MediaMentor's Photo Blog

Tuesday, July 06, 2010

World's first reverse image search engine "TinEye."

Idée develops advanced image recognition and visual search software. Idée created the world's first reverse image search engine TinEye.

http://www.tineye.com/

TinEye

TinEye is a reverse image search engine. You can submit an image to TinEye to find out where it came from, how it is being used, if modified versions of the image exist, or to find higher resolution versions.

TinEye is the first image search engine on the web to use image identification technology rather than keywords, metadata or watermarks. It is free to use for non-commercial searching.

TinEye regularly crawls the web for new images, and we also accept contributions of complete online image collections. To date, TinEye has indexed 1,572,822,693 images from the web to help you find what you're looking for. For more information, please see our FAQ, and for some real TinEye search examples, check out our Cool Searches page.

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Sunday, June 20, 2010

Happy Father's Day Dad!

Charles Henri Albert (Bert) Lessard, originally uploaded by The MediaMentor .

Charles Henri Albert (Bert) Lessard Photo of our Dad by my sister Marion Lessard

Happy Father's Day Dad!

Bert Lessard, originally uploaded by The MediaMentor .

Bert Lessard

Mt. Rushmore from the Canadian side

Mt. Rushmore from the Canadian side, originally uploaded by Northern Community Radio.

Mt. Rushmore from the Canadian side

Submitted by Candy in Bovey.

Uploaded by Northern Community Radio on 4 Nov 09, 12.46PM MDT.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

An eye for art: Young Hay River painter experiments with photography

An eye for art

Young painter experiments with photography

Some of Micayla's Frozen Eyes photos as a slide show on Flickr

Daron Letts
Northern News Services
Published Monday, June 14, 2010

HAY RIVER - Micayla Gammon looks at things a little differently now.

Painter and sketch artist Micayla Gammon, 18, is exploring the creative potential of digital photography. - photos courtesy of Micayla Gammon

Earlier this month the 18-year-old painter and sketch artist participated in a five-day workshop presented by the Frozen Eyes Photography Society at Diamond Jenness School.

Yellowknife instructors Dave Prichard and George Lessard led the workshop for Gammon and almost a dozen other students from May 31 to June 4.

Although Gammon is an experienced visual artist, it was her first introduction to professional digital photography equipment and techniques.

"There is so much that I never knew was involved in photography," Gammon said. "We went over the operation of the camera, manual and automatic, and we learned about the history of cameras as they developed over the years. For the first few days we just ran around taking pictures. I'm learning that you can take thousands of pictures and only a couple of them are really good."

Gammon began painting and drawing as a young child growing up on an acreage near Stoney Plain, Alberta. Her family moved to Hay River two years ago.

"She has been interested in art since she was very very small," said Gammon's mom, Nancy Gammon. "She practiced and tried and drew and drew and we gave her lots of opportunities to experiment with different things and she has enjoyed it and excelled at it."

As a self-taught painter and home-schooled student, Gammon immersed herself in the work of master artists from centuries past, and studied paintings by American illustrator Norman Rockwell, Ontario naturalist Robert Bateman, and German pop artist Sebastian Kruger.

"Part of the reason why I enjoy art and taught myself so easily was because I wasn't comparing myself to anybody," she said. "I didn't have that much pressure around me. I was free to enjoy life."

In her paintings and sketches, Gammon communicates through realism. She paints wildlife, from raccoons to tigers, sketches portraits in pencil and charcoal, and composes detailed Northern landscapes in acrylic and watercolour.

In her photos, however, she explores abstraction, experimenting with angles and textures

"It's a fun way to express the way I see life," she said. "I love taking what I see and trying to put a different interpretation on it. I find it's a whole lot easier with photography to say something in an image without words. It's not so much about snapping the shot – it's about what your mind is seeing. People can see it and they can immediately understand it. It creates an emotional impression, not so much an intellectual one."

During the Frozen Eyes workshop, Gammon focused her gaze on machine parts, huskies, and trash, and aimed her lens skyward to capture the contours of tall trees and buildings against the clouds.

She and the other students also documented the NWT Track and Field Championships and shot images to submit to a GNWT anti-drug poster campaign next fall.

