To start off, Strider has a home now! Annnd my car is broke'd. The ABS and Break light came on at random the other day. Gotta take it in to have the dealership look at it.

Now below is a bit of a rant about something that really makes no sense to me. And I'm open to understanding, so feel free to try to explain... but here we go:

Sooo I was looking at a piece one of the photomanipulators I watch had done and a stock company posted how they couldn't sell prints of the image because it used their stock and she hadn't asked permission for this. The stock used was stars/cosmos... it was very faint in the top of the image and in all honesty looks like every other picture of stars you'd ever seen in your life... so this is my issue...

Stock artists make no sense to me. I get it from the starving photographer point of view. As you're working on your art work you sell some images to stock sites for companies to subscribe to and use for their ads. Okay, great... it makes money for you and that's awesome. Though likely you still have a day job that drives you nuts anyhow.

But with photo manipulation... there's a line to be drawn as with illustration. Especially for those who give it out for free use something so basic as.... stars... or... a field... okay... so you took a picture of some stars. It's not a dramatic one... it's not even a great one... but when put with other items it has a nice extra effect... on the whole no one will be able to tell it from any other picture of stars -ever-... so why get so up in arms about it?

Now when it comes to photo editing it's a different deal than illustration/reference use... But really, odds are if she never mentioned it no one would ever know. Now, if she didn't mentioned the horse in the image? that's far more identifiable.

It's less so with illustrative/reference pieces. You use a photo for reference, okay cool. So long as your piece doesn't copy the piece (like the horse is galloping and you need to draw a galloping horse... so you use the anatomy to draw a horse... galloping...) you have every right and don't have to mention the ref... However, it's great to. It's a nod to the photographer for inspiring/helping you. And still folks get up in arms about it when they, really, can't. Now if the horse looks identical? Have a bit more right as it's easier to identify... unless you're just a terrible artist, heh.

Do you see how this baffles me? I tried photography... and I honestly got bored. Yeah, I have fun taking pictures now and again now and do a decent job when I try. I wasn't bad at it... but it was too... simple for me. And I didn't feel like the photos were 'mine'... I was taking a picture of what was already there... Capturing an image all too simply to have any ownership to it... I think the ownership of such literally copied things belongs to the animals/people/places/things you take them of. (This changes, to me, when you add filters, or develop it yourself with interesting techniques... anything that doesn't make it an identical image... which is why while I do realism it's still obviously a painting/pastel etc... or what would the point be?)
** To add to this, when you're doing a painting/drawing there's so much more effort going into it -to- produce something close to a literal copy. There's a journey and a technique... when you snap a picture of a chair now in the digital age... yeah you paid for that equiptment... but apart from a good composition... that's kinda... it? And composition is valid... but in stock photography composition isn't important because people might be editing it anyway.


But yeah... That's my headshake about this stuff. And perhaps it's just my illustrative mind. I can -see- the arguments that might be made about it... but i think they're silly... *shrugs* I guess it kinda goes with that argument of what is viewed as art. What would you pay for... but thing is... I can appreciate even some of the weirdest modern art... wouldn't buy it but I can understand it... this one I can't past a certain extent. (like mediocre pictures of stars or grass, or a foot ball, or rocks)

hehe... the more I think about this... the more thoughts I want to add...

It's really a question, ultimately of... when is an image no longer your image? legally, publicly, morally, literally... it can go on and on from here... but I'd be interested to hear all your thoughts on that question... what defines the ownership of an image to you all? When is it no longer there's? How much legal right should there be over it and when, if ever, does it stop? To what point of manipulation/usage/size...etc?