tappa tribune - january, 2014
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The TAPPA Tribune is the monthly newsletter of the Tampa Area Professional Photographers AssociationTRANSCRIPT
The TAPPA Tribune Tampa Area Professional Photographers Association
December, 2013 / January 2014
Fill Flash Made Easy
Winning Images from Last Month
Photographer of the Year
Photoshop Tips
2 TAPPA Tribune
Greetings!
It is with a smile on my face that I say Happy December to all.
It has been my honor to serve as your president this year. I had the op-portunity to work with a great Board of Directors. Together we solved a few problems, created a few problems, presented our cases, stood our grounds, agreed to disagree, and always made the final decisions that were in the best interest of our membership. My heartfelt thanks go out to the entire Board for a year well served. I especially appreciate that we accomplished my goal of scholarships to be awarded this year. My theme for the year was education.
At our holiday party, I handed the gavel over to the 2014 President, Kevin Newsome. Our new Vice President will be Susan Black, new Secretary will be Carol Hackman, and new Treasurer will be Christine Reynolds.
As you can see, I am stepping into the position of Past President with great expectations for a wonderful 2014 with this excellent slate of officers.
Benjamin Todd, CPP
President’s Message
TAPPA Tribune 3
On the cover: First place, Portrait by Constance Avellino
Quick NewsNext MeeetingTuesday, January 21, 2014 Member with PayPal RSVP by Noon Tuesday January 14, 2014: $25 After Noon the 14th: $35
Social 6:00pm Meeting 6:30pm
Register online at TAPPA.org
Doubletree Hotel 4500 W. Cypress St., Tampa
TAPPA on FaceBook Our TAPPA Facebook page is an active forum for our members.
Photo ClassesThe Morean Arts Center in downtown Saint Petersburg has a series of photography and photoshop classes start-ing January 6, 2014. Go to MoreanArtsCenter.org for information
Send NewsSend your news, announce-ments and photos to [email protected]
ContentsPresident’s Message 2
This Month’s Program 4
Next Month’s Program 5
BooRay Perry to present at the Morean Arts Center 6
Photographer of the Year Randy Van Duinen 7
Upcoming Events 8
Print of the Month Rules 8
Print of the Month - Portrait 9
Print of the Month - Social Function 12
Print of the Month - Unclassified 15
Product Review: Photogenic ION 18
Bright is the New Bleak 19
Fill-Flash is Easy 21
Editorial 22
Photoshop Tips 23
Creators Take it on the Chin 24
Photographs from the Party 25
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This Month’s ProgramA Salon Insider’s Competition Primer Marty Grivjack, Cr.Photog., FSA
Meeting DetailsTuesday, January 21 2014
Social 6:00 Dinner 6:30 Program 7:00
Member with PayPal RSVP by Noon January 14th: $25
After the 7th: $35
Register online at TAPPA.org
Doubletree Hotel 4500 W. Cypress St., Tampa
Join FPP Salon insider, digital salon master Lightroom operator and PPA Photographic Craftsman Marty Grivjack for an evening filled with competition tips, tech-niques, ideas and thought-start-ers. If you’re befuddled, baffled or just flat out confused with what judges are looking for in that ~45 seconds* they take to view and score an image, this is the pro-gram to attend.
Marty has been on the FPP Salon committee since 2005. Witnessing the transition from all-print to hybrid print-and-digital submis-sions, he will explain to you what wins, what does not, what to do and what not to do, what looks great as digital and what should be produced as a print. From sizes and styles to composition and creativity, Marty covers all the bases on how to compose, create and submit your image for com-petition, whether for your local competition or the annual state salon.
Bring your questions and ideas to the meeting. And, back by popu-lar request, we’ll go over a group of images that were submitted…you’ll apply your newly acquired insight as these images are pre-
sented and YOU are the judge…you guess the score, see how close you are…then you’ll learn how the judges ruled on it. You will walk away with new skills, in-spiring ideas and more confidence to enter your own award-winning image submissions. There are decades of overwhelming scientif-ic evidence proving that you can’t merit if you don’t enter compe-tition. Every image starts out at 100…don’t lose out!
