Goodbye Facebook

So I’ve been on the verge of deleting my Facebook account and pages since late last summer when over 70 of my photos were stolen by someone who called me their friend. I ended up having to design a brand for my photography work, and watermark my photos, which still makes me feel uncomfortable. 

So it happened again. A local venue went on Facebook, stole a copy of a photo I took of one of my favorite local bands, and used it to promote the band’s show this past weekend. The person who took the photo cropped the watermark off cleanly (and left the rest of the photo in tact), so I was back on this fucking hamster wheel. I confronted the owner of the venue, and he hooked me up with a gift certificate, and is going to waive my covers for all shows I shoot from now on. 

I got a really good deal out of it, but it reinforced the fact that Facebook is not the place for me to post my work. I’ve yet to have photos stolen from other sites, to the best of my knowledge, but I decided not to wait for it to happen again. I killed both my Picscursion page and my personal Facebook profile, because I can contact all of the people I care about elsewhere. 

To be perfectly honest, I felt a big wave of joy when I deleted my account and page. The only thing I miss is Messenger, because it was super useful, and allowed me to contact the people I wanted to without dealing with the cesspool that was my feed from time to time. I made sure I got an email address for everyone I was friends with, and I’ve added a lot of them to Google+. 

Supposedly you can use Messenger with your phone number and use it to send and receive message with Facebook friends, but I’ll investigate that later. For now, I’m happy to be free, and I don’t see any reason to ever re-open my account. 

Photography Stuff: Picscursion Launch

So recently, I decided to launch some branding for my photography work. I was rushed (forced) into it, because over 50 of my photos were stolen and reused without my authorization, and I felt that I needed to create a brand and organize my photos to keep this from happening again. While this is something I’ve been planning and working on for some time, I had to move way faster than I wanted to, and I’m still angry.

At any rate, I launched a Facebook Page called Picscursion. I plan to post my newest photo sets there first, so it would be AWESOME if you could Like the page. It would mean a lot to me.

I also started putting my work on 500px, and launched my portfolio site there. It’s really a showcase featuring my best sets, but I can also sell digital copies and large canvas prints via 500px, so there is always a chance that I can make a buck or two.

Finally, I’ll be putting ALL of my photos on Flickr in neat little sets and collections that you can view here.

I also wanted to first apologize about my last few posts, because they haven’t exactly been uplifting, and I’d like to thank all of you who sent me messages of encouragement lately, because it really meant an awful lot to me.

Consumed by Life: Overwhelmed, Disenchanted, and Exhausted

I’ve had a pretty rough go at life lately, and I’m drained. I’m physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted. I feel like humanity has sucked me dry, and my body told me today that it needed a break.

I woke up to heart palpitations in the middle of the night, which has only happened a few times this year, but it’s still scary, and it’s still exhausting. I don’t think they quit until close to 11am. I lost the better part of a night of sleep, but I’ve been sleeping my life away lately, so I can’t really complain. 

A few weeks ago, someone I thought I could trust stole over 50 of my photos and republished them on multiple websites unbeknownst to me. The very minute upside to this is that my photography is getting good enough to be noticed, and people want to reuse the images. The downside is that this debacle has cost me money I don’t really have to spend, and forced me to watermark and clearly copyright all of my work. I always hesitated to watermark my photos, because I never thought anyone would want to steal them, so now I feel like one of those dick photographers that plaster their name and logo over everything. I would, however, rather do that than have more uncomfortable conversations with people who have reused my work without permission, or be forced to retain a lawyer to resolve these kinds of issues. But be rest assured, if it happens again, I *will* retain a lawyer. 

Someone who I met just a few months ago, who I became really quick friends with, is moving back home soon. He came down here for a new creative endeavor, and found that he’d been sold a bill of goods. Enough bad things happened to him here that it’s fair to say that he won’t voluntarily be back in NC for a while. I sat back and watched all of this happen, and there’s nothing that I can do to help, so I’m completely gutted over it. I had plans to work with him on a few projects, that are all presumably shot to hell now. So I’m going to lose a friend, a confidante, and a creative partner all in one shot. 

So yeah, that’s why I’ve been really quiet lately. Either I haven’t had time to say what I wanted to, or just haven’t been in a good enough headspace to say it the way I want to.