We shot Matt and Adrienne and baby at the farm house in Orion Township, Michigan. They are previous wedding clients of ours and we were super excited to work with them again and so thrilled to hear that they are going to be parents.

For more information on maternity photography in Michigan, please go here arisingimages.com

Back in 2008, I had created some paintings of Jesus to celebrate Easter. Every year I get a few emails about them on Easter Sunday and today was no exception.
For those that are interested in any type of prints, 100% of profits from the sale of any painted prints will be donated towards good causes around Detroit and South Africa.
Here is the gallery that has a few of my paintings in it:
http://www.arisingimages.com/painting/0_gallery/index.html

This week I had the opportunity to go with my friend Ben to Spain for a week. Ben and I were roommates in college and we’ve been doing various traveling and exploring the world ever since. It’s hard to imagine it’s been 14 years since college! Our last trip was in 2009. Ben lives in Phoenix so these trips give us a chance to reconnect.
We had planned out a very aggressive trip with lots of things to see and photograph. Overall the trip was a success but it was a bit too aggressive. We covered too much distance in too short a time. Our days started at 6:00am and went to 9:00pm so every night we were completely exhausted but the photos were definitely worth it!
The pictures below are all available for sale at:
http://www.arisingimages.com/fineart/00_all/index.html?show=__Spain%202012

Day 1
After delays en route to Philadelphia and then more delays to Madrid, we finally arrived at around 7:00am in Madrid after just a few hours of sleep on the plane.
After picking up our rental car, we drove into the city, parked, and started to walk around to explore the sights.
There were some pretty statues and fountains that had to be creatively cropped to hide all the surrounding traffic.

The Royal Palace was by far the most interesting place to see there, however, walking 5 miles in the city was pretty exhausting.

and right across the walkway from the palace was an amazing church!

With all the walking we did we passed some cool narrow streets and colorful buildings.

We then went over to the mayor’s plaza.

We were surprised at how much graffiti was around Madrid. Also, clearly any anti-smoking campaigns haven’t taken off in Spain yet. It was definitely quite Americanized with a burger king and people dressed as Sponge Bob.
We stopped for lunch in a small cafe and saw lots of people drinking at 10:00am and then as we were walking back to our car, we passed lots of hookers.
Let’s just say that we were not impressed with Madrid as most of our walking was on busy streets with lots of diesel pollution. We were eager to head out of town and hit the small country towns.

We next went to go view a beautiful castle in a town called Manzenares. It was really cool to see but it was surrounded by apartments in a fairly dumpy neighborhood again with lots of graffiti so that took away from the ambiance. However, shooting photos from creative angles hid all the “stuff” nearby and made for some cool images.

Onward to Avila. Avila is a town surrounded by giant stone walls that clearly provided fortification back in medieval times.
It was mid-day with minimal clouds. For any of you that know about landscape photography, this is literally the worst time of day to be out taking photos. The light was very harsh and not good for pictures at all. However, it was still really cool to be there. This is what it looked liked:

By playing with the exposure and white balance, I was able to make it look like evening which I thought was a much more interesting photo:

I also enjoyed looking for some random street images:

A few hours later we arrived in Segovia which I was super excited about. Segovia had a huge aqueduct that used to bring water to the city. On the western edge of town, there was a gigantic beautiful castle. By the time we arrived in Segovia, we were exhausted from a long day. Unfortunately there was some road construction in the city which caused us to have to take a long detour to get to the view of the castle. After getting an idea of where the best light would be at sunset, we wanted to find a hotel and get some dinner. We drove a long way back around to the city to find the hotel that we had looked up on the GPS. Unfortunately that hotel must have gone out of business because we couldn’t find it. We found another hotel that was on the road that was closed for construction so we decided to go back there and park, and find the hotel and hope it was open. It was!! We then went to the nearby bar to try to get some dinner but after much difficulty with the language barrier, we realized that they didn’t serve dinner until 8:00 which was still an hour away. That meant that we had to drive all the way back around into the city again and find something to eat. We did that, headed back around again to the castle for some evening photos. Even in the evening, it was definitely harsh angular light with no clouds, but it was still incredible.

