Sussex Sport Photography.com - News Blog

Weekend preview - 12th Feb 2012

2012-02-10T16:37:00.000Z

Still on - Deal Half Marathon 2012 (as of Friday 4pm)

With the snow having cancelled almost everything last weekend some of you will be looking for a half marathon run out as part of your pre-london or pre-brighton training.

It's half term next week - so the probability of getting out for a long-one is lower for many of us, as well as the valentines day evening will no doubt (for some) be a nice quiet evening at the gym with easier access to the kit that usual. Being single had it's benefits, enjoy them whilst you can.

So, what I'm trying to say is, this Sunday - probably a good chance for a half marathon if your training schedule was shifted by the snow last weekend by race cancellations - full information can be found here:
http://bit.ly/Deal-half-marathon-2012-entry

Entry on the day is only £15, it's a great race, lovely country lanes, easy to get to from the M20, and starts at 10:30 with plenty of parking so you'll be fine.

Here's some pictures from last years race - some hills - but mostly very scenic !

one mile in roughly - lovely lanes

Most people were happy to be there !

Always good for a strong finish

Great mugs last year !

In other news - image licensing and gallery site changes.

I regularly get questions from people, or see on chat forums, discussions about using photos on the interweb, passing them onto charities and newspapers or posting them on their fundraising sites - and the legality or permission that they have to do that with images that they have bought - or indeed - not bought.

It's an area fraught with uncertainty, vagueness, theft and ignorance, but also I recognise that people who are asking the question genuinely care and are thoughtful and prefer certainty - but there is no simple place to go and ask or find out.... Until now that is !

I recently created the "Can I use this photo?" flow chart to help most people figure out if they can use the photo they have (however they have acquired it) :

Can you use that photo you have - have a check ! And please share this with your friends.

I've also put a link here you can share on twitter: http://bit.ly/can-i-use-this-image-a-flowchart

If anyone has any questions or points to make about it - please let me know - it's UK based - I'm not 100% familiar with the US licenses but I can't see it being that different ! The main thing is to get it out there for improved knowledge and sharing awareness.

I'll probably have to do the reality of this flowchart which is "I got this picture I like off the web from a search engine image search, can I use it ?"

Which brings me onto the next thing...

Image right clicking on the gallery:
As we all know - Rule 1: if you can see something on your computer - you can take a copy of it.

This sets me a challenge as a photographer trying to show customers pictures which are good enough for customers to make a purchase judgement on the image, but not good enough for them to just take a copy of it (even with the watermarking over it - which is supposed to put them off) - because of course "just taking a copy" is in reality shoplifting - or indeed - theft. Yes even with the watermarks.

I know this is a difficult balance to understand and strong words to use - but last weekend when I put the Chichester gallery online - admittedly hidden - I've sold three photos. The gallery was popular enough - I've had over 300 clicks to the hidden gallery - so the publicity worked to a certain level. But guess how many images people have had a "right clicked copy" action made on them ?
34.

Runners 429, 611 and 65 felt no aversion to taking copies it seems. Go to the gallery and check them out ! http://bit.ly/Chichester10k-2012-gallery

And here's the google analytics report to show you:

Right click actions on the Chichester gallery

So if 300 visitors is 100%, then 11% of visitors tried to take an illegal copy and 1% of visitors actually bought one.
What I'm trying to highlight here is not only that trying to take a copy is illegal (obviously !?), but have a look at the report - I can see exactly which photos were clicked on, and of course with the runners numbers - means that in 99% of cases - I even have a photo and name of the person doing it. (people as a general rule don't buy photos of anyone else, or click on other peoples photos).

Those of you who know about google analytics will also know that I can drill down to get all sorts of detail about the right clickers, information that I suppose could be used legally as google record your IP address as well (although due to their privacy laws this isn't available to users except for legal requests).

So how does the gallery now deal with this ?

Right now if someone right clicks on an image, the gallery will inform them that the image is going to be deleted, because going back to the converse of Rule 1: if you can't see something on your computer - you can't take a copy. The gallery will then (after a time) automatically blank over the large preview image so you can't see it.

Hopefully the various mechanisms I have to disable right-click menu options to copy an image have also worked and no copy has been obtained. *phew*.

What happens next ? - well friends will see the photos blanked out - and the information explaining why below it - so they will know that someone has been up to "no good". *Awkward*. Bring on the peer pressure I say.

I admit it then makes things harder to choose a photo to purchase if a visitor wants to - and that kind of thing is against the whole point of the gallery when you are trying to sell images - but I do have a responsibility to protect the work the photographers have done.

