Whats Coming Up?
I have a few things in the works. First off if you haven’t already stop by the Solovei Art G
allery in Everett to see the Roaring and Purring exhibit. I have two pieces on display “Demeter” and “Aries”. The exhibit is open until the end of August.
From Sept 4th to August 23rd “Song of the Siren” will be open at the Arts Council of Snohomish County. I will be presenting “Undermined” which has not previously been show in a gallery.
Next is the American Association of University Women Invitational Art Show and Sale Sept 20th and 21st in Stanwood. I will have several photos available and greeting cards. The patrons party with on the 19th and tickets are $20 at the door. This is a mixed media show that has something for everyone; some of the best artists in the region are in attendance.
October 1st 2008 thru March 31st 2009 “Only in Washington” celebrates the Washington State Convention & Trade Centers 20th anniversary. Stop by to see “Cama Beach Cabins 4”
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Flickr 888 Contest Warning
I would like to issue a warning to all you Flickr users out there. Flickr has started up another contest called 888. This is another contest like the 24 hours of Flickr and the terms of service is also very similar. One line that is of special note to everyone that submits photos is that Flickr can sell the photos submitted (via the moo website) without notice or remuneration to the photographer. That’s right folks, they can make a profit from your photos without giving you a dime. This is another case of a large corporation trying to get some charity to line their coffers. I would recommend that you do not submit any photos to 888 until Flickr and Moo come up with a rights management for photographers. Both these corporations make large profits and they shouldn’t be using your work free of charge! Visit Bitzi’s Flickr page where he nicely outlines the terms of services for you.
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Tags: photography, photograph, flickr, flickr 888, 24 hours of fickr
Art in Anacortes, Dont Miss it!
Anacortes Washington is home to a large art festival and juried art show. This last week I’ve spent a couple of days up there in preparation for this show. I had to go drop off three photos for the juried gallery and decided to use the extra time and locale to shoot some photos. Green Point in Washington Park is a lovely place to explore for photographers. It has a combination of rugged coast line and sweeping forest. If your in that area you might want to check it out, the park has well groomed trails and tide pools. It’s a great way to spend an afternoon.
Saturday I attended the patron’s party for “NuArt” which is the juried gallery. 30 artists were chosen for this year’s show and there is some fabulous art work to be viewed! Artist from across the country are 
represented covering a variety of genres; I’m the only black and white photographer this year. The festival and juried gallery are open to the public August 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, if you can’t help it don’t miss out.
On a side note I want to send a shout out to Kelly Warren who sent me a fabulous art card! I commented on the card over at the Creative Construction blog on their weekly prompt and surprise she sent it to me. Thank you Kelly and I’ll be popping something in the mail to you, hope you enjoy it!
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Tags: anacortes, art, bec Thomas, black and white photography, fine art, green point, juried art, nuart, photography, washington
The Biggest Loophole on Flickr
Flickr is arguably the most popular photo social site on the net. You can view photos from ripe armatures to the grandest of the pros with the simple click of the mouse. With millions of photos so easy to access this has also brought many abuses of photographer’s rights into glaring focus. Flickr allows 3rd party API’s to use photos on Flickr to be put on other websites. Now Yahoo Flickr has spelled out that you cannot use copyrighted images without the photographers consent, but there is no policing of this policy. What this has turned into is photographers having their photos stolen by corporations without a usage agreement or proper compensation with amazing regularity.
Big companies using Flickr images without consent is what I like to call corporate charity. They use photographers work and hope they don’t get caught. While it is true that you may get exposure from a site using your photos, the reality is that it isn’t going to make you back more money then you lost from the company stealing your work. Even if your just starting out and feel flattered that they choose your photo to display; remember they are breaking the law in several countries and if they felt your work was good enough to put on your site then your work is good enough for them to pay you for it. Don’t let them use you, you deserve better than that.