"It (was) a great week to learn," she said.

Last week Gammon picked up a paintbrush again and joined Diamond Jenness art teacher Karen Gelderman to work on a 24-foot mural to be installed later this year at Aurora College. The mural features the Hay River landscape, including the bush, river and lake.

"Micayla is quite an artist in her own right," Gelderman said. "She is self taught and has been doing a lot of interesting work on her own. Photography fits well with that."

Gammon plans to work on several new paintings this summer. She hopes to hold a solo exhibit at the Hay River Centennial Library later this year.

Instructors with the Frozen Eyes Photographic Society will host a workshop in Fort Liard this summer and are discussing plans to visit Tlicho communities and present workshops in Yellowknife, as well.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Internews Teams with National Geographic to Train Crimean Youth in Photography

From June 14-18, 2010, a group of high school students from the Crimean Republic of Ukraine will go to the Crimean coast to learn about and document the Black Sea's importance as a vital economic, cultural and historical resource with National Geographic's Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Jay Dickman.

Watch a slide show of the youth campers on their first day at the photo camp:

http://ow.ly/1Zc0i

Dickman and National Geographic contributing photographer Matt Moyer will lead the students through training on photographic vision, equipment and technique, and creating a story through photography, while fostering discussion with the students about their photos and experiences.

The theme of the camp is "what does water mean to you?" The youth will photograph, edit and design a portrait of the Black Sea and the Crimean coast, with special attention to the region's natural environment, economic resources and the students' own connection with water.

You can hear from the youths while they are at the workshop in June because Jeri Curry of Internews will be covering the adventure! Follow her live tweets as she introduces us to the Ukranian teenagers and helps to bring their voices to a global stage. Use the hashtag #photocamp to join the online conversation!

The Paley Center for Media Celebrates the National Geographic Photo Camp: Crimea

The Paley Center is partnering with Internews to help bring the work and excitement of the National Geographic Photo Camp in Crimea to the world community.

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Sunday, June 13, 2010

What Should You Charge a Client Who Wants to “Go Viral” with Your Images?

What Should You Charge a Client Who Wants to "Go Viral" with Your Images? | @BlackStar Rising
http://ow.ly/1XZrv #photography

[excerpt]

James Cavanaugh recently posed this question to members of LinkedIn's ASMP group: "A client wants you to create photographs that they can use on social sites so they can 'go viral' to promote their company. It means potentially countless people may use your copyrighted work. How would you approach such a request?"

I suggest handling the job as an all-rights assignment. Forget about copyright. Make sure you earn enough from the assignment to cover your costs, overhead and profit. Since it is highly unlikely that your name will remain attached to social network uses, do not discount your price based on some imagined promotional value.

And do not worry about — or expect to earn anything from — residuals, but do retain the right to license other non-exclusive rights to use the images.

There is no way we will ever control the use of imagery made available on social network sites, so stop agonizing over it, accept the paradigm shift of our industry and adapt to the new reality.

You have two choices. Either establish a fee that makes it worthwhile to produce the images without any hope of residuals, or refuse to do the job. Do not factor in, in any way, a potential value for residual use of the images.

Calculating Your Fee

There is a simple formula for calculating what the fee should be. First look at all your overhead expenses to operate your business, not counting expenses specifically applicable to shooting various jobs. Assume $75,000.

Add what you need in take-home pay before taxes. Assume another $75,000.

Thus, the jobs you produce need to generate $150,000 annually.

Now, estimate how many jobs you will be able to do in a year given the pre- and post-production time and marketing time involved with each one. Let's say 100.

Divide the number of jobs into the total you need to produce, and you get an average of $1,500 per job.

You should charge that fee per job, plus all the expenses related to the particular job. (Obviously, your own numbers may be higher or lower than these illustrative figures.)

Some jobs will take a lot longer than others. If the job is not going to take much time you might want to charge less, but when thinking about time involved do not forget pre- and post-production time, waiting time and travel. For those jobs that take a lot longer or are a lot more complicated, you want to charge proportionately more than your calculated average.

In some cases, you will want to take into account the value the customer will receive from using the images produced and add appropriate fees — for example, charging more if the images are to be used in a major ad.

[...]

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