Monster_Mash_MTB_10112008_1370, originally uploaded by Brian Knight Photography.

Apologies for the delay, but the aforementioned 9-5 job has been more of a 7-7er the past several weeks… The good news is that the wicked head cold I have been fighting all week finally allowed me a chance to finish editing the photos! All of the Monster Mash photos are now online. I hope you enjoy them.

One of the next set of photos you will see in my Flickr stream will be of my camera and lenses boxed up and ready for shipping to the Canon repair facility. A downside to hanging out on the trails shooting races is that I sometimes forget to treat my gear with the proper amount of delicacy required by such fine, precision optical equipment. This is all just to say that while I took a ton of photos at the MM, many of them were way too soft for publishing, so if you don’t see yourself in the gallery, I’ll definitely do my best to get you the next time…

Here’s Mr. Stermer’s reply:

From: Dugald Stermer
To: Gary
Sent: Monday, September 8, 2008 12:06:53 PM
Subject: Re: Use of my copyrighted photo.

Hello Gary.

I did do the illustration, from, as you point out, your photograph. However it was supplied me by Bicycling magazine as reference. My assumption was that they had a staff photographer take the picture or at least had acquired permission. Your quarrel is with them, and I sympathize, even empathize.

The art director’s mail is erin******@rodale.com.

Best of luck,

Dugald

Cleared for take-off, originally uploaded by gmr2048.

UPDATE, September 9, 2008: Ok, Gary at least heard back from the artist, Mr. Stermer so I will dial back my rhetoric about his copyright infringements. Bicycling Magazine still has some explaining to do.

All images and text © 2007 Gary Ryan. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced, displayed, modified or distributed without the express prior written permission. For permission, email me.

Seems that someone didn’t quite take to heart the “Copyright ©” part of this cool shot of Larry Camp clearing a log. Compare this image to the “illustration” found on the Bicycling magazine website (or in the October 2008 PRINT edition of the mag). They’re an exact match. Well, no, that’s not entirely true, as Gary points out on his blog, several modifications were made:

Things that are different
Jersey color
Number on race plate
Their rider doesn’t have a head. Poor fella.

Gary’s friend Ben helps out with the comparison:

Way to go Mr. Stermer Bicycling Magazine. You all seem to be playing from the old school way of business that Mr. Stermer rails against when he talks about the erosion of intellectual property rights or when he wrote the following:

Further, much of the theft has to do with moving the stolen pictures to other sites on the internet anyway, basically dot for dot. None of us has the time, will or resources to try to track down these illegal acts, and the thieves know it. Further, unless we take the considerable time and trouble to register each of our pictures with the U.S. Copyright Office, even if we did track down an offender all we can do at best is get a cease-and-desist order, which he may or may not choose to obey.

The thing about the internet is that as information housed on the web grows larger, the world will continue to shrink. We now have family, friends, and all manner of online contacts spread all over the world. And they are all consuming bits and pieces of the data stream, which means we do not have to worry about the time and resources to track down illegal acts. Just like the one illustrated above, illegal acts are going to pop up almost instantly. Combine each of our social networks with search engines like TinEye and the world flattens even more.   Thieves will no longer be able to hide.

Bright Future, originally uploaded by Brian Knight Photography.

The CycleFest photos are finally coming online!

I’m experimenting with a new account at SmugMug and would love to hear what people think… Still need to work on customizing my template, etc., but I think this will be a decent solution for when I want to sell photos online . I’ve come to the realisation that I just don’t have time to process orders and mail photos so for the event photography at least, this is how I think I’m going to go… (still keeping the PayPal account for the Fine Art Prints though).

There are just over 290 photos on their way, so probably best to check out the gallery in the morning.

I want to thank Eric again for coming out and playing in the rain. He really got some great shots with his wide-angle lens (not always the easiest task in the world).

CycleFest, originally uploaded by Brian Knight Photography.

Does the week begin on Sunday or Monday? I’ve never really be clear on the matter. I’m of the opinion that Sunday is the last day of the week, but all of my calendars seem to differ. Anyways, the point here is that since Sunday (be it the start, or end, of something – and really, while we’re at it, maybe we should further investigate our need to quantify events and place them on a time line… or, maybe not) I’ve been a little busy.

First of all, Sunday afternoon I had to take a giant nap. It was great. I love to nap, especially after spending many hours exposed to the elements. Sunday morning was an early wakeup, followed by shooting the cold and wet CycleFest 10K trail run at Wakefield, followed by the afore mentioned nap. Which was great. Post nap activities included editing photos. And editing photos. And John Adams watching. And editing still more photos.

