All very nice & legal . . . however . . .
There was a recent article in the local paper {Philadelphia Inquirer} where
the columnist ran into the same problem at a local WalMart. The excuse for
the refusal to give him his prints so ticked him off that he made it the
subject of a column.
The reason they wouldn't give him his prints was because . . . "they look
TOO GOOD . . .". In the opinion of the "$6.oo-an-hour, minimal IQ,
photographic moron, clerk" anything 'this good' had to be 'Professional' as
opposed to the work of someone with maybe 10+ years of experience with
various cameras.
With the magnitude leaps in technology the 'film' camera is in danger of
becoming 'extinct', or at the very least, 'endangered'. {Recently I found
that my 35mm Nikon equipment is almost valueless. A rapid decrease from as
recently as a year ago - when I sold a Nikkormat for $100}. I then sold off
ALL my Mamiya TLR equipment . . . the camera went for almost nothing, the
lenses brought in the money.} What caused this is obvious . . . the 'Digital
Age'.
I've had a *simple* digital camera for several years. I used it like a
'visual notebook'. Illustrating 'work in progress' for my self or for the
'e-zine' column I write, making note of a particular detail on a boat at
Mystic Seaport, or to e-mail a photo to ebay. An H-P, it was so inexpensive
that it was under $50 if purchased with a external drive - that I intended
to get anyway. A few months ago it was bumped off a table. It would no
longer 'transfer' the images to the memory card. Rather than repair it {it
was considered 'obsolete' anyway}I looked for a new one . . . more like my
Nikons. Anyhow - it was a revelation !! I finally found what I wanted . . .
it was a 'discontinued' model - probably because it was so very similar to a
35mm SLR. I also found out a few things. The 'trained' clerks in most of the
'Photo Shops' had NO IDEA what 'Rangefinder' meant. They had also redefined
'SLR' {single-lens-reflex}. Where this ties in with the subject at hand is
the LITERATURE.
Looking in the library, getting a few {deeply discounted}books, {and later
even the owners manual of the camera} - I got myself up-dated in the
'Digital Era'. ALL THESE BOOKS - 'How To . .', 'Technique . .', 'Using .
..' - after a few pages that define the physical differences between 'film'
and 'digital' - then go on for three-quarters of their length with the SAME
words, illustrations, tips, etc on Composition, Lighting, Portraits,
Landscapes, etc. as ALL of the 'FILM PHOTOGRAPHY' that has gone before.
A good photographer with a good 'eye' . . . is a good photographer with a
good eye . . . PERIOD !! The particular camera is his 'tool' - no mater it
be 35mm, 2-1/4, 4x5, or Digital.
Nobody is going to go to WalMart, K-Mart, or any of the other -marts, to get
a photo/digital image copied that they are then going to publish in a book,
or magazine, or TV commercial for some insane amount of profit. Our society
maybe litigious, but this crap is just an exercise in 'abuse of power' for
that twit of a clerk, and a way for corporate lawyers to justify their
existence and obscene salary's.
Rant Off . . .
Regards & Thanks for the 'soapbox',
Ron Magen
Backyard Boatshop
"Dhakala" wrote in message
oups.com...
This is becoming a problem in many photo processing outlets, not just
Wal Mart. Here's an article on the subject:
http://www.detnews.com/2005/business...C06-225211.htm
"Copyright law requires photo labs to be on the lookout for portraits
and other professional work that should not be duplicated without a
photographer's permission. In the old days, questions about an image's
provenance could be settled with a negative. If you had it, you
probably had the right to reproduce it.
"Now, when images are submitted on CDs or memory cards or over the Web,
photofinishers often have to guess whether a picture was truly taken by
the customer -- or whether it was scanned into a computer or pilfered
off the Internet."
Guess your Wal Mart doesn't trust prints, either.