In my previous post on copyright violations, I described the situation which inspired me to write about this topic:

I could have responded in numerous ways - including taking no action. At the other extreme, I could also have sued, claiming improper use of my copyrighted image.

On a recent Tasmanian holiday, while in Hobart, we drove up Mount Wellington, hoping to enjoy the view from the top of the mountain. However, the top of the mountain was surrounded by thick fog, reducing visibility to almost nothing.

optimistic speedlimit

Mt Wellington, Hobart, Tasmania
Canon EOS 350D, 10-22mm @22mm, 1/125 sec, f/8, ISO200

The Tamar Islands Wetlands are just a short drive north of Launceston, and there's a 3km boardwalk leading from the carpark, across the river, and onto Tamar Island. There's plenty of flora and fauna to see, and the photo below shows the grass that lines the majority of the boardwalk.

grass detail

Tamar Island Wetlands, Launceston, Tasmania
Canon EOS 350D, 70-200mm f/4L @100mm, 1/320 sec, f/4, ISO100

On a recent holiday in Tasmania, we visited the Liffey Falls. They are located in central Tasmania, approximately 10km north of the Great Lake. The road to Liffey Falls is very narrow, with plenty of corners (and a small wooden bridge), so you need to take your time while driving. The road to the top carpark is signposted as being suitable for short-wheelbase vehicles only, so buses and caravans need to take an alternative route to the lower carpark (which has less facilities, and requires a longer walk to the falls). However, the slow drive means you can enjoy the wonderful green scenery of the temperate rainforest.

Once at the Liffey Falls carpark, the actual falls themselves are still a 25 minute walk away. It's a pleasant walk through the rainforest, and you pass by a number of smaller cascades on the way to the main falls.

The photo below shows the main falls. To get this view, I had to cross the river, and had one leg of my tripod resting in the water.

To fully appreciate this photo, be sure to click on it to view a larger version.

Liffey Falls

Liffey Falls, Tasmania
Canon EOS 350D, 10-22mm @15mm, 2.5 sec, f/16, ISO100

I encountered this wooden bridge on the way to Liffey Falls, in central Tasmania. The road to Liffey Falls is particularly narrow, with lots of sharp corners that need to be navigated slowly. On the morning we visited Liffey Falls, we didn't encounter any other cars or people on the road, or on the walk trail to the falls themselves.

Due to the relatively low light levels caused by the overhead trees, this photo was taken with a tripod, with an exposure time of nearly one second.

wooden bridge

Liffey Falls Track, Tasmania
Canon EOS 350D, 17-85mm IS @17mm, 8/10 sec, f/9, ISO200

While on a short boat cruise on the Marana at the historic Port Arthur site in Tasmania, the sun made several brief appearances through the rain. The rainbow below was the result of one of these brief appearances of the sun.

rainbow

Port Arthur, Tasmania
Canon EOS 350D, 17-85mm IS @50mm, 1/400 sec, f/8, ISO200

The photos below typify the Tasmanian countryside for me - lots of green rolling hills, and mountains in the distance.
While driving through Tasmania on a recent holiday, we frequently stopped on the side of the road to take photos of scenes such as this.

grazing

central Tasmania
Canon EOS 350D, 17-85mm IS @85mm, 1/200 sec, f/9, ISO100

green carpet

Eaglehawk Neck, Tasmania
Canon EOS 350D, 10-22mm @12mm, 1/100 sec, f/9, ISO100

rolling hills

Tasman Peninsula, Tasmania
Canon EOS 350D, 10-22mm @22mm, 1/320 sec, f/6.3, ISO200

The first photo was taken in central Tasmania, the second somewhere near the northern end of the Tasman Peninsula (near Eaglehawk Neck), and the third was taken along the west coast of the Tasman Peninsula.

This blog post was inspired by an issue which recently occurred in my own workplace.

Several months ago, while reading an employee-only internal newsletter published by my employer, I happened to recognise a photo (shown below) that had been used in the headline of the newsletter, and was also used on the company intranet (linking to the newsletter).

That particular photo is available on my website, and is clearly labelled as a copyright image that cannot be used without permission. No-one had requested my permission to use the photo.

the stolen photo - lonely autumn leaf

Matilda Bay, Western Australia
Canon EOS 350D, 17-85mm IS @76mm, 1/125 sec, f/5.6, ISO400

Some digging through my webserver logs indicated that a colleague had found the image while doing a Google image search for images relating to autumn.

I only happened to see the photo in the publication because I'm an employee of the company, and hence have access to this particular newsletter. If the photo had been used in any other company, I wouldn't have noticed!



If you notice that a colleague has "stolen" one of your photos, and is using it without your permission in an internal employee-only publication, what would you do?
Post details on how you would respond using the comments facility below.

I'll be posting details in a future blog post on how this particular issue was handled.


Edit: I've posted a follow-up article here.

I took this photo while lying on the ground, attempting to get some photos of my active 15 month old daughter.
It was only afterwards that I realised this was a suitable entry for Neil Creek's Iron Chef Photography - Shoes competition.

shoe view

home, Western Australia
Canon EOS 350D, 50mm f/1.8 @50mm, 1/60 sec, f/2, ISO200

Here's a slightly different view of the Penitentiary at the well-known historical site of Port Arthur, in Tasmania.

After drizzling for most of the day, the sun came out for a brief period of time, providing great lighting on the grass and the Penitentiary. It also resulted in a rainbow, as seen in the top left of the photo, with the recognisable shape of the Penitentiary in the background.