(Salon competition image courtesy of Bill Barbosa, www.photodesignsinc.com. *Eval-uation time calculated using the time-tested SWAG method.)
TAPPA Tribune 5
Next Month’s ProgramBob Coates
Meeting DetailsTuesday, February 11, 2014
Social 6:00 Dinner 6:30 Program 7:00
Member with PayPal RSVP by Noon February 4th: $25
After the 4th: $35
Register online at TAPPA.org
Doubletree Hotel 4500 W. Cypress St., Tampa
I started taking photographs with an SLR I borrowed from a friend for a vacation back in 1983. Af-ter successfully managing other peoples businesses for 14 years while photographing on the side, I decided to follow the quote “Do what you love and you will be-come a success.”
Every day is a new discovery, a new way of seeing and new way of processing images to see my re-ality come to life. In this business the variety never ceases to amaze me. One day shooting jewelry in the studio, the next day getting images for a brochure, the next capturing a personality and yet another standing in the middle of the desert waiting for the light to get “just so.”
At Bob Coates Photography we “Specialize in not specializing” this allows us to come up with interesting new ways of photo-graphing subjects. Combining the techniques of different types of photography and utilizing the newest software and Photoshop techniques leads to new ways capturing images. People who hire Bob Coates Photography do it not just for the expertise – but for the experience brought to the job.
Bob Coates Photography is based in beautiful Sedona, Arizona and available for location and travel assignments as well as studio work, editorial shooting and pho-tographic education.
Certified Master Craftsman Pho-tographer by Professional Photog-raphers of America. Member – Ar-izona Professional Photographers Association, National Association of Photoshop Professionals and other photographic associations.
Panansonic Lumix Luminary.I’ve been named a Panasonic Lumix Luminary. If you have a photography group I am avail-able for teaching my programs on Fine Art, Marketing, Black and White Art conversions and Per-sonal Projects. These are at no charge to the photo group and are not a commercial for Panaso-nic Lumix Cameras (but I do love the micro 4/3rds and the Lumix) Get in touch with me if you are interested in finding out more… [email protected]
Published Magazines and Books:Caribbean Travel and Life, Cruise Travel, Scouting, Porthole, Re-altor, Rangefinder, Shutterbug, Professional Photographer, Pho-to Electronic Imaging, New York Daily News Caribbeat, SignCraft, Sailing World, Pro-Lighting Series: Nightshots, Pro-Lighting Series: Beauty Shots. Books published by Amherst Media written by Bob – Photographer’s Guide to Wedding Album Design & Sales and Strate-gies and Techniques for the Digital Photographer.
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The TAPPA Tribune is published monthly for the membership of the Tampa Area Professional Photographers Association. Its purpose is to share knowledge and insight with the photo-graphic industry.
The deadline for submission of articles and ad changes is the 15th of the month pre-ceding publication.
Permission is hereby granted to reprint the contents of this newsletter, provided the au-thors and The TAPPA Tribune are recognized as the source. The ideas and views expressed do not necessarily reflect the policies of the Tampa Area Professional Photographers Association; they are solely those of the author.
Editor: Chuck Vosburgh 300 62nd Street North St. Petersburg, FL 33710 [email protected] 727.743.1740
Advertising:To advertise in the TAPPA Tribune, please contact the ed-itor for rates and distribution information.
Meetings:TAPPA monthly meetings take place the second Tuesday of the month at the Doubletree Hotel 4500 W. Cypress Street Tampa, FL (one block east of Westshore Blvd).
Networking 6:00 pm Dinner 6:30 pm Meeting 7:30 pm
BooRay Perry to present at the Morean Arts CenterSaturday, January 4th, 2014, TAPPA member BooRay Perry will be showing his work and talking about the profession of wedding photography at the Morean Arts Center in St. Petersburg, Florida as part of their ongoing Free Pho-to-Talk series.
