{"id":23519,"date":"2014-05-02T06:15:28","date_gmt":"2014-05-02T12:15:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=23519"},"modified":"2014-05-02T06:48:15","modified_gmt":"2014-05-02T12:48:15","slug":"the-honor-in-keeping-your-word-or-the-lack-of-it-when-you-dont","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2014\/05\/02\/the-honor-in-keeping-your-word-or-the-lack-of-it-when-you-dont\/","title":{"rendered":"The Honor In Keeping Your Word (or the lack of it when you don’t)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I get many requests for use of my images.\u00a0 It’s been my long-standing and strict policy to donate image use for conservation or environmental education purposes but to require a reasonable licensing fee for all other uses.\u00a0 For me it’s a matter of principle, much\u00a0more than it is the money.<\/p>\n

On September 21, 2012 I received a rather unusual image\u00a0request.\u00a0 It was from PS\u00a0(I’ll just use his initials), a Systems Administrator for the AV8B Harrier program at China Lake\u00a0Naval Air Weapons Station in California.\u00a0 The AV8B Harrier is a military “jump jet” capable of “vertical or short takeoff and landing” (V\/STOL).\u00a0 Because of its unusual flight\u00a0capabilities\u00a0this aircraft is\u00a0a very impressive ground-attack aircraft.\u00a0 One of the definitions of the phrase “to harry” is\u00a0“to disturb or distress by repeated attacks: to harass” so it becomes obvious how this aircraft came\u00a0by its name.\u00a0\u00a0And anyone who’s familiar with the flying capabilities and\u00a0aerial\u00a0hunting tactics of the Northern Harrier (the raptor) can see why the two share the same name.<\/p>\n

PS was in the process of designing computer systems for use in training Marine Harrier pilots and asked to use some of my images as backgrounds and other uses.\u00a0 He was interested in some of my\u00a0Northern Harrier images and because these programs are very patriotic in theme he also asked for some Bald Eagle photographs.\u00a0 Even though his request had nothing to do with “conservation or environmental education” I agreed to donate the use of my images (without a licensing fee) as a small token of support for these military pilots.\u00a0 I basically gave him carte blanche access to my entire portfolio and let him choose the images he would use.\u00a0 My only condition was that he\u00a0send me copies of the final graphics he worked up for use in the program (I make this request to have a memento and to have a record of how my images are used).\u00a0 PS agreed to that condition.<\/p>\n

Below are the seven\u00a0images I sent him on October 3, 2012.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"bald<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0Bald Eagle 2172<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"northern<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0Northern Harrier 3923<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"bald<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0Bald Eagle 2473<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"northern<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0Northern Harrier 1804<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"bald<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0Bald Eagle 4202<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"northern<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0Northern Harrier 8903<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"bald<\/a><\/p>\n

Bald Eagle 0878\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

After sending the images to PS I waited six weeks for him to send me the final graphics that included my images.\u00a0 When I had heard nothing back in that time\u00a0I emailed PS on November 16, 2012\u00a0and reminded him of our agreement.\u00a0 His response was “Things are still in the works.\u00a0 But I have not forgotten about you. I’ll get things out to you when it’s complete.”\u00a0\u00a0Given the situation that seemed reasonable to me so I sat back and waited.\u00a0 And waited. \u00a0 I decided to not contact him again and see if he lived up to his word (I got the faint impression that he wasn’t too happy about being “reminded”).<\/p>\n

It’s now been almost a year and\u00a0a half since I sent PS the images and I haven’t received the finished graphics or an explanation for the extreme\u00a0delay.\u00a0 I will not contact him again.\u00a0\u00a0 Sadly, it’s not particularly unusual for folks who are allowed free use of my images to not live up to their end of the bargain but I found this one to be more disturbing than most.<\/p>\n

A sad state of affairs…<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

Note: This video clip <\/a>is a long one (almost 12 minutes) but\u00a0there may\u00a0be a few readers who are\u00a0interested in seeing a demonstration of the dramatic flight\u00a0capabilities of the AV8B Harrier at the\u00a0Mirimar Air Show.\u00a0 Both plane and pilot are very, very impressive.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sadly, it’s not particularly unusual for folks who get free use of my images to not live up to their end of the bargain but I found this one to be more disturbing than most.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23523,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[355,334,16,341],"tags":[1996,43,1997,234,1998],"class_list":["post-23519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bald-eagles","category-birds","category-photography-ethics","category-northern-harriers","tag-av8b-harrier","tag-bald-eagle","tag-china-lake-naval-air-weapons-station","tag-northern-harrier","tag-vstol"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/bald-eagle-4202-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-67l","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}