Daily Post (Josh) 2010-03-02

Found out why classes was canceled yesterday. Turns out that Dr. Torres has acquired a nasty case of laryngitis that makes it more or less impossible to speak over the chatters in his classes (they're rampant in both sections of A&P and medical terminology). Regardless, he came in today, as it's the last formal session of lab before our lab final next Tuesday.

He actually ended up having his lab assistant run the quiz, as he was smart enough to realize that having us depend on trying to make out what he was saying to specify this or that anatomical bit would have been unfair. Very even-handed of him. The cram sessions we put in yesterday and this morning seemed to pay off, as both Jen and I pulled in with a 15/15 - woot!

Relatively interesting class session today, as well - a quick lab on blood typing, then a review of the structures we'll be responsible for on the cadaver for the final. The old fellow gets less and less intimidating each time we work with him, which reassures me a bit that I'll eventually be able to maintain utility when it finally comes down to performing in the hospital during trauma or forensics.

I am still stunned, however, by the level of casual familiarity Torres shows with the body. No hesitation or qualms about just scooping out the guy's brain (literally!) to point out this or that structure.

Photography was a bit of a trial, tonight. I'm not sure if I went in the right direction by not making too much fuss, but dang - Becerra was pushing buttons that I didn't realize were such a big deal like crazy all session.

It's readily apparent that his commercial forays into photography as a business have some serious gaps. I won't go into technical details here, as it deals with stuff you folks probably could care less about, but he kept on insisting that people "correct" their photos with various automatic settings in Photoshop. Now, admittedly, many of the photos in question could use some post processing, but if I had any damn input, the use of Photoshop in a photography class should include instruction on the proper way to direct the tool's operation - leaving things on automatic gives no creative input and amounts to the same thing as leaving everything on automatic on the darn camera. Like listening to nails dragged across a chalkboard, it was!

Add to this his casual comment that our photos for class would be going up on his website. When I asked what kind of license we would have to consent to for this use, he seemed stunned at the thought of licensing anything. It was a casual comment, and honestly I don't have a problem with him using the photos I selected for class in this way, personally, but geez - be aware of the legal ramifications of your supposed profession.

I guess that last bit might require some explanation, as an outside view might make my own publication habits seem overly casual, but believe me, I'm very well aware of the inherent limits on my legal rights with regard to photography. As a for instance, the work I publish to flickr that includes human subjects (including a lot of you) falls into the legal realm of self-publishing, which basically states that as long as I don't make a profit on the photos directly, I can use them for self-promotion without needing a model release.

To turn that around, Becerra grabbing said photos for his own website without license has no such protection - he'd be violating both the model's rights (even on candids), as this is not journalistic use and there are no model releases signed, and for that matter, violating mine under copyright, even if he's not making any profit from the action.

I don't know; as I said, it's not this specific instance that I object to - the work I produced for class this term has been more frustrating than spectacular, as an average, but it shows a stunning level of disregard for his fellow photographer's rights, and more to the point, his lack of knowledge on the subject is a grave disservice to his students. Honestly, spending half of a class on the legal issues surrounding photography would be a great help to any of the students that would like to make a dime in the field someday - it's scary easy to set yourself up for a potentially bankrupting lawsuit, at least once you enter the realm of publishing. (Legally, _taking_ pictures is protected in most circumstances - it's once your work is distributed in some form that you have to worry).

I'd love some commentary from the peanut gallery on this one - I know I'm probably over-reacting (hell, I'm very surprised at the depth of my reaction myself), but how much so?