We went back to the hotel for sleep as we knew we were going to start the next morning very early.

Day 2
We started the morning with some more pics of the castle and town. It was a breathtaking sight. It was a cold clear morning but well worth getting up early for!

At the viewpoint overlooking the town, there was also a pretty stone church behind us.

Next we headed to Coca to view another majestic medieval castle. On the way, we were driving down an open country road. The sun was low and provided some beautiful morning light coming through the trees.

When we arrived at Coca, the castle was difficult to photograph due to the harsh sun but still amazing. The castle was open to walk around in. It was crazy to think about people shooting bows and arrows off the ramparts to fight off fending attackers.
Now the castle just sat in the middle of town with an elementary school across the street. I think it would be weird to go to school next to a castle that is hundreds of years old.

Next we drove to a town called Burgos to photograph the cathedral downtown. This turned out to be a frustrating experience as it was very difficult to navigate the narrow streets in the city and find a place to park. We finally found a REALLY tight parking garage and managed to get a spot but soon found out that you had to be a guest at a hotel to park there. It took a long time to maneuver the car out of the parking space and after that we were not able to find another parking spot so we eventually just drove out of the city and viewed the cathedral from a distance on the highway. We were not able to get any pictures of it.
We stopped for lunch, then drove through Vittoria and on to a sleepy village named Arroiabe. There was an incredible church on a hilltop and if you drive around to the backside down the farm roads, it provides an incredible view.

Just a few minutes up the road is a small town called Ullibari-Gamboa which could be viewed from across a nearby lake.

Next we drove up to Bilboa which is home to a Guggenheim museum. We wanted to photograph it in the evening but wanted to make sure we knew where to go and where to park so that we didn’t waste time when the evening light was perfect. After getting the lay of the land, we headed farther north to view another medieval castle named Butron. It was another majestic medieval castle, however, it was difficult to get a good view of it and the harsh afternoon light made photographing it a challenge. Using some HDR photography, I was able to bring out the blue in the sky and get a cool shot.

We then headed to the north coast where we wanted to find a hotel for the night so that we would be on the coast for sunrise photos in the morning. We spent about an hour exploring some of the coastal lookouts and got some amazing views of the ocean.

After finding the hotel, we drove back into Bilboa, got dinner and then waited for the perfect evening light at the Guggenheim. It was truly an amazing sight. It’s probably the most unique architecture that I’ve ever seen. Personally I found it even more unique than the Sydney opera house, or the Eiffel tower. They even had jets of fire that shoot out of the water every 5 minutes which was pretty cool. I imagine it would be a little terrifying if you didn’t know they were coming though! The best view was from up on the bridge over the river which was easily accessible by walking.

One thing that was common pretty much everywhere we went in Spain was lots of graffiti. We figured we might as well use it for a portrait:

We went back to the hotel in Sopelana on the north coast for the night.

Day 3
We woke up early again to photograph the sunrise on the coast but being on the north coast with the sun rising in the south eastern sky, the morning light with no clouds did not provide an interesting scene. We hiked down to the ocean to shoot a few photos of the water breaking over the rocks. Long exposures and some creative editing made for some interesting pictures on an otherwise dull morning.

Next we drove farther along the coast to Gorliz but by the time we arrived, the sun had risen too much and the harsh lighting made taking unique photos almost impossible.
We then drove to Lekeitio. It was a beautiful drive through windy mountain roads through a heavily forested park and past hundreds of people riding their bikes for what looked like practice for a big race. The town itself reminded me a lot of Honfleur which was a town in northern France that Cheridy and I visited in France many years ago. Again, the harsh sun and no clouds made photographing difficult.

We then followed the coast to a town called Deva. The drive itself was very similar to highway 1 in California with twisty cliff top roads and a beautiful coastline below but there were very few pull offs on the road to stop and enjoy it. The ones that we did find provided some beautiful views.

We continued driving on to Biarritz in France. When we crossed the border, the security didn’t look at our passports but they did give the front end of our car some really odd looks. We later realized that at some point we had hit a bird while driving and by the looks of it, we had been driving a long time with a dead bird on the grill.
Biarritz had a beautiful little lighthouse on the coast. Today we were expecting 50-60 degree weather with rain, but instead it was 80 without a cloud in the sky.
We were so exhausted from driving so much we decided to sit here and relax for half an hour just to enjoy the sunshine and watch the surfers trying to catch the miniscule waves.

