Surfphoto

Facebook Like Farms Can FB Off....

If you've seen the new issue of Carve then you might have read my Sharing Is Caring article on the ongoing death of professional surf photography. 

It's no secret I hate Facebook. The content farms (and or companies) that just steal photographer's work and post them for Likes with no credit or reference to the creator are a real issue. It's baffling when FB has an inbuilt Share button. So if these many pages, with fans in the thousands, want to share surf pics all they need to to do is Share from the respective photographers' pages. If they did this no one would mind. But they don't. They steal and post with no credit.

If you put your photos on Facebook or any network you are consenting to have it shared far and wide. I limit my unwatermarked online images to my 500px account, which at least has a basic download blocker on it, but still that's not screengrab proof. 

The only solution is ugly watermarks or not sharing at all. Which to be honest is the way I'm going. As sharing does nothing for your photography business. It does not bring surf photographer's new clients. The only paying clients: the magazines and brands actually push the other way. If a photo has been on FB then you've no chance of selling it. Likes and Fans do not equate to Income.

This post was inspired by a little ding dong the talented and extremely ballsy water photog Russ Ord had with one of these Like Farms. See the screengrab from my iPod.

He simply asked for a credit on one of his awesome water shots of the Right in W.A. An image he risked his life to shoot. This is the response he gets from fucktard commentors and the actual admin of the page. 

I mean seriously? Total, utter, massive kooks. 

They have no idea how hard it is to swim, shoot and actually maintain a photography business. If this is the future then I want no part of it.

Folio 12: How To Get Stuck...

This is Reubs at Pitstops, in the Mentawais, a cracking little right that's uberfun. It's a little reef ledge on take off and then it runs on to sand so you get a heap of speed then a perfect section for doing some stunts. It's also home to one of the best backdrops anywhere in the surfing world. So it's understandably popular with photog's.

This session Mr B and I got dropped off by the tender boat in the key hole and jumped off with our gear in a Peli case each for the quick wade up the beach. No stress. 

Well. It wasn't until the swell started to build ... and fast. Within an hour it was starting to close out the little beach on the inside and we were stuck. The boat couldn't come in, so we had to go out, walking out over a dry reef ledge to the left of the shot.

There's nothing more amusing than putting nearly ten grands worth of gear in a Pelican case. Knowing full well that you have to jump off some rocks and swim out through surf with it ... with no swimfins. Hilarious it was. We made it but it's one of those occasions you really are putting your trust in your kit.

I've used Peli cases forever and they're the bomb. So waterproof are they that at Lakeys if I want to shoot from the tower and I just swim the lagoon with the Peli. The cases also make a handy seat in airports and are padlockable to cars/radiators etc so secure as hell. I'm a fan, can you tell? The main takeaway is: be prepared, the ocean can ream you otherwise.

Government Sanctioned Copyright Theft

If you follow me on Twitters (if not, why not?) then you might have seen a few exasperated tweets and links to a couple of stories on the Government's Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act. The one that got a lot of photographers, including David Bailey's, knickers in a knot. 

The two articles linked below explain it in more detail but the short version is as the act becomes law it means your photos can be used and abused and there's nothing you can do about it. Even though as the creator/author of those images you have the copyright. If someone or some corporation does a 'diligent search' (in other words a quick Google search, which won't bring up any results from FB/IG etc as they aren't searchable) for the author and finds nothing then they can go ahead and use your work commercially. Reproducing it however they like, for cash, including sub-licensing.

Yep. Terrifying eh? If your work is watermarked or has the metadata intact you are okay. But obvs it only takes a screengrab to strip metadata and a quick crop/clone to take off the subtle watermarks most people use at the moment so as not to impede enjoyment of the image.

Welcome to the new era of content farms and wholesale image abuse. As if pages like Surf, Sex, Sea weren't bad enough when it came to blatant image theft now they'll be legalised.

I urge you to read the piece from the New Statesman:

The act aims to legislate a way for publishers to use copyrighted material which has no obvious author, or no way to track down the author. In the past, orphan works were typically older media, like out-of-print books, with little-to-no contact information available. Those works still cause problems, and are covered by the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act, which ought to aid plans to catalogue them, like Google's audacious attempt to scan every book in America.

