by hankinslawrenceimages | Oct 28, 2009 | News
As you’ve probably noticed, there have been lots of changes to this blog over the past few months.
Several months ago, Bill and I realized that our photography was going in two different directions – and that we were both getting frustrated trying to merge our photos into one collection that worked well together on our website and at shows. So we decided it was time for our photographs to go their separate ways. For those of you who know us – don’t worry – our marriage is fine – it’s just our photos that have separated. 🙂
Eyeliner Lily (c) 2009 Patty Hankins
I realized that flowers are what I love to photograph. I’m fascinated by all the colors, shapes, textures and varieties. I’m discovering all the wonderful wildflower and their native environments. This year, I’ve made numerous trips to local botanical gardens and parks, as well as traveling literally up and down the East Coast from Maine to Florida to the Smoky Mountains to photograph the wildflowers. I’ve never been happier in my life than I am these days photographing flowers.
In May, I launched my new website BeautifulFlowerPictures.com and began doing shows with just my flower photographs. All of my photographs are presented as gallery wrapped canvases. They allow you to create an indoor garden that will bloom year round in your home. Some of my photos are also available as notecards. I will be showing my photographs at two more shows this year – the Craftsmen’s Classic Art & Craft Show in Richmond, VA on November 6-8 and the Fairfax Holiday show in Fairfax, VA on November 21-22.
Zabriskie Dawn (c) 2009 William Lawrence
Bill has always been a grand landscape photographer at heart. He loves to show the subject of his photography in the context of its environment. He creates photographs with sweeping expanses of sky and earth to accentuate the beauty of the scene. He prefers to use his large format camera. It allows him to slow down and see more clearly and deeply into the interrelationships of all the elements in the scene.
This past weekend, Bill launched his new blog – Lawrence’s View and introduced his first new photograph Zabriskie Dawn. His new photographs will be presented as limited editions of no more than 100. His work will be be printed on Hahnemuhle Photorag 308 gsm paper. He planning on introducing his photographs on his new blog, as well as sharing his thoughts on photography. You can subscribe to his blog by email or in a reader using his RSS feed.
Bill’s new photographs (and a few of his older ones) will be available at the Fairfax Holiday Show in Fairfax, VA on November 21-22.
Since Bill now his own blog, and I’ve been posting mainly my photography here for the past few months – I renamed this blog this morning to Beautiful Flower Pictures Blog. The change doesn’t affect subscriptions by either email or RSS feed. They should continue to work just as they always have. You can access my blog at the current URL of http://hankinslawrenceimages.wordpress.com/ or through it’s new name of BeautifulFlowerpicturesBlog.com I’ll still be posting my flower photographs, an occasional landscape photo, and my regular Friday links posts.
Bill and I have always appreciated all the enouragement and support we’ve gotten from our readers for our photography. We invite you to come along on our photographic journeys as we share our work through our Beautiful Flowers Pictures and Lawrence’s View blogs.
by hankinslawrenceimages | Oct 11, 2009 | Flowers, News
Presidente Lilies (c) 2009 Patty Hankins
Presidente Lilies is the BeautifulFlowerPictures.com Photo of Month. This is one of my favorite (and most popular) lily photographs. This cluster of pink and white Presidente lilies was one of those groupings I just had to photograph.
Until October 31 2009, SAVE 20% off the regular prices for Presidente Lilies. The photograph is available in two sizes of gallery-wrapped canvases.
Save $ 20 on the 12X15″ Canvas – regular price $ 100 – October Photo of the Month Price – $ 80.00
Save $ $ 73 on the 20X26″ Canvas – regular price $ 365 – October Photo of the Month Price – $ 292.00
Free shipping to U.S. Addresses for either size photograph.
As with all photographs from BeautifulFlowerPictures.com, The Lotus Pond comes with my Unconditional Happiness Guarantee. You have one year to decide that it is the perfect photograph for you. If it’s not, just return it (in original condition) for a full refund.
by hankinslawrenceimages | Sep 1, 2009 | News
Renoir Lilies (c) 2009 Patty Hankins
Renoir Lilies is the BeautifulFlowerPictures.com Photo of Month. When I saw this group of pink and white lilies, surrounded by the yellow yarrow, I knew I had to photograph it. I just loved the way the colors and shapes work together.
Until September 30, 2009, SAVE 20% off the regular prices for Renoir Lilies. The photograph is available in two sizes of gallery-wrapped canvases.
Save $ 17 on the 8X18″ Canvas – regular price $ 85 – September Photo of the Month Price – $ 68.00
Save $ $ 53 on the 14X30″ Canvas – regular price $ 265 – September Photo of the Month Price – $ 212.00
Free shipping to U.S. Addresses for either size photograph.
As with all photographs from BeautifulFlowerPictures.com, The Lotus Pond comes with my Unconditional Happiness Guarantee. You have one year to decide that it is the perfect photograph for you. If it’s not, just return it (in original condition) for a full refund.
by hankinslawrenceimages | Aug 5, 2009 | Nelumbonaceae Family, News
The Lotus Pond (c) 2008 Patty Hankins
The Lotus Pond is the BeautifulFlowerPictures.com Photo of Month. It was photographed last year at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens in Washington DC. Kenilworth Gardens is a national park along the Anacostia River. One of the highlights of the gardens are the 28 water gardens filled with water lilies and lotus blossoms. If you’re in the DC area in the summer, you really should pay a visit to Kenilworth Gardens.