We continued on to Pau which is a town with an old white castle which lead to a lot of cheesy White Castle Hamburger jokes (thanks Ben). Once again the town was difficult to navigate and the castle was hard to photograph in the harsh afternoon sun but I still came away with a few pics that I liked.

We then drove to Lourdes where they have an amazing gothic cathedral. The drive itself was fantastic as we could see the beautiful snow-capped Pyrenees mountains to the south. Seeing those majestic mountains was really exciting and we knew we would be driving right through them tomorrow! We again had a huge amount of difficulty navigating the streets and finding parking in Lourdes. We must have driven around for an hour trying to figure out how to get to the cathedral. While driving around, we got a nice view of the hilltop castle.

It was already pretty late and we were hungry and tired so we decided to stay the night here. However, it’s the off season and almost all of the hotels and restaurants were still closed for the season. We found a hotel that was open and they were having some type of Ferrari convention. There were Ferrari’s everywhere! It was pretty crazy. There was also no shortage of Ferrari owners who were mostly middle-upper aged men wearing cheap cologne who were really proud of their cars. They even wore Ferrari shoes and Ferrari shirts. I felt like I should be having a mid-life crisis to hang out there.
We found a little street corner cafe where we got to eat some terrible pizzas and then walk over to the cathedral to photograph it in the evening.

Day 4
Today was going to be our longest day yet with LOTS of mountain driving. We woke up really early, got all packed up and ready to go and then realized that the time on our phones was different than the time on our watches. Apparently they went through the daylight savings time change last night so our phone alarm actually woke us up an hour too early. It took us a long time and a lot of confusion to figure out what happened and try to understand why the sun wasn’t coming up at the right time. We at first though that there might have been some kind of time shift between Spain and France with one acknowledging daylight savings time and the other not but with help from our friend Google, we figured it out.
Our drive started out with some beautiful views of the Pyrenees mountains covered in snow.

Around each corner the views kept changing and getting better.

We unfortunately realized that the mountain pass that we had planned to take to cross from France back into Spain was still closed for the season. This led us to an extra hour of driving to get around to the next road which was open. We were already anticipating a long day and losing an hour in the morning due to the time change and then losing another hour due to the re-route was not a good thing. Either way, the drive through the Pyrenees national park was fantastic with some incredible views.

After crossing the mountain pass and heading back into Spain we drove down to a much lower elevation where it was very hot and dry. Within a few hours we arrived at Torla which had an old stone chapel with large cliffs as a backdrop. It was an incredibly beautiful day and the smell of clean fresh air was exhilarating.

Later we arrived at a town called Ainsa with old ruins on the hilltop. We quickly realized the ruins themselves were not very photogenic from close up but while looking over the edge of the ramparts, we could see a path up a hill across the river which would give us a much nicer view of the whole town with the snow-capped mountains behind it.

This was then followed by hours of fairly dull mountain driving. The constant twists and turns and elevation changes gave me some occasionally nauseous moments. I have no idea how Ben stayed awake and focused with all that driving.
As the sun got lower in the sky, it led to some beautiful views of the mountain ridges falling away into the distance. There were also some stunning cliffs looming over the mountain valleys.

We found a spot with a very serene location with a reflection of an old house over a lake.

It was getting late and we were still a few hours from where we were hoping to make it tonight but it had already been close to 14 hours of mountain driving today.
The nearest town was St. Lorenc de Morunys. Thankfully we were able to find a hostel that was open in the off season. The only restaurant/bar that seemed to be open wasn’t going to serve dinner for another hour. Those Spanish folks like to eat really late! We walked around and found a place that said we could order pizza. Once again, we had a really bad Spanish pizza and then crashed for the night.

Day 5
We once again woke up really early and drove down to the lake we had seen the night before. It provided an amazing location for sunrise photos. There were a few clouds over the mountains and the lake provided an incredible mirror reflection. It was one of the most beautiful sunrises I’ve ever seen. We spent nearly an hour there photographing it from different vantage points as the light was changing.