But the reason why orphan works are kicking up such a fuss now is that more and more works are being orphaned shortly after creation, thanks to the internet. You can see it all the time online: a photo is tweeted, someone cross-posts it to Facebook, someone else reposts it to Twitter from there, it makes it over to Tumblr, and then is incorporated into a Storify which a media organisation reports on. In such circumstances, it can very quickly become nearly impossible to track down the original image. That's why the law has been nicknamed the "Instagram act". (Source: New Statesman)

And the one from The Register for a more complete look at this.

For the first time anywhere in the world, the Act will permit the widespread commercial exploitation of unidentified work - the user only needs to perform a "diligent search". But since this is likely to come up with a blank, they can proceed with impunity. The Act states that a user of a work can act as if they are the owner of the work (i.e. you) if they're given permission to do so by the Secretary of State, acting as a regulated body. The Act also fails to prohibit sub-licensing, meaning that once somebody has your work, they can wholesale it. This gives the green light to a new content scraping industry, an industry which doesn't have to pay the originator a penny. Such is the consequence of "rebalancing copyright," in reality. (Source: The Register)

Whichever way you look at it any photographer that works commercially will be giving away their rights if they leave decent size copies of their work online unwatermarked. So much for the protests from the NUJ and every other photography orientated organisation. Cheers Dave, Cheers Nick you berks.

(Another piece just popped up by the BBC).

9 Reasons Surf Photography Is Painful

Taking pictures of surfing is double awesome obviously. It's getting paid just to have fun. While shooting from land the only risk is pulling your back from having a stupidly heavy camera bag.

It's in the water where you really pay your dues. Here's a little cut out and keep guide to the kind of stuff we put up with whilst trying to get aquatic images. This list is made from real world experience.

Torn Off Nails Swimfins are your friend. The little rubber blades are your lifeline and propulsion when out swimming. Losing them is a ball ache. Which is why we tend to tie them on in heavy conditions with shoelaces to prevent this happening.

If a lip lands on your heel as you are swimming under a wave the force of the wave can parachute the fin momentarily off your foot before the elasticity of the rubber heel strap brings it back on. All well and good. Except rubber is quite grippy. That ping back can snag your toe nails and snap them clean off in a jiffy … and yes it hurts as much as you imagine having a nail torn off would, except being in the sea you then have salt/sand going straight in the open wound. Not to mention still needing to swim. Yes. Fricking painful. 8/10 on the Pain-O-Meter.

Frozen Flesh Something that only us Northern European and North American types have to worry about. Flesh exposed to the elements while swimming can go a bit funny. I don't wear socks when swimming as they are shit. So am use to my feet turning to blocks of ice.

What's not so nice is when you get out and the last bit of ankle skin before the toasty wetsuit starts all just falls off cos the skin has in fact just given up and died. Leaving a bloody, sticky ring of destruction around your ankle. A mere 2/10 on the Pain scale as it's so cold and numb you can't feel jack shit anyway.

Stuffed Right Knee Going over the falls in a front flip on a wedgey beach break, say like the Wedge in Newquay, and landing in six inches of water with your leg locked hurts. Blown cartilage thanks very much. 7/10 Pain. It's more the long drawn out nature of rehab that's the bugger here.

Broken Rib Going over the falls with a brand new housing and surfacing to find it leaking is bad, but not painful. Until you break the golden rule of never turning your back on the ocean to survey the potential damage to a couple of grands worth of camera gear and you get blown into the air by a shorebreak whomper and get pile driven into the sand breaking a rib. Pain factor 5/10. Main annoyance: not being able to laugh or breathe without it hurting for a month after.

Board To Head Tourists. Do not trust them. Board to side of head tearing a hole in front of ear and leaving a kickass headache for a month afterwards is what happens if you give them a chance. Pain factor: 8/10. Fear factor of internal brain bleed 9/10.

Bust Left Knee Going over the falls at perfect Mundaka and getting driven straight legged into the bottom (other leg, so it all balances out) for nuked cartilage, buggered ligament and a sprinkling of bone chips on the side. Pain factor: 9/10. Longevity factor 10/10 … as in it was 11 years ago and still hurts every day.

