multiple computers.

Photoshop Elements 8 brings editing capabilities and simplicity to a new level. With Adobe Photomerge(r) Exposure, users can simply merge multiple shots of the same scene, with and without a flash, together to create a perfectly lit photo that shows every detail. Leveraging Photoshop CS4 technology, the new Recompose provides users with an easy way to automatically resize photos without distorting the most important parts. Additionally, Quick Fix previews allow users to visually choose the best color, contrast and lighting adjustments from a series of previews. Once photo creations are ready to be shared, Photoshop Elements 8 offers new interactive Online Album templates that can showcase photos and videos together.

For even more creative possibilities, Windows users have the option to purchase Plus. Additional benefits include 20GB of storage for automatic online backup and sharing (up to 15,000 photos or four hours of DVD-quality video), as well as regular deliveries of tutorials, tips and tricks, seasonal artwork and interactive online templates sent directly to the desktop software. Photos and videos can also be accessed anywhere with an Internet connection at Photoshop.com.

Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 for Mac

Photoshop Elements 8 for Mac is the perfect complement to iPhoto(r) for consumers who want to go beyond the basics and tell amazing stories with their photos. The software is loaded with new options to make extraordinary photos with ease. For media management, Mac users have access to all the features in Adobe Bridge CS4 software, which provides quick organization with a custom viewing workspace and full-screen preview with one-click close-ups. Keyword tags and a variety of search options also make it easy to find photos quickly.

Photoshop Elements 8 for Mac now includes all of the intelligent photo-editing options as the Windows version. In addition to Photomerge Exposure, Recompose and Quick Fix previews, Photoshop Elements 8 for Mac features Scene Cleaner for brushing away unwanted elements, such as tourists or cars, from a series of photos to create the perfect scene. The Smart Brush helps users apply incredible effects to a specific area of a photo with a single stroke and Touch-Up brushes make common editing tasks quick, such as whitening teeth or making bright blue skies. When creations are ready to be shared with family and friends, users can display their photos on the Web with gallery templates or personal Web pages, by e-mail and on CD or DVD.

Pricing and Availability

Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 (Windows) is available now at www.adobe.com, and Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 for Mac will be available in Oct. 2009. Both products will be available soon at retail outlets such as Amazon.com, Apple (Mac only), Costco.com (Windows only), Best Buy, Office Depot and Office Max.

Photoshop Elements 8 (Windows) is available for US$99.99, and users can purchase Plus from within the product for US$49.99/year. Plus is available to Windows customers in the U.S. only. Photoshop Elements 8 for Mac will be available for US$99.99.

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iStockphoto Gets Into the Logo Business and Shutterstock Buys BigStockPhoto

More activity in the stock photography market today.

First bit of news is that iStockphoto is getting into the logos business. iStockphoto already sells cheap photos, video footage, audio clips, flash animation, illustrations and other content, so this would just seem to be a logical extension of their marketing cheap content to small (and sometimes larger) businesses. Many small businesses, I would think, might find these logos interesting. I tried out Logoworks’ service a few years back and thought it was interesting. Logoworks was later sold to HP. This would seem like a logical move for iStockphoto to make.

The second bit of news is that Shutterstock has purchased BigStockPhoto. I’ve never used either of these services so I’m not really qualified to comment on them. Presently I’m marketing my own images through the Flickr/Getty partnership and ClusterShot. Press release from Shutterstock here.

More details and comments on these two stories from TechCrunch (iStockphoto and Shutterstock).