The Jake of All Trades

In a previous entry, I talked about my decisions to make my Flickr portfolio, for the most part, creative commons licensed.

Well, curiosity got the better of me, so I went out looking on the Googles for pictures of mine.

First I had to get through the weeds. There are a few websites that offer up Flickr galleries for backgrounds and such, as well as one that just offers up Flickr again (I think for looks, mainly).

I did actually find some people using my pictures for things out there. I just thought I’d highlight a few.

First is one of my desert road shots. This was taken with my iPhone, then highly modified with Snapseed. The site, timetokickbuts.com, takes quotes, mostly inspirational, and adds them to images to increase the affect. I like this because it is not only someone using my work, but they have done something with it. Transformation works are allowed under the BY license I chose.  That picture is a combination of two people who have never met. Pretty cool, I’d say. And, well, the quote is pretty good too. (though I think we should do some for ‘writing’, Doris!)

The second is “all work and no play”. This picture was created using Type-writer, a little app that is too much fun to play with some days. It pretends to be a typewriter, with sounds and the joys of no delete. Oh, backspace works, but the letter stays. The post is good too, talking about the iPad and the writing environment. Sometimes less is more. the constraints of the typewriters provided, perhaps, a more focused approach to writing. Surely we see some return to this with the rise of distraction free writing programs, such as ByWord (my weapon of choice for iPhone/iPad/computer writing these days)

The last is coffee shark sleeps. This image is made with sketchbook mobile on my HTC Incredible using a stylus. It was a part of the 365 project, and specifically my all-fish-February. Coffee shark made a few appearances that month. The article is about technology, and apparently a shark dreaming about coffee. Which, I know, is a common thing. Actually it is about how technology is a force that contributes to changes in culture.

I found a few others, this blog uses a Trinidad picture for its background. This blog uses the same pictures just outright. This dictionary of stuff uses one of my Swedish panoramas in its entry for Stockholm. All very cool.

Oh, and what would the internet be without a blog of cats.

But… but… you weren’t PAID for any of that! No. No I wasn’t. And that is ok. Nothing above is a paying gig that I have somehow lost by licensing my stuff by CC. All of them have, as they were supposed to, credited me with the picture.

My only wish with all of this is that somehow I’d known about these things. I know that isn’t a part of the requirements… which I am certainly ok with. From an artist standpoint, I’d like to see what the kids are doing out there in the wild.

I’ve updated my Flickr profile with more information in hopes to get feedback when someone grabs a shot for something they are working on. Still, in the end, it is a good feeling to see that something I did wasn’t just appreciated by strangers, but used by them for something.