Ella and I found a mirror and captured a quick self portrait at her Princess Ballet Birthday party…

Meet “Monty” the Mantis. Ethan found this critter on the front porch a few weeks ago. We set him up at the “Anderson Inn”…providing a nice enclosed habitat and a slew of crickets. The kiddos enjoyed watching Monty hunt and attack the crickets…cheering him on every time (Gia, on the other hand, wasn’t diggin’ it too much). Having Monty around for a few days provided the opportunity for some insect lessons as well. We learned that his spiked forelegs are called “raptorial legs,” and that his head can rotate up to 300 degrees – a feat we witnessed a few times, very cool! (Photo taken at 1600 ISO, f2.8, through smudgy aquarium glass)

If you’re interested, you can follow me on Twitter from here in Tampa at the Imaging USA show:
www.twitter.com/scottanderson

I’m at the Imaging USA show in Tampa this week…with limited access to e-mail/voicemail. For clients, the best way to reach me is on my mobile. If you’re in the photography industry and at the show here in Tampa, I’m looking forward to the prospect of meting you!

I’m always intrigued with a discussion of copyright issues, especially as the topic relates to photography within the digital realm (blogs, websites, flickr, MySpace, etc).  Along with my work for clients (wedding and lifestyle photography), I also sell stock and fine art images (and have been compensated fairly).  However, I’ve also had these images “stolen” (via digital channels) and used without compensation. 

Some in the industry say this is a risk of having an online portfolio (i.e., just part of doing business in this day and age)…and others have even claimed that I should be proud that my images were chosen to be “borrowed” (citing the creative commons model, etc.).    The conversation is interesting, and I’ve heard compelling arguments on both sides (for the record I hold the opinion that photography should only be used with full permission of the copyright owner/photographer and/or legally licensed).   

I especially dig Robert Haggart’s eloquence on the subject…”I think it’s cool that people want to create material and give it away because that’s exactly the value of the material they’re creating.”…”High quality photography is still very expensive.”  

His recent blog post is worth checking out.