It’s a season everyone is looking forward to. Especially when you live in a country like Finland, where you’re digging your Life through 5-6 months of snow every year. And that’s Southern Finland (let’s not start about going up north).
And yeah… Finally, after many, many months it really does look like spring’s on its way (save for the snow that’s coming down as I write this).

Spring always comes with surprises. The worst part of the snow melting is all the dog poop that is surfacing and accompanying it the foul smell of it. I could go all into detail and describe to you the gooey… but no, I won’t.
A little colorful flower, which has had the power to withstand the weight of the snow that’s been piled up for way too long, and is now breaking the surface of the snow like the hand of a zombie trying to get out of the soil.
Cars that have disappeared under piles of snow with the winter ongoing, and the snow plows shoving all the snow off the street to the side.
And yeah… It can thus happen, that that big pile of snow looks exactly like… well… a big pile of snow. And a snow plow doesn’t really feel the difference when it piles up more snow, and maybe pushes it a bit further off the street and a bit further toward the pavement.

And yeah… If you happen to be the owner of such a car, and you don’t use your car during winter, then it could just happen that your car actually DOES disappear under said pile of snow.
And yeah… If the snow then melts, and your car happened to have been disguised as a pile of snow, you might just be in for a nasty surprise when the snow melts and your car peeks it’s battered head out of the snow…

Demolished mini van

Demolished mini van

… I of course got my portion of HDR and cross-processing. This really was an exceptional trip

D800, ISO400, 1/1000 sec @ f/5.6, Nikkor 70-200mm. Cross-processed in Photoshop.

D800, ISO100, 1/125 sec @ f/8, Nikkor 14-24mm

Combination of HDR and cross-processing in Photoshop.

Left: D800, ISO100, 1/125 sec @ f/11. Middle: D800, ISO100, 1/125 sec @ f/4. Nikkor 14-24mm.

Combination of HDR and cross-processing in Photoshop.

Scouting, driving around the area, stopping the car, getting out of the car, getting into the car, driving, stopping the car, getting out of the car, getting into the car, driving… It’s the thing you typically do only with your fellow photographers. You do that with your spouse and inevitably you’ll get to see a lot of rolling eyes and the “*sighs* NOT AGAIN??”-looks
And even then there were beautiful scenes we missed, because of possible life-threatening situations we might’ve faced had we stopped (or leaned too far over the edge).

D800, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/4, Nikkor 14-24mm

D800, ISO100, 1/125 sec @ f/11, Nikkor 14-24mm

D800, ISO100, 15 sec @ f/11, Nikkor 50mm + Singh-Ray VariND

D800, ISO100, 1/500 sec @ f/5.6, Nikkor 70-200mm

D800, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/5.6, Nikkor 50mm

D800, ISO100, 1/125 sec @ f/11, Nikkor 14-24mm, 4 images stitched in Photoshop

D800, ISO100, 1/500 sec @ f/8, 8 images stitched in Photoshop

A couple of months ago I wrote a piece on one of my pictures being used without a license on the website of the Berkeley Daily Planet. It was a very sour thing, because I really wanted to pursue this due to Ms O’Malley’s outrageous attitude, but the outcome would simply not outweigh the costs I’d have to make in order to do what needed to be done for this.
I shared the link to this blog post in several groups on LinkedIn I’m a member of and got many comments on how crazy this really was. One of the members advised me to write a complaint to the State Bar of California, where all the lawyers are registered. They would be able to reprimand Ms O’Malley for her idiotic behavior in this case, IF she really was a lawyer as she claimed to be.

I took the advise, and wrote the State Bar a letter. The official complaint form on the website was only for lawyer-client situations, and didn’t offer any options for different situations, which kind of made me think that my letter would disappear in a trash bin, because it was not according to the prescribed format. But anyway… I sent off my open letter, including a screenshot of the website with my image on it and every single piece of correspondence I had with the Berkeley Daily Planet and Ms O’Malley, and I referred also to the contact I had with my attorney Mr Kinne from Kinne IP Group.
Here are the main lines of what I wrote:

I would like to file an official complaint against a lady by the name of Becky O’Malley, who claims to have been, and I quote “an intellectual property attorney and a member of the State Bar of California, a status which I could easily activate if needed”.

