Dealing with a Photo Thief

It happened again. Another set of photos of mine were stolen and posted on the web without permission. Usually, I’m fine with just getting the photos removed. But this time, the story needs to be more public due to the actions of the thief.

On Sunday morning, I received an email from someone on flickr alerting me that one of my butterfly photos from the Butterfly Rainforest was in Tulsa7035”s photostream. I did a quick check – and yes it was my photo of the banded grecian shoemaker butterfly. After doing a little exploring of Tulsa7035′s photostream – I found two additional photographs of mine in her collection.

The first thing I did after finding the photos in her photostream was to make PDF files of the Flickr pages – and downloaded copies of the files to my hard drive.

Next I sent a letter to Flickr that met their rules under their Copyright and Intellectual Property Policy My letter was based on PhotoAttorney Carolyn Wright’s excellent letter in her Using the DMCA Takedown Notice to Battle Copyright Infringement.

And then I posted info on the theft, with links to the copies, to Twitter. From past experience, I knew that my twitter friends (and all of their friends) can be a great help in dealing with situations like this. Not too long after I posted my tweets, comments began to appear on the photos in her flickrstream – with links to my original photos.

I believe the comments caused Tulsa7035 to remove one of my photos from her flickr account. As of this morning, two of the photos are still posted under her account.

The two photos of mine that are still in her flickrstream are

A Giant Charaxes butterfly – my photo on flickr – and the copy in her photostream

A Golden Birdwing Butterfly – my photo on flickr and the copy in her photostream

Please note the difference between my photos on flickr and copies she posted. On the copies in her flickrstream – there are no watermarks on the photos. All the metadata is missing. They are posted with a creative commons license (rather than the all rights reserved I use).

In other words – by stripping all of my identifying information and changing the license – she effectively has turned my copyrighted photograph into  orphan works. If someone wants to license them, they have no way of knowing that I am original photographer and that I did not place the photos in the commons.  I no longer have control over these three copyrighted photographs.

Tulsa7035 has deleted several comments on the photos in her photostream linking her copies to my originals and identifying them as stolen photos.

Tulsa7035′s actions aren’t going to stop me from posting my photos on the web. I’ll continue to post them – watermarked with my copyright notice and with my contact info in the metadata. And I will file DMCA notices every time I find a stolen photo. Unfortunately, dealing with thieves is the price photographers have to pay for sharing our work on the web.

There is, however, a bright side to this entire mess. In the past 24 hours, I have received so much encouragement, support and help from my network of friends on Twitter, Facebook and Flickr. They have posted spectacular comments on Tulsa7035′s flickr account, filed complaints with Flickr, provided me with contact info to help get this resolved – and emailed, tweeted and FB commented so much wonderful supportive notes. Thanks everyone for all the help – having online friends like I’ve got makes it much easier to deal with the occasional photo thief.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to post soon that the stolen photos have been removed.

Update – Monday evening – Flickr has let me know that they have taken appropriate action. My photos have been removed from Tulsa7035′s account.

Thanks again for all the help in dealing with this mess. I really appreciated all the wonderful comments my friends made on the photos on Flickr!

Sempervivum Braunii

I recently photographed a fascinating member of the Crassulaceae family called Sempervivum Braunii. It’s a variety of houseleek, also known as Hens and Chicks.

What first caught my eye was the textures of the large and small rosettes.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

And then I spotted the very delicate flowers growing up out of the rosettes.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

The flowers were blooming at the ends of stalks with lots of buds on them.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

From the side, the stalks look almost like miniature trees.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

And finally, a stalk just beginning to grow and develop its buds.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

The Hens and Chicks were a wonderful combination of shapes, colors and textures. Great fun to photograph.

Purple Water Lilies

For me, one of the great surprises of my recent trip to Longwood Gardens was all the shades of purple I found in some of the water lilies (nymphaea).

The first to catch my eye was a Blue Cloud Water Lily. Between the incredible purples of the petals and the bright yellow center – it is an amazing flower.

Blue Cloud Water Lily (c) 2009 Patty Hankins

I really liked the look of the Panama-Pacific Water Lily – with it’s petals in various shades of purple.

Panama-Pacific Water Lily (c) 2009 Patty Hankins

Eve’s Solitaire is another stunning purple flower. I really like the way I was able to photograph the flower with its reflection.

Eve’s Solitaire Water Lily (c) 2009 Patty Hankins

And finally, Madame Ganna Walska Water Lily – with petals in shades of lavender.

Madame Ganna Walska Water Lily (c) 2009 Patty Hankins

I’ll be posting more photos of Longwood Garden’s in a few days. If you missed them, I posted photos of some pink water lilies a few days ago.

Photography Links – June 26, 2009

A few links this weeks. Hope you find them useful.

Plagiarism Today has Why You Should License Your Work

Photofocus has Do Professional Photographers Need Copyrights,  3 Things You Can Do that Will Make You Feel Better About Your Photography and  A Tip to Improve Your Photos That Won’t Cost A Dime

Illustrator’s Partnership has new info on Orphan Works

Digitial Photography School has an Interview with Art Wolfe and   Show Your Photos Like a Pro with Photo Ebooks.