It is still possible to still see the thumbnails and order as usual from there, but as I'm now once bitten twice shy - I'm not going to clear the blocking on an image until it's been purchased, and then the peer pressure won't see things blanked out any more..

Do you think this is an overreaction ? How else should I protect the images from theft on the gallery ? Is this a good way to protect large image copies being made but a good way of leaving things on line for people to still order ? Your view and opinion counts - so please let me know. info@sussexsportphotography.com
I do this job because I love taking photos and seeing them make people happy, help me to continue doing this !

Meanwhile - if you do see a friends image that has been blanked over - please take a moment when you next see them to ask what happened. You'll know the background story, and I'm always interested to hear people's reasons - so do let me know too. Hopefully we all might learn more than we thought possible.

So until next time have a great weekend, and see you at Deal on Sunday.
Anthony

p.s.
Sussex Sport Photography.com is a trading name of UK Sport Photo Ltd.
Registered Office: 100 Church St., Brighton, East Sussex, England, BN1 1UJ
Registered in England Company No. 07940115

G3 Race 2 now live and other news Feb 2012

2012-02-06T01:23:00.000Z

G3 Downloads now live and some other snowy weekend news

Saturday saw the second of the G3 off-road race series around the hills of the North downs at Newlands Corner near Guildford.

The second gallery in the Runners Need G3 race series is now online and available for free downloads from here: http://bit.ly/G3-Feb-race-2-Free-download-photos

It was -9degC when the race started, and it stayed about that temperature over in the woods, but a balmy -2degC in the open fields. This being the hardest route including the ascent up the south face of St.Marthas and as a response to feedback over past years, Toby the organiser announced he would be starting as well to get the all important "customer perspective" and see what all the fuss was about. Pictures of how he got on later...

On the way out down hill at the G3

Without the snow 323 adventurous souls turned up to enjoy the crisp views across the Surrey countryside, that's if your eyes didn't freeze up and the pain from the air in your nose as it froze when you breathed in wasn't too bad. On the upside the cameras managed to operate ok for the duration of the event although I kept mine as warm as possible in the bag for as long as possible - multiple stories of peoples smart phones going dead in the cold should serve as a warning - keep them in an inside jacket pocket if you can.

Slightly tougher coming back uphill on the G3 at 8k

Sunday saw snow in the east and north, which to be fair to the Met Office had been forecast all week. Race Cancellations abounded with intelligent decisions on the Saturday from the Bookham 10k, and Ashford 10k (which was our two bookings cancelled - four photographers going hungry and the babysitter the day off), with Watford Half marathon also cancelling late Saturday as the snow began in north london. The longest wait was from Great Bentley Half Marathon in deepest Essex who decided on Saturday to let people know at 7am on Sunday, despite heavy snow in Essex from 10pm - not the most mindful decision for competitors to plan their sleep patterns and journey times given they are 1.5hrs from the M25. I see they have picked a new date that clashes with the largest half marathon in Essex on the 25th of March - I fail to quite understand that decision, but then it is only 800 people max, so probably less than that now.

Ashford and Bookham are both yet to announce their new dates, I'll try to update you on here when they do. Follow their twitter and facebook pages if you want to be up to date too.

The two main races we knew were going on was the Longleat 10k and the Chichester 10k, both to the west so unlikely to be snowed in if the forecast was correct - which again - it was.

After a brief debate on what to do on Sunday I decided to go to Chichester to test a new camera body recently acquired on the ebay, so the plan was to give it a good thrashing and continue to get a feel for it's performance in tough conditions.

Driving out at only -1degC this morning (that's 8degC warmer than yesterday!) and in about 4 inches of snow once I'd made it to the Southwick Tunnel on the A27 to Chichester it was like stepping out of the cupboard from Nania - almost no snow, slightly damp roads +2degC. The race was on !

A survey of the course online sent me to the 7km mark. As I'm not the official photographer (Martin Lewis here is ) I'm not putting my gallery front page in public view - but as you're special you can access it via this link:

http://bit.ly/Chichester10k-2012-gallery
It will be a good test of social media to see how many of you share this link with your teammates and friends ! You can't get to the gallery any other way, and if you surf out of it - it's not listed on the front page, so use the link above again.

Strong at 7k

Good team pacing and enjoying running !