The simplest way for companies to steal your work is with an API. When you tag your photos on Flickr they can then be used by an API with those tags. I have now removed the tags from the majority of photos I have on Flickr do to theft. Beware that it is up to you as the photographer to enforce your copyright, no one else is going to do it. I have had to write many letters to companies telling them to remove my photos in 24 hours or I will bill them. Usually they take my photos down, but it does get time consuming. Frankly I have better things to do with my time, how about you?
Flickr now provides stats to pro users and that makes it easier to track down who it stealing your photos. The easiest way to ensure your photos are not being stolen is to watermark them through the middle and to not tag them. If you do find that one of your photos is being used without your consent write them a letter asking them to remove it, do not bother to notify Flickr, they have a hands off approach to it. If you feel that someone is stealing photos, spread it around on the various Flickr groups your a member of. Let everyone know who the offenders are so they can take whatever action that might need to be taken. Also as with most things stay vigilant, the only person looking out for your work is you. Don’t let thieves walk all over you.
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Tags: api, artist blog, arts, exhibition, flickr, gallery, photo, photo theft, photograph, photography, stealing pictures, theft, visual arts
For Those That Missed Out
I’m still editing photos from the opening of Cama Beach State Park. I’ve been a bit hampered by my motherboard dying, but next week with my new CPU life will be back to normal. There were many people that spoke at the opening of Cama Beach do to the fact it’s the first state park to open in 
Washington in the last decade. Rex Derr who is director of Washington States Park commission is one of the most interesting people to watch speak and to photograph. He is a very expressive speaker giving himself the title of one of the most interesting subjects of the day. He also did a lot of politicking and fighting to make sure this park opened to the public
I also got a picture of my friend Laurie Wheeler to get back at her for all the bad photos of me she likes to put on her blog. Laurie has put in many Continue reading ‘For Those That Missed Out’
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Tags: bec thomas photography, black and white, fine art, B&W, nuart, washington, seascape, puget sound, cama beach state park, fine art photography, camano island, cama beach, cama beach grand opening, Rex Derr, Washington state parks commission, event photography, still life, pugt sound, patrons party
If Time Was a Grain of Sand
This week has been an interesting one. We had an extreme low tide, a massive thunder storm, I got interviewed for another blog, and tonight I’m doing the “Goats to Coats” show with my friend Laurie Wheeler. Oh! Let’s not forget the really cool pyrotechnics latter today.
We made it to the beach for the extreme low tide on Wednesday and got some cool photos. I had the help of my two youngest boys to flip rocks and find interesting sea critters to capture into pixels. It was a wonderful day to be a photographer! Shortly after we finished the rock flipping fun the massive thunderstorm moved in. I was itching to take pictures of the lighting but didn’t have a good vantage point, to many trees in the way, maybe next time.
I also did an interview for the Creative Construction blog. It’s a great blog dedicated to creativity and motherhood so go check it out! Latter tonight (7:30pm) at Cama Beach State Park I do the Goats to Coats educational program. One of my Angora goats will accompany me to show off her lovely hair. We will be discussing the history of cloth and spinning. If you’re in the area you welcome to attend, this is a free event. That was my week’s highlights in a nutshell; I hope everyone has a happy and safe 4th of July!
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Just Do It
Today was a nice day here in the Pacific Northwest. We all coward under the great orb in the sky, until we figured out it was the sun. I took my kids down to Cama Beach State Park to play in the cooler air off the water. I ended up talking with a lady who told me she would like to be a photographer but she didn’t know how. Oddly enough the “didn’t know how” part had nothing to do with taking pictures. See she has some skill with a camera but didn’t have the confidence or knowledge to go out and market herself. She asked me how I did it; my answer was rather simple, you just do it.
Alright I know that doesn’t tell you enough does it. I gave her a few pointers, and that got me thinking maybe I should blog it. The first thing I told her was to look into her local arts guild or council. They can have a lot of resources for you to use. If you want to know how to jury into a show, or where the shows even are at, the guild is the place to go. Something else that is important; not only does it take technical skill it also takes a vision. The more unique you are the better, and it ups your chances to make it past a jury. 