Until August 31, 2009, SAVE 20% off the regular prices for The Lotus Pond. The photograph is available in two sizes of gallery-wrapped canvases.
Save $ 17 on the 8X18″ Canvas – regular price $ 85 – August Photo of the Month Price – $ 68.00
Save $ $ 53 on the 14X30″ Canvas – regular price $ 265 – August Photo of the Month Price – $ 212.00
Free shipping to U.S. Addresses for either size photograph.
As with all photographs from BeautifulFlowerPictures.com, The Lotus Pond comes with my Unconditional Happiness Guarantee. You have one year to decide that it is the perfect photograph for you. If it’s not, just return it (in original condition) for a full refund.
by hankinslawrenceimages | Jul 2, 2009 | Asteraceae Family, News
Field of Sunflowers (c) 2007 Patty Hankins
Field of Sunflowers is the BeautifulFlowerPictures.com Photo of Month. It was photographed at McKee-Beshers Wildlife Management Area in Poolesville, Maryland. If you visit McKee-Beshers WMA in July, you’ll find a couple of large of sunflowers. You’ll also see lots of photographers, painters and other artists smiling as they create their art. It is my favorite place to photograph in early July.
Until July 31, 2009, SAVE 20% off the regular prices for Field of Sunflowers. The photograph is available in two sizes of gallery-wrapped canvases.
Save $ 17 on the 8X18″ Canvas – regular price $ 85 – July Photo of the Month Price – $ 68.00
Save $ $ 53 on the 14X30″ Canvas – regular price $ 265 – July Photo of the Month Price – $ 212.00
Free shipping to U.S. Addresses for either size photograph.
As with all photographs from BeautifulFlowerPictures.com, Field of Sunflowers comes with my Unconditional Happiness Guarantee. You have one year to decide that it is the perfect photograph for you. If it’s not, just return it (in original condition) for a full refund.
by hankinslawrenceimages | Jun 29, 2009 | News
It happened again. Another set of photos of mine were stolen and posted on the web without permission. Usually, I’m fine with just getting the photos removed. But this time, the story needs to be more public due to the actions of the thief.
On Sunday morning, I received an email from someone on flickr alerting me that one of my butterfly photos from the Butterfly Rainforest was in Tulsa7035”s photostream. I did a quick check – and yes it was my photo of the banded grecian shoemaker butterfly. After doing a little exploring of Tulsa7035’s photostream – I found two additional photographs of mine in her collection.
The first thing I did after finding the photos in her photostream was to make PDF files of the Flickr pages – and downloaded copies of the files to my hard drive.
Next I sent a letter to Flickr that met their rules under their Copyright and Intellectual Property Policy My letter was based on PhotoAttorney Carolyn Wright’s excellent letter in her Using the DMCA Takedown Notice to Battle Copyright Infringement.
And then I posted info on the theft, with links to the copies, to Twitter. From past experience, I knew that my twitter friends (and all of their friends) can be a great help in dealing with situations like this. Not too long after I posted my tweets, comments began to appear on the photos in her flickrstream – with links to my original photos.
I believe the comments caused Tulsa7035 to remove one of my photos from her flickr account. As of this morning, two of the photos are still posted under her account.
The two photos of mine that are still in her flickrstream are
A Giant Charaxes butterfly – my photo on flickr – and the copy in her photostream
A Golden Birdwing Butterfly – my photo on flickr and the copy in her photostream
Please note the difference between my photos on flickr and copies she posted. On the copies in her flickrstream – there are no watermarks on the photos. All the metadata is missing. They are posted with a creative commons license (rather than the all rights reserved I use).
In other words – by stripping all of my identifying information and changing the license – she effectively has turned my copyrighted photograph into orphan works. If someone wants to license them, they have no way of knowing that I am original photographer and that I did not place the photos in the commons. I no longer have control over these three copyrighted photographs.
Tulsa7035 has deleted several comments on the photos in her photostream linking her copies to my originals and identifying them as stolen photos.
Tulsa7035’s actions aren’t going to stop me from posting my photos on the web. I’ll continue to post them – watermarked with my copyright notice and with my contact info in the metadata. And I will file DMCA notices every time I find a stolen photo. Unfortunately, dealing with thieves is the price photographers have to pay for sharing our work on the web.
There is, however, a bright side to this entire mess. In the past 24 hours, I have received so much encouragement, support and help from my network of friends on Twitter, Facebook and Flickr. They have posted spectacular comments on Tulsa7035’s flickr account, filed complaints with Flickr, provided me with contact info to help get this resolved – and emailed, tweeted and FB commented so much wonderful supportive notes. Thanks everyone for all the help – having online friends like I’ve got makes it much easier to deal with the occasional photo thief.
Hopefully, I’ll be able to post soon that the stolen photos have been removed.
Update – Monday evening – Flickr has let me know that they have taken appropriate action. My photos have been removed from Tulsa7035’s account.
Thanks again for all the help in dealing with this mess. I really appreciated all the wonderful comments my friends made on the photos on Flickr!