The issue is about a copyright infringement case. This lady is, together with a gentleman named Tom Butt, working for the Berkeley Daily Planet, an online news paper.

Just recently I discovered that they had been using since early 2010 one of my images, without my consent, without the proper licenses, and even with Mr Tom Butt’s name as accreditation with the image (screenshot of the web page attached).
At first I tried to settle the matter with them directly (correspondence attached), but things soon got so bold that I asked my attorney if there was any way to pursue this matter officially.
He gave me an outline of the possibilities, and I decided not to pursue the matter, because in the end it would cost me more money and grievance than I was willing to put into it.
The fact that I am residing in Finland and that I only have a raw file, i.e. the file is not registered at the US copyright office, to prove I’m the creator of the piece was part of the decision.
However, when Ms O’Malley so blatantly and shamelessly threw in my face that I should let go of the matter and that I would get nothing out of it, this turned more into a principle matter for me.
The fact that she is, or claims to be, a former Intellectual Property Attorney and a member of the State Bar of California makes this case all the more outrageous. Tom Butt, the journalist in question, has purposefully and knowlingly used one of my images and accredited it to himself, but when I confronted the paper, and Ms O’Malley, with all her knowledge of Intellectual Property and copyright infringement, about it she had absolutely no right to justify it like she did and slam the door in my face.
With the way she behaved, knowingly and purposefully defending, acknowledging, and approving copyright infringement, she has no business being a (former) Intellectual Property Attorney and member of the State Bar of California.

I sent it, and pretty much forgot about it. A month went by, then another month in which I was abroad.
But then, when I came home from my trip, I actually found an envelope from the State Bar of California.

Response letter from the State Bar of California

I’ll pick out the piece that matters:

Based on our evaluation of the information provided, we are closing your file. Before the imposition of attorney discipline can be obtained the State Bar must present clear and convincing evidence of willful misconduct. We have concluded that there is insufficient evidence of willful misconduct that would warrant disciplinary action. Ms O’Malley was not your attorney and owed no fiduciary duty to you. In fact, she was not acting as an attorney in said matter, but could activate her membership status if she needed to. Moreover, the circumstances you described are civil in nature. As such, the more appropriate forum in which to address your claim would be through appropriate civil action.

Ok, so I agree that the circumstances I described are civil in nature. But they have concluded that there is insufficient evidence of willful misconduct?
She may have not owed fiduciary duty to me, but with her supposed background in Intellectual Property it was her civil AND professional duty to properly pay for an image that they were using. And also her conduct in the correspondence afterward was in my eyes a very willful misconduct.

So what is wrong with the juridical system of today?
The system seems to be protecting the wrong people…

It’s been quiet a bit. I know. Been busy, and I had my images to process from the trip to the Rocky Mountains. They will come in the following posts.
But first I wanted to write this.

With my D800 (the space-eating, 40Mb per raw image camera) I needed bigger cards. The biggest card with my D700 was an 8Gig (Kingston). That was a conscious choice. I could’ve put in a 64 or a 128, but you never really know when a card fails on you and you lose everything. I didn’t want to take that risk. So rather than having 1 big CF card, I had several smaller cards.
From a local store I bought a Transcend 32Gig and shot with that the first months. Around the house I don’t usually shoot 0ver 500 images, so that card would keep me going until my trip. A Buddy of mine was going to the US and I had him bring back 2 Kingston 32Gig cards, because they are like… half the price at B&H compared to what I have to pay for the same stuff in this beautiful country.

I’m of the naive type that believes that everything works out of the package. So I didn’t test the Kingston cards in the camera before I left off to the Rockies. I had my Transcend 32, and the 2 Kingstons. I threw out all the other cards, save for one of the 8Gig Kingstons (just for good measure, but I didn’t expect to need that with 3 32Gig cards).
Rocky Mountains came. It was beautiful. It took me about 5 days to shoot the Transcend 32Gig full (about 750 images). Then I had to switch.

