I suggest we all ignore this thread from now on.

A bad case of troll infestation.

David, You were removed from Red Bubble because you were stalking and harassing another member, so lets stop all this hot air shall we?

Who's David?

I was interested when I heard about Red Bubble, but was wary because of their lack of watermarking.

I joined, then e-mailed them about it. This was the reply I received:

I appreciate your concern and we have looked at this a lot. Large watermarks (which we have tried) seriously impact sales.

In addition any image you can get from RedBubble is far less in quality than you could scan from a magazine (or take a shot of in a gallery). On balance we have to err on the side of showing images which are attractive and people are likely to buy while minimizing the chances of having them stolen by being compressed. You could only print a very small photo of the images at that resolution.

To say that watermarks affect sales is rubbish. And the scan argument is a red herring. I decided to let my membership remain dormant.

They've gone nuts.   

My last batch of images took about 3 weeks to be reviewed. They've just been done and most were rejected for not having a model release. All the rejected pictures, except one, showed people who were either far too small to be identified or were in back view so completely unidentifiable.

The one other that was rejected was of my dog, sitting on an empty road that stretched away towards the horizon. Not a human in sight.

What do they want? A paw-print on the model release? That's what I'm gonna send 'em   

Works for me.

Thanks Miz. I'm gonna try it on some white rabbit images I have.

They're against a plain brown background (all I had at the time the rabbit was available) and they've defeated all my other efforts at isolation on to black or white.

Now y'all gonna think me completely mad ...

For a small pocketable camera I carry a film one - an old Olympus XA.

I can scan the resulting images and get 19MP.

Leaf, I thought yesterday that something terrible might happened to you, like being �arrested� for taking photos of a public building, or using a tripod in London,

Yeah. Just be careful if you're doing serious photography in London. The police are a little twitchy ... and not too bright with it.

I put the story on my blog yesterday.

I've just started a new blog on 'Making Photographs', if anyone's interested.

It's at:

http://www.alscotts.blogspot.com

I aim to make it informative and irreverent. My latest post is about a well-known photographer being hassled by the police in London for using a tripod.

Any comments - good or critical - welcome.

How about a poll on it? Can you attach one to this message, or should a new thread be started?

Thanks Lorraine for putting in place the pool. I suppose this is earnings combining everything (micro+mid+macro)
L

It's not clear, but I'm taking it as all earnings from photographic agencies ... Micro, midi and macro.

Hi Bateleur,
I am currently in Switzerland (Geneva). Everything seems very expensive, and the product choice is horrible. What's the best place to get equipment, online or offline? Thanks!

Hi there. Funnily enough not everything is very expensive in Switzerland (though some things are). Petrol is a whole load cheaper than in France or the UK. And photographic equipment too.

I bought my Elincrom strobes from a shop in Lausanne, and they were significantly cheaper than in UK.

Also, try the online shop Architronic (http://www.architronic.ch). I buy all my camera equipment from them and they're significantly cheaper than shops. Unfortunately their web site is only in German (which I don't speak). I've e-mailed them to ask why they don't do it in French (another national language) and they told me it isn't worth their while at this stage. I get by using web-based translation for the site, and it works (though some of the translations need translating themselves  ). Otherwise their service is excellent. Typical Swiss efficiency.

I've learned a lot of techniques from The Miz and for that I'm extremely grateful.

A big, big THANKS.

Yes, I probably could have got them from a book But a book doesn't give them, step by step, in that unmistakable way and distinctive voice.

Whilst I love books (I write them, as well as read them) It's awkward using one to learn a photoshop technique. The pages turn by themselves and have to be weighed down by an empty coffee cup. I lose my place and have to search for it again. Some books aren't very clearly written and you only discover that when you get them home and actually try to use them. And my desk is already cluttered enough as it is.

Much better to watch a technique demonstrated, step by step on the screen and actually see it happen.

Good on you mate. Thanks again. Ignore the critics. They're usually pretty sad people, anyway. That's why they're critical.   

Stephen Fry, on critics:- "Imagine, you get to Heaven and St Peter asks what you did with your life and you say, 'Oh I just said what other people did wrong!'"