Author: janikphoto

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I’ve Got Tulips…

I bought some tulips the other day. They looked so rich and colorful, so I decided to play around and take some photographs with one of my homemade/DIY lens systems that I’ve attached to my Canon EOS 5DmkII. The lens was featured in a previous post right here, if you want to know more about it.




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The Best? Really?!?

Spin put up a slideshow online of what they consider to be the 25 best live concert photos of 2011:
Really?!? Of all the thousands of images you have access to, these are your top 25 shots? Let me break it down for you, because they aren’t all bad. I see about five really awesome photos, ten really nice images and another ten that wouldn’t even make my top one hundred list… maybe not even my top one thousand! Maybe I missed the disclaimer that said “This list was compiled by our intern“.
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Religious Graffiti Project…

I’ve been working on a personal photo project for a long time now… maybe 15 to 17 years or so. It involves public messages of faith and religion, usually in the form of graffiti, tattoos, scribbling, illegal postings or other unique displays. The project focuses less on the questions and answers of whether God exists or not, and more about how individuals struggle with the idea as they display their level of faith publicly – often breaking the law to do so.
The images below are a small sample of the project, though I’d love to find the funding to complete it, or at least take it further. I have a couple locations that I still want to photograph, and hopefully I’ll get to one day. Maybe I should try one of those kickstarter.com campaigns to fund this project. I wonder if there’s enough interest?

If you like these images, you should check out my other photography at www.janikphoto.com
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Shame On Denver’s 92.5 FM The Wolf…

This story about a radio station stealing a photographer’s images doesn’t surprise me:

I’ve dealt with several radio stations in the past, and I’ve occasionally run into people at certain stations who don’t feel like it’s necessary to show photographers and their photography any respect. I won’t get into any specific details on my negative experiences, since most of them were immoral, but not illegal. However, this Denver radio station (The Wolf 92.5 FM) that Scott D. Smith is battling sounds like they more than crossed the line.
If they are simply going to steal his photos, because they wanted to use them without paying, well… why don’t they start stealing the electricity to run the station, gas to power the station’s vans and not pay their workers? It’s the the same illegal action, no matter what you steal.
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New Lensbaby Tilt Lens…

I haven’t used my old Lensbaby lens in a long time. I just saw it in my drawer today. Then I got an email from the Lensbaby company about this new lens they have:

lensbaby.com/optics-edge80.php

I think the Edge 80 might be pretty fun to play around with! I can imagine getting some pretty fun stuff at the next concert I shoot or the next environmental portrait I do. Here’s a screen grab of my favorite sample pic from their gallery, taken by Kevin Kubota:
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Old Polaroid Film…

I pulled out my Hasselblad 501c/m today. It has been collecting dust lately. I found a few sheets of old Polaroid film still in the holder, probably not touched for the last few years. I didn’t expect it to work anymore.

I know the type 55 b/w stuff will last a long time past its expiration date, but the color stuff doesn’t have the same longevity. The processing chemicals dry up and it becomes useless. Well, this stuff wasn’t useless. The colors may have faded and the film isn’t quite what it used to be, but it still rendered an image!
Man, how I missed pulling that strip out of the back of the holder and then grabbing hold of the film and giving a firm yank! It was an action that felt purposeful and manly. I can still smell the Polaroid chemicals…

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Copyright Scam?!?

If the internet scammers are now pretending to be the RIAA, what’s next? I saw a message in my spam folder and decided to check it out for the heck of it. It was obviously a phishing scam, since the attachment was a ZIP file, and not even a PDF of DOC file.

Since I do so much work in the music industry and have even been awarded an RIAA-certified Gold Record for my album photography, it is possible that someone with the RIAA might want to contact me. To taylor this scam even more, these thieves could pretend to be from a trusted photography organization. Who knows what they’ll try next?
Here is a copy of the text from the bogus email:
Dear XXX, hereby we notify you that your IP address has been identified as distributing copyrighted content. Please see the attachment to this message for illicit Internet traffic details.
Failure to respond to this message within 14 days will result in copyright infringement accusation and standard legal procedures.


Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)…………………
tel: 202-775-0101 fax: 202-775-7255