Funcrunch Photo Blog

I posted last week about the concerns that the popular site Pinterest may be encouraging copyright violation by hosting photos (not just thumbnails) on their servers. Since then I have also learned, and verified for myself, that Pinterest strips metadata information from pinned images, regardless of the originating source. I propose that Pinterest change how they host images so that this metadata, which often includes copyright and contact information,remains intact. I also want to correct some misinformation that has been going around regarding the Pinterest "no pin" opt-out meta tag, and legal issues regarding copyright in general.

The site Pinterest has created a lot of buzz lately, positive and negative. Many have touted the site as a great way to share and promote art and ideas. But many photographers and other content creators are concerned about their content being used on this site without their permission. Summary: In my opinion, by encouraging the sharing of other people's content and by storing and displaying images at a large size, Pinterest promotes the growing sentiment that anything you see on the web should be free for the taking. ETA: Please see also my follow-up post on this issue.

Last week, as I do nearly every year, I attended Macworld Expo in San Francisco. Though the show had much less emphasis on desktop computing than in the past (reflected in its rebranding as "Macworld | iWorld"), my primary interest in attending was to attend some great musical performances. At last year's Expo I was introduced to the awesome Zoë Keating and Jonathan Mann, so I had high hopes for this year as well.

It's been a busy year of shooting here at Funcrunch Photo, with over 25,000 images in my Lightroom catalog. Here are a dozen of my favorite photos from 2011.

I live in an apartment building where we have the typical row of narrow metal mailboxes. Large catalogs and packages don't fit in them, and we don't have a doorman or a proper lobby. The postal carriers used to toss these items in the tray below the boxes, but lately they've been sliding them, still rubber-banded together, in the gap under the door. As I'm often home during the day, I usually get the honors of unwrapping this package of catalogs and fliers and finding out perhaps more about my neighbors than they wanted me to know.

I love shooting musicians because I'm a musician myself; I sing and play piano and electric bass. I recently started a new band with my friends Reid (drums) and Ron (guitar), and we had a rehearsal scheduled for today. I asked the guys if they minded if I got a few shots of us for Flickr 11|11|11, and they obliged.

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Last night I went to San Francisco's classic corner of Haight and Ashbury for a love fest: a photowalk open to all lovers of photography. This event was led by Thomas Hawk, who also organized the Berkeley campus photowalk I attended in September.

Last week I spent another three nights at Café du Nord shooting the Blue Bear School of Music showcases. For added excitement and challenge, I also performed in two sets myself, as a vocalist, keyboard, and bass player (not all at once!).

On the first day of September I joined dozens of fellow photographers at my old stomping grounds, the UC Berkeley campus, on a photo walk led by local photographer Thomas Hawk and Google developer advocate Chris Chabot.