Jim Goldstein has 10 Tips to Photograph the Unexpected and 5 Reasons Why Metadata Should Be Part of Your Workflow

Black Star Rising has Sometimes Its OK Not to Keep Your Eyes on the Road

More Roses from Brookside Gardens

Here are a few more of my photos of some of the roses at Brookside Gardens. So far this year, the roses have been spectacular at Brookside.

First is the Abracadbra Rose – in shades of pink, yellow and white

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

The Pristine Rose is a lovely soft pastel pink and white flower

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

And finally, Strike it Rich – a wonderful golden yellow and orange rose.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

Pink Water Lilies

Last Friday, I headed up to Longwood Gardens, in hopes of photographing some water lilies (nymphaea). I’ve heard so much about their water lilies and lotuses that I was really looking forward to seeing them in person. I was not disappointed – in just a few hours, I photographed 16 different varieties of water lilies! And according to the staff at Longwood, while the water lilies are nice at this time of year – they’ll be fantastic in August. I’ll definitely be heading back to Longwood again over the summer to photograph more water lilies.

In the meantime, here are a few of the pink water lilies that I photographed last week.

First is a Sunny Pink Water Lily, a wonderful pale pink water lily.

Sunny Pink Water Lily (c) 2009 Patty Hankins

Next is two Luciana Water Lilies – with petals in various shades of pink

Luciana Water Lily (c) 2009 Patty Hankins

The Perry’s Viviparous Pink Water Lily is a wonderful bright pink flower.

Perry’s Viviparous Pink Water Lily (c) 2009 Patty Hankins

I love the petals on the June Allison Water Lily - pink at the tip and along the edges and white in the middle.

June Allison Water Lily (c) 2009 Patty Hankins

And finally the Jack Wood Water Lily – of course I think any flower in this shade of fuschia is wonderful

Jack Wood Water Lily (c) 2009 Patty Hankins

I’ll be posting more water lily photos in a few days – including more pink water lilies, some purple water lilies and a few white ones.

Flower Photograph Notecards are Now Available

Several of my flower photographs are now available on notecards through my BeautifulFlowerPictures.com website.

The photographs are either 4X5 or 4X6 on a 5X7 notecard. An envelope is included with each notecard. Cards are available for $ 6.00 each with free shipping to US addresses. A $ 30 minimum purchase is required.

As a special introductory offer for the cards you can get 2 notecards FREE with the purchase of 10 notecards (Save $ 12.00)

Among the photographs available as notecards are Eyeliner Lily

Eyeliner Lily (c) 2009 Patty Hankins

and Pink Tulip Trio

Pink Tulip Trio (c) 2009 Patty Hankins

Please take a look at my flower photograph notecards. And don’t forget the special introductory offer of 2 notecards FREE with the purchase of 10 notecards (Save $ 12.00)

A Few More Peonies

Earlier this spring, I had a wonderful time photographing the Peonies at Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens in Richmond, Virginia. Recently, I had the chance to photograph a few more varieties of peonies at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. One of the great things about living in the DC area, Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens and Longwood Gardens are both only about two hours away – so it’s a nice day trip to visit either garden.

The first peonies I photographed at Longwood were two colors of Dawn Pink peonies. The difference in the color of the blossoms was amazing. One was a lovely pale pink, while the other was a very bright pink.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

Nearby were two bushes with striking white peonies. These are the Petit Porcelain variety.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

The last peony I photographed is one called Moonstone. The petals ranged in color from a very pale pink to an almost translucent white. An absolutely beautiful flower.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

Photography Links – June 19, 2009

Lots of links this week since I couldn’t get online last Friday to do a links post.

Black Star Rising has Five Tips for Dealing with Unreasonable Client Requests, How to Add a Copyright Notice to Your Photos, Six Steps to Becoming a Green Photographer, How I Scared the Wits out of a Copyright Infringer, and How to Stop Bloggers from Hotlinking to Your Images.

John Paul Caponigro has an essay on Photographic Composition at Luminous Landscape.

Photo Business News and Forum has a post on Orphan Works,

TalkLeft has a post on Taking Pictures of Public Property Does Not Justify a Suspicion of Terrorism.

PhotoAttorney has Quicklinks to more rights grabs, and info on Sen Hatch’s Comments at the World Copyright Summit

DPS has info on Basic Blunders with Flash

PDNPulse has Mystery Solved: How that Family Photo Ended up on a Czech Poster

National Parks Travelr has a Great Smoky Mountains Park Checklist

Shapelessmass has the story of an incredibly bold copyright infringer – Getting Sued

Jim Goldstein has a post on If It’s On the Internet It’s Free! Didn’t You Get the Memo

Photofocus has Five Things Photographers Should Know About Selling Stock

Info on FotoWeekDC 2009 is available.

Don’t forget – VisualRealia is sponsoring a Photowalk in York PA on June 27.

Roses at Brookside Gardens

One of my favorite places to photograph flowers each year is the rose garden at Brookside Gardens in Wheaton, Maryland. From about mid-may through early October, there are roses in bloom. I’ve already spent a couple of morning photographing Brookside’s roses this year. Here are a few of the photos I took in late May.

First is Johann Strauss Rose – a beautiful soft peach colored flower

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

Next is the Wild Blue Yonder Rose – in shades of purple

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

And finally the Granada Rose

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

I’ve got several more photos of roses from Brookside Gardens ready to post – hopefully I get them up on the blog in the next week or so.