Ok, first to get your attention I needed to post a photo I edited last night of the lovely Caro. Caro is from Guadalajara and was just an amazing model to work with. One of those models who was enthusiastic in front of the camera and has a great spirit. She has also been chosen to be in Maxim Espanol, so you know she is a beautiful and capable model.

This shot was taken in Todos Santos, a small village about an hour north of Cabo San Lucas. It was the picture perfect town to shoot in, with the dirt roads and authentic architecture. It was pretty fun to watch the town transform as the photographers and about 15 models show up and start shooting. There is no getting permits, property releases and all that goes with shooting in the states. You show up, grab your camera and shoot away. I guess that’s what makes Mexico so much fun, plus they have amazing beaches to work with. We had every male from about 14 to 25 in town, circling in cars and motorcycles, as we shot. The girls were really rock stars that day.

Dan Heller is not quite as cute as Caro, but he is just as vital to Photographers as any good model is. He is a champion for the industry and is a very succesful author with three book on Photography. He just posted a great entry on his blog regarding copyrights and his idea that we should allow other companies to help facilitate the registering of copyrighted material. But the best part of his post is he explains the how and why’s of copyrighting your images. He is very detail oriented and his research and analysis is to be trusted. I have not had a chance to read the complete post, but will do so this weekend.

Here’s a snippet:

“The Role of Copyright
Copyright is the mechanism that provides accounting, accountability, and protection by way of copyright law. This is because only works that are registered with the copyright office can be protected in a manner that has any real, economic leverage and protection for a company to build a business representing such works. Under copyright law, only registered works are eligible for statutory damages. Here, if someone “steals” a work, fines start at $750, and can grow to $30,000, per infringement. In fact, they can rise to $150,000 if the infringement were deemed to be willful. (This particular deterrent will be important to remember later.) By contrast, the fines for infringing on a non-registered work is whatever the prevailing rate would be if it were properly licensed in the first place. (Ok, there are other values that can be calculated, but that’s besides the point in the bigger picture, since those are more rare than common.) Since we’re talking about micro-valued works such as songs and photographs, a “prevailing rate” of $.99 (or less) per unit is too minimal to justify the legal effort in pursuing infringements. It was for this reason that statutory damages were created in the first place; it’s the only way to give meaningful protection to micro-valued works as a disincentive to steal them. Without statutory damages, protecting the underlying asset is impractical, thereby making investing in building a business unlikely, if not impossible.”

A few months ago Dan and I had a conversation on the phone and I have slowly been transcribing the content, but I think for the sake of getting it to the net, I’ll post it as a podcast. That will be on my to do list for this weekend.