Ahhh, Christmas. Contrary to popular commercial belief it’s not been and gone yet, it is in fact still over 10 days away! 10 whole days to do some headless chicken impersonations in the town centre looking for presents for Coley and my folks.
Anyone out there want to buy me:
* A Nikon D200
* A Nikon MB-D200
* A Nikon DK-21M
No? Didn’t think so…
Bah Humbug!
Picked this link up on a quake forum (Yes, Quake…) and blow me, it’s some impressive if slightly talent on display. You’d think that’s all the internet was good for…
Crazy Paper Folding Skills.
Admittedly it’s more cutty-cutty- gluey-gluey, but I don’t know what you call that. Papercraft? Anyway, go look, it’s awesome.
I stumbled across another stock photography site today called Dreamstime or something. Didn’t give it a thorough workout but I noticed that they’re flogging high-res stock images for 77 US Cents.
77 US Cents.
Gah. You know the issue is so tired with me I can’t even find the energy to rant about it. People say “You may as well put photos up on a site and get 30 cents per download off it” using the arguement that “You wouldn’t make money off it anyway, so why not?”
The “Why not” to me is painfully simple. Good images are simply worth more than that. Equipment, time, travel, expenses and gosh-darn, bloody **experience**. To see people throwing good images that have cost them to produce onto sites like this just makes me sad. Will there come a point in the future where there won’t be any such thing as a professionally produced image, because people have become too accustomed to paying $0.77 for a photo? I’ve had experiences in the past of people asking “How much?” and when they’re told they go crazy with things like “Why should you charge that when I can get photo’s off the ‘net for a dollar?” (Or worse, steal them from Google images…)
It seems to me as if there’s 3 broad categories of people who upload stock to these sites. Either they were never going to make a penny off their casual shots, so they’re giving it a go to see what they can make. Then you have the people who don’t value their work and think that $1 per copy is “all they can hope for” because they’ve been beaten into submission by a market demanding stupid cheap prices for quality work. Finally you have the people who treat it like a full-on enterprise. They’re Pumping thousands of images into the database using napalm tactics to ensure that they get a reasnoble financial reward, even if they’ve put in far more work than the cash value they’re getting out.
Why should I even care? I’m trapped in a moral (?) dilemma of sorts. I’m broke, I could use the money, but do I really want to sell out my artwork for a lousy 50p a shot? I could literally make far more working in McDonalds and wouldn’t have to stress about technique, location, new material, ideas, equipment, insurance… The list goes on.
Maybe I’ve just got the wrong mindset, perhaps it is all well and good, it’s a sensible way for photographers to make money etc etc yadda yadda. I just can’t feel it though, giving away your creativity for 50p a time. ..
People pay more for a king-size Snikers bar.
…and get kicked out of shopping centres.
El Reg has a peice on some sane people being kicked out of a shopping centre. Why? They were distributing a harmless, correct and informative flyer at the same time as some Pro-ID henchmen were touring the self same shopping centre.
So the henchmen had a word with staff, who had a word with the police who had more than words with the 4 calm “Protestors”. I’d take that as an indicator that we don’t need ID cards to propel us into a police state…
Read the full article on The Register.
Because I like them and think they’re dead right, click right away to view a copy of the No2ID flyer.
Also, have a link over to the No2ID website.
Following on from the Matchbox Carchase and thanks once again to the procrastinating powers that reside in #Webdev I bring you:
He-Man does 4 Non Blondes
Despite the title it isn’t dirty (I know what you were thinking… There weren’t 4 non-blonde blokes IN He-Man…) and it’s hillarious for anyone who knows the track or the cartoon.
Genius.
You can’t overlook the possibility that the same guy could have been responsible for this…
… and this …
I’ve not yet found out, but if anyone knows let me know. Or perhaps let the Scottish Arts Council know… I’d love to know how much Quark paid for this too though, given this little faux pas, I don’t think they’ll be making an admission any time soon.
Interview: Hans Reiser is an interesting read for anyone interested in all things filesystem.
Thanks Koo from #webdev for posting this one:
Deeply disturbed Canine
His rear-left leg really wanted that bone…