Broken Thumb Same wipeout. Didn't even know until knee Doctor pointed it out. Cracked thumb knuckle by refusing to let go of housing whilst getting Mundaka whipped. Pain factor: 4/10 no biggy.

Sand Under Contact I'm a little bit blind. So wear contacts when shooting. They sometimes float off a little bit and you can get tiny bits of sand stuck under them. Which then scratch the bejeezus out of your retina. Double ouch. Salt factor makes it excruciating. Pain factor: 8/10. Feels like someone's stabbing a fag on your eye and the pain lasts for weeks afterwards.

Bottom Whomping Swimming under waves is all well and good when there's sufficient water to get under the waves. When there isn't … Well. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what happens when you get caught inside. You get royally rickrolled.

You can curl up in a ball on the bottom and just get smashed or you can lay flat and just take the free chiropractic session. It's actually a remarkably good way of freeing any kinks and tensions in your back and spine. Pain factor: 3/10 the biggest worry is the housing twatting you in the face or getting stuffed into the bottom. As is in sea floor bottom, not your bottom, that's just weird.

How To Shoot Pipe Fisheye...

Ever wondered where you need to be to get those cray Pipe hook ups? Wonder no more. This epic edit from Nick Pollet has a beaut example of the deep, scary, slighty mad position you need to sit to get those bonkers shots. Kelly's first wave has a clinical example of the technique at around the 30 second mark. Can't be sure but I think it's Russo front and Damea Dorsey back in the sweet spot.

In John John's wave at around 1:40 you can see what happens when the wrong kind of Pipe wave comes through. You're getting it on the head. This is pure balls water photography. Shooting Pipe from the channel with a longer lens is an interesting enough experience... Fisheye at any size is just nuts.

Kelly Slater & The Art Of The GoPro Selfie...

Ever wondered how Kelly gets those rad GoPro selfie images? Well wonder no more. Legendary Aussie surf photog Shieldsy popped off this shot of the Jedi master at Kirra at the same time as Jimmy Slade shot himself, you can just make out AS in the channel.

Some people are rocking a velcro shoulder patch on the wetty to mount the cam on when paddling, some go for the more risky hold it in your teeth. Best advice is to have some kind of leash going on, even if it is fishing twine. The GoPro HERO3 is an amazing unit but not cheap and once dropped a right bugger to find.

Couple more moments of Kelly selfie gold after the jump (you can give AS and KS an Insty follow via the links above):

One Shot...

Cracking insight into titanium balled water photog Russ Ord...

The Rule Of Turds...

Rules are meant to be broken. But some rules are good. Like the rule of thirds. Simply put (or simply copy and pasted from Wikipedia) it says:

The rule of thirds is a "rule of thumb" or guideline which applies to the process of composing visual images such as paintings, photographs and designs. The guideline proposes that an image should be imagined as divided into nine equal parts by two equally-spaced horizontal lines and two equally-spaced vertical lines, and that important compositional elements should be placed along these lines or their intersections. Proponents of the technique claim that aligning a subject with these points creates more tension, energy and interest in the composition than simply centering the subject would.

So in a nut shell. Off centre composition is a good thing. Try it next time you take a picture. Composition is the difference between an okay image and a cracking image. Which can mean your picture is not shit. Hence rule of turds.

This shot is a mix of both, the horizon is on a third, the surfer is bang centre. It didn't work any other way.

Like most rules, especially those on English grammar, I consider it a guideline, rather than a rule.

The Death Of Manual...

This is an old school shot Ian Battrick.
Him what is on the cover of the Numb book in the previous post. 

It's an interesting shot for a number of reasons. Not least because Batty's on one of Bruce Iron's old sleds and it's weirdly blue for Capbreton, France. But because it is proper old school:

• Shot on slide film (Provia)
• Manual focus camera (Canon T90)
• Canon 20mm lens
• Homemade housing

Not because I am wannabe retro hipster rebelling against digitalism. No. This was shot in 1999. In the nineties this was how we rolled. Manual focus everything. Homemade housings. Exposure gained by handheld lightmeters.

A New Slant On Water Housings..?

An interesting new housing concept from Mike Waggoner over at Essex Housings. The Slant X. Press release below but the idea is a winner I reckon.