After a long wait (and a brush with the law), we have finally updated the BA photos at the top of the page. If some of the newer visitors are not aware of our ever changing identity, here are a few posts that explain it a little more in depth (Feedback on our BA collection, Our updated photos, Photo pool on Flickr) and here is the entire collection. .

Fellow BADG author Drew Davies took most of these new BA photos on a trip to the Cayman Islands, but we also have some submissions from Adrian, Kyle Heinemann, Clint Carlson, John Sanders, Gregory Golem and I. As always, feel free to upload your own BA photos to our Flickr pool and we will eventually add them to the collection.

And now, on with the story of my run in with “the law” for this very blog.

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A couple weeks ago when I was on a photo shoot in the middle of Indiana. The assignment was to document the workers at a corporation there. Aside from the remote location, it was a fun project. The people were genuinely friendly, the project went smoothly, and the camera I was using really performed well. The only snag came with a photo I needed to take of an Amish worker. The Amish craftsmanship and work ethic is a source of great pride to the company, and they wanted that to be represented in the photos. Out of respect for their religion, we asked worker after worker if they would mind being in a picture. One by one they all declined. The Amish don’t like to be photographed because it might cause them to be tempted by pride. Some didn’t mind if they were in the background of the photos, but almost none of them were willing to be the focus of the picture. I respected the wishes of these people and didn’t take their photo.

When I was done with the “official” photo shoot I spent a couple evenings driving around and taking pictures of rural Indiana. At one point I was walking by some Amish people and had a great photo opportunity. I hesitated knowing how they would feel about getting their photo taken. Did I really need these people’s permission before I could take their photo? If you have ever found yourself in a similar situation, you are probably wondering what your legal rights are. Here are some important things to keep in mind…

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Browsing through stock photo sites ranks right up there with going to the dentist for me. Every time I use one a little piece of me dies. But on a lighter note, check out Forty Media’s list of the top ten Stock Photo Clich√©s. How many times have you seen the “The Handshake of Synergy” the “The Romantic Glow of the Laptop” or the always appropriate “Telecommuting from the Edge.” So true. So sad.

via Photon Detector

I recently received a proof back from the client that had the words “cut grass” next to the photograph. I assume the client wasn’t telling me to change careers, but to trim the unruly grass in the specified photo. Actually, grass is used fairly liberally in this instance. It should have probably said “weed whack”. The photo is of some manufactured equipment that is in its natural environment, i.e. two feet tall weeds growing around it’s base. I’ve cleaned up plenty of photos in my career, but it just seems to be getting ridiculous. Do clients know too much about the powers of Photoshop, or too little? Wouldn’t it just be easier for the client to pay a grounds keeper to mow around the equipment and then retake the photo (which they insist on shooting themselves)?

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I don’t think that my camera likes making time-lapse photography. I can’t blame it for getting bored after taking the same photo several thousand times. It is tedious production work. I set up the camera and then leave it all alone for most of the day. Not exactly a camera’s dream job. So I am not surprised that once in a while my Nikon Coolpix 995 decides to rebel. Once every few thousand images it decides to break the routine and design something more interesting. It moves parts of the photo around. It changes the colors. It repeats the parts that it likes, and deletes what it doesn’t like. If I didn’t know better, I would think that my camera wanted to be a graphic designer. It never resizes the image, but sometimes it leaves a white edge on one side. I think that is its polite way of saying that it would rather work in a different proportion. I guess 4×3 is a digital camera’s equivalent of 8.5×11. It’s boring.

The results of my camera’s improvisation are useless in terms of time-lapse, but often they are quite beautiful on there own. They are almost always more interesting than the photos taken seconds before and after. I am sure there is a more technical explanation for these images, but I prefer my Toy-Story-esque explanation. Rather than delete these images I have decided to save them. It’s best to keep the creatives happy, plus I think they fit very well with my Found Photography theme…

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