Pictures in the Park

These kids were so much fun. We went over to our favorite park this afternoon for some portraits. I'm so happy with how they turned out. The kids were fantastic to work with and I'm sure their parents will be thrilled.

Check out their slideshow!

BVM Studios in Dublin Ireland

This morning I discovered that a photographer in Ireland had not only stolen our Web site design, but was also passing our images off as his own. Now, it's bad enough that the design was lifted, but representing himself with someone else's photographs is just wrong.

I was checking out some Google Alerts I have set up and one looked a little strange. It was for a page that's been on our site for a long time, and hasn't changed. I thought it was odd that it just came up so I took a closer look.

It turns out that there's a guy in Dublin, Ireland named Brian Mullowney who really likes our site and how well it comes up on Web searches. Rather than spending years getting his site to rank high, paying a designer to design it, and taking his own pictures, he thought he'd take the easy way and just copy ours. In a way, it's kind of flattering, but still, he was using our work. He copied most of the images and even this blog. From the age of the pages, it looks like it was copied a little over a year ago but was only put online last month.

He did take our logo off and put his BVM Studios logo in its place but many of the links still go to our work.

See some Screenshots: One, two, three, four.

Now, I know most of you know how much photographers, musicians, and other people in the arts hate it when our work is copied. I won't go into the whole "you're taking food off my table" speech because I hate it when people say that. But on the other hand, it is directly stealing. I don't bring it up too much, but I usually know when it happens. Whether or not I do anything about it is another subject. ;-)

In this case, the amount of copying was so absurdly blatant that I had to stop it. His site even had "Squier Photography" on all the price lists and in many of the page titles. I checked out the whois listing to see where his site was hosted. I checked my watch and saw it was the afternoon in Ireland so I called up the Web host and left a message. Surprisingly (because it's Saturday) my call was returned promptly. Once I described what was happening he asked what I wanted to do. All I really wanted was the site to come down, so he took it down.

I tried calling Brian but his phone went unanswered.

I was all set to call the PPA legal team on Tuesday (Monday's a holiday) but I'm glad we were able to take care of it this way.

The moral? Don't Steal! You'll probably be found out and it's never good to be known as someone like that.

Emmett at 9 Months

Emmett has sure grown, hasn't he. And he's looking more and more like his brother, Owen. I can't believe he's already nine months old.

As always, he was a perfect baby, doing typical 9-month-old things, like not sitting still! :) He was so much fun to chase around.

Here's the slideshow for this session.

Holly's Sr. Pictures

Holly and her mom came in last week for her senior portraits and wow, she was great. The weather was beautiful and the clothes she brought were perfect -- a fantastic combination. Her pictures came out wonderfully. I'm so excited to show her the slideshow (and the rest of her pictures, too).

Holly's one of our student reps (aka ambassadors) to Worthington Kilbourne HS. If you're a Junior at Kilbourne (or any other high school) right now, make sure to get a card from her and you'll get some free stuff with your order. We're looking for reps from other area high schools, so if you know any Juniors about to become Seniors, from any area school, have them give us a call. By sending Seniors to us, these students get a free extended session and can earn lots of free stuff. It's a great program because everybody wins.

Anyway, check out Holly's slideshow.

Emily and Paul's Engagement Pictures

Last Saturday we met Paul and Emily over at Highbanks Metro Park for their engagement pictures. We all had a lot of fun and it was great to finally meet Paul. He lives in Chicago and Emily lives in St. Louis so there was never a chance to meet both of them until Saturday.

Take a look at the slideshow and comment below.

Grant at 18 Months

Grant was in a few days ago for his 18 month portraits and I'm so pleased with how they turned out. Like most 18-month-olds, he was running all over the place and really keeping me on my toes! Even so, we were able to capture some great expressions and really show him having fun. Check out the slideshow and leave a comment.

Elyse

Last week Elyse came in for some baby portraits. Isn't she a cutie? Her little yellow and pink dress was adorable. They're coming in today to look at the pictures but here's a little preview.

As usual, there's a slideshow so take a look. If you're at work, turn down the sound -- there's music. ;-)

Jonathon

Jonathon came in earlier this week for his senior portraits. He was great to work with and the weather was beautiful.

Of course, there's a slideshow to see. Leave a comment and I'll make sure he sees them.

Polyphemus Moth Found

This morning I was leaving from my son's preschool, and his teacher (who parked right near us) saw a huge moth in the parking lot. Knowing that a parking lot isn't the safest place for a moth, we take it home. At first I thought it was a Common Buckeye, because the postcard stamps right now feature a picture of it and it looked similar. Turns out, the Common Buckeye is a butterfly, not a moth, so we turned to the "Oracle of the Mighty Web" to figure out what it is. I say, "we" like I had something to do with it. Lynn found it.

It's a Polyphemus Moth and they only live a few days. The wingspan is about 7 inches across. It has little circular "windows" in the wings. I thought they were holes at first, but there's some sort of membrane in there. They emerge from the coccoon in late April and Early May (doesn't get much closer than today) after spending the winter hanging from a tree. We were trying to find out what to feed it, but they don't eat! They don't have any sort of digestive tract at all, because they only live for three or four days.

Since our boy's preschool class is doing a unit on butterflies right now (they have some that they'll release on Thursday) we'll be taking it in tomorrow morning to show everyone else. We thought it was pretty cool.