Why You Shouldn't Work For Free

Matt Brown over at Sportsshooter.com has posted a great article on why you shouldn't work for free or give away photos.

Thanks to the rampant image stealing abilities of modern technology, people can just take whatever they want and post it on their sites. I know this, i don't like it and i realize that people are going to somehow try and take the 576 pixel deep photos on this site. (Yes, thats why they're so small)

That being said, If you want to use my photos and i actually have the rights to them (Non-newspaper shots), You will have to pay to use them on the web and anywhere else. Why you ask?

1 - Cost of cameras and lenses. These things are expensive. A Nikon D300 costs $1799 (body only), the nice 17-35/2.8 lens costs $1500 and so forth. The super-long glass that i shoot baseball with from the paper? That costs a used Ford Mustang.

2 - Experience. I have dedicated years of my life to learning how to make good sports action photos as well as how to manipulate lighting modifiers , studio lights, etc. It takes a lot of time and effort to learn how to use this equipment and get a good, daily image.

3 - Time. No, I cannot just send you a photo. I work on pressure deadlines. It takes time to download, tone and resize the photos and email it to you. My time is money. If i miss something, it takes money out of my pocket. Which leads to....

4 - Money. I'm a capitalist in this business. I'm in this to make money and enjoy what i do. Giving you something free doesn't put gas in my gas tank. Credit only doesn't pay the rent and put food on the table. "Getting my name out there" by giving things away doesn't actually lead to more (or any) business.

A car mechanic, a plumber, a house painter, an electrician, an airline pilot, a stock broker, a bus driver and lawyers certainly don't work for free. They don't just give stuff away or work in trade. And neither should you.

I implore any young shooter, especially those in college to listen and think. Giving photos away just hurts everyone and doesn't get your name out there as someone employable. It gets your name out there as someone who gives away free photos.

And don't get me started on the weekend shooter with the $90K a year job and the $100K Porsche who is just doing this for fun and just gives his stuff away because he wants to see his name somewhere. People like that are a lot more frequent then you'd think and they're taking money away from people who do this for a living. All it is doing is just teaching big corporations that they can always find it for free somewhere.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to.....

Video: Baseball Preview

Okay, I'm not ESPN and i don't have the resources of the worldwide leader of TV Cameramen getting in your shot sports, but at least i try to make it look good. So in the spirit of Tessie I headed over to Foley Field with a video camera to get practice, interviews, and mix in some game footage i shot 2 weeks ago. (Also found a tripod i left there 2 weeks ago)

Also... I found out that DH Bryce Massanari (he's been mentioned on here a few time) was originally drafted by the Phillies in 2004.

Portrait Mayhem

Earlier this month... i did a series of Photo Illustrations and Portraiture for our Style Section on the future of (whatever) series they ran earlier. Here's some of the better results.




UGA researcher Doug Batel and the future of human population growth.

Yes, those are Fisher-Price little people. I was asked to colorize some of them because they were all white.



Scott Shamp, director of the UGA New Media Institute, and social networking.

There's something just ridiculously funny about lego people doing social networking. Some of those lego people were mine and were fished out of a box from my brother.



Bruce Burch, administrative director of the University of Georgia's Music Business Program, and the future of music.

That's my guitar. I added the motion blur in photoshop. I also put a fresh Drokpick Murphys sticker to good use, but you lose it in the blur.



Flora Tydings, president of Athens Technical College and the future of education.

That is the Hubble picture "Pilars of Creation" projected behind her with a White Lightning on its lowest setting.



Don Porter of the Artificial Intelligence Center on AI and technology.

DLP projector right, white lightning grid spotted left



Georgia Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond and race relations.

The pose was all his idea. He grew up climbing the tree thats behind him



Biochemist Dan Geller and the future of alternative fuels.

Have you seen the $^%@& price of gas (and food!) lately!?!? The original concept of this was two gas nozzels and something out of "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" but this works better, IMO. The future of ethanol is in wood and wood chips, not corn and something that impacts the price of food.

So where did the little people and the gas nozzel come from? Ebay. Now if only i can recoup my costs.

