Hi ,

With September now upon us, we can all look forward to one of the best times of the year for photography. Us northern latitude peeps have fall foliage... and cyclocross, 😀 while our brothers and sisters in the south have longer days, new blossoms and the greening up of spring. 

Whatever you like to shoot, I hope that you're able to stay motivated and inspired by all of the amazing features that are built into your Fujifilm cameras. 

Of course, one of the best features is the collection of film simulations that offer you to capture your subjects with a diverse selection of looks that are based on the greatest films in history. 

In addition, this approach of shooting JPEG with the film sims allows you to express maximum creativity right there in the moment, and then walk away with a great looking image that you love, instead of a RAW file that you have to go process later. I'm not saying that one is better, but shooting JPEGs offers a fantastic sense of creative liberation and simplifies your photography life.

I talk more about this concept in the video below. Even if you're a RAW shooter, it's worth a look, because this approach can have its place, even for you. 

Seriously Dude...??!!!

Over the weekend, my friend Patrick, who is a local Anchorage photographer, and one of your fellow subscribers, reached out and told me that he saw some of my images inside a new Fujifilm guide book he purchased, called Fujifilm X-T50 Photography Guide, by Max Renderfield. 

Patrick dropped the book off the next day, and after going through every page, I found 36 direct copyright violations, where images, exact text, and even entire layouts had been directly lifted from my X SERIES UNLIMITED GUIDE and used without permission.

In addition, there were 14 pages in Max's book, where the text has been changed slightly, so as not to be exact copy of my work, but it would be blatantly obvious to any casual reader that the text has been plagiarized.  

Being an Amazon "print on demand" book/ebook, I immediately contacted Amazon, filed an infringement notice, CC-ing my publisher RockyNook, and requested that they permanently remove the title.

Thanks to Amazon for acting swiftly, because 48-hours later, all editions have indeed been taken down. Unfortunately, I can't find any contact info, websites or social media profiles for Max Renderfield, so I am unable to pursue legal action against his flagrant copyright violations, but at least the book is no longer available, and I'm sure he knows why.

I've had my work used without my permission before, but never to this extent. It blows my mind to think that someone blatantly stole huge sections of my popular Fujifilm book. Did he really think that nobody would notice?

At any rate, huge thanks to Patrick for bringing this to my attention. Going forward, I would ask anyone else to please contact me if you spot my work in large amounts inside other books, or if something just looks fishy. 

One last thing... Patrick was also kind enough to loan me his X-T50! 😀👍 I'm excited to take this fun little creative machine out and play with it this week. I'll let you know what I think after I've had some time with it. 

Ok, that's all for today. Take care, thanks for your support and have a great week!