Slices in Time

PLEASE read this through. YOUR photos may be being stolen and reposted by members of Pbase.com, on their personal galleries and PBase isn’t in any hurry to protect copyright owners. It also seems that PBase does not take our COPYRIGHT CLAIMS seriously!

Here are the details of this situation..

I contacted PBase about a user who uploaded my copyrighted images to his Pbase.com gallery.  I have a Photo-A-Day project on PBase.com since 2005 and have been a paying member since then.

However, Instead of removing the images when I lodged my complaint, in which I detailed which gallery contains my photos, PBase ”support” wants to give this creep a chance to remove the images himself or prove his copyright.

My reply to PBase:

———-
Hello Jehan,

I’m sorry but this is NOT good enough! Those images I posted to you are ALL mine, except ONE.

Another long-time user also complained about this gallery (William Bates, whose wife is pictured in his images) and still you people allow the gallery to exist. This is totally bogus! That’s OUR property, our images, OUR COPYRIGHT. REMOVE IT NOW!

Pictured below (or above) are screenshot of this user’s page. I commented under his gallery (all but one are MY images!).

Please remove these immediately from his gallery or I will cancel my PBase account and take DMCA action immediately. PBase doesn’t need THIS KIND of negative publicity.

Thank you,

Ray

———-

The photos accompanying this post contain two of the galleries this jerk posted, the first containing MANY photos of my wife Sharon, and he has not gotten ANY permission to repost these. In fact, my PBase gallery contains the text, “All images copyright Ray A. Akey. All rights reserved.”  The third image is the original email sent to PBase Support.

I included comments by myself and a fellow longtime PBase member, William Bates, whose images (of his wife) were also stolen and reposted by this creton.

I posted in their forums also demanding (yes, DEMANDING!) that PBase remove/disable this account and/or REMOVE MY PROPERTY (IMAGES) from his gallery!

I will update my readers as to what action is taken and how long it takes for PBase to take responsible action.

Ray A. Akey
Luminescent Memories Photography
http://luminescentmemories.com

I wasn’t going to develop this one, but then decided to try it black and white, using a Photoshop Color Mixer adjustment layer. It looked pretty good, so I decided to take it one step further and try a commercial plugin at a friend’s house.

The plugin I wanted to try is the Exposure 2 plugin from Alien Skin. It a llowed me to control the colour, tone, focus and other aspects of black and white tonal adjustments.

I have to say, I’m glad I made the attempt.  An hour later using a Wacom Intuos 3 tablet, about 7 layers and some smart sharpening, and the attached image is the result.

P.S. That was a huge burger in Jen’s little hands!

Enjoy,

Ray

I have always wanted to try my hand at restaurant photography.. the sort of thing you might see on a menu design, etc.

Our online friends Jen (and Joey) came to visit Sharon and I in November.  It was a perfect opportunity to shoot some photos of the happy couple, in a relaxed setting ( http://luminescentmemories.com/portfolio/index.php?tag=Portrait&pid=275 ).

We left the house later in the afternoon. No one had eaten and we were all famished.  We had to eat before starting the day so we stopped at Harvey’s.  We had to get Jen, who being an American citizen had never experienced Harvey’s, to sink her teeth into a Harvey’s burger.

I think I’d like to do more of this.  Anyone in the restaurant/bar/service industry looking for a photographer to photograph their establishment?  Look me up!

I am always looking back in my recent archives to find more of the better images from our photoshoots. Today, more of Lindsay.

Lindsay was  easy to work with and a lot of fun, which made the shoot a blast for everyone on location.  The laughter was almost non-stop. We would gladly shoot with Lindsay again!

This past August (2009), Sharon, myself and a group of friends spent a week on Craigleith, Ontario up in the Blue Mountains. On one of our sightseeing trips, we passed a stable.  As we saw these stables with horses grazing outside, I realized I didn’t have a long enough lens to capture these beautiful creatures.  The next day, I made it a point to grab my 24-70mm and 70-200mm lenses and go shoot a few cool shots of thse beauties.

Here are a selected few..

This is the beginning of a digest of nudes that are potential book images.

We are going to be embarking on a book project.  A book of artistic nudes and figure studies combined with glamour techniques and creative lighting.  The book will be aimed at both photographers and models; photographer techniques for composing and lighting and model techniques for posing and how the two need to interact to make successful images.  The book will not be wordy and will contain over 100 beautiful male and female nudes  There are still a few female model spots open for models who want to be featured in the book. If you are a male model and want to be featured, working with one of our models, please feel free to conact us.

We will be posting a casting call both here on my blog(s) and to modelling sites such as Model Mayhem, in the new year.  We have 3 models already committed to the project (We’re looking to feature 7 female and 1 or 2 males) so some of you ladies may already have been contacted by us. We are still very commited to you!

Ladies who aren’t currently working in the modelling industry are also welcome to apply!  Just think, your first (or second) photoshoot could make our book!

We would also like to engage our viewers and ask you to rate the photos by commenting on those you particularly like, just so we can gauge what everyone’s preferences are.

We will also be announcing a new exclusive, feature model in the new year. Stay tuned!

Ray

I will be posting images here and there from this shoot as time progreses. There were that many keepers and I think it has been our best work (with Kareem) thus far along with the very first set, of Kimberly Matte (who I am stilled awed by today).  This was only Jo’s third (3rd) photoshoot but you wouldn’t know it. Her posing skills are excellent and she took direction well when given something specific to do.  I would be happy to work with Jo again, anytime!

Here is a small gallery of my personal favorites.  We also did some implied nudes which you will not see here.  Our fans will know my Erotica passworded site on pBase.com.  You can see the implieds there when I find time to post them.

Until next time..

Best Regards,

Ray A. Akey

Sharon and I have planned, for quite some time, to do a photoshoot in a set of abandoned buildings that I had previously heard from a fellow photographer.  I have for long feared that any one of the proposed international crossings may threaten these old, dilapitated buildings so, the sooner the better.

It was a stroke of luck that our previously planned shoot at the old Printmakers Forum on Riverside Drive would have been too cold to shoot around since we have no interior access.

I got a call from the designer on the morning of the photoshoot to let me know that he wanted to shoot in the buildings.  We shoot for about an hour and a half with Jo.  She was an absolute charmer, professional and easy to work with, which made me easy to work with.

I returned home to find that a family photo session for that afternoon was a no-show.   Anyways, here are a couple from the shoot.  Good job everyone!