Next, we drove a few hours to a town called Olot. Just outside is a village built right above a huge cliff called Castellfollit de la Roca.

We then drove to a medieval town called Besalu which had an old stone bridge leading to the medieval city. There were lots of young kids on field trips out there. I thought it was amazing that for a history field trip, these kids get to go to where history was actually made. When I was in school, the only field trip I remember was going to the salt mines in Detroit.

Next we drove out to the east coast where we came to a beautiful Mediterranean town called El Port de Selva. The white buildings on the blue water were really pretty. It had already been a tiring day so we parked the car on the beach and sat for 10-15 minutes to just enjoy the smell of the sea (and eat potato chips).

Driving up the mountains behind the town, it provided an amazing view of the seaside town down below:

At the top of the mountain we arrived at an old church and monastery.

We then drove to another tourist town on the peninsula called Cadaques which was also a pretty town with white buildings on the ocean. Parking was difficult and we decided to just move on and head out after a few quick photos.

We drove to Tossa Del Mar which was another coastal town a few hours away. We were supposed to drive in to Barcelona tonight but we were totally exhausted so we found a hotel near the coast. We decided to leave our cameras in the hotel room and go grab something to eat and just relax. This was a tourist town so it was probably the first place we went where anyone spoke enough English to actually communicate which made things much easier for us.

Of course the day we decide to leave our cameras in the room, we got a beautiful evening sky on the ocean. I ended up shooting this photo with my iphone.

The restaurant that we stopped at was…interesting. Our food experience in Spain hasn’t been great. The green salad that I got had all sorts of funky things in it that I am not used to and they didn’t provide any dressing. When I asked for dressing, I was offered ketchup, mayo, or fish sauce…pass!

We stayed at a 4 star hotel tonight although we quickly realized that the star rating is very different in Europe then it is in the States. The 4 star hotel was pretty much on par with a motel 6 but for how tired we were, all we really needed was a bed to sleep in and a shower!

Day 6
Today we woke up really early because we wanted to head in to Barcelona to beat the rush hour traffic. We had picked a spot right downtown to stop at that had some old gothic buildings. However, we did NOT beat rush hour and the traffic to get downtown was crazy. Since we had already seen tons of old gothic buildings, we decided to skip that stop and go to Segrada Familia which is an amazing landmark in Barcelona. Driving in big European cities is very nerve wracking so it definitely had Ben on edge. We found a place to park and walked over to the cathedral but the construction cranes, scaffolding and bad light didn’t leave for any good shots. I just shot a quick one with my phone.

As we drove around Barcelona, we saw lots of garbage and graffiti which was a common theme in Spain. Some areas stunk as bad as the industrial section on I-94 in Detroit. We were relieved to get the heck out of there in a hurry! About 45 minutes from the city and up in the nearby mountains is the Monsterrat Monastery. We loved the drive and views of the mountains in the morning.

The monastery itself is a HUGE structure built right into the cliff walls. It was impressive to think about how they could have possibly built it. However, the structure itself was really not pretty as it was just huge blocky buildings that were overrun with giant tour buses, a giant cafeteria, and plenty of people setting up tables surely to sell overpriced memorabilia to all the tourists.

My favorite part about it was some stone archways overlooking the mountains.

We decided to use those for a goofy portrait.

And then I had Ben shoot another more artsy one with my phone.

We then went three hours west to a city called Saragossa which has a huge cathedral right on the river. The cathedral was STUNNING. Probably one of the most beautiful that I’ve ever seen.

The mid day light was harsh so some creative photography and editing were needed to make some really unique pictures.

It was another beautiful day so we decided to stop here for lunch.
We really had no great plan for the rest of the day. It was another three hours back to Madrid which we really had no interest in going back to. We decided to pick a direction and just drive. We picked a little mountain town called Medina de Aragon which had a huge old fortification on a hilltop.

Next we drove through a nearby National Park called Alto Tajo. On the way, the drive was really pretty. We had some decent clouds for the first time on this trip so we took some photos of open fields and white puffy clouds and such. It was super peaceful!!

