By the south end of “Big Bird,” the JAL terminal at Haneda Airport in Tokyo, I spotted this:
This is where the Grand Poo-Bahs go to board their airplanes. Have I just found a totally awesome paparazzi perch? Or is this the future I have to look forward to when they elect me Prime Minister?
The Taipei Times is reporting that “Taipei Financial Center Corp (TFCC), owner of Taipei 101, said it will start charging companies for any commercial usage of the image of the world’s tallest building in a bid to protect its trademark.”
Last year alone, TFCC found over 1,000 cases of other companies using Taipei 101 as a promotional tool — mostly in real estate advertising — that could potentially mislead consumers, Wei said.
As a result, TFCC decided to charge royalty for any commercial use of the building’s image. For example, a poster featuring the Taipei 101 tower will be charged NT$100,000 (US$3,099), Wei said.
[…]
Use for the government and public is free of charge, Wei said.The decision drew the ire of advertisers and TV producers, as other major landmarks around the world, such as the Empire State Building in New York City and the Eiffel Tower in Paris, have no such charges.
Unfortunately, the last statement seems to be only half true. In a clever manuever, photographs of the Eiffel tower itself are not copyrightes, but in 2003 a new lighting display was installed. Since the design of the lights is copyrighted, photographs of the lighting disaply are as well, which by extension means any photos of the Eiffel Tower at night.
As a result, it’s no longer legal to publish current photographs of the Eiffel Tower at night without permission. Technically, this applies even to amateurs. When I spoke to the Director of Documentation for SNTE, Stéphane Dieu, via phone last week, he assured me that SNTE wasn’t interested in prohibiting the publication of amateur photography on personal Web sites. “It is really just a way to manage commercial use of the image, so that it isn’t used in ways we don’t approve,” said Mr. Dieu.
It may be some minor comfort that owners of iconic buildings such as the Eiffel Tower or Taipei 101 claim that they won’t prosecute non-commercial infringers, but the fact is that there is nothing stopping them from being a nuisance to anyone that publishes such a photo, even on a personal blog like this one. Does anyone really think that laws allowing for these kinds of restrictions are reasonable? I can’t wait for 2012 (to be optimistic) when security teams are stealing cameras from tourists snapping photos of the new “Freedom Tower” at New York’s World Trade Center.
Larger size here.
Larger size here.
Taken December 28, 2005 at a friend’s birthday party. The red glow comes from the focus assist light of someone’s miniature digital camera. I was looking through my camera while they took a photo, and when I saw the appearance of the scene bathed in orange light I had them keep it trained on the subject while I took my own photos.
Both taken with Canon 300D and 17-85mm EF-S lense.
Former front yard of a decaying mid-demolition Japanese style house in Taipei.
The mahjong tiles are scattered on the floor just inside the door you see in the background here.
January 28 2006. Canon EOS 300D with 50mm 1:1.8 Mark II lense.
Large image here.
One of the last traces of whoever used to live in an abandoned old Japanese style house behind my apartment building in Taipei. The house is currently being demolished, so I went inside to explore.
January 28 2006. Canon EOS 300D with 50mm 1:1.8 Mark II lense.
Larger size image is here.
I’ve just put a few photos from Manila online.
Security guard with a shot-gun. A common site all throughout the city. Every single business that deals in more than miniscule amounts of cash has at least one armed guards, even McDonald’s and 7-11. Click the photo to see the rest of this set.
With this, which requires nothing but a Pringles can, some black cloth, and some other, even cheaper, materials…
You can take photos like this.
Directions are here. Luckily, I already have the excellent (and super super cheap) Canon 50mm 1.8F lense that he uses as a base.
Some people might give me shit for this, but whatever.
This is cool because it shows a 25 year evolution in swimsuit fashion in Japan. And um, the women look nice.
You might not know it from looking at my blog or flickr page, but I have been continuing to take photographs regularly. I’ve even bought a new lense (Canon 1.8F 50mm) and the DXO software package, an amazing piece of software that takes the photos from your digital SLR camera and processes them using algorithms that correct for most of the optical defects introduced in the interaction between your camera body and particular lense that you were using. Later on I’ll post a couple of before and after images to show off how amazing this program really is.
In the meantime, I’ve just uploaded a new gallery of 26 images from my August trip to Penghu. Those 26 were chosen out of about 300, and here I’ll post just the best few out of the 26 I put on flickr. As usual, click the image for the fullsize version.
The harbor of one of the smaller inhabited islands, taken from the boat.
Penghu is located between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland, a natural place to put a military base. Here are some soldiers eating breakfast in the town market area.
Just the side of a building.
This is the main intersection of one of the remote island villages. Quite a change of pace from Taipei.
The the only building on this tiny beach island. It was apparently the location of a lousy soap opera called “Dolphin Bay,” now used as a tourist site.
While the more heavily visited side of the abovementioned islet is a beautiful sandy beach, the opposite side is a rocky, desolate, alien landscape. I took a number of closeup photos like this one, in which the tiny sea creatures actually look like aliens.
The BBC has a wonderful first person account of the story behind this iconic photograph.
I looked around for cover but there was none – the only areas that offered any protection were back up Changan Avenue near the Beijing Hotel. About the time I reached some trees along the avenue the soldiers opened up on the crowd at the top of the square. There was panic as people were being hit.
It was impossible for me to shoot pictures as it was too dark and using a flash was out of the question. I looked around and decided that about the only shot left was from the roof of a building with a long exposure of the square and the mayhem.
I went into the Beijing Hotel, which had a commanding view of the top of the square, but when I went in, I was tackled by members of the Public Security Bureau (PSB), China’s secret police.
One of the PSB ran up to me with a electric cattle prod and hit me in the side with it. Others punched and kicked at me. They ripped my photo vest off me and took all the film I had shot that evening. They were going to keep the cameras but I convinced them they were useless without film, so they returned them and I told them I was going to my room.
The PSB had missed three rolls of unexposed film in an inside pocket of the photo vest.
For comparison, here’s a photo I took that shows you the same piece of street on a better day.
