Home Studio v3

Finally the moment I have been waiting for. A new start for a new year. My photography is about to go through some major conceptual changes. Rather than keeping them all to myself, I’ve decided to release them all under a new license. I’m dropping the copyright tags and adopting a license provided by Creative Commons instead!

I recently deleted my old Flickr account and went straight for a new Pro account under the same nickname. I slightly regret doing this, because I lost my Flickr URL in the process http://www.flickr.com/photos/phoenix2k/. I was sort of hoping it would expire after having deactivated my Flickr account and deleted my Yahoo ID entirely, but for some reason they insist on keeping these URLs active to preserve metadata and link integrity even though the gallery is empty and the user no longer exists in their database. I had a feeling I was going to have problems with this, I just never imagined that they would keep it up indefinitely. What a waste. I suppose big changes require big sacrifices. I wasn’t expecting to go through an identity crisis of this magnitude though, but not being able to use my nickname for a simple thing like a URL hit me pretty hard. In fact I’m beginning to think the era of having had to add ‘2k’ to my nick in the first place is nearing its end. I’ll hang onto it for a while longer, but the new ‘memorable’ Flickr URL will have to wait. In fact I’m not sure I’ll apply for one at all, but for now you can access my new gallery at this address: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23178550@N08/ – sexy ain’t it?

Why these big changes?

I’ve been debating this issue for years and for some reason now feels like the right time to finally relinquish my grasp on copyright and move on to a more practical solution designed for this modern era.

We live in an age where pictures have become a series of 0s and 1s which you can use, reuse and manipulate across a range of different mediums and platforms. So why keep them all to yourself? I’d find it much more enjoyable to see my work being used in creative ways than receiving a few odd comments here and there saying how great it was (and I use the past tense here, because once they’ve seen it they’ll most likely never come back to it again). I’ll be relaunching my galleries on various web sites such as GFXArtist.com and Harhakuva.org to be able to spread my work to as many people as possible. In doing so, I’m hoping that my pictures will serve a higher purpose than gathering dust in a few obscure places on the web and instead provide people with visual material that they can use in their own creations.

Going Pro on Flickr means I have more space, more options and better tools at my disposal. This will become my main gallery – which btw is also in the process of being implemented right here on Home Studio. If even one person sends me a link back showing me what they’ve achieved using some of my pictures this crazy stunt will have been worth it!