On our way back towards the expressway I spent some time looking for some cool trees to photograph.

We drove a few hours over to Guadelajara which is a city right off the expressway that we would take back to Madrid the next morning to catch our flight. Parking in the city is always super difficult and we were grateful to find a hotel right off the expressway with parking and a restaurant. Well…we were grateful until we realized that the hotel smelled like feet and had beds with sunken mattresses before we even lay in them but…it was another long day and we knew we would sleep.

The next morning it was straight back to the airport for a long flight home. Finding the rental car drop off was very frustrating as there were no signs so we spent half an hour driving to all 4 terminals until we eventually found it at the last one we tried.
I’m writing this blog post on the plane and overall, I’m looking forward to being home with Cheridy and the boys and just relaxing and watching TV!!
I’m glad we came home with good photos but, we’re very tired!!! Overall, it was a great experience and I’m glad to have spent that time with my friend Ben, but we tried to do too much in too short a time and didn’t factor in extra time for delays caused by construction, parking issues, language barrier issues, etc.

Let’s just say it’s good to be home!!!

It’s always great to see a familiar face resurface for some photos! We shot Mike and Erin’s wedding in November of 2010 and they were just the nicest couple and such a joy to be around. So, we were pretty excited when he came back this past month for some head shots.

For more information on head shots in Detroit, Michigan please go here arisingimages.com

We had the privilege of shooting another gorgeous Ballroom Bliss Royal Park Hotel wedding event in downtown Rochester, MI.

This past Monday, March 19th was Royal Park’s Ballroom Bliss. Emerald City Designs‘ Event Staff created a beautiful gold draped area that held two different table settings. One table was inspired by spring gardens and displayed a dense full arrangement on top of a traditional small statue. The cream petal overlay added great texture and depth to the table. The second table was extremely romantic and chic. The glass vase centerpiece looked studding with the ivory/white floral placed inside. The rhinestone globe at the top of the vase and smaller rhinestone vases at the base of table was breathtaking.

– Royal Park Hotel

For more information on Michigan event photography, please go here arisingimages.com

Betty was such a sweet woman, I really enjoyed working with her. She was chipper and easily amused… which was great for me, because it made me feel super funny. We shot Betty’s head shots at our studio in Rochester Hills, MI for different dating sites that Betty wanted good, updated photos for.

For more information on Michigan head shots, please go here arisingimages.com

We shot Gretchen’s head shots at our studio in Rochester Hills, Michigan, for her new real estate job at Max Broock Realtors of Birmingham. She was such a lovely person; super nice and extremely easy to shoot because she was so pretty and photogenic!

For more information on Michigan head shots please go here arisingimages.com

Viviano Flower Shop held their 2012 bridal extravaganza at the Best Western Sterling Inn, in Sterling Heights, Michigan. Brides, grooms and families could come to the event and see bride and bridesmaids bouquets, church and hall decorations and over 200 various arrangements designed by Viviano’s. The event was absolutely stunning, the aroma of the room was amazing and it was a feast for the eyes every where you looked. Viviano’s really out did themselves again!

Viviano’s amazing, talented and gracious team.

For more information on Michigan event photography, please go here arisingimages.com

Earlier this week, Fox 2 News came out to our house to interview me regarding the blog post I had written about Pinterest. For anyone that missed that, you can see the 2 minute piece here:
http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/dpp/news/local/some-pinterest-users-breaking-the-law-question-mark-20120314-ms

They asked me what my issue with Pinterest was and unfortunately the meat of the problem was totally cut out of the broadcast. But…that’s ok, it was still fun to be on TV.
The best part of it was that when we were done with the interview, they had me bring the boys out in the yard and I had about 3 minutes to take some quick pics. I figured that since I shot some, I might as well post them.
At one point I had the boys goofing around and wrestling and then I thought…maybe showing fighting children isn’t the best idea for the news cast. But by then they were all geared up…that’s where the 4th photo comes in. You can see the camera guy back there.

We’ve been so busy around here that I just realized I never even posted about our experience at Imaging USA. First, I wanted to see that I’m a huge supporter of PPA. PPA is always looking out for the best interest of photographers so I’m really proud to have an affiliation with them.
This past January I was honored to have the opportunity to speak at Imaging USA in New Orleans.