DNR SAR

There are a lot of things that we in the press rarely get to see. One of these is the actual search for a missing person out in the field. Yesterday, i got to tag along with a Dept. of Natural Resources Search and Rescue Team while they were doing their annual training exercise, this year in Winder at Ft. Yargo State Park. (Nevermind that i had a bruised knee from taking a baseball off it)

This exercise is treated as if its actual. There's a real 13-year-old boy out in the woods leaving real clues for searchers to find. (There's a preplanned eventuality of what to do if they actually find him too quickly in the two-day event) So i got to spend 4 hours hiking over section "F", an 84 acre swath of land with Bredex, a six-year-old German Shepard and her volunteer handler Susan Andes, Park Ranger Ray Smith and DNR employees Lauretta Dean and Michael Middleton.




I had a bunch of fun but in the end; we didn't find him during our search, not until the dinner break. (He was last seen in the vicinity of a pizza) I learned a bunch, mainly about procedures, how they do things, and why we in the press really would get in the way during an actual search. The long and the short of it is that our search team found numerous beer cans, doritios bags, odd foot prints, 13 bicyclists and other hikers, energy bar wrappers and numerous other detritus that is left by people. None of it related to the missing boy. All of this in a heavily wooded area with a big creek that we crossed about 5 times.







That and Susan summed it up best. At the end of the day, its not about the searchers or the dog. Its about the missing person.
















That's Bre. She likes playing with pine cones.

Lets Play Two

Third Baseman Ryan Peisel, center, jumps into the arms of left fielder Matt Olson, right, after Peisel scored the winning run in the bottom of the ninth inning as No 7. Georgia beats the University of Alabama 5-4 to win the second game of a double-header at Foley Field on Friday, May 16, 2008.

Well, thats it for the baseball regular season. Georgia (Ranked 7, 8 and 12 in the latest polls) is headed to the SEC Tournament (which is rather meaningless for them) before hosting NCAA regionals and maybe a super regional on the road to Omaha.

(No word as to whether or not I'd actually get to go to Omaha. Someone would be as to whether its me? I have no idea.)

So heading into this final weekend, Georgia faced off against Alabama. I worked a Friday double-header which saw an Alabama 17-13 win and a Georgia 5-4 win. Thats 14 homers and 39 runs in one day. I stayed the whole time; wunderkin DH Bryce Massanari went a ridiculous 7-7 with 3 home runs, one walk and a HBP between both games.



Third baseman Ryan Peisel makes a diving stop as No 7. Georgia beats the University of Alabama 5-4 in the second game of a double-header at Foley Field on Friday, May 16, 2008.



Catcher Bryce Massanari high-fives third-base coach Jason Eller as No 7. Georgia leads the University of Alabama 3-2 in the top of the seventh inning in the second game of a double-header at Foley Field on Friday, May 16, 2008. Massanari has gone 7-for-7 with three home runs and nine RBIs and a hit by pitch in the double-header.



Pitcher Joshua Fields, center, horses around with catcher Carson Schilling, right, as No 7. Georgia beat the University of Alabama 5-4 in the second game of a double-header at Foley Field on Friday, May 16, 2008.

A Catcher, A Model and their Baby

***I've taken this post down out of respect for my friend. ***

Rocking the Point and Shoot

Distinctive, mouse-shaped balloons.

I've been very lazy about updating of late. I havent had many/any good photos to share, IMO. Maybe i'll add some tomorrow.

I've been feeling a tad burnt out of late. Lots of photos, lots of last minute miracles have totally taxed my brain. So we drove to Florida to try and recharge for a weekend. Had a whole heck of a lot of fun but out of the 60 hour trip, 1/4th of it was spent in a car.



A performer catches air off a trampoline at Pixar's Block Party Bash at Disney's Hollywood Studios.

I didn't bring any cameras beyond our two point and shoots. So i rocked them for 2 1/2 days while getting dehydrated and sunburnt. Now i really have to work on that whole 'color accent' mode.



Epcot's Illuminations as seen from the 11th floor of the Swan hotel.



A man points to a topiary during the Flower and Garden Show at Epcot.



Hey, its vacation.

Spring Cleaning

I was cleaning up the hard drive today and came across some photos that i meant to post from the last month.

Everything breaks at once.

Okay kiddies.

My personal D2h? Dead. Blown shutter. My work D2x? Dead. Something internal. Shutter release no longer functions.

Now Nikon has come out with two amazing cameras, the D300 and the D3, neither of which my company nor i can afford given that gas is close to 17 trillion dollars a tank.


Hopefully NPS will give me something to use while at least one of them gets fixed.