You need to lay down some goals for your future direction and brainstorm on how you can make it reality. This is a step many people skip and they shouldn’t. If you don’t know what you want out of this or where you want to go the chances of failure go up tenfold. Lastly, with the internet at your fingertips there isn’t an excuse not to do some research. The information is out there just waiting for you to find it. Those are just a few tips for you to ponder and can be applied to things other than photography. Now get out there and just do it.
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Tags: photography, black and white, fine art, bec Thomas, washington, photo, color, puget sound, cama beach state park, artist, camano island, photog, photographer, the meaning of art, definning art, art defined, Art Links, art review, artist blog, art blog, buying art, collecting art, collector, contemporary art, modern art, museum art, visual arts, arts, exhibition, gallery, pacfic northwest
There’s been a disturbing trend since 911 to point fingers at photographers and regard them with suspicion. I’ve been questioned about why I’m taking photos before; what’s really running through some people’s minds is I might be taking photos for a terrorist. It’s a bunch of ridiculous non-sense! Really people, if a terrorist was going to take pictures, first they most likely would use a point and shoot pocket camera so they would blend in, that means everyone who owns a camera is suspicious, ya right. Bruce Schneier of the UK paper Guardian wrote an article about this topic earlier this month, please take a look at it when you got a minute http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jun/05/news.terrorism he makes some great points.
Government propaganda has got people scared and un-trusting of everything; if you see us out there with a camera it’s not because we’re out to get you. I was happy to see that Tony Overman’s charges dropped against him today http://www.theolympian.com/localnewsfeed/story/483448.html , I hope other photographers arrested for no reason, like Perry Drake http://www.9news.com/news/local/article.aspx?storyid=89738 and Simon Lund http://www1.villagevoice.com/news/0824,464895,464895,2.html have similar outcomes. Photographers shouldn’t be held as suspicious and untrustworthy because they are trying to record our history. Don’t let fear control, it’s ugly.
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Tags: photography, photo, photographer, news, harassmet, suspicion, 911
Today Was the Day
Cama Beach State Park opened today to the public. I was down for the big event and took many pictures of this final phase of this process. Area Manager Jeff Wheeler 
gave the official “its open” and many speeches preceded his very short one. Important officials from around the state came out to celebrate this project 20 years in the making. Governor Chris Gregoire gave a speech thanking everyone for all their help with getting Cama to completion. All the while I did what I do best, I click, click, clicked pictures as fast as I possibly could. 
The only downside to my afternoon, and all the other photogs there, was the direction of the stage caused us extreme lighting issue. On the upside the weather was nice enough I actually got sun burnt a rare thing here in the Pacific Northwest! Here are a couple of my shots that will be for the archives, hope you enjoy and maybe I’ll see you down there sometime!
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Tags: bec thomas photography, black and white, fine art, washington, seascape, puget sound, cama beach state park, fine art photography, camano island, cabins, cama beach, california poppies, governor Chris Gregoire, cama beach grand opening
Beginnings and Ending
Today was the last day for me to shoot photos down at Cama Beach State Park before it is open to the 
public. In this last week till opening, everyone is hustling and bustling to get all the final touches done. Peg, who is Cama Beach’s Custodian, was gracious enough to let me into a cabin that is all finished and ready to go. I’ve snapped a few shot from inside that I will post up for everyone to get a sneak peak at. I’m a little sad that I’ll no longer have the run of the park without the public getting in my way, but it’s also a breath of fresh air that a project 
that has been worked on for so long it finally coming to completion. I’ve taken hundreds of photos documenting the work being down and I hope that when future people look back and see them they feel I did a good job of showing what it was like and what it took to make this a state park. I guess these photos are a little way of making sure I’m part of the history that will be Cama Beach.
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Tags: bec thomas photography, black and white, fine art, washington, seascape, puget sound, cama beach state park, fine art photography, camano island, cabins, cama beach, california poppies
