Why I do not post my work on Facebook, Myspace, and other online social websites – and why you shouldn’t either

This is semi-old news, but a surprising amount of my friends and fellow artists (especially at school) do not know this, so I thought I would be informative today. I do not post any of my work on Facebook or Myspace, and neither should you. It’s not that I don’t desire to get my work out there, and social networking sites seem to be a logical option for showing work to vast numbers of people. However, just this year such sites (specifically Facebook) have come under scrutiny by artists and photographers because of their terms and conditions all users agree to when they join and use these sites. Basically, within their terms of service (http://www.facebook.com/terms.php) any content you upload to Facebook automatically becomes theirs to use in promotions, repurpose as they see fit, etc. They claim you still retain all your rights as creator, but they are in effect grabbing a huge chunk of your rights to your work. It’s quite scary really. And, to make matters worse, if you have already uploaded work to these websites, and then delete it off the website, under the clauses Facebook is allowed to keep backup copies of it on their servers for a unspecified time period. Unfortunately, there isn’t much you can do about this if you’ve posted then deleted work as I have (I removed all my work a couple months ago), but it serves as a warning in the future to never post work on those websites again. If you are doing commissioned work as well, you should also try to prevent at all possible your clients posting your work created for them on these websites (you are legally allowed to decree what can and can’t be done with your work as a creator and copyright holder).

So what websites are safe to post work to? It’s hard to tell anymore, but always read the terms of service before you begin to use any website you post work to. Flickr, unfortunately, while exceedingly popular with the photographer and illustrator crowd, is not as safe as you would like (some of their terms of service are almost as sketchy as Facebook’s). In fact, it has kind of become a “stock” image website, rather like Google image search, with random people using your images for whatever they please. If you do post to Flickr, don’t upload the high-resolution versions of your work (1000 px at 300 dpi is plenty big enough for web viewing, and will only produce a tiny print if someone tries to print at that size), try to watermark all your images (you can find plenty of tutorials around on how to do this with a little photoshop magic), and use the artist comment section below every image to place a notice of copyright. You can also, through Flickr’s interface, attach a Creative Commons license (link) notice badge that will appear wherever the image shows up. DeviantArt is very artist-friendly as well, but still, remember to watermark, never post the high-res version, and attach a CC badge (which dA also supports). If you are a student, websites like 5oup.com and myartspace.com that are oriented around the student and emerging artist are nice as well, and more likely to be copyright-friendly (but still read those terms of service!).

Blogs can also be a nice way to get work online, but you must be careful with who you host your images with. I have already gone through the issues with Flickr, and while I have not checked the terms of use from Photobucket, there is probably some of the same issues there. In any case, it’s back to the rule of always reading over the terms of use before you upload. Most blog websites do have clauses in their terms of service that you may not like, however.

In my opinion though, the best way to show your work online is to have your own website where you are in control. Website-building sounds very scary to some artists, especially those who are not computer-savvy, but it is actually very easy to do. Domain names are often as cheap as $10 a year, and to get your domain name hosted is about $5-$10 a month for a bare-bones bandwidth plan. Some places such as GoDaddy.com will give you a deal if you buy a domain name and a hosting package at the same time. I personally lucked out and have a friend who owns his own server so I get my website hosted for free.

You don’t even have to design and build your website yourself (though I enjoy the challenge of hand-coding and designing mine. However it’s still not finished). There are plenty of online companies out there who sell website templates for cheap, where all you have to do is drag and drop your images into the template and write in your text content. Or you could always just pay a starving graphic design student to whip something up for you. Artists websites are seriously the easiest websites to make, you don’t have a lot of pages, and as long as the images look nice and are easy to view you’re good to go.

The great thing about having your own website is that all your images are hosted by you, and not through an external site such as Flickr or Photobucket. This is especially nice if you post your images on a blog such as this, any linking to the actual image is routed through your site. Open an image of mine from this blog in a new window and you’ll discover in the address that it’s hosted from my site.

Through your own website you can also make sure that you have adequate notices of copyright posted throughout. A Google search for copyrights will come up with plenty of links on how to properly copyright your work. Creative Common badges can also be applied to your website and not just through large websites like dA and Flickr.

Navigating the tricky world of copyrights, especially online, can be very tough. I am nowhere near as vigilant as I should be (I still have yet to put watermarks on my images, and I shouldn’t reaaaaally post my images on here as WordPress.org’s terms of service are a little scary as well), but I do try to avoid the major pitfalls of the online world. I hope I’ve at least helped you out in some way, and encouraged you to take your work off the really bad websites like Facebook. I don’t want to discourage you from posting your work online however, I’ve met some great people through sharing my work online, and the fact of the matter is, most employers are now looking at work online rather than in person, so it is important to have work out there in the digital realm.

This is just a handful of links concerning these issues, you can do a Google search for Facebook photography copyrights or Facebook terms of service and come across a multitude more.

http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blogs/gelman/archives003726.shtml

http://www.bjp-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=700094

http://www.lightstalkers.org/copyright-grab-by-facebook-

http://thelittlechimpsociety.com/theape/facebook-illustrators-be-a-ware/

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/tech/internet/facebook-legal.html

http://www.jmg-galleries.com/blog/2008/02/27/facebooks-rights-grab-how-far-does-it-go/

http://mingo-pe.blogspot.com/2008/04/facebook-copyrights-and-you.html

http://blog.keithrowell.com/tag/bollocks

 

This was an interesting article I came across while researching for this post on the politics of social networking sites like Facebook.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook

 

Perhaps later I will write up a guide to general things you should think about when creating a portfolio website.