I took out the Kingstons and put one in the camera. No joy. I formatted -or try to- the card. Card ERROR came flashing in the display. Uh oh…
Well, that was bound to happen some time. And of course it would be at a time like this. But no worries. I had a second card. I switched cards. No joy… I formatted -or try to- the card. Card ERROR came flashing in the display. %#&(“%//#&%!!!
What are the odds that TWO cards, straight out of the package, don’t work? I got to fire up my Buddy’s laptop and went to Kingston’s website. The FAQ’s on this card mentioned something along the lines of “What if the card doesn’t work in my camera, but does work in another camera?”, which led me to test the cards in my Buddy’s Canon 1D MkIII. And of course… they worked in his camera. I planned on testing it still in my D700 at home, but for now I had to make do with the 8Gig that I had brought (just for good measure and which fit about 120 images of the D800-size).

When we got to Colorado Springs we went to a Best Buy to get me another big CF card (can you believe that none of the other big stores had anything bigger than 4Gig??). They only had Sandisk as a brand (which is fine), but the largest was 16Gig and it cost 87$. For reference: the two 32Gig Kingstons I bought from B&H were 53$ each. One of the clerks came to me and asked me if he could help me, and I told him that I got 32Gig from B&H for almost half the price of his 16Gig. He was eager to help and suggested a price match. He checked on Amazon for the price of the Sandisk and it came in on just over 60$, so he sold me the card for just over 60$. No hassle, no fuss, no struggle. Just plain and simple, friendly customer service.
That’s customer service #1, at Best Buy.

But I’m side-tracking.
When I got home from the Rockies I tested the cards in the D700, and they worked. I find it a tad bit strange that a newer camera wouldn’t be able to read older cards, but anyway… I contacted Kingston, explained them the situation and it took them less than 2 hours to respond to my inquiry:

Dear Arno,
Thank you for contacting Kingston Technology.
We are going to replace your 2 x CF/32GB-U2 with 2 x CF/32GB-U3 that has been tested as working perfectly fine with the Nikon D800.
The CF/32GB-U3 is the fastest of our CF cards range with a speed of 600x.
Could you please let us know if you agree with that replacement?
I look forward to hear from you.
Kind regards,

No “What did you do to your cards”, no “this is your fault and it doesn’t fall under our warranty policies”, not a single attempt to squirm away from their responsibilities, like I’ve seen so many companies do in the past. Just a simple “we’re going to replace your cards with a faster and more expensive card than what you had, do you agree with this?”.
I mean… Duh? Do I agree?

I sent them a mail back to confirm that I -of course- agreed with this, shortly after which I got a ticket number and an address where to send the “faulty” cards.

I sent the cards on Monday, on Tuesday I got a mail confirming that they received the cards. On Wednesday morning I received another mail, saying that the new cards were shipped and on Thursday in the afternoon I got a phone call that the delivery guy was waiting downstairs at the door with a package from Kingston.

That’s Customer Service, with a capital C and a capital S. From Kingston. With a Royal K.
It is absolutely refreshing to receive this kind of service in a world that has turned so individualistic and profit-based. The client is King isn’t something I would ALWAYS take literally. In the type of work I’m in I’ve seen clients behave like jokers and assholes, but when “the client” reports a faulty product Kingston for me has just set an example of how things are supposed to be dealt with. I’m typically not brand loyal when it comes to smaller accessories for the camera, but this kind of service makes me want to come back to Kingston. And I will recommend them to anyone.

Last year I bought from B&H Photo Video a Singh-Ray VariND filter.
I’m the kind of guy that wants to have all the good stuff, but I don’t want to have to haul around so much stuff. And since one ND filter rarely does the job, I wanted something that WOULD do the job, but would also give me the flexibility to “change” the filter if necessary.
I had my eye on a VariND filter for awhile already, but I couldn’t really justify the costs (they come in at $340, which is quite a steep price I think). But I was extremely happy when I got it, and I’ve been using it a lot. It’s absolutely worth the investment, especially considering the fact you get ND1-ND8 in one filter and if you’d have to purchase these filters individually you’d be out of a lot more cash.

But… Recently I started experiencing some weird stuff going on. I noticed it for the first time a couple of months ago when I was shooting some images for my “Commuting” series. A weird red “blob” appeared right through the center of the image. At first I thought it might be some funky polarizing going on, but that’s not it. It now appears -only at the darkest setting- indoors, outdoors, in natural light, in bright sunlight, in tungsten light… Everywhere.

