Category Archives: Ethics

Ethics

Think Twice Before Entering That Photography Contest!

Leave a comment

Jim Goldstein has posted a must-read article on photo contests that describes something I noticed a while ago – if you enter your work in many of the online and other photography contests you may be giving up all of your rights to your photograph without compensation merely by entering.

You don’t want to do this.

Jim writes:

So you’ve got this incredible image that you’ve got to show the world. Not only are you going to share it with your friends online, but you’re also going to enter it in a contest or two to win some fabulous prizes. Well before you do I recommend reading the fine print, that includes the the Terms of Use (ToU) for web sites and Contest Rules for, you guessed it, photo contests.

One of the most underhanded tactics sweeping the online and publishing world is the hijacking of photo rights through inequitable terms buried in the fine print of legalese for contests and web sites. The perpetrators will no doubt surprise you, they include the likes of Facebook, National Geographic + PDN, Popular Photo, and more.

This issue is not a new one and has reared its ugly head in the past on other photo sharing sites, but now this tactic is becoming increasingly common with major players. Offending words such as perpetual, royalty-free license and irrevocable are being introduced to hijack the rights to photographs of well intended photographers looking to play the odds to have their work recognized in a contest or just to simply share with friends.

This is why I’ve avoided entering any of these contests and while I’ll continue to do so. And it is not just photo contests. Jim points out that by posting your work to Facebook you may also surrender your rights to your work!

Jump on over to Jim’s site and read more about this.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

G Dan Mitchell: Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email


All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Ethics, Locations

When NOT to Visit the Racetrack

2 Comments

A reader sent me an email today after reading my piece on photographing the moving rocks at the Racetrack Playa, saying that he was hoping to visit the Playa later this year and asking for advice. He said he plans to visit in June.

Advice… Do not go to the Racetrack Playa in June. Or during any of the hot season months.

While I have little doubt that it is possible for well-equipped and very experienced desert travelers accompanied by similarly experienced folks to go there at that time of year, there are a number of reasons to warn everyone else against trying it:

  • The climate in Death Valley is quite hostile during much of the year. During the summer you can count on temperatures well over 100 degrees F. You shouldn’t be surprised by temperatures over 110 degrees, and much hotter temperatures have been recorded. For this reason, the Death Valley “high season” is more or less November through perhaps the first week of April.
  • Add to the above, the following additional challenges of the Racetrack Playa: You’ll drive a 55 mile round trip on an extremely washboarded gravel road; there will likely be few if any other people out there; there is absolutely no water on this road and there are no services whatsoever; there is no cell phone service. In the event of a breakdown you will probably be out there for a long time – perhaps a very long time.
  • If all of that wasn’t enough, quite frankly the photography is a whole lot better during the opposite season, when some clouds occasionally come through and add interest to the scene.

More advice… If you go to the Racetrack during a wet season – please stay off the playa! Better yet, save your Racetrack visit for a more appropriate time. Here’s the deal:

  • A playa is a very flat place formed when silt-laden water from surrounding hills flows into a low place with no outlet, floods it with muddy silt, and then dries and leaves behind a virtually completely flat surface.
  • Playas are often dry for extended periods of time – but on occasion they are wet. Very wet. And muddy.
  • Footprints on the playa last for years.
  • If you drive miles and miles to have the experience of visiting this vast, untracked place and find it to be wet… stay the hell off the playa so that the everyone who visits the playa for the next X number of years after your visit doesn’t experience a wonderous place marred by your semi-permanent foot prints in the dried surface.

If I know that the playa is flooded or muddy I won’t even go out there.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

G Dan Mitchell: Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email


All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Ethics

Complex Issue: A Student is Using One of My Photographs Without Permission

Leave a comment

Last month a student at a high school on the east coast of the USA wrote to ask if he could use one of my photographs for a school project. His email was very respectful and I appreciated the fact that he was doing his job and asking for permission before – or so I assumed – making public use of the photograph.

In the past I have allowed students to make use of certain photographs depending upon the nature of the use and other factors. For example, a few months ago a student (in Australia, I believe) wrote to say that she was using one of my photographs for a class project. She wanted to know more about what I saw in the image and how I created it. We exchanged several emails and I gave her permission to use the photo for her project.

However, in this more recent case the student was using my photograph as the background for an animated cartoon figure chopping wood! Feeling that this was not exactly the most favorable presentation of my work, and knowing that he could certainly find other images that would be appropriate and available for unrestricted use, I wrote back and told him that regrettably I could not grant permission for this use. He wrote back and said he would remove the photo from his school web site when he got back to school on Monday. So far, so good.

Three weeks later the photo is still on the school web site as the background for the animation. I wrote again this weekend – politely – and told him that he does not have permission to use the image and that it must be taken down right away. He told me he would remove it “by the end of the week.”

Unfortunately, I feel like I’ve been had. He kept the image long enough – I presume – to get credit for his assignment. It has now come to the point where I had to write a pointed email including a deadline for removal of the image – and send copies to him and to the superintendent of instruction of his district.

And now, back to posting photographs…

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him.

G Dan Mitchell: Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email


All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.