Die Mutter Deiner Kindheit

I'm not quite sure what it means, (The Mother Something Something0 but the man who does the website asked if he could use a picture of The Bairn, and I agreed. That's two websites in as many years who have asked to use photos, both of them of The Bairn. Time to give up the day job; not.

One of the paradoxically funny and sad phenomenon on Flickr stems from this sort of situation. A not-bad amateur photographer gets their photos used on websites, maybe in a paper magazine, and possibly earns a few pennies from it.

Kerching! Suddenly, they're raving paranoiacs, fighting off a hostile world out to steal their snapshots, put them on blogs, and God knows what. All rights reserved! Fuck off!! They get the occasional small cheque in return for all of the fun being bleached out of their hobby.

Dopey twats.

NOT that I'm saying big money capitalists should be able to rip off creative commons photos. No indeed: just try it with one of mine, Halliburton, or whoever. But one should retain a sense of proportion.

A preference for black and white photography is not the same as a black and white world view. Or something...

Comments

  1. DexterFri May 30, 09:15:00 pm BST

    Heh... It always amuses me that someone gets a chubby when one of their snapshots gets "published". The simple fact is that most of the mediocre shots that get used are used because they're FREE!!! Mine have often been used by the BBC, the National Trust and even the Spanish Government amongst others... I've no doubt whatsoever that they'd never even hit their Radar if there had been the smallest fee attached.

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