Anonymity III...

[rhythmaning]

Something happened recently that made me think about this again. The internet really is an interesting place

A musician who plays in one of the bands that I took photos of recently must have been trawling flickr, because he found my pictures of him and the rest of the band. And he was very pleased. What he wrote was

I think they are fantastic…Thanks for taking such great photos.

Which was nice. Actually, it was really nice. He asked if his band could use the pictures, and I said I thought that would be fine, as long as I got a credit. I also directed him to my journal, where I had written about the gig.

I later got an email from the webmaster who runs the band’s website: he had put the photos up (with my credit), and he had quoted my journal on their reviews page – this time with a credit to me and to my journal.

Now I had an interesting conundrum. I want to be associated with my pictures: I want that picture credit. (This is curious behaviour, since my flickr username is the same as my LJ name – so it is anonymous. So clearly I don’t feel the need for people who look at my photos on flickr to know my name.) But I also want to keep my journal anonymous.

I emailed the webmaster, asking him to remove either my name or my LJ name, since I don’t want people to be able to google my name and find me on LJ; and this he has done. The pictures have my real name as a credit, the review has my LJ name.

I am still very flattered that they want to use my pictures, and a little bemused that they wanted to use what I wrote about them (though it was pretty flattering, in a gushy, amateur kind of a way). My photos have my real name as the picture credit, and my review of the gig has my LJ name.

There is an interesting aside, too: I clearly feel my photography is more me than my writing: if my pictures appear elsewhere, I want people to know they are mine.

Another aside: googling my name doesn’t return the band’s photo gallery, where my pictures (and name!) appear. Google obviously doesn’t work quite as I expected; or maybe it just takes a few days to catch up!

Comments

[parthenia14.livejournal.com]

Google does indeed take a while to catch up, especially if the band site isn't high profile.

This identity thing is very confusing, isn't it? I'm not anxious about people on the other side of the world knowing about me, but I'm damned if my next door neighbour will be allowed to do the same.

And congrats on the photo credit!

[matgb]

Well, I took the decision years ago that everything's in my name, which makes things a little easier in some ways, and it means I watch what I say a lot, or use a friends lock.

Googling me, of course, gets you me, me me me and more me. If you spell my name right. But yeah, it takes a few weeks at times for Google to catch up, and if the bands site is new, or they don't have an effective layout, then it could take longer (Google dislikes new domain names).

This does of course mean I can find out your real name if I wanted to now, but it actually matters not, you are who you present yourself as being, and that is what matters, right?

[deililly.livejournal.com]

That is great! Congrats! :)

Thinking about the crediting I think I would do the same as you have.

[rparvaaz.livejournal.com]

Congratulations. :)

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

Nice to be, and have one's work, appreciated :)

The anonymity thing is sticky, and I have no answers.

[pshtaku.livejournal.com]

what is wierd is that if you google your name, your LJ comes up...

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

...but only at the very bottom of the list, and only if you use google.com - it comes way after all sorts of US artists and authors and things.

I think it is becasue at some point very, very early on in my LJ career, I left a comment on someone's (non-LJ) blog and left LJ/rhythmaning as my web address. And Google seems to have remembered it.

[psychochicken.livejournal.com]

I used to be quite happy to be creditted as 'Psycho Chicken' against pictures. In fact, back when I was less than confident in my abilities, I actually used to sign them with that monicker and deny all knowledge should they escape.

These days, enough people have persuaded me that I can wave a brush/pencil/burnt stick convincingly and I've a lot more confidence - to the point where someday soon I'd like to be scraping a living from my art - I am much more adamant that use of my work be accompanied by my real name. It's a legal thing as much as anything now.

I've been using the pseudonym above for so long frankly that googling it will get you my name with 'psychochicken' in the middle, so it's a bit late to hide the link now ;)

And from me too - congratulations. It's nice when someone you don't necessarily know appreciates your work. You know they're not just being a nice and supportive friend =)