New Work

new thoughts

Tonight I had to throw something together for an assignment, and here’s what came out of it. These are nowhere near perfect, but they’re giving me some new thoughts. Comments, anyone?

fig. 11

Some words of wisdom on art-making from teachers and others.

i. Language can stimulate imagination and creativity. Words have power and meaning, use them with care.

ii. Look at the light.

iii. Ideas are ten-a-penny. Everyone gets them. It’s just that we tend to edit them out or throw them away; we dismiss them as irreverent and unworthy, or we start to develop them but become riddled with self-doubt and lose our energy. Ideas have to be fostered, made friends with, and then encouraged through their various stages until they’re strong enough to stand on their own. When they’re ready, they’ll make their own demands and direct their own completion.

-Nick Bantock

iv. Architecture is about space, not mass.

v. Stop looking to yourself, start looking at the world.

vi. Collage is an act of curation – it is the act of hunting and gathering.

vii. Visualization is continuous – it cannot be packaged into tidy categories – learn to see beyond.

viii. Practicality and imagery need to go hand in hand.

ix. Connectors and devices are important. Don’t make the viewer go through the garbage to reach the visual treasure.

x. Hardware carries emotional weight, use them with care.

xi. Heavy-handedness is not a good thing, learn to be subtle.

xii. Cutesy is lame.

xiii. Occupy your own life creatively, even if things fall flat.

xiv. Interact, not connect.

xv. Learn time by the river

-Andy Goldsworthy

xvi. Effort goes into making something look effortless.

xvii. What lies below the surface affects the surface.

xviii. The body is the first instrument to play in artmaking.

xix. When I make a work, I often take it to the very edge of its collapse.

-Andy Goldsworthy

xx. There is a world beyond what words can define. Art occupies this space.

xxi. The creative life is lived outside the institution, in your own mind.

xxii. You have to eat, breathe and sleep creatively in order to make creatively.

xxiii. Innovation is not the same as developement.

xxiv. We use linguistic shorthand to deal with complexity.

xxv. Conciousness and objectivity play a part in this kind of work.

xxvi. All the visual components and elements carry considered, effective voice in imagery.

Freaks of Photography

I came across this old photography article while researching the old Kansas City Workhouse, and thought it was interesting. It is from the June 13, 1897 edition of the Kansas City Times (over 100 years old!).

Freaks of Photography

——————

Explanation of Strange Figures That Appear in Pictures

From the American Journal of Photography

——————

It is no uncommon experience to find upon new plates certain images for which there seems to be no possible explanation, their startling and unaccountable appearance being “wropt in mistry,” causing astonishment not unmixed with uncanny feeling. A gentleman made an exposure upon the interior of a friend’s house; he was doubtful of the time, and proceeded to develop for under-exposure. To his great surprise the plate developed quickly, and to his greater surprise the image was an interior quite different from that upon which he had exposed. The plate was from a fresh box, and could not possible have had a previous exposure.

Another instance of the kind, having quite a sensational and tragic ending, is on record. An exposure was made upon a view having a river in the foreground. The photographer, which developing this particular plate, was perfectly astounded by an appearance which he had not seen while taking the photograph, and for which he could in no way account. On completing the development there was plainly revealed in the foreground of the picture the figure of a woman, apparently floating in the water. Not many weeks after, to complete the mystery, the body of a woman was found in the river at the exact spot where the photograph had been taken. Again, not long since, the account of a traveling photographer, who, upon making an exposure upon the exterior of a reputed haunted house, discovered at one of the windows a portrait of the murdered man through whom the house had gained its evil name. In another case three distinct images, having no connection one with the other, were impressed upon a single film. The plate was exposed upon a garden in the evening—nothing remarkable being seen—but when placed in the developer a man’s hat, of old-fashioned shape, a child’s dress and a dog were distributed over the image of the garden. Such mysterious images were more common in the days of wet plates than now.

A few years back Prof. Burton investigated the matter. Upon tracing back the history of the glass he found that it had been used for other films, and that the images which appeared undoubtedly arose from the remains of previous images. The old glass was thus proved to be the source of the ghosts; it only deepened the scientific mystery, while it cleared away the supernatural. The glass traced by Burton had been washed for some weeks, immersed in strong nitric acid, and every means taken to insure chemical cleanliness; yet, in spite of all this, enough energy remained latent to form a developmental images upon the new film, whether by chemical or physical force remains to be discovered. A complete solution of the difficulty would probably throw considerable light upon the nature of photographical images in general; at least it seems to indicate that light is not absolutely essential in the formation of latent images on a sensitive film.

fig. I

i. The man who lives in his eyes is continually confronted with scenes and spectacles that compel his attention, or admiration, and demand an adequate reaction. To pass on without pause is impossible, and to continue after purely mental applause is unsatisfying, some real tribute must be paid. Photography, to many of its addicts, is a convenient and simple means of discharging these ever-recurring debts to the visual world.

-Edwin Smith

 

ii. Photography is an art that must be conducted with the utmost care and attention to detail.

 

iii. To love beauty is to see light.

 

iv. Somewhere something incredible is waiting to be known.

 

v. There are many tools on the creative landscape, pick one, master it, and let it become your conduit.

 

vi. Be so disciplined in your life so that you can be violent and original in your art.

 

vii. Live out of your imagination, not your history.

 

viii. A photograph is neither taken nor seized by force. It offers itself up. It is the photo that takes you. One must not take photos.

-Henri Cartier-Bresson

 

ix. To manipulate an image is to control a people.

-Carolyn Gerard

 

x. It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer. You need less imagination to be a painter, because you can invent things. But in a photograph everything is so ordinary; it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the ordinary.

-David Bailey