After editing and posting photos I got sucked into watching “Babel” that Brad Pitt movie where the lives of four families end up being tragically interconnected on account of one man’s desire to hunt. Or something like that. I wouldn’t know because I ended up pausing the movie a couple times to focus on the photo editing and then I had to rewind it a couple times (have I mentioned how much I love the DVR?) too. Finally, towards 2am I was able to settle in and really start to enjoy the show. The pace was quickening, the story lines were converging and then… then I pressed a button on the remote and jumped forward to real time on the TV. And the movie was long past over and there was nothing I could do to figure out how to get back to my end point. There were maybe 15 minutes left. I was so disappointed. Anyone know how that movie ends? Feel free to leave spoilers and/or commentary in the comments.

Monday I was back at work and then I went on an odyssey to first the District where I was honked at not once, but twice by an impatient Metro Bus driver because apparently I was waiting in a no waiting zone. (And let me have a quick word with that driver… Mr. Metro Bus driver I don’t honk my horn at you when you’re taking your sweet ass time all over the city and regional highways. No, I am patient. In fact, there is one Metro bus I regularly encounter and I pretty much always let him merge over to one of the middle lanes on I-66. So get off my ass already, ok?).

But I digress… the purpose of the trip was to go to the College Park IKEA and assist Heather with the loading and delivering of her new kitchen cabinets. And so on to the pride and joy of Sweden did we travel and waiting there for us were harried, seemingly overworked/underpaid employees who had apparently forgotten that they have a pretty sweet deal* working as they do at IKEA (*based on a quick Google search for “ikea employee” and then skimming the results it seems like IKEA should be a wonderous place to work. I mean, $2 lunches? For anything on the menu?! Awesome.). Their attitude could best be described as “surly.”

Long story short, they didn’t want to fill the order with less than an hour to closing and there was no way we were going to leave without cabinetry. Guess who won? HMG did. Duh. And before too long the car was loaded, tied down, and we were enjoying a nice reward of delicious pancakes (that’s no sarcasm there btw, the pancakes were really good, and not just because we were starved – though I’m sure that helped).

I got home around 12:30 and then went to bed. Then the next morning, on Tuesday, I went to work. Then after work I drove to Burke and met my Dad for dinner (since he was in town for some meetings or something). Then after dinner I came home and worked on race photos. Until 2am. Then I went to bed. Then, the next morning (Wednesday) I went to work. Again. Then, after work, I came home and met up with my brother’s fiancée (Leah) who was in town for meetings or something. I drove her around the old neighborhood and we discovered that someone has been messing up the old house. Then we went to dinner. Then, after dinner I came home and worked on race photos.

Raise your hand if you’ve detected a pattern!

Now though, instead of staying up past 2am I am going to throw in the towel and go to bed. This has really just been a long way of saying that the CycleFest photos are almost done, but not quite, and so I am begging everyone who may be anxiously awaiting the final upload to please be patient one more night.

Thanks!

CycleFest, originally uploaded by Brian Knight Photography.

It was a little cold, a little rainy, and the duathlon got switched to a 10k trail run, but Eric and I were on the course photographing like it was our job.

Full photos coming soon. In the meantime, check out the teaser slideshow on Flickr.

Real American Hero, originally uploaded by outdoor_type.

Spent another morning in the great outdoors freelancing for Will Ramos Photography… In the meantime check out this preview slideshow on Flickr!

Liza and Jenn all smiles after finishing the EX2 Dirt Crit.

Really, I tried.

I fully intended to have the photos from the last race online within two, three days max. But here’s what happened…

After the race Sunday there was a BBQ to attend. And before that there were cookies to bake. And before that there were ingredients to buy (thanks Shawn for using up the last of the vanilla). On Monday there was a story to write for the PQ site (more on that later). What happened Tuesday is almost too embarrassing to mention except to say that there was weight lifting (too much as it happens) involved and enough discomfort that I went to see my doctor later in the week. My doctor gave me medicine for old people, but I don’t care, it worked and I could sleep again. All the while I edited photos but also went to the real job because they frown on the whole not showing up thing. Thursday night I was actually able to start uploading to the website and Friday I made a big dent. Saturday (in between volunteering at the mini-kids tri – which was really fun! – and riding Fountainhead for the first time in years) I made another dent and posted more photos. But, it was not until about 5 hours AFTER riding FH that I was finally able to post the last photo.

This is just to say that photos fromEX2’s Cranky Monkey Dirt Crit race are now online over at Will Ramos Photography.  Why don’t you  check ‘em out and make sure to rate the ones you like best!

First it was hot and humid but the ground was nearly bone dry. Then later, not so much with the bone dry part. Thunder and lighting and a steady rain brought the third race of the day to an early conclusion. A good thing too as dirt/clay berms turned into a peanut butter like concoction that induced more than a few falls.

Sneak preview photos on Flickr

Lots more to come over at Will Ramos Photography!