Monthly Archives: February 2013

Are your images being stolen?

Hall of Shame, Photography

It takes a thief to catch a thief.

It seems incongruous that the arch-thief in American commerce, Google, should have crafted a tool which helps photographers seek out illegal use of their images.

It’s called www.images.Google.com and you have two choices to search for your image on the web:

  • Upload a copy of the image to Google
  • Input the URL for the image

Now the first approach has to be lunacy. Like giving a fresh needle and loaded syringe to an addict. So I opted for the second and searched for my wolfhound picture:


Absent a couple of non-commercial Tumblr illict reproductions – hardly of concern – one cropped up where the schmuck who stole my picture was using it to advertise his tweed clothing on eBay.UK (shock news that eBay might actually be involved in providing a conduit for theft).

So I wrote to the son of an unmarried mother in simple terms:

You may wish to use the thieves’ tool to catch thieves yourself.

Follow-up Feb 16, 2013: The thief has now taken my image off his site. May he rot in hell.

On the pier

Photographs

Concrete rules.


Municipal Pier, Fort Mason.

As is clearly visible, the south side of the pier is crumbling and falling into the water, hence the railings down the middle, preventing access. The sea air attacks the steel rebar through the porous concrete, the resulting rust causes expansion and breaks up the concrete. If this neglect continues the whole thing is doomed.

Nikon D3x, 105mm pre-Ai MF Nikkor at f/5.6.