Event information:
Photo Talk BooRay Perry Saturday, January 4th, 2014 1pm - 2pm Free and open to the public RSVP is required Click here to RSVP
The Morean Arts Center 719 Central Avenue DSaint Petersburg, Florida 33701 727.822.7872 MoreanArtsCenter.org
Organizer: Chuck Vosburgh 727.743.1740
TAPPA Tribune 7
Photographer of the Year Randy Van DuinenRandy is an architectural, fine art photographer and photog-raphy instructor located in St. Petersburg, Florida. He has been a professional photographer for over 25 years and his photogra-phy is in hundreds of brochures for builders, architects and inte-rior designers from around the country. His art photography is in the permanent collection of the Grand Rapids Art Museum and is in many corporate and private collections.
Randy is an award-winning pho-tographer, both nationally and internationally. He was named the “2012 Photographer of the Year” by the Florida Professional Photographers association. With over 50,000 images submitted, Randy placed second place in the commercial category at the 2013 Grand Imaging Awards, which is PPA’s International print competi-tion. The Tampa Area Professional Photographers Association (TAP-PA) has named him one of top ten photographers the past three years.
Randy has been published in many local and national maga-zines, including Interiors, Builder, Professional Builder, USA Today
and Tampa Bay Illustrated. He has spoken at national photography events, and is a featured speaker at the Florida Professional Photog-raphers Convention. Randy is one of the lead instructors for “The Digital Photo Workshops” which holds photography workshops around the country. Randy is also an instructor of photography at The Morean Art Center in St. Pe-tersburg, FL, teaching Photoshop, Lightroom, Landscape, Architec-tural and HDR photography.
He is an active member in the Pro-fessional Photography Association (PPA), Florida Professional Pho-tographers (FPP) and the National
Association of Photoshop Profes-sional (NAPP), Tampa Area Profes-sional Photographers Association (TAPPA). Randy also works with Kelby Training one-day live semi-nars across the country and with NAPP at Photoshop World. Randy has earned his Certified Profes-sional Photographer (CPP) status from PPA. He is also a very active allied member of AIA Tampa Bay and regularly photographs events for them.
http://rvdphotography.com
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Print of the Month Rules- Prints are to be mounted.
- Size: 8x10.
- Electronic Imaging size can be two 8x10 taped together on the back and spread open for viewing.
- Three entries per member each month.
- There must be at least three entries in a category for that category to be included in the monthly competition.
- All entries MUST have your name and the category you wish to enter on the back of the print.
- Prints must be turned in before 6:25 pm. Prints received after 6:25 will not be accepted!
Winners:- Please send your winning files
to [email protected] for the newsletter as soon as Possi-ble. Deadline for publication is one week after the meeting.
- Name your files by your last name-place-category. For ex-ample Smith-1st-Portrait.jpg
- Any resolution 1000 pixels on the longest side or greater is acceptable. JPEG format is preferrable.
Upcoming EventsSaturay, January 4, 2014
BooRay PerryFree Photo Talk at the Morean Arts Center
Information on page 6
Tuesday, January 21, 2014Marty Grivjack
RSVP Here
Tuesday, February 11, 2014Bob Coates
Tuesday, March 11, 2014Salon
Tuesday, April 8, 2014Mike Potthast
Year-End AwardsPhotographer of the Year Randy Van Duinen
Portrait Photographer of the Year Michael Landes
Social Function Photographer of the Year BooRay Perry
Unclassified Photographer of the Year Randy Van Duinen
Commercial Photographer of the Year Randy Van Duinen
Electronic Imaging Photographer of the Year Randy Van Duinen
Print of the Month - Portrait
First Place: Constance Avellino
Print of the Month - Portrait
Second Place: Shiree Beckwith
Print of the Month - Portrait
Third Place: Michael Landes
Print of the Month - Social Function
First Place: BooRay Perry
Print of the Month - Social Function
Second Place: BooRay Perry
Print of the Month - Social Function
Third Place: Ava Gerdeman
Print of the Month - Unclassified
First Place: BooRay Perry
Print of the Month - Unclassified
Second Place: Shiree Beckwith
Print of the Month - Unclassified
Third Place: Michael Wilson
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Product Review: Photogenic IONBy Chuck Vosburgh, CPP
I’ve always been skeptical of batteries for studio strobes and have instead used a gasoline powered generator when need-ed or just made do with porta-ble strobes and speed lights. So it was with a bit of trepidation that I ordered a Photogenic Ion ($399 from Adorama). When it arrived I was amazed at how small and light it is and wondered how it could possibly live up to Photo-genic’s claims. “This will probably be going back” I thought. I was wrong.
