The Online Photographer

[amolitor]

ToP is having a really interesting discussion on the nature of photography now:

The Online Photographer: Do You Have to Push the Button?

See also the previous post, specifically about Doug Rickard's book.

 

[The_Traveler]

That thread and the one before it are quite fun to read and a good explication of all the ways to think about Rickard's book.

External to that discussion, there are lots of terrific single comments; this is one that really struck me.


by David M Flores

"Many photographers are caught in a gilded cage, where the fundamentals of the craft (the decisive moment/don't 'spray and pray,' the rule of thirds, the superiority of 'full frame' and the optical viewfinder, etc.) almost guarantees that the resulting photographs will have a whiff of 'I've seen that somewhere before.' Interesting and new things happen when we discard these sacred cows and fully embrace our digital and networked age. Congrats to Rickard for trying something different...."

 

[Derrel]

Yeah, I read that essay yesterday on TOP, and thought immediately about the discussion we had here a few days ago, about Rickard's book. I was so disgusted by the comments bashing his book that I left that thread and never went back to it.

 

[amolitor]

On the subject of book-bashing, the thing that interests me MOST is that nobody seems to know or care whether Rickard sought and got permission from google. For all we know, he DID, which makes all the "OMG COPYRIGHT INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY PLAGIARISM!" stuff vanish like smoke.

 

[pixmedic]

On the subject of book-bashing, the thing that interests me MOST is that nobody seems to know or care whether Rickard sought and got permission from google. For all we know, he DID, which makes all the "OMG COPYRIGHT INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY PLAGIARISM!" stuff vanish like smoke.

Hey now...I did mention that..twice i think, asking whether anyone knew what kind of permissions he had to get from google, if any. I also dont think I really bashed it much. I found it interesting in concept, and i wonder if it will be imitated.

 

[Derrel]

The book's transformative nature clearly, and obviously, allows the images to be used as fair use. The publisher obviously felt that there was no danger with any kind of copyright issues. Based on the Fair Use Doctrine, the use of a scant few images out of the huuuuuuuge number of them Google Earth has snapped is just one example of how this book's use of the Google images would qualify as fair use. What Google created was one "thing"...what this author/editor did was a work of "scholarship" and on that basis, again, Google's got no claim against the author. Besides, if they were to raise a ruckus, the negative publicity for them would very likely cause stock prices to drop...and Google cannot have that!!!