Photographer’s guide to Creative Commons

Believe it or not, giving away your images for free can be the pathway to selling more photos and making more money -- when you use a licensing structure called Creative Commons.

Creative Commons allows photographers to share their work by pre-authorizing the types of uses you will allow. Here's how it works.

You make your work available in a pool of images used by individuals, bloggers, and companies. Some may just use the images for screen savers. Most will use the photos for blogs and marketing products. 

For each published use, the user gives you credit and links back to your site. If enough people use your work, you could drive significant traffic and exposure your way. With enough raving fans, you have the seeds of a thriving business.

Trey Ratcliff's Stuck in Customs travel blog is probably the most celebrated example of this approach. Trey says when he decided to go with the Creative Commons strategy, traffic surged to 150,000 photo views per day, making it the most trafficked photography blog. His business has also grown to 10 people, and he reports that they are profitable. Trey credits all this success to his decision to give away his work for noncommercial applications, and use licensing deals for commercial uses to make money.

How can it work for you? Creative Commons uses four elements to construct a license: 

• Attribution - Every license has this component. If you use the work, you have to give credit. 
• Commercial use - Can you use the work to make money? Decide if you want images only used on editorial or educational outlets like blogs or schools, or if you don't mind someone selling your images on T-shirts, for instance.
• Derivatives - Can someone remix the work? Your images might inspire a designer to create something totally different. Are you okay with that?
• Share alike - If someone creates a derivative, do you want them to use the same sharing licenses you did? You can instruct derivatives to be shared freely, if that's how you prefer your work to be used.

These four elements can be combined to create six licensing alternatives. It might seem like that can easily get confusing, but Creative Commons has a cool Help Me Choose function on their website that walks you through the key questions and produces the right option. It even gives you the HTML to embed into your site.

As a creative, you should know that your work is protected the moment you create it. You don't need to do anything for it to be covered by copyright. If you want to be able to collect damages, you will need to register each creation with the U.S. Copyright office. Registering costs only $35, but you will have the confidence that you can be compensated for any unauthorized use.

How will you know if someone uses your photo? You can include a request that the user send you a link for your records, but nothing will require them to comply. You will be relying on their willingness to take the extra step. 

The best way to make sure you find your images is purchasing a service that tracks the images for you. They will embed a digital signature into your file. These services then scour the internet to find any uses of the photo. When you get a hit, you can check to see that the work is being used as you outlined.

You will have to decide if it is worth the time and expense to go looking for use or misuse of your images. Trey Ratcliff's approach is not to worry about piracy and let karma sort out the good and bad. 

Worked out pretty well for him. Freebies and pirates helped him create a great life as a photographer. Do you think it can work for you? How might you use Creative Commons?

By the way, if you are interested in copyright issues, check out my interview with IP attorney Phil Marcus.

Recording - Our Cherry Blossom bests & busts

In this webinar, we relived the high points and challenging moments of the Cherry Blossom Festival. I asked you to share your bests and busts, and here's what you said. Even better, many of you joined the conversation to talk about your experiences. 

Thanks for joining!

Why you can't find time to take pictures

+ Six of my friends who are getting it right

You don't want to. That's the simple answer, but it's more complicated than that, isn't it? You have to work. Gotta earn a living. You have a family. Gotta be responsible. You have friends and other obligations. Gotta be balanced.

It's hard to find time for pictures.

And it's not because you don't want to… You would, if you had more time, right? Here's the ugly truth. You aren't going to find more time. You can make more time, if you really want to create art, grow your talent, or document the world around you. Try these strategies.

Schedule smaller chunks.

We often think we have to take off the entire afternoon or morning to do a photo walk. Imagining the task so big makes it easier to defer. How about a photo project where you use the first 15 minutes of your lunch break to photograph something. It can be even shorter than that. Diahn Ott did a Project 365 one year where she photographed her family every day at 8 am. Soon she built a fascinating catalog of faces and expressions. You could tell which days they had coffee before 8:00 am and after 8:00 am. She scheduled a small chunk of time every morning to get her photos in.

Build it into existing hobbies.

If you know you are spending time with another interest or hobby, try pairing the two. Photography doesn’t have to exist individually. I love the way Ali Drew does this. She is seriously into her Mini Cooper cars. I think she is even an officer in the Mini Cooper association. Yes, that kind of devotion. If you follow Ali’s blog or postings, you will find her Mini Cooper, Tigger, and those of her friends show up in a lot of her work. If the Mini Cooper club is out congregating with their cars, Ali is taking photos of them.  