As usual you can search for your picture using race number, but of course as I was testing things and at 7k with the pack quite tight, I can't guarantee to have got everyone (well I know I didn't - a job like this should be three to four photographers to be honest to do a thorough job). Do enjoy it, twitter and facebook social sharing links will all work as usual.
From where I was there were a lot of happy faces running

In other news, the accountant bloke has called time on being self employed. So from as soon as possible I'm no longer going to be living the dream, but going to be the owner of UK Sport Photo Ltd (trading as Sussex Sport Photography.com) and once again an employee. It's taken almost exactly 4 years from quitting the day job, 9 years from first covering running races, 28 years from first picking up a camera, and almost a month from my 42 year old mid life crisis half marathon (Cambridge) for which my right calf muscle has not been playing ball.
To celebrate I will mostly be wondering how I cover the VAT that will inevitably have to be levied and paid soon, so before that hits home, get your pictures ! I will try to tell the new owner that the whole point of this work is "to make people happy", I hope they don't get all corporate on me.

Finally, some of you might have noticed some blanked out large preview images on the gallery. The system blanks out any images that have been right clicked. Who would do that ? well it doesn't matter, but it means that the only way you can preview the image is the thumbnail, which I agree is slightly inconvenient - but at least you haven't had something stolen from you !

More Pictures below,
Until next time
Anthony

p.s. don't forget - if you can get there - Deal Half Marathon next weekend

Date	Some Latest galleries
04/02/2012	now live - G3 February Race 2 - free downloads
29/01/2012	now live - Epsom Perch 2012
28/01/2012	now live - South of England XC 2012
22/01/2012	now live - F3 Events 10k #1 2012
22/01/2012	now live - F3 Winter Duathlon #1 2012
14/01/2012	now live - G3 January Race 1 - free downloads
08/01/2012	now live - Sussex XC Champs 2012
02/01/2012	now live - Brutal 10 Race 1 2012

Lead Bike marshal starts having a bit of a kickabout

smooth running down to the foot of St.Marthas in the woods

Toby in the blurry action flash picture

Not blurry off camera flash action - done in the studio

Thames Turbos enjoying their club XC champs

Grinding up the last hill

Enjoying the closed roads at Chichester

Mr Bolt trademark salutes

Enjoying the run out

Peppa Pig put in a good time

Best socks seen out all day

Smiling all the way at 7k

Epsom Perch XIII 2012 - now live

2012-01-31T00:38:00.000Z

The Epsom Perch Race photo gallery is now live and online here:
http://bit.ly/Epsom-Perch-2012-Photos

Sunday saw the second running of the Epsom Perch XIII at Nonsuch Park. A distance just past 10k it's an off road - two lap park based race. With over 380 runners its a well attended race and very popular with the local clubs as a start of the year 10k(ish) benchmark, although 35:02 on this course means that Guy Bowles (Datchet Dashers) won't be too worried about his early season performance if he keeps that up.

A home win for Becky McNicolas ( Epsom Oddballs) in the ladies for a 40:19 lifted the locals, but for age graded performance win went to Phyllis Flynn (Stragglers) for an 82.75% result, ahead of Neil Reissland (Collingwood AC) with 81.52% who also came 3rd overall.

There was a mix of first timers, experience and getting the annual club challenges in - and for reasons unknown East Grinstead Tri team turn out in force for this race and endear us all with their shiny purple tri suits, although to register a PB by 3 minutes at this time of year Stuart means we expect more and faster later in the season...

Full results are here on Sport Systems: http://www.sportsystems.co.uk/ss/results/The%20Perch%20XIII/773

Round of applause for Epsom Oddballs for their Mayor

And she gets them underway

Off into the metaphorical sunset

The hidden heros of these events

Graeme checks the new Marshals uniform

On his way to victory

Happy hands

Good running across the route

Through the woods to victory

Edenbridge hunting in packs

Just don't stop there, right in front of the finish

Which way ? (map behind you, finish over here)

Stuart - you would have taken more than 3 minutes off without the ankle weights

Very well done to everyone on completing the race, especially the first timers, and best of luck with your training for the rest of the season.

Here's next weekends 10k races that are worth a look:
http://bit.ly/ashford-district-10k-2012-entry
http://bit.ly/bookham10k-2012-entry

Until next time
Anthony

Being Archived soon - don't miss out !
18/09/2011	now live - Pilgrims Half and Full Marathon 2011
18/09/2011	now live - Kellystore Joyden Woods 10k - free downloads
11/09/2011	now live - Bacchus Full and Half Marathon 2011
11/09/2011	now live - Chestnut Tree House 10k 2011
04/09/2011	now live - ETL Spitfire 20+ Tempest 10
04/09/2011	now live - Newbury Tri 2011
04/09/2011	now live - Maidenhead Half Marathon 2011
28/08/2011	now live - Arundel 10k- free downloads
28/08/2011	now live - Bexhill Tri 2011

Click here for our race finding link page on the blog

Stuff to help you
StrideUK
StrideUK	Want to increase performance and prevent injury ? look better in your pictures and run a bit faster ? Contact Mitch - at StrideUK for video gait analysis and running technique advice, exercise and improvement.