It didn’t used to be there. The images I shot and posted in this post were shot also with the VariND and at the darkest setting. They don’t have it.
This is how it looks:

D800, ISO100, 30 sec @ f/16, Nikkor 50mm, VariND filter at its darkest setting

I have no idea what could be the cause of this. I cleaned the filter several times, there’s no other filters on top of the VariND that could cause this. I didn’t drop it… I’m in the dark…
I sent Singh-Ray a mail about it yesterday, let’s see what they come up with (if they reply).

Of course I can fix it, that’s not the problem (there are few things that I can’t fix in Photoshop), but it’s a pain in the ass, because it’s local and not global, so you really have to be precise with the masks and everything. I wouldn’t want to do this to a series of 100 pictures…

D800, ISO100, 30 sec @ f/16, Nikkor 50mm, VariND filter at its darkest setting and some Photoshopping à la Arno

Sometimes you come across things of which you think: “What am I supposed to do with that?”
As a photographer you -or at least I- always look at things as if it were through a view finder. Always framing the things you see around you. Always thinking “how would this look if I were to….?” There’s always something you can do with something.

Take this for example:

D800, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/2, Nikkor 50mm

I’ll leave you to ponder over what it is

Not too long ago we had a discussion about focusing. I was asked to explain the reasons for why I do what I do, and I figured I could write it up in another blog post.
Note that my ways are not written in stone. It’s not the holy grail. It may not the be the “best” way for everyone, even if I feel for me it works best.
I’m a Nikon shooter, so the images and descriptions you see here are based on Nikon DSLR bodies (the example(s) I used are from D700 and D800). I’m positive Canon has similar functions, but they may be named differently and be located in different places in menu and on camera body.

So focusing…

Manual or automatic?
It depends, I guess. Some swear by manual focusing, some swear by auto-focusing.
If the circumstances allow it, and the focus points reach where I want to focus, I will use auto-focus. If not, I’ll use manual focus. If your camera body and lenses are properly calibrated (it’s like with your computer screen, you also calibrate that every month, right? RIGHT?? ) the camera will do a better job than you do (remember I said “if the circumstances allow it”).

In the menu of the camera you can set the amount of active focus points. I’ve set it to 21. 9 is too little and believe me, you do NOT want to be scrolling through 51 focus points all the time. 21 is a good average and it keeps -as I call it- custom focusing quick and easy.

Set the amount of active focus points in the menu of your camera

With the disk on the back of the camera you can select which focus point you want to use for focusing. Look through you view finder of the camera to see which focus point is currently active.

With the big round disk you can select the focus point (check in the viewfinder or -with some cameras- on the top display).

If you have a vertical grip, there will be a second disk or knob with which you can select the focus point while you’re shooting vertically.
And yes, I’m a cheap-ass Dutch guy. I use a third party vertical grip, because I refuse to pay the ridiculously overpriced amounts that Nikon is asking for their original battery packs. It doesn’t do anything more than give you one or two frames extra when you’re burst-shooting in jpg. And the batteries are already a wringer as it is, let alone the batteries for Nikon’s battery pack.
If you want to have an excellent substitute: On the D700 I have a ZEIKOS, and for my D800 I just recently bought a Phottix. Both work great, look and feel solid and do exactly what I need them to do. And that for about 1/5th of the price. Nikon can stick their battery packs …. well… never mind.

Shutter button focus or back focus?
I don’t think that’s a matter of “I guess”. This is -to me, at least- a no-brainer. If you’re an enthousiast (or worse, a pro) photographer, you’re shooting daily, you’re focusing by pressing the shutter button half way all the time and you’re NOT annoyed at least every time you press the shutter, you are either the most patient, agreeable and forgiving person in the world, or there’s something wrong with you. When I started photographing, looong time ago, in a previous Life, I started with my dad’s old Mamiya. It was a full manual. When I bought my first SLR camera with auto-focus, it came with that shutter-button-half-way-press-focus-thingy. And it annoyed the crap out of me already from the start. And that was the time that you couldn’t switch it off yet. You just had to live with it, or -like I did most of the time- switch back to full manual.
I get it that the manufacturers put it on the consumer cameras. If you don’t know anything and you just make snaps of your kids or your holiday it works just fine. But why they put the function on pro-sumer and pro bodies is completely beyond me.
Do yourself a favor, scroll through the menu, switch off the focusing on the shutter button and start focusing with your thumb on the back of your camera body with the AF-ON button.