Putting it to the testI’m not too big on scientific tests so I took it out shooting. It either works for me or it doesn’t. The photo shoot was with a bunch of photo-friends so if it failed, no big deal. I plugged in two monolights; a 500 w.s. and a 250 w.s. Bowens. I used them on a variety of settings that ranged from 1/4 to full power. After well over 100 shots, the bat-tery still had a plenty of juice left, so I let my friends shoot with it. By the end of the evening and a LOT of shots, the battery was down to 25% power. Amazing.
Next I used it on a real job. The job required over 150 shots at power
settings from 250 w.s. to 500 w.s. (mostly 500) and the battery still had not even gone down to 75%! This is not going back!
Final impressionsThe recycle time is noticeably slower using the ION, but not annoyingly slow. It is extremely portable and easy to use. It even has a USB outlet for charging your phone. Genius. I am very happy with my ION and it will open up a lot of possibilities on locations where it was not possible to take high powered lights. Anyone want to buy a used gasoline powered generator?
Should you buy one?Yes.
Here’s what the manufacturer says:Photogenic ION PURE SINE WAVE INVERTER LITHIUM-ION 8.8AH 120WH
Eliminate your large noisy gas generators and old fashioned
humongous inverters. The all new Photogenic lithium-ion battery powered ION pure sine wave inverter takes your studio flash units on location the easy way. The ION is a powerful, lightweight, get outta town AC power supply that features two AC outlets for two monolights. Weighing in at only 3.5 lbs with a compact 7.5” x 4.4” x 3.3” profile, ION is the perfect lighting travel compan-ion. Pack the ION and a couple of extra batteries with your lights and head out to your next shoot. It doesn’t matter if your destina-tion is the top of Mount Everest, the middle of the Kalahari or your sister in-law’s wedding, this pow-erful combination will give you over 3,500 flashes (about 1200 per battery) at an amazing 320 watt seconds. While on your way to the next job, use ION’s built-in USB port to power-up your phone or other electronic devices. Charge time to 100% for the lithium-ion battery is 3-4 hours. A glance at the LED battery meter on ION’s control panel verifies the battery power level.
You can get more information here.
TAPPA Tribune 19
Bright is the New Bleak, Plus Inspiring words from Queen Latifah (sort of)By Professional Photographers of America (PPA)
My enthusiasm is ramping-up for Imaging USA 2014. Trish and I got our official badges in the mail today. Eeeek!
It’s hard to believe that this time last year I was dreaming of ways to fake-illness myself out of the trip to Atlanta for Imaging 2013. In my very first post for this blog, I confessed my panic and nausea induced by a stalled cash flow and floundering business. Thankfully, my business partner Trish dragged me kicking and screaming out from under the covers of my fake sick bed to IUSA 2013 and it pro-foundly changed...everything.
I once heard Trish say, “A problem shared is a problem halved.” That’s been true for us so far. Sharing our problems, exposing our soft underbellies and swallowing our pride opened us up a support system of expertise, good will, and creative inspiration from PPA.
Writing about our woes started out as an experiment. I’ve been chronicling our trials and tribu-lations here for nearly a year and it’s helped me foster a new way of looking at my business and my life. The experiment would either
end in total failure with me at my new job as a sectional saleswom-an at the local furniture store (love me a sectional) or it would end in success with “Bright being the new Bleak” when it comes to the future of Snap!. Sharing mistakes has also taught me to see inspira-tion for success in the most ridic-ulous, outrageous and mundane places.
Take for instance, when Queen Latifah called us recently. Queen Latifah is only (according to Goo-gle and um, the rest of the world) the very coolest singer-songwrit-er, rapper, actress, drop dead gor-geous model, television producer, record producer and talk show hostess. Not to mention she’s con-sidered one of hip-hop’s pioneer feminists.