South of England XC champs 2012

2012-01-30T16:40:00.001Z

Saturdays Saucony South of England Cross Country Championships photos are now live and online here:
http://bit.ly/South-of-England-XC-Champs-2012-official-Photos

On a chilly but firm course the 2012 Southerns returned to the hills of Stanmer Park for the first time in a few years. Tough hill climbs and multi laps make for a great spectators event with the tented village making for good facilities. If only the Albion wern't beating Newcastle at Home in the FA cup at 5pm and then the parking might have been a bit easier, but everyone seemed to have made it on time for what were excellently filled and competitive races.

There are already some great race reports across the internet - here's a london centric perspective and here for a Sussex Athletics view
Full results can be found on the Powerof10

Enjoy browsing the galleries and reliving the days events - who was behind you and at what point !

If you see a picture you want to share, use the social sharing buttons on the page, or the link shown, or that facebook like buttony thingy. Just remember - don't right click it - as we remove them from the gallery. yes - seriously - we do ! (well the large preview at any rate).

Well done on a great days racing and a great atmosphere across the course, one of the best events in the years race calendar.

A handfull of deeply atmospheric pictures in a moment from the races, but to keep you on your toes - here's a quick list of the next races you should enter:

Next Weekends Races:
Kent - Ashford 10k
Sussex / Surrey / M25 - Bookham 10k - off road and hilly
Half Marathons coming soon:

Kent - Deal Half Marathon - tough hills
Essex - Roding Valley Half

Sussex - The Stinger - Free race photos
Essex - Colchester Half Marathon - new course

and if you're running the Cambridge Half in March - let me know, as you'll have to try and beat me in my first effort.

The nearby Brighton Amex Stadium in the background

So cold he wore a wig

Scary monsters in the woods

Great support and care for those that fell victim to/from St.Johns

Start of the Races is at the foot of the hill, with the finish in the background

Flying down the hills

Senior Women on the first lap down the hill

Tented village with Sussex University in the background

First lap of the senior mens - like wilderbeast unleashed

Hard climbing up the first hill

Andy - should know better than to do a brain slap infront of me, he's not usually this shy

"and if you turn left here..." The TWH runner had his own personal local tour guide of the woods

All smiles from Dave and RPAC

Delta wing airplanes, reduces drag, which can be important in brighton.

Socks were still white at the end = firm conditions

Have a quick read and check of the "soon to be archived" list below and get any free downloads whilst they last.

Being Archived soon - don't miss out !
18/09/2011	now live - Pilgrims Half and Full Marathon 2011
18/09/2011	now live - Kellystore Joyden Woods 10k - free downloads
11/09/2011	now live - Bacchus Full and Half Marathon 2011
11/09/2011	now live - Chestnut Tree House 10k 2011
04/09/2011	now live - ETL Spitfire 20+ Tempest 10
04/09/2011	now live - Newbury Tri 2011
04/09/2011	now live - Maidenhead Half Marathon 2011
28/08/2011	now live - Arundel 10k- free downloads
28/08/2011	now live - Bexhill Tri 2011

That's about it. In other news, I almost broke the treadmill on the stress ECG the other day, but failed primarily due to lack of oxygen. Right Calf is injured at the moment so it's long bike rides to build endurance instead ready for Cambridge. Elle at Studio57 is fixing me - I can only reccommend their skills and new facilities based on 25+ years of having this sort of thing and it's excellent - Studio 57 in Hove

Finally in other news - Comet PLC admitted complete liability for the damage to my wifes phone (back before December) and have sent the cheque - the phone is now in for fixing - it only took about 8 weeks for them to do their 48hr investigation - apparently delayed by their store manager. I won't be shopping at the Hove store again, and neither please, should you.

So it's the Bookham 10k and Ashford and District 10k on Sunday next (links above), the February G3 race on Saturday is fully booked so I've not advertised that, but I think they have some space for March.

Until then, enjoy the training and go carefully in the cold,
Anthony

Click here for our race finding link page on the blog

Stuff to help you
StrideUK
StrideUK	Want to increase performance and prevent injury ? look better in your pictures and run a bit faster ? Contact Mitch - at StrideUK for video gait analysis and running technique advice, exercise and improvement.