For Love or for Profit?

Hometown pride.  Now for sale.

And apparently anybody can profit off it, too.

I asked the organizers if I could be a contributing photographer, thinking that they started an open forum for posting cool photographs about New Haven.  This was the response:

Kerekes:  We are thinking about a guest blogger and had a bunch of people submit stuff already.  We are planning on one posting a day and one guest blogger a week on Wednesdays.  I'd love to use the firetruck photo.  do you have that available in at 1024x768?

Huh.  So if I were to resize the image to your exact specifications, then you would happily put it on your site so that you can sell your CafePress stuff?  Interesting, especially since we're using the same format (blogger).  I know that there's no necessity to resize an image at all, because you can change that with code <img height = and width =>.  So why inconvenience me even further?

A Question of Ethics and Bad Shirts
If these people knew that they were being photographed just so that Jeffrey Kerekes could sell crappy teeshirts which said "I Love New Haven" ... don't you think they'd be a little miffed?  I certainly didn't take a picture of a fire truck so that Kerekes can sell a crappy "I love New Haven" tee shirt from CafePress.

I am actually already using that fire truck photo to bring people information about things they actually could benefit from, like everything from free tax assistance to where to find a decent basketball court.  But my work certainly won't be associated with these hillariously bad teeshirt designs.





"I don't think we are really trying to sell any shirts though.  That was something Jeffrey had up on the first iteration of his blog before the (re)launch this week with me as a partner." (highlighted in yellow)

 Note that these screen shots were taken at the time of that comment.  

 Another Weird Aspect To It:  #HVN VS #NHV

Jeffrey started the site up with the name "IloveHVN.blogspot.com" and started using the #HVN tag in conjunction with the already established "#NHV" tag to promote the site when it "relaunched."  I asked them why, and they both said that it was due to the code for the local airport.

Regardless of what twitter hashtag you want to use, there's only one New Haven and you can photograph and market it any way you want.  Maybe someday this site will have access to buy tee shirts but:

  • We don't have to lure people to buy merchandise with photos of people we just met.
  • We will only use local artists and set it up in such a way that they get paid directly for their products (as well as their music, such as what you see on this site).  
  • Maybe there will actually be some real history involved.  Probably good designs
Here's a blog for someone who actually loves new haven.
No tee shirts for sale over there.

Scorched!  So stay tuned. 
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