So, the phone rings the other day and it’s Queen Latifah (in the interest of full-disclosure it was actually a lovely woman named Chelsea who works for the Queen Latifah show, but close enough).Chelsea was looking to get per-mission to use a photo from our Pinterest page pinned by one of their upcoming guests. You may have heard about this couple in
the news, Ryan Leak and Amanda Roman. Ryan planned an entire wedding from Amanda’s “My Dream Wedding” Pinterest page. A photo we had taken of earrings was pinned by Amanda and used by Ryan in creating their wedding. Ryan proposed to Amanda, she
said yes, and then they had the wedding all on the same day.
We had a nice chat with Chelsea and were about to hang up when she said something really momen-tous. She said, “Congratulations on your life.” Chelsea wanted us to know she had spent a lot of time on our website and was really impressed by the photography but was even more impressed by
I hardly know how that happened; after all, we don’t have a fancy studio.
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continued on next page
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the passion and zest we have for what we do. Gosh, Chelsea (a.k.a. Almost Queen Latifah) that was awfully nice of you to say. Light-ning bolt moment: It’s important to remember that a bad day for us doing this is better than a lot of people’s best days at work.
Other times the inspiration for success comes from humbling places. One of the goals we set for ourselves at Imaging 2013 was to get involved with PPA Charities’ Operation Smile. We were moved to action and tears after attending a PPA Charities party at Imaging and listening to all the wonderful people involved with Operation Smile speak. We had no idea then that we would get so inspired... really inspired... to donate all we could to Operation Smile.
The more we read about Opera-tion Smile, the more we watched the videos of the children whose lives had been changed by Oper-ation Smile, the more we wanted to do. One day we had an idea to donate the amount of one sur-gery ($240) for every wedding we booked. When given here and there, the $240 was hardly missed and before we knew it, we had booked 28 weddings and donated
$7,487 (and counting), making us the Top Studio Donor in the coun-try for the year.
I hardly know how that happened; after all, we don’t have a fancy studio. We are just two ladies plugging away here at my house in my spare room. Sometimes it’s
a struggle to make ends meet, but I’ve never missed a dime of the money we’ve given to help chil-dren in need.
In the course of a year, it turns out that I shared my problems and halved them too by reaching out to PPA and asking for the help we needed. Ironically, what has really reenergized our business hasn’t been what we’ve taken from PPA
but what we’ve given back. It turns out that Joy shared is Joy doubled. I’m thankful to be doing what I do every day knowing that I’m pleasing my clients by involv-ing them in an uplifting charitable cause. Sharing our passion for photography and the joy of our good fortune makes a bigger impact than I could have thought possible a year ago.
I hope you are considering going to Imaging USA 2014. If you are struggling like we were, don’t crawl under those covers, share your problems and halve them! Reach out and get a little help. Things will turn around. Once they do, remember what Almost Queen Latifah said, “Be grateful for the life you have.”
You’re doing what you love! Once you’re feeling good and joyous about how lucky you really are, start spreading the joy and love around. PPA Charities’ Operation Smile is a great place to start. Re-member, bright is the new bleak.
Hope to see you in Phoenix!
Other times the inspiration for success comes from humbling places.
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continued from previous page
TAPPA Tribune 21
Here’s an easy way to use fill flashFill flash does one thing; it light-ens up shadows. By using fill flash, you can control the exposure of the background and the subject separately. Below is a photo taken with the sky the way I wanted it to appear:
The problem is that it leaves the subject way too dark, and if I ex-pose the subject properly the sky will be too light. Here’s where the fill flash comes in.
It’s a two-step process1: Get the background exposed
the way you want it.
2: Add enough light on the sub-ject to expose it the way you want.
But there’s a catchMost cameras can’t sync with an off-camera flash at more than 1/200 of a second. That means the shutter speed must stay below the sync speed no matter what. To make that happen, you may need to adjust the aperture and/or ISO. Also remember that like everything else in photography, there are always limits to what is possible.
Fill-Flash is EasyBy Chuck Vosburgh, CPP
continued on next page
22 TAPPA Tribune
So, getting back to the example, the first shot is 1/60 of a second at f-8 and ISO 100. The second shot is the same, except a flash was added. The way I do it is to set the flash at 1/4 power and either use a flash meter to deter-mine the exposure or take a test shot and then adjust from there. Remember, you already have the background set, so all that we need to do is adjust the light on the subject. There are two ways to control the light on the subject; flash power and aperture. The shutter speed controls the am-bient light (background). In this case, I increased the flash power to 1/2 power and it was perfect. Increasing the aperture to f-5.6 would have produced the same result if I left the flash power at 1/4 power. Open up the aperture or increase the flash power. Both are effective ways of making the exposure of the subject lighter.
