GOD, Blessing and Copyrights

Author: Mike Boatman

Image, a gospel quartet

Image, a gospel quartet, commissioned me to create promotional imagery for their group. I like using this assignment to illustrate something that’s very common (or very common at least for me) and is part of the subject matter of this blog. Ansell Adams stated it like this, “GOD seems to put me in the perfect position at the perfect time to take the photograph.”

Content creators and artist of all types, you know what I’m talking about. How many times have you been completely stumped and then out of the clear blue the concept shows up? It’s not something that you built to. It’s those occurrences where a concept that is completely alien to the direction you are going pops in your head. Sometimes it’s a technique that you’ve never used and never thought about using, or a style that’s completely outside your norm. That’s exactly what happened with Image … but with a caveat. As I stated above, this phenomenon is relatively common for me which I’ll get into more later.

First let me tell you the story of Image.

It was to be a typical studio shoot for a music group. It’s always fun working with musical groups because you can get away with being more creative and casual. So, I started with the standard seamless white paper and had the group members casually posing with a touch of attitude. I fired off about 15 frames, moving them around getting them comfortable as I started to work. Normally, things start to gel and I’ve got quality images beginning to happen shortly after getting them relaxed. That didn’t happen this time. In fact, I was getting pretty darn concerned and was struggling around frame 25. At frame 38 I knew I was in deep trouble.

Frame 38 raw not edited or cropped

It just wasn’t looking good from a creative standpoint. Here … judge for yourself. This is frame 38, at which time I asked the artists to excuse me for a moment. I walked away from the set, put my camera down, and went to a corner of the studio where I could have a moment of privacy.

I offered up the following prayer: “Dear GOD, this is horrible. Please help.”

Here’s frame 39.

Frame 39 raw not edited or cropped

What an abrupt and radical change! This was a shooting style that I had never used before. After offering up that prayer, the image popped into my head and I built the rest of the photo shoot around that concept. Content creators, you understand and know that it’s highly unusual to go from one image to such an abrupt and radically changed second image without prior deliberation or through a building process.

I’ve had clients where everything always falls into place perfectly. I think I could be blind and deaf and still create award-winning imagery for these clients. On the other hand, I have some clients where I dot every I, cross every T, methodically double check, triple check and yet, although the end-product is acceptable according to their specifications, in my opinion and to my eye, the product is flawed. Like Image, I could cite numerous clients and examples of this phenomenon but, the point is: WHY? I literally prayed for years for an answer to that question.

I’m the same photographer, so why such a radical difference between one client and another? Finally, GOD answered my prayer. GOD said, “I’m controlling their financial prosperity through your photography.”

That answered a lot of questions, but it also brings up yet another question. Not only is God controlling the prosperity, the degree of prosperity, or lack of, depending on the client, GOD is also giving me the images as he did with the gospel group Image. As I stated in the opening paragraph, this is rather common for me. Having said that, it’s not automatic, and it’s not something I have control over. However, depending on the season of my life, anywhere from a third to half of the images that I created were influenced (if not outright given to me) by God. When people tell me what a great incredible photograph that is and how marvelous I am, I cringe, because I know the true origin of that image came from outside of me. It was a gift given to me by GOD. And through me that gift was given to my client. I believe gifts from God are called blessings.

Yes, I can absolutely recognize when I’m being assisted or when my clients are stuck with just me and my 40 years of commercial advertising experience, my education at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale where I was number one in my class, and my ongoing absolute dedication to constantly learning something new about photography. Stating my qualifications could be misleading though, because I wouldn’t have been able to go to the Art Institute if it wasn’t for GOD. During my education there was a period that lasted for almost 8 weeks when it was as if I was being fed knowledge through a fire-hose by a supernatural being. I had been completely and utterly amazed by my total ignorance just the day before. To be clear, although, my credentials are extensive, they were created and controlled by God. Please, don’t have any misconceptions. I am no saint. What I don’t understand would fill an ocean and what I do understand would fill a thimble. I have made some of the worst decisions and mistakes possible, yet I can still say I’m blessed. And by acting as a conduit, many of my clients are blessed as well.

Which brings us to the third part of the title, Copyrights!

Here’s the attitude which is often put into words. “It’s just a pic! Why are you getting so worked up?”

Deep in the core of my being, I can’t let it go. As I said, there’s a lot I don’t understand, and this was one of those things I didn’t understand. It would be so much easier to just let it go, but when an image is stolen, I just can’t.

For me there’s a difference between stolen and ignorantly used without authorization. Believe me, I forgive the ignorant and I educate them about the harm and the damage to the entire field of photography that’s caused by copyright infringements which devalue my profession. And on a personal level, I can forgive those that steal my work, but I can’t let it go. Like not understanding why there was a difference in imagery that I could create for clients, I also couldn’t understand why I felt such a drive to defend stolen images. I prayed diligently to understand why I couldn’t let it go. After a couple of years GOD gave me the reason.

The answer came at church one Sunday from the pastor’s sermon.

Here is the essence of the sermon paraphrased; there was a field that was planted as an offering to God. The Philistines were going to take the field and one person said, “No, this field belongs to God,” and defended the field by defeating the soldiers.

This is the answer God put in my head at the end of the sermon: The field was God’s.  God gives to people and it is a blessing. When God gives me an image, it is for the person I am creating for and it is a blessing from God through your photography for their benefit. When the client’s blessing, the image (pic), is stolen it is then being used outside God’s purpose.

Here are a couple recent examples:

1. One of the images of a construction job I created for Tim Disalvo’s website is being used in Florida by another contractor as an example for his portfolio of work. WOW! Really!
2. One blessed interior designer that I work with had images that I created for her used without authorization by an unrelated company. When you click on the link to go to that company’s site where the image is supposedly being used, it takes you to a pornographic site where you can download pornographic role-playing games. My IT manager says it’s a poison link.

Not only are the images that were created to bless people being used outside the purpose of God, they are being used for an ungodly purpose.

POISON LINK……… Pixsy infringement web search engine. Notice the link is for garage door repair that supposedly using the image that I created without authorization. POISON LINK, when you click on the link to go to the garage door repair you get porn….. I’ve blurred out the explicit on this tame version that came up.
Also notes tab at the top says we are at the garage door repair website.

There are also mega organizations in the real estate industry that know that just as Google searches are enhanced by imagery, their websites can be enhanced with imagery as well. Statistically reported by these mega organizations, unique searches have jumped from 15 to 48 and a gross increase in revenue of 14% after accommodating imagery for their websites. But hey, the original intent was to sell a house. That’s with the photographer got paid for … a local one-time usage to sell a house. The corporate argument is, “But it’s only a pic! And these unauthorized usages increased our corporate gross by 14%! And we didn’t have to pay anything!”

Let me sum this up before I go too high up on my soapbox.

I’m a photographer. That’s what God put me here to do – to act as a conduit to deliver blessings to people. When you use a photograph for your own purposes without authorization, you are stealing.  In many cases, you are stealing a direct blessing from God that was not meant for you.

In my opinion, creative talent is a blessing from GOD. You can’t teach or learn creative talent. It’s something you’re born with, although it can be enhanced with training and experience. However, the measure of talent that you have was a gift from GOD, the MASTER CREATOR.