The Obsidian Stock Blog

Hello to all you good people … looking for images from this past weekend’s BendFilm Festival! Welcome!

Obsidian Stock is hard at work to bring you complete visual coverage from the event -our fabulous team has created thousand of images we now need to edit and upload. So please be patient with us!

The images will live here on our dedicated event coverage page - so in the meantime, feel free to go peruse the shots from the last years! The new shots should be up by next Tuesday, October 21st.

Yesterday night was the Opening Night of the BendFilm Festival. The Tower Theater was sold out, the feature movie “The Great Buck Howard” had the audience roaring with laughter, and a good time was had by all.

Image by Simone Paddock

Stay tuned for more images in the next days.

Has a year already gone by again? Is it really that time - again?

Indeed. Look at that. We blinked - and the BendFilm festival appeared once more out of thin air. Unbelievable.

Like last year, Obsidian Stock has been chosen to be the exclusive provider of event photography for BendFilm. Eight of our most talented shooters will be tirelessly roaming the festival - to capture the people, the locations, the movies, the parties. Starting tomorrow.

Wanna get a glimpse of what it was like last year? Go roam our archives to wet your appetite.

See you at the festival.

So you have a little portfolio of your images on Flickr. Whether or not you are a professional photographer, this latest blip below should make you think twice about displaying any of your images on the Net without a watermark - and working with a stock agency like iStockphoto whose anonymous mass of contributors can turn out to be image thieves …

“According to a news report on Webware.com (a CNET web-site,) Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir, a professional photographer from Iceland and a user of the Flickr photo-sharing site, has discovered several of her images were posted on iStockphoto by a third party using the screen name “vulcanacar.” iStock has shut down vulcanacar’s portfolio and removed his or her account from the site.

As a warning to other users about the risk of posting images on Flickr, Ms. Guðleifsdóttir posted on the Flickr blog a screen shot of one of her images as it appeared on iStock under the imposter’s name.

She points out that of the thirty-one images in vulcanacar’s portfolio on iStock, twenty-five were hers. iStock EVP Kelly Thompson says it will be difficult to pursue damages from the user in question because he’s in a country where it would be very difficult to do too much to him.

Obsidian Stock prides itself in knowing each and every single photographer in its portfolio, having met most of them face-to-face, and paying extreme attention to usage and copyright issues.

Coming up tomorrow - How To Watermark Your Images for Flickr and the Web.

Stock imagery is frequently about symbolism - finding that *exact right* image that communicates a feeling, a thought, a message rather than just sitting there, looking pretty.

Every so often, an image comes across my desk that is just like that: not necessarily beautiful in the common sense - but rather inviting the viewer to study it, and see beyond the obvious.

Below image, by Shari Morris, is one of those.

Do you see what I see?

Defiance. Strength. Hope. Tenacity. Overcoming Obstacles.

Spring seems finally just around the corner in Central Oregon, and Obsidian Stock is celebrating that with a totally random image….

Obsidian Stock congratulates its contributing photographer Rob Jenkins for winning an Honorable Mention in the PX3 International Photo Contest, based in Paris, France.

The topic was “The Human Condition” and this funny, uplifting shot was rightfully selected:

Well done, Rob!

For some people, BendFilm is all about the movies, the independent films, or maybe the clever shorts, or perhaps the gutsy features. For me, it’s all about the parties. And this year’s kick-off parties did not disappoint. BendFilm Feed, the exclusive kick-off party for the festival, was held last night at Les Schwab Amphitheater.

That’s outdoors. In October. In Central Oregon.

In case you weren’t aware - October is the rainy season in Bend, and rain it did. Fortunately, no one seemed to mind. Party-goers braved the cold, wet night in their urban threads (not a fleece jacket in sight!), lounging on cushy white furniture on the crimson-draped stage or huddling next to propane heaters as required. Hip-looking waiters (where do they find these guys?) passed prosciutto-wrapped salmon, rare sirloin on fennel crackers, and juicy chicken skewers slathered in salsa verde. The food, I presume, was catered by Merenda’s, because I caught a glimpse of Jody Denton in his chef whites, mingling with the guests. If Denton is indeed responsible for the food, he outdid himself. With each delectable bite, I closed my eyes and thought, I’m so glad I’m not a vegetarian.

As BendFilm Feed wound down, Hot Box Betty’s picked up. By 9:30, the tres chic downtown clothing store was pulsing with DJ Swett’s dance tunes, a full dance floor and go-go dancers in cowboy hats. Plenty of local movers and shakers were there, including Pamela Andrews (Cascades Publishing), Peter Lowes (Lowes Commercial Properties), Katie Merritt (BendFilm founder), John Anderson (former Bend Living editor) and Judy Campbell (Campbell Consulting). Molly Hogan, real estate agent extraordinaire, whipped out her glowing hula hoop for an impromptu performance that was immensely sexier than the local housing market.

There were probably some important film industry people there, but I was too busy dancing to notice. Maybe I’ll take in a film before the weekend’s over.

by Renee Davidson, on assignment for Obsidian Stock

This one’s for the “Isn’t this cool?” category …

Obsidian Stock is proud to announce that we’ll be providing and coordinating all photography surrounding the 4th annual BendFilm festival this year.

The festival starts this Thursday, October 11th, and will end Sunday, October 14th (for more info, movie schedules and supporting events, see here: bendfilm.org). Check out the photos by OS owners Simone Paddock and Lance Hardy of last year’s festival for a glimpse at upcoming festival fun.

See you at the movies!

Oregon’s premier photo stock agency, Obsidian Stock, has partnered up with Absolut Vodka’s Lomo campaign to bring you one of the coolest, hippest tools of the photo trade: the Holga camera.

We are raffling off 10 of these hot little gadgets in an effort to inspire, mobilize and spark creativity among Oregon photographers. The contest is FREE to enter and anyone can take part - aspiring amateurs and pro shooters alike.

To find out more about what the heck a Holga is anyway, and how you can get your hands on one, just go over to Obsidian Stock’s Lomo site and fill out the form for a chance to win.

And for a little Lomo inspiration, check out AbsolutLomo’s wall of pictures.