Google Similar Images
Google Labs has a new application, Similar Images, which will find images similar to a given image.
So, is this making life better or worse for photographers?
Better: Possibly find unauthorized use of your images.
Better: Possibly making it easier for someone to figure out who created the image (important for Orphan Works legislation)
Worse: Someone doesn’t like what you are charging to license an image, find one exactly like it… I mean, not like mine… my images are solely unique.
Almost Ready
Photo Editors, Art Directors and anyone with an email address at your magazine or agency (thanks for the feedback Bob the Janitor), get your SPAM filters ready! Once my new website design is up I’ll be sending out my first promo for the new site. My old Livebooks site has been upgraded and I now have larger images with the old design. I’m still in the process of resizing my images for the new site so there’s a mixture of old and new. The new design should be live sometime this week or early next week.
To date I’ve been doing my own design work, so I hope you like the new site (and promo piece). I think for the next round of revisions and promos I’ll be seeking professional help… and a designer.
A Change Is Gonna Come
I’m in the process of a good sized website update. It’ll be a mix of newer work and work I’ve done over the last year that I’ve been a bit too lazy… I mean, far too busy… to get prepped for the website. I’m also in the process of doing a minor website re-design. I posted a while back that I wanted to completely redesign my website… but that hasn’t happened yet due to indecisiveness on how I want the new site to look. After all, it’s not like I want to redesign my site every few months, so I better be happy with it. So, for the short term I’m upgrading my Livebooks site in order to add larger images and along with that I’ll make some minor changes to the look.
Rickenbacker 330
I love guitars. If I could, I’d have a room full of them. Now, don’t take this to mean I play the guitar. I play a little, but I’m very bad. I can play bits and pieces of songs I like, but I don’t think there’s one song I could get although way through.
This weekend I decided to buy a Rickenbacker 330. I’ve wanted this guitar for a while. I can’t really explain what made me pull the trigger and buy one this weekend. I honestly hadn’t even thought about it in a long time and I certainly don’t have a need for a new guitar (I already have a nice Gretsch Hollow Body)… but as can happen when browsing the Internet, I ended up on a video of Dan Auerbach (whom I’ll be seeing in concert on the 13th at Bimbo’s) and he was playing what looks to be a vintage Rickenbacker 330 Rickenbacker 360/12C63. That seemed to be all the motivation I needed.
Breaking Point
I realized today there is a point where you may just drive your assistant crazy. Here is the moment I drove friend and assistant Emily Merrill to the breaking point on an editorial shoot.
And, here is Emily doing her best ”I’m a model and I can contort my body into weird positions for no apparent reason whatsoever” pose.
If you feel bad for Emily, having to put up with me, and happen to need (or know someone who needs) a wedding photographer you should check out her great new wedding website here: http://www.emmyjeannephotography.com/