The setup
The setup is simple. One off-cam-era flash.
The best way to master fill flash is to get out and use it, so get out and experiment! You’ll master it in no time at all.
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EditorialBy Chuck Vosburgh, CPP
New people are not the problemIt seems that the majority of professional photographers I speak to and read lately have a very grim view of our industry and the focus usually comes down to new people charging too little. There’s nothing we can do to make it stop. This is America and anyone can open a business and operate it any way they see fit as long as it’s within the law, which brings me to my point...
It’s not the low cost of equipment or the relative ease of getting accept-able images. We benefit from that too, so it’s not an advantage. It’s not even the people who are happy with good enough. There have always been different levels of clientele, although I will concede that the lower segment has grown.
CounterfeitsAs I see it, the real issue at hand is that many people are operating conterfeit businesses. They have business cards, web sites, FaceBook pages and everything that makes them appear to be a business, but they are not. They don’t pay taxes, have insurance and the other things that make a business a real, legal, legitimate business and they usual-ly use pirated software. It’s fraud at every turn, plain and simple. The things that the counterfeiter are not paying for amount to at least 30% of the money a legitimate business spends, giving the counterfeiter a substantial unfair advantage.
There have always been dishonest people and there will always be. It’s not practical to try to cleanse our industry by force or intimidation. This is a problem that is common to a lot of professions and none have been sucessful by focusing their efforts on the dishonest. Our challenge is to focus on the one who hires us. They don’t care about our businesses and they shouldn’t. Their concern is for themselves and we must focus on that. To borrow an old marketing acronymn WIIFM? WIIFM stands for What’s In It For Me. That’s the question we must be able to answer to the one choosing a photographer and it has to be compelling. So, the big question is what’s your WIFFM?
TAPPA Tribune 23
Photoshop TipsProvided by the National Association of Photoshop Professionals
Create a Copyright Brush Make a new white document no larger than 2500 pixels in length. Use the Type tool (T) to type the copyright symbol and your name. Then, go to Edit>Define Brush Preset, give your brush a name, and click OK. You’ll find your brush at the bottom of the Brush Preset Picker. For a signature brush, write your name on white paper using a black marker, photograph it (JPEG, small, fine), and size the image to no larger than 2500 pixels. Using Image>Adjust-ments>Levels, click on the signature with the black Eyedropper and click on the background with the white Eyedropper to clip the image to pure black and pure white. Click OK, and save it as a brush.
Provided by John Shaw
What to do When Content-Aware Fails Content-Aware Fill looks outside a selected area to build within--if you give it too much to fill and not enough to look at, you’ll have problems. There are two ways around this. The first way is to take small bites. The other way is trickier, but very reliable. Press Com-mand-J (PC: Ctrl-J) to duplicate your layer; click the Add Layer Mask icon (circle in a square) at the bottom of the Layers panel; select the Brush tool (B) set to black; and brush out the area you don’t want Content-Aware Fill to sample from. Now click on the layer thumbnail in the Layers panel and apply Content-Aware Fill (see previous tip)--presto! Flatten the image and you’re done.
Provided by Bryan O’Neil Hughes
Creating Glossy Lips If you see a shiny highlight on your subject’s lips, and you want to make it look glossier, duplicate the Back-ground layer then change your layer blend mode to Screen to brighten the entire image. Option-click (PC: Alt-click) the Add Layer Mask icon to hide this brighter layer behind a black mask. Press D to set your Foreground color to white; choose a small, soft-edged Brush (B); and paint over those white high-light areas on the lips and they’ll get even glossier.
Provided by Scott Kelby
Cycling Through Layer Blend ModesWhenever I’m using blend modes, I find I can be more creative if I test several to see how they look. Sometimes I’ll find a better blend mode than the one I thought would work originally. To quickly see which one works best, try this: press Shift-+ to cycle down the list and Shift-- to go back up.
