Life’s Lessons

To finish Project 365 or Project 366 (it’s 366 because it’s leap year) has been a challenge for me. This year is my third attempt and I am not sure if I’d be able to finish with this project. It’s a double challenge this year because I am doing two projects using two different Apple applications – the Photo 365 and Project 365. The former will be for just anything that makes or breaks our day while the latter will be for our daily portraits. 

Using the applications is helpful for me because I am reminded to update this project from time to time. Seeing the thumbnails every now and then inspires me and reminds me to continue taking photos. Unlike the previous years, I am very particular with the resolution of the photos, now I am learning to let go of my “perfectionist attitude” when it comes to photos so I don’t care much whether the photos are noisy, underexposed, or whatever. I just need to update this project as much as I can every single day. Bonus for me because Ace is very supportive with both projects and he never fails to remind me to take our portrait. Along with other friends, I hope my “Photo a Day” and “Us in 2012” projects will be a success. I may miss some days but I really hope I won’t get tired taking photos and updating my two photo a day projects.  

Got a call last Thursday telling me that MacPlas’ (the company I worked for before URC) will be having their Christmas Party the next day and they are getting us (me and Ace) to be their official photographers. What a super short notice! After being their official photographers during their Family Day last May, they are hiring us again. Since MacPlas is like a family to me and Ace, I couldn’t just say no. So even if I don’t know how much they are paying us, I said YES to the invitation.

Macondray Plastics is a great place to work with because the management, most especially the CEO and President is always thinking of the manpower as their top priority among others. I saw how people were taken cared of, how the management thought of ways to make sure the people are happy even providing the best material handling machines and equipments so they may be productive with their work, how the management thought of employee relations activities to strengthen the bond between the management and employees, how the company is taking care of their clients and their stake holders.

I do hope this certain connection between me and Ace and the people of my first corporate family will continue to grow…and someday, we will become business partners as we offer our services to them.

Note: photos to follow. I am too busy to resize some of the photos now.

Photos shared in the web is not at all safe from photo grabbers who doesn’t even care to ask permission from the owner/s or credit whoever poncio pilato’s photo it is. I know there are cases of such photos stolen and posted by others in their weblogs or even their websites. As much as I want to search the web for such case with my photos, I don’t know what to do. So I just installed a plugin in my blog to disable select text and right click. I know my photos (forget about the content!) aren’t 100% safe from being stolen with that plug-in. But still, I was too lax to find other means to protect each and every photo that I am posting in my blogs and my flickr account.

The other night I read a known photographer and journalist’ status in FB through a friend’s wall about this blog she just stumbled. The blog is about Davao City – very informative and backed with tons of photos. While she is looking at the photos, some photos look familiar. Those are hers and her partner (who is also a known photographer in the city). The photos were grabbed and posted in the blog without their permission or even acknowledging the owners of the photos. Goodness!

Out of curiousity, I asked my friend for the said blog’s link. I wanted to know which blog because I might know who owns it. It is what someone who has a computer forensics degree would do as their first step. After a few moments, I got a message with the blog link. I visited the blog and scrolled down. After a few photos, I recognized something familiar. My photo is posted in the blog!

The photo below is a photo Ace took during our massage at the park experience that I posted in one of my blogs.

The photo is posted without my permission or even credit from where the blog author grabbed it. I believe I have other photos in that blog so I scanned some posts. Though I was expecting to see familiar photo, I was still surprised to see another very familiar photo! My photo of the Red Cockatoo I took at Crocodile Park years ago is striking in his page!

Though the photo has a watermark, it is almost invisible. Still, no credit or even a link to where he got the photo.

So blog author of Amazing Davao, strike two ka na!

It was beyond my sleeping time and I was too sleepy to continue scanning every blog post so I continued the search for my photos in the morning. Again, I found my photo of Arancillo Durian in one of the blog posts. For the third time, without CREDIT or link from the source of the photo.

The search doesn’t stop there. Something is telling me to scan more so I did….and found my photo of ISLA RETA “sitting” comfortably in somebody else’s blog! 

Strike four, Mr. Amazing Davao! To think that you are not really from this city, you should have asked permission from the owners of the photos you have posted on your blog. It’s pretty obvious that most if not all of the photos are sourced from the web. Though you have declared in your disclosure that photos are sourced from the web, it doesn’t excuse you from asking permission from the photo owners. If you haven’t been in the place or you don’t have a photo of the place/food/thing that you are blogging about, don’t post photos or better yet, don’t blog about it if you have no plans of asking permission from the owner/s. Have some respect because all my photos have my full copyright.