My Killer Wedge Photo Making the Surfer Rounds

I just recently let my photography go into the world under Copyleft. I believe in creative use and the need to free up the world of Copyright so that non-commercial use can allow further creative abilities. I anticipated that this would allow people to use my photographs as stock photography. However, I was never under any delusion that I would be making “waves” with any of my posted photography.

Yet, it seems as though I have made some people reminisce about the perfect wave and I am pleasantly obliging, and sharing, as well as pointing out some awesome fair use attribution, and not so awesome.

1. Over at Riptide Tim Leeson, former editor, was asked to contribute a guest post on his  5 most important waves. Leeson identified his fifth wave as being his first time riding the Wedge at Newport Beach, CA which also happened to be the wave that he made his name on bodyboarding. For the Wedge, Leeson, or the folks at Riptide, used my photograph from 2013, you can check it out here.
2. That same picture was used over at Scoopnest by Surfdom with the caption “This is the best hump we’ve ever seen.” Which is something I can only nod my head in agreement with, but then people will accuse me of bias.
3.  Umm Ibrahim over at the Youth Club Blog uses a Shaikh family Iftar table picture under “Reason #6”. Sadly, unlike Riptide and Scoopnest, Umm Ibrahim did not bother to credit the picture to me or bother to link it. Worse she didn’t even change the name of the image file. I don’t mind the use of the picture, however, it does require attribution and lack thereof is breaking the Fair Use designation. The easy remedy is to do something as simple as stating “Photo Credit [name of person]” or taking it a step further by liking to where the image is taken from.

We are not all perfect, and make mistakes, and I know I am trying really hard to rectify my mistakes where and when I can. If I used an image or quoted without proper attribution, please take a moment and let me know. I will take the necessary steps to fix it. Also, if you are using any images, please let me know by shooting me an email OR commenting on the page the image is derived from with a link to your use.