Provided by Matt Kloskowski
Reducing Wrinkles When you’re retouching someone older, you can’t re-move all their wrinkles or they would look weird, so instead of removing them, reduce them. Duplicate the Background layer, then use the Healing Brush tool to remove all the wrinkles. Once that’s done, lower the layer Opacity of this layer to around 30%. This brings back a portion of the wrinkles so your retouch looks natural.
Provided by Scott Kelby
24 TAPPA Tribune
Creators Take it on the Chin; Federal Court Rules Against Author’s GuildBy Professional Photographers of America (PPA)
An eight-year battle on behalf of creators has ended badly. Federal Circuit Court Judge Dennis Chin ruled last week that the mass digitization of library books “pro-vides significant public benefits” and “advances the progress of the arts and sciences.” This comes as a shock to the creative world, and apparently opens the flood gates on the mass digitization of cre-ative works, with or without the creator’s permission.
“To be honest, it is just shocking to everyone involved in the pro-tection of copyright,” commented PPA’s CEO David Trust. “Judge Chin’s opinion is short-sighted. Creators cannot do what they do best--create--if they are not compensated for it. And when cre-ators no longer create, the public suffers.”
The suit:The Author’s Guild filed suit against Google in 2005 in re-sponse to The Google Book Project. The project, launched in 2004, was designed to create a digital collection of printed texts that would be searchable online. Google began sourcing books and
other printed media from libraries and universities and later “part-nered” with publishers. At no time were the individual authors con-sulted nor was their permission to
make reproductions requested. This was the basis for the suit.
“We disagree with and are disap-pointed by the court’s decision today,” Authors Guild executive director Paul Aiken said. “Google made unauthorized digital edi-tions of nearly all of the world’s valuable copyright-protected literature and profits from display-ing those works. In our view, such mass digitization and exploitation far exceeds the bounds of fair use defense.”
Author’s Guild plans to appeal.
What this means for photographers:While the case addressed book scanning it was not inclusive of all copyrighted content. The photo-graphs included to enhance the written text were only covered by this suit if the photographer was also the author. For this reason, PPA joined fellow visual arts or-ganizations and a few individual creators, to mount its own suit in May 2010 seeking remedies for the digitization of the visual con-tent within the books.
“This ruling is an example of how complex the copyright landscape has become in this digital age,” said Trust. “Legal precedents like this make it harder for photog-raphers to defend their rights on a smaller scale. Defending our members’ rights has always been a challenge. This ruling makes it a little more difficult.”
PPA’s suit was filed in this very same court district and is before the same judge. We are currently exploring the ramifications of the decision on our case and will bring you additional news in up-coming weeks.
To be honest, it is just shocking to everyone involved in the protection of copyright
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TAPPA Tribune 25
Photographs from the Party
Photographs by Elizabeth Kraker
26 TAPPA Tribune
Board of Directors
2014 OfficersPresident Kevin Newsome 813 968-2810 [email protected]
Vice President Susan Black 813 230-6472 [email protected]
Secretary Carol Hackman 727 867-9254 [email protected]
Treasurer Christine Reynolds 813 760-0831 [email protected]
Past President Benjamin Todd 813 431-2873 [email protected]
Directors Constance Avellino 813 600-8152 [email protected]
Lee Burgess 813 245-3320 [email protected]
BooRay Perry 813-728-7110 [email protected]
Melissa Sewell 813 230-7092 [email protected]
Chuck Vosburgh 727 743-1740 [email protected]
CommitteesDelegate Julie Johnson
Membership Melissa Sewell 813 230-7092 [email protected]
Program Susan Black 813 230-6472 [email protected]
Salon Constance Avellino 813 600-8152 [email protected]
Door Prize Amber Wilkes 605 351-5865 [email protected]
Scholarship Susan Black 813 230-6472 [email protected]
Audio Visual Lee Burgess 813 245-3320 [email protected]
Newsletter Editor Chuck Vosburgh 727 743-1740 [email protected]
Photographer Elizabeth Kraker 727 403-1436 [email protected]
Web Master Lee Burgess 813 245-3320 [email protected]