Menu A5 on a Nikon D700 (A4 on a Nikon D800, A6 on a Nikon D200) will give you the choice to set focusing on the shutter button AND the AF-ON button or on the AF-ON button only

The AF-ON focus button on the back of a D700/D800

Why?
The most annoying thing about the shutter button focus is that you have to focus every single frigging frame (unless you want to keep the AF-L button pressed with your thumb, in which case you can just as well use the AF-ON button), even if you don’t change position or composition. It just is that way. You press the shutter half way, you focus, you press the shutter all the way, you take the picture. You let the shutter go and you have to go through the whole process again. In “normal” circumstances you can’t take a picture without having to (re-)focus, because you will always press the shutter half way on your way to taking a picture by pressing the shutter all the way – if you get my drift. When you use the AF-ON button to focus, you need to focus only once and you can take as many pictures you want of the same subject without having to re-focus. It saves time, battery power, frustration, head-ache and finger-power (do you know how many muscles you use in your fingers when you have to keep that damn button pressed half way until you lock focus? – I don’t either).

Some cameras won’t let you take a picture unless you lock-on focus. Truth be told, one could wonder why you want to take an out-of-focus image, but hey… if you need to take a quick picture (imagine Kate topless or something) and focus isn’t the first priority, you can’t be stuck with having to search focus, because your half-way pressed shutter and not-yet-locked-focus is preventing you from taking that money-shot.

Should you use the method of focusing on a scene and then recomposing it to get your subject in a different position in the frame (a little bit about that further down this post!), it’s also easier to use the AF-ON button. Sure, you can use the AF-L button, but then first you have press that wretched shutter button half way down to focus, then fiddle your thumb to the AF-L button -which, at least on the Nikon body, sits just about half a centimeter too far to the left to comfortably do that (and I have long fingers!)- without letting go of the shutter and losing your focus or having to refocus, recompose your frame and then press the shutter all the way… As opposed to press the AF-ON button to focus your scene, let go of the button, recompose the scene, press the shutter. Doesn’t that sound just so much more relaxed?

And then there’s of course the people who shoot moving subjects. Have you tried shooting a burst of shots, following the moving subjects and keeping focus on while your subject moves a bit out of the focus area you set while pressing the shutter button half way? You’re screwed, I tell you. It’s impossible.
The beauty of the AF-ON button is, that you can keep it pressed while you follow your subject and you keep the focus locked on your subject while it moves towards you or away from you. That may not work exactly 100% if your subject moves with a speed your camera can’t keep up with, but typically it works very well.
For this you do need to check another little setting on your camera:

Focus settings button on the D700/D800: C = continuous, S = single, M = manual

Set your camera on C for continuous servo, meaning it will keep on focusing on the selected focus point as long as you press the AF-ON button (or the shutter button). It’s said to use this setting only for sports and actions, but I have it set like this all the time. You never know when you land in a situation where things go quick, and it doesn’t otherwise make any difference.

Recomposing a shot
I shortly mentioned this earlier.
Many people use this method to make their pictures. They don’t use the moving focus points, but they have the focus set in the center of the view finder. They focus on a subject, keep the shutter button half way pressed to “keep the focus locked” and recompose the shot to, for example, abide by the rules of thirds. Or another method, they focus on a subject, use the AF-L (focus lock) to “lock on the subject” and recompose the shot.
But here’s the thing:
There’s a general misconception about focus locking. Most people think that when you lock focus, focus is locked on the subject. That’s not true. When you lock focus, you lock focus on the location where your subject is/was when you locked on. If you recompose by rotating your camera or body slightly away from the subject to put it in a third of the frame you change the distance from your camera to the subject and thus you change the focusing distance. This means that, however slightly, your subject is no longer in focus.
Below is a (very crude) drawing of what exactly happens when you recompose an image. The green and the red line are equally long, showing that the distance from the lens to the subject has increased slightly after recomposing the image.

