We have been starting to decorate and I definitely needed to get in the festive spirit. Although to be honest, I had no time to faff about, because I’ve actually been dealing with Christmas elements and holiday concepts since September, due to some collaborations for the blog and gigs outside of the blog. Now, I am enthused to celebrate the Advent season.
Of course, on to something that we all know, this year is far from traditional, to say the least, but I am determined to still celebrate this beautiful season. Don’t allow not being able to visit your family and friends as much as precious years deter you from enjoying the season.
If you were fortunate enough to get away a bit before lockdown, then just think of those happier thoughts instead.
I took time off, a month to be exact, as I mentioned previously. A lot has happened whilst I was away. One major thing was that I had to fight idiots using my images sans permission from me. Of course, I won, I am the photographer who took them so basic laws give me copyright, and one was a luxury website, which I had to take action telling them to take down my images immediately, etc.
Unless you use an image from an attribution-free site, giving proper attribution to images is essential, and asking for permission of use is also important. Seeking the owner is necessary or at least credit where you found the image, and I don’t mean just saying that it is from Pinterest — you need to dig further and find the site/owner to prevent anything from coming against you. Click to see where the link takes you, and, yes, be troubled enough to do proper research. Copyright infringement is serious! I have seen bloggers do this, and I do not understand!
With so much going on, to be honest, the thought of blogging was far from my mind, and I needed to take care of things immediately. The only thing that I could digest was Instagram and even that was quite sparse.
I sent a formal letter first before taking any other action. Usually, if you send a letter it is enough to let the other party know that you mean business, making them aware that what they are doing is against the law. If not, then you may need to take it a step further and serve them. Fortunately, I have family members who work in business law so I learned these things early on. One issue was with a U.K. company and another was a USA company, so I had to send two separate letters.
I usually do random checks every month anyway to search my images, which I think is always good to do. Perhaps, if you produce original images yourself, especially for monetary reward, you should certainly do a search once every month (or even a couple times a month if you think it’s necessary). I hope nothing like this happens to you but in case it does, do not be afraid to take action!
Anyway, now, on to brighter news… I have already started seasonal baking, my neighbours had a good harvest and left a wicked veggie box for me so I am pretty much stocked up with beautiful produce, despite the pandemic and being in lockdown ‘part-deux’ I have been busier than ever, I made acorn squash three ways and here is one simple spicy roasted recipe that we loved, and I was commissioned to style a Christmas table, so there’s that!
Lastly, I will have an amazing giveaway coming up soon that will surely brighten this troubling of a year we’ve all experienced!
Tell me, how has life been with you lately?
Do you have anything planned for the holidays?