Make it a daily project.

I harp on Project 365 because the public commitment to shoot daily can be an incredible motivation to find the time. Emily Carter never ceases to amaze me with this one. Emily already shoots more than most casual enthusiasts, but she has been disciplined since beginning her Project 365 exercise this year. I don’t think she’s missed a day yet. She’s photographing birds and barns, flowers and sometimes just the cracks in the sidewalk.  It looks like she is having a ball.

Make it a part of your family time.

You don’t have to choose between children and photography if you include them in your passion. In fact, today’s youth are growing up with cameras on phones and iPods. Photography is not a big deal for many of them. You might find them happy to create with you. Tony Mayo does this with his daughter. On last night’s webinar, he talked about photographing Cherry Blossoms while she held his flash off camera. Dad and daughter bonding time over creative lighting. Gotta love that. I saw them do the same thing on one of my night photography workshops. She had her own camera, but it was great to see them working on shots together.

Use it with your work or calling.

You can find so many ways to make your camera part of your business or calling. These days, it can be an easy way to help with your marketing and PR.

Connie Thompson is a pastor in Manassass, VA who uses photography as a part of her ministry. Her latest idea was to use a 100 Strangers approach to take photos of people in her community. Her church would then pray for the people in the images. Amen to that.

Take a camera everywhere.

It really doesn’t matter what kind. Take your camera phone. Take your point & shoot. Heck, take your DSLR. My good friend Steve Rosenbach shamed me with this one. We met for lunch one day and saw an interesting leaf. Steve whipped out his point & shoot and went to work. I looked on feeling silly that I didn’t have a camera with me. I never showed up again camera-less.

Permit yourself to take bad pictures.

We can overcome perfection paralysis by taking more bad photos. Many times we won’t even bother to take a picture because the conditions aren’t ideal. Who wants to take a bad photo? Local photography instructor Sam D’Amico once wrote a blog post that challenged us to take that shot anyway. It’s a cop out to wait until conditions are ideal. Take the crappy situation and challenge yourself to find something interesting. You might not end up with a bad photo if you are open to taking one. Does that make sense?

There you go. Six ways to make time for pictures. Your clock still has 24 hours in a day. Your minutes still tick away 60 seconds at a time. Our challenge is being more deliberate about making your pictures a priority. Make the time. If you really want to.

Are you struggling to find time to shoot? What strategies do you use to make time?

My crappy photo ruined this story

There were at least seven minutes before my train arrived at the Smithsonian Station. Like most people on the platform late that afternoon, I scrolled through the day's images, checking them on the back of my camera.

The cool thing about reviewing images right after a shoot is you also relive the memories. Then there was this odd moment. I stopped at a photo of a guy in black shorts a red t-shirt. He was standing on a bench trying to get a close-up of a blossom that was out of his reach. I snapped a couple images but couldn't get the angle I wanted. Oh well.

But on that bench, in the train station, when I looked to my right, there was a guy sitting next to me in a red t-shirt and black shorts. I studied him for a moment, then back to my image. Really?

"Excuse me, but do you recognize this guy?" I asked.

His mouth dropped open. 

"When did you get that? How did you… Why did you want to photograph me?"

"I was taking photos of the photographers, and I thought you were in an interesting location."

We shared a smile. What are the odds that I'd be reviewing an image of someone who happened to be sitting next to me hours later.

I loved the story…except the picture was crappy.

Don't you hate when a crappy picture ruins a good story? That photo is one of my Cherry Blossom busts I'll share with you Tuesday night. 

Join me at 7 pm, April 16, to see the crappy picture that ruined my story and some cool images that I enjoyed shooting. 

What about you? Do you have any bests or busts from Cherry Blossom week? Share them with us, and let's have fun reliving the Cherry Blossom Festival.

Register now.

Photo Challenge: Springtime blossoms & buds

I figure many of us will be out capturing Cherry Blossoms or the springtime scenes this coming week, so let’s make that our challenge. If you are in the Washington, DC area, share your Cherry Blossoms or any other flowers that show the dawn of spring for you.

The Challenge

This is really a springtime, flower photography challenge. Share your blossoms and buds. If you have Cherry Blossoms, I’d love to see those, too. 

Share your images with us

Once you have a great photo, post it in the comments or in our Google + Photo Projects 2013 community.

Join the Photo Projects 2013 community.