When you recompose an image after focusing and rotate the camera (or your full body) slightly to get the right framing, the distance between lens and subject increases, and thus -however slightly- throwing the subject out of focus.

Most people probably won’t even notice it and of course this theory is subject to a lot of variables, but if you’re critical about your focus, it’s best to move around the focus point in your viewfinder and compose with the focus points on the subject in the composition you want, and not recompose.

Always interested in hearing other people’s opinions.
Share what you think!

Once a month (or so) I sit down at the computer and go through my portfolio with Tineye and Google image search to back track my images on the net. It doesn’t always come up with something, but sometimes it actually does.
Yesterday and today I did my routine and at this point the counter is on 20+ non-commercial blogs and 3 commercial pages. Typically I don’t mind if people use my images on their blogs, as long as it is -indeed- non-commercial. I do require a credit line and/or a link back to my page, and if a blog doesn’t have it, I write the blog owner a mail to kindly add the credit line / link or remove the image. Usually they add the credit line. Sometimes they don’t. If they get wise on me I’ll write the host / provider a mail and then the image will be taken down in most cases by the host, but usually I don’t let it go that far, nor does the blog owner. Usually it is -still, can you believe it??- the blog owner thinking that “whatever’s on the internet I can use for free, since it’s public property”. A little bit of kindness and education goes a long way.

With the commercial ones I’m less forgiving.
Before I do anything I make screenshots of the websites / pages I find my images on, and, depending on the kind of commercial website, I check the Internet Archive to see if I can find out how long the image has been on the website. If you fail to do the first, which I did in my first few times, there’s always still the option to go through the Internet Archives, but it’s better to have a fresh screenshot of the website BEFORE they take down the pictures and start denying things.
Then I write them a mail, very friendly, very informal, to start with, asking them to kindly send me copy of the license they have on file for the image used, since I can’t find it in my archives. There’s always the possibility that they actually purchased the image through one of the agencies I’m with and that -for whatever reason- the sale never came through to me. In that case it’s not the fault of the company, but of my agent and I know I have to pull someone else’s hair.
Usually there’s a bit of tugging back and forth; denial (we didn’t do it, our web designer did, etc. etc.), ignorance (we didn’t know, we thought that [insert one of 10,000 excuses I've heard]), or just plain brutality (it’s in Google image search, so I can use it for free). In the end I mostly manage to settle. Until now (knock on wood!) I’ve only once had to step up with a lawyer, and of course, me having the raw file and all, it was a no-brainer. Can’t go into details, since they made me sign a gag-contract, but I got better off it. A lot better. And it would’ve been settled for a lot less had they not gone so idiotically Homer Simpson on me.
Anyway… After having done this for a couple of years now I thought I saw pretty much all the surprises.
But then again… Facebook hasn’t been around for THAT long.
So today I was at it again, and you can picture my surprise when one of my images, watermarked and all by one of my agencies, came up as a profile picture on a Facebook profile:

Screenshot from the Facebook profile that has my picture

So this is an image that was ripped straight from Photographer’s Direct. The image here:

This is a self-portrait I did a couple of years ago, so you can imagine that -even if I’m not recognizable in the picture- I don’t like it at all that someone’s using this particular image as a profile picture on Facebook. Sure, the image is for sale, but this wasn’t a sale, and the guy in question didn’t ask for permission to use this image.

So that’s the story of today…
Now I’m pondering whether I should contact the guy myself or should I ask Facebook to do the work for me…?
What say you, crowd?

It caught my eye the very first time we passed these signs.
Two signs following each other, both warning for wildlife crossing the street.
The combination of these two in such short proximity leaves you wondering. It did me, in any case. I found it strangely hilarious. But then again… My sense of humor is at times strange.

Anyway… Be warned if you come along this stretch of road, it’s between Tampere and Jyväskylä in Finland, just after you come off the motorway after Tampere.
There’s possibility of some wild life crossing the street

D800, ISO100, 1/125 sec @ f/5.6, Nikkor 70-200mm