Photography

Dream jobs are made where individuals labor in love, and passions are fostered. It is where “working” is hardly the right descriptor for they day-to-day. Seeing people who truly love their work and work for their passion is rare. I want to tell those stories, and I found one worth telling at a place where they produce the tools that make the lives of creative professionals possible- tools that often at first we never knew we needed, but now would find it impossible to live without. [more]

Question from a reader about California labor code and an answer from Carolyn and Leslie at the Photo Attorney. Q. I’m sorry to bother you but I have a question that has not been addressed on any professional photography or photography related website that I can find. In CA the labor code makes work for hire when transferring the ownership of copyright illegal (civil and criminal liability) except in the case of an employer/employee relationship. How does this apply to photographers working in CA when doing small jobs? Is it legal to have work around language that assigns copyright to the person doing the hiring (meaning the agreement says everything a work for hire agreement would say but it doesn’t use the term work for hire); or is it a case of walks like and duck, quacks like a duck, it is a work for hire agreement and therefor illegal in the state of CA? A. Thank you for this important question.  The issue is not that it’s illegal for an independent contractor to agree to a work made for hire agreement in California.  The problem is that when a photographer is hired under a work made for hire agreement, then the photographer, under California state law, is considered an employee rather than a independent contractor.   Specifically, California Labor Code section 3351.5(c)provides that one definition of an “Employee” is: Any person while engaged by contract for the creation of a specially ordered or  commissioned work of authorship in which the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire, as defined in Section 101 of Title 17 of the United States Code, and the ordering or commissioning party obtains ownership of all the rights comprised in the copyright in the work. California Unemployment Insurance Code Section 686 also states that: “Employer” also means any person contracting for the creation of a specially ordered or commissioned work of authorship when the parties expressly agree in a written instrument  signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire, as defined in Section 101 of Title 17 of the United States Code, and the ordering or commissioning party obtains ownership of all of the rights comprised in the copyright in the work. The ordering or  commissioning party shall be the employer of the author of the work for the purposes of this part. Once the photographer is an employee, the employer must pay unemployment and worker’s compensation insurance for the employee.  If not, the employer can be subject to one year in jail and up to $20,000 in fines (California Labor Code section 3700.5 and California Unemployment Insurance Code Section 2122). But there is another way. If the photographer is operating through a business entity (such as an LLC or corporation), then the Labor and Unemployment Codes don’t apply.  If the photographer is an individual/sole proprietor, then don’t use “Work Made for Hire” language in the Agreement.  Instead, you may assign the copyrights to another through language such as: Photographer irrevocably transfers and assigns to the Client the copyrights created as part of the project. Of course, if a photographer agrees to transfer copyrights, hopefully it will be for an appropriately large sum.  And when a photographer hires someone (like a designer) and wants ownership of the material created, also be careful not to violate these laws.  All of this is part of knowing your rights and responsibilities as a professional photographer! – Carolyn E. Wright and Leslie Burns, Law Office of Carolyn E. Wright, LLC (a/k/a the Photo Attorney) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Revolutionary New Website Design: HTML5 Fast, Easy to Build, Smart Phone/Pad Friendly, Multimedia Galleries and Retina Ready. Free demo (h

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Wednesday: 6.19.13 Design Director: Thomas Alberty Photography Director: Jody Quon Photographer: Christopher Anderson (click ad to see today’s visual interview ) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Revolutionary New Website Design: HTML5 Fast, Easy to Build, Smart Phone/Pad Friendly, Multimedia Galleries and Retina Ready. Free demo (here).

Reuters photographer Ricardo Moraes spent time documenting a religious fraternity called O Caminho, (The Way), a group of Franciscan monks and nuns who help the homeless on the streets of Rio de Janeiro. They consider the election of Pope Francis, the first pontiff to take the name of St Francis of Assisi, to be a confirmation of their beliefs in poverty and simplicity. -- Reuters ( 20 photos total)Brother Jose Wellington Damasio Antonio, a member of the Franciscan fraternity O Caminho, prays in the chapel of fraternity's house in the Campo Grande neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro on April 2. (Ricardo Moraes/Reuters)

Red Bench, Ball, and Shadows Red Bench, Ball, and Shadows. San Jose, California. March 16, 2013. © Copyright 2013 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved. A weathered red bench next to a suburban lawn and in front of a home with tree shadows This probably seems like a different sort of photograph from me, but I actually have a thread of images along these lines that goes back quite a ways. They belong to what I think of as “wandering about my neighborhood” photographs, which I make on occasional walks in an extended version of my neighborhood – literally stepping out the front door and then walking. These walks encourage me to see things that I would otherwise miss, both in the general photographic sense of noticing things more when I have a camera in hand and in the more specific sense of noticing things that I otherwise simply pass by in my neighborhood. I distinctly recall one of the first times I did this. I “saw” two things that I simply had never noticed before, even though I’ve lived in this neighborhood for years. First, in a nearby small downtown area there are buildings with more than one level – and it wasn’t until that first walk that I actually noticed the details of the second stories of these buildings. The second thing I noticed were shadows of trees. It turns out – no surprise now that I think about it – that they are everywhere. It was as if every building had trunks and branches and foliage painted on its walls. This photograph includes these shadows. It also has some other compositional elements that interest me – I’ll leave it to viewers to think about them – and there is something interesting to me about that old, weathered bench and the ball parked next to the column on the patio at the top of the concrete stairs. G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more. Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell. Photographs, text and other media in this RSS news feed from the G Dan Mitchell Photography blog are © copyright G Dan Mitchell - all rights reserved. This web site news feed is for personal, non-commercial use only.

Dig those crazy shades on these two bugs. Female Common Whitetail

Joe McNally does it again with a great video on making sure you’re lighting for your overall scene. He breaks down the editorial by first discussing the message he wants to communicate, and then goes on to explain the whys and hows for lighting to achieve that vision. McNally is a great teacher and is able to convey these ideas in a way that even those new [more]

For almost a year we’ve been posting photo tips on our Facebook Photo Page. Below are some recent tips: Photo Tip #192 – Nothing to shoot? There’s ALWAYS something to shoot! Challenge yourself to find new ways to shoot ordinary things… There’s ALWAYS something to shoot! Photo Tip # 191 – Keep your main subject out of the middle of the photo! Rule of Thirds Photo Tip # 183 - Make sure they know what your photo is about! Make sure they know what your photo is about! We’re loading these tips onto our new site – Prime Photo Tips!