The lichen on the paling fence was particularly interesting, so I went for a wide open aperture, and focused on the fence.

What do you think? Feel free to provide feedback by adding a comment.

fence detail

rainbow over the Penitentiary

Port Arthur, Tasmania
Canon EOS 350D, 10-22mm @20mm, 1/800 sec, f/4.5, ISO100

The Batman Bridge, which crosses the Tamar River in northern Tasmania. It was built in the late 1960s, and was the first cable-stayed bridge in Australia.

This long exposure was taken just after sunset, with headlights of cars traversing the bridge providing some lighting of the railing on the top of the bridge.

Batman Bridge at dusk

northern Tasmania
Canon EOS 350D, 10-22mm @10mm, 30 sec, f/7.1, ISO200

This is the Tasman Bridge, which crosses over the Derwent River in Hobart, Tasmania. This photo was taken from Rose Bay, on the east bank of the Derwent River.

This bridge gained a lot of media attention in 1975, when a section in the centre of the bridge collapsed after one of the bridge's pylons was hit by the bulk ore carrier Lake Illawarra. Four cars fell off the bridge, killing five people, and seven crew members on the Lake Illawarra drowned when the ship sank.

Tasman Bridge at night

Hobart, Tasmania
Canon EOS 350D, 17-85mm IS @35mm, 20 sec, f/9, ISO100

Here's another photo from our recent holiday in Tasmania, with the morning sun back-lighting the fence and the grass, which is covered in frost.

sun-lit fence and frosty grass

Tasmania
Canon EOS 350D, 100mm f/2.8 macro @100mm, 1/320 sec, f/9, ISO200

Here's another photo from a recent holiday in Tasmania.

This is looking down the rivermouth of a river at Denison Beach, on the east coast of Tasmania, a few kilometres north of Bicheno. In the distance, the beach and ocean is visible.

The sky was almost cloud-free, with just a few small clouds visible above the horizon. I like the subtle sun-rays visible at the top left of the photo (click the photo to view a larger version).

mirrored sky

rivermouth at Denison Beach, Tasmania
Canon EOS 350D, 10-22mm @15mm, 1/100 sec, f/9, ISO100

Taken during a recent holiday in Tasmania, I tried to capture the morning sun highlighting the frost on the trees and grass.
I'm not sure exactly where this was, but it is just south of Launceston, taken early in the morning as we headed east out of Launceston, on our way down the east coast, towards Hobart.

morning sun on frosty trees and grass

Tasmania
Canon EOS 350D, 17-85mm IS @41mm, 1/320 sec, f/8, ISO100

One of the things I really enjoyed about this holiday in Tasmania is that we could just stop on the side of the road whenever a photo opportunity presented itself. Many of the landscape photos I took while in Tassie were just that - scenes that looked interesting while driving, and hence warranted a quick stop to take some photos.

Early morning frost provides some interesting patterns on a barbed wire fence, somewhere just outside of Launceston, Tasmania.

Barbed Wire Frost

near Launceston, Tasmania
Canon EOS 350D, 100mm f/2.8 macro @100mm, 1/50 sec, f/4.5, ISO200

I recently had to go to Tasmania for a couple of days work in Bell Bay (northern Tasmania).

I was born in Launceston, and my parents moved away from Launceston when I was four years old. I've always wanted to go back to Tasmania, so I decided to make the most of this opportunity, and took a week's leave once my work was complete. My wife joined me, and we spent a week driving around Tasmania, clocking up 1755km in 7 days.

Due to the limited time, we planned our trip, to ensure we were making effective use of the time we had. We started in Launceston, then drove east to St Marys, and sampled the fantastic pancakes at Mount Elephant Pancakes, before continuing down the east coast. In Freycinet National Park, we did the Wine Glass Bay lookout walk, and then continued down to Hobart.

One day was spent visiting Eaglehawk Neck and Port Arthur, and we headed back to Launceston for the weekend, before going south again, to Lake St Clair, and then upto Cradle Mountain for a few nights.

We had a great time, and loved the Tasmanian scenery. Although the weather was overcast and drizzling some of the time, we didn't let that stop us, and still did plenty of sight-seeing.

Tasmania was appealing for several reasons. Firstly, it's the place of my birth, and I haven't been back since I was four years old. Secondly, there's a lot of Australian history in Tasmania, particularly in places such as Port Arthur. While the Port Arthur history may not always be exotic (a convict's life was pretty miserable and harsh), it's still Aussie history. Thirdly, I have heard plenty of stories from people about how green the country side is, and the natural beauty of places such as Tasman's Arch, the waterfalls, the rainforest, etc.

I took lots of photos during the week in Tasmania, and will be posting some of them on this blog over the coming weeks, along with some more stories and commentary.


Edit: here's some of my photos from Tasmania (click a thumbnail to go to the corresponding blog entry):

Here's an overview of all the photos I blogged during the month of May.






Click any image to navigate directly to that blog post.

Note that I'm not only posting photos - I also wrote several posts in May, including:

• Selecting Lenses for a Holiday (posted 2008-05-07)
• Glass Choices (posted 2008-05-11)
• Quick Links #1 (posted 2008-05-16)

In April, I wrote:

• Health Issues with Compact Fluoros (posted 2008-04-08)
• Making Bookmarks With Your Photos (posted 2008-04-27)