Stay tuned as we will be releasing some Christmas in July specials at our Oviedo Florida photography studio!

Nielsens Photography Promo from Perfect Sky Productions on Vimeo.

A special thanks to Lisa Konecny & Jesse Rivers of E-Events, Lee Heard of Czes Heard Design, Jay Clark of Brix Restaurant Orlando, Schuyler Osborne of Perfect Sky Productions, Kristin Hubbard of Our DJ Rocks, Abby Liga of The Liga District, Bryan Taylor of Tagas Events and Production Services, Darrin of Orlando Wedding & Party Rentals, Cotton Candy of Once Upon a Time Events, Molly & Jeff Brown of Cinematique Films, BB & J Linens, Coast 2 Coast Party Rentals, Zeus Event Furniture Rentals, Leos Italian Ice, and to all of our friends and neighbors who helped make this an incredible party!!!

So, with that being said……..I bring you our families little journey out to Cape Canaveral for the April 5th, 2010 morning sunrise launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery. Carl Franzen of AOL online penned it best in his article, “NASA called the predawn launch “spectacular,” “picture-perfect” and its “most visually beautiful launch ever,” which accurately summed up the reaction of many observers.” We would have to agree!!!

~John

by Cristy Nielsen & Yolanda Rowe

As parents, we do everything we can to protect our children. We teach them to look both ways before crossing the street and many other ways to be safe. Photographers have the same responsibility to their work. Each photograph is important–not just because they are our livelihood but because they are portraits of special people: our clients. To protect our work and our clients, we watermark every image that appears online. We hope to discourage unethical people who steal from photographers by copying and using images for their purposes without authorization or compensating the copyright owner and subjects.

­For example, let’s say your photographer posts preview images on a social networking site such as Facebook or Myspace.  These photos are intended to show the client a preview of what their session images will look like.  If they are not watermarked they cannot be identified back to the photographer who created the image and they could be stolen by a third party and used without permission.  This has happened on numerous occasions by companies who will use photographs for their marketing campaigns and then photographers or their clients have found their images and photos on the sides of buses, on billboards, etc.  Imagine finding a photo of you or your child on a flyer or website for some random company when you didn’t give permission for it to be used in that way and you will begin to understand why photographers watermark to protect their work.

Federal law is very clear on the copyright of images.  The creator of the image (the photographer) is the owner of those rights.  A client pays the photographer to take those images, but it does not give them ownership (rights) to what is created.  Even if the client purchases a file or print it does not give the client copyright to the image.  They are given a license to do certain things. This is called a Usage License and it is illegal to scan or copy it and use it in any way other than which it was intended: displaying the print itself. Even purchasing prints does not give the client copyright to the image and it is illegal to alter, scan, or copy it and use it in a way other than its intent.  Copyright is held by the image creator for 70 years by law and infringement is punishable by up to $150,000 in fines PER image.

While it may seem like no big deal to make additional copies of an image, or crop out watermarks in web versions of photos, truly it is a big deal.  A photographer works very hard on their images, and this is their livelihood, source of income and how they feed their family.  When you copy and scan or alter watermarks out of images you are taking part of the income that they depend on to stay in business and serve their clients in the first place.  Watermarking is a necessary evil to protect photographers, to protect their work and their job security.  As Yolanda says “Copyright is like your vehicle. You can give someone the keys to drive it (granting permission to a client) but it doesn’t make them the owner of the vehicle.”

For more information on copyright please visit http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright

So please be patient with us, the site will change, the blog will change and start to look and feel different, and the logo will be changed as I have time to work on the various parts of our web presence.  For now, here is the new logo!  We love it and hope you do too!  Check it out, it’s at the top of the page!

Congratulations!!!

We will also be offering $99 mini session fees for those that make 9 comments to the blog before 9:09 pm tonight!  Comments must be on separate posts, and each must be unique!  Your session must take place on one of our mini sessions days, October 10th or 17th, 2009 to qualify for the $99 sale.  Jump on this and comment away!

Enjoy and happy 9/9/09 !! 

Here are your scavenger hunt questions:

1.  What was the name of Graham & Travis’ nurse at Winnie Palmer for the birth of their baby girl?

2.  Who is the home birth midwife who has delivered ours and many of our friends and clients babies?

3.  What is the name of the owner of the new kids boutique in Oviedo, Cutie Patootie Kids?

4.  Where was Meggie & Kolby’s wedding held at in Vero Beach?

5.  Where did we shoot Lauren & Nathan’s formals?

6.   What favorite florist of ours did Anne & Andrew’s wedding floral arrangements?

7.  Where was Nikki and Van’s wedding held at?

8.   Who was the caterer at Ashlyn & Jon’s wedding?

9.  What were the 4 words in the color blocks on our (the Nielsen’s) holiday card last year?