Midway through the convention, I had the chance to speak at the Black River Imaging booth on the trade show floor. Black River has been my lab for many years and the more I get to know them, the more I realize how it’s a lab that’s run by incredible people. Having the opportunity to sit and chat with the people that run the show has been great and it’s really cool how they listen to our feedback and implement new products and processes.

At the end of the convention, I had my opportunity to give a platform speech about wedding workflow. Speaking in such a huge room can definitely be a bit intimidating but it was a lot of fun and a great experience.

We photographed LaMarr and Jordan in Clarkston, Michigan back on a beautiful day in September. LaMarr is a line-backer for the Pittsburgh Steelers, but he and Jordon are originally from Michigan. We were able to shoot their engagement photos when they came back home to visit family for the weekend. Downtown Clarkston was a great location to shoot because it offers both an urban backdrop with the great historic buildings, and a more scenic backdrop with the conveniently located park.

For more information on Michigan engagement photography, please go here http://arisingimages.com/portrait/info_pages/engagements/index.htm

If you haven’t heard of Pinterest you probably don’t use a computer much and won’t be reading this anyway. It’s the newest social media frenzy and is probably talked more about lately than Facebook. However, it’s talked about ON Facebook so maybe that doesn’t count.
I’ll be honest, I wasn’t excited about yet another social media outlet to take up time but just like some of the others, when you are a small business owner, you need to stay on top of all the social media trends to be able to capitalize on potential business opportunities. When I started to explore Pinterest more, I actually really liked it. It’s basically like online idea boards. For years, we’ve been tearing photos out of magazines and such to use as inspiration but Pinterest just made that a lot simpler with access to a lot more content, a lot quicker.
My first thought was that that would provide a really good way to share our photos. If people like them, they can repin them and hopefully an image here and there would spread virally which could lead to a lot of potential new clients visiting our website.
So, I created an account and started uploading what I thought were some of our better photos so that other Pinterest users would have the option to repin them. However, I received a note from another photographer who was actually really helpful. She explained Pinterest etiquette and explained that it’s not really meant to just promote your own work. Rather, you are supposed to find inspiration in what other people have posted and then “repin” that. From a business standpoint, that didn’t seem to have a lot of value for me as I’m really not interested in spending time promoting other people’s work. However, when I thought about it more, I got really confused. If nobody is supposed to upload their own content, where does the content come from?

Before I get too far into this, let me put a disclaimer out there and say that I now really like Pinterest and I think the person that created it is a genius if it weren’t for some of the issues outlined below:

My wife explained the concept of the Bookmarklet which is a handy code that you can save as a bookmark on your web browser. On pretty much any page you go on the internet, if you see a picture that you like, you can click the bookmark and it brings up a dialogue box that shows you EVERY photo on that page and asks you which one you want to pin to one of your boards.
I quickly realized that content is basically coming from anywhere on the internet and NOT from other people posting things they want other people to share.
In other words, people are taking photo, images, drawing, and pretty much any type of image file from anywhere on the internet without any consent and then posting it on Pinterest to share with everything they are connecting with.
That didn’t really sound legit however…for me, I still liked the idea. I WANT people to pin and repin the content that is on our website because our photos are watermarked so people can see who took them. However, most of the content on Pinterest is NOT watermarked and many of the photos don’t link back in any way to the original content provider which essentially means that intellectual property is being stolen and reposted without the awareness or consent of the content provider.
If Pinterest worked the way that I originally thought it did where people post things and then others can repin that content, there would be no issue because the original content provider is essentially granting access for the sake of sharing the content. However, when photos are lifted from anywhere on the internet, this brings up new issues and the potential for copyright violation lawsuits.
This is forefront in my mind because over the last month, I’ve had to have an attorney send cease and desist letters to two different photographers who had stolen images from me that they were using for their own advertising. One photographer had taken an old image that I had online that was not watermarked and she was using it as her own to advertise a photo promo she was running. Another photographer had stolen one of my most popular and most widely recognized images, cropped out my logo, and posted it on his blog with an article about why people should hire HIM for wedding photography. In these cases I fought for my copyright. Since both of those images had not been registered with the copyright office, suing either of those photographers is really not a viable option as any winnings may not even cover attorneys fees. However, if those images HAD been registered with the copyright office, that could lead to lawsuits in 5 and 6 figures.
Last night I read a few blog articles about Pinterest terms of use which I’ll admit that I had never read. These articles confirmed what was irking me about Pinterest. This morning I read through the Pinterest terms of use and found it very disturbing.
Here are just a few excerpts:

By making available any Member Content through the Site, Application or Services, you hereby grant to Cold Brew Labs a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free license, with the right to sublicense, to use, copy, adapt, modify, distribute, license, sell, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, stream, broadcast, access, view, and otherwise exploit such Member Content only on, through or by means of the Site, Application or Services.

Ok, well that is basically saying that you are giving Pinterest the right to use whatever images you post in whatever manner they choose on the site. Again, that’s not a big deal as long as I’m providing watermarked images. I want them to be used as much as possible in as many places as possible as long as there is a link back to MY site. But what about if I repin something from the internet that I never had the right to give them access to in the first place? Check this out:

You acknowledge and agree that you are solely responsible for all Member Content that you make available through the Site, Application and Services. Accordingly, you represent and warrant that: (i) you either are the sole and exclusive owner of all Member Content that you make available through the Site, Application and Services or you have all rights, licenses, consents and releases that are necessary to grant to Cold Brew Labs the rights in such Member Content, as contemplated under these Terms; and (ii) neither the Member Content nor your posting, uploading, publication, submission or transmittal of the Member Content or Cold Brew Labs’ use of the Member Content (or any portion thereof) on, through or by means of the Site, Application and the Services will infringe, misappropriate or violate a third party’s patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret, moral rights or other proprietary or intellectual property rights, or rights of publicity or privacy, or result in the violation of any applicable law or regulation.

Essentially by agreeing to the terms of use which everyone that has an account had to do, you are telling them that anything you are posting YOU have the legal rights to post and allow other to repost. However, if you’re not the creator of the image, then you don’t have that right and every image you post that is not your own is a copyright violation.
That is followed later by this:

You agree not to do any of the following:
• Post, upload, publish, submit, provide access to or transmit any Content that: (i) infringes, misappropriates or violates a third party’s patent, copyright, trademark, trade secret, moral rights or other intellectual property rights, or rights of publicity or privacy;

Again, you are agreeing that you have the right to the images when you pin something. Then in two different areas they are basically telling you that if you violate copyright in any way, that’s on you and if you get sued…that’s on you.

Cold Brew Labs will have the right to investigate and prosecute violations of any of the above to the fullest extent of the law. Cold Brew Labs may involve and cooperate with law enforcement authorities in prosecuting users who violate these Terms.

YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT, TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE ENTIRE RISK ARISING OUT OF YOUR ACCESS TO AND USE OF THE SITE, APPLICATION, SERVICES AND SITE CONTENT REMAINS WITH YOU.

People sue for everything and if you steal their intellectual property rights, you can really make someone angry. I use Pinterest for SEO purposes. We started to at least somewhat keyword some of the images we’ve been uploading because if people find my images they can get back to my site. However, what if I didn’t watermark anything and then someone took my image, posted it on Pinterest and then THEY keyworded the image and it lost the link back to my website which seems to happen with a lot of Pinterest photos. If that happened, then my image would be showing up on Pinterest with no link back to me at all which would actually hurt my business.
If you decide to steal images from a fashion magazines website and those images were registered for the copyright office, would it be worth the potential lawsuit for the sake of an inspiration board?
I think not.

I’ve deleted my boards until this gets resolved. Again, please don’t take this as me NOT liking Pinterest. I think it’s a great idea but it needs to work the way I initially thought it did where members either post their own content or website owners opt-IN to allow their content to be used.

Here are a few related articles:
http://greekgeek.hubpages.com/hub/Is-Pinterest-a-Haven-for-Copyright-Violations

http://ddkportraits.com/2012/02/why-i-tearfully-deleted-my-pinterest-inspiration-boards/