Infrared photo of the 100-year-old windswept white pine at Killbear Provincial Park, Georgian Bay, Lake Huron, Ontario, Canada. ~ © Tom Freda Photography

 

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▇ Welcome to my Flickr landscape, infrared, film and street photography gallery.

 

I've been a photographer since I was 8 years old - starting out with my grandmother's Kodak Brownie Junior shooting 620 B&W, and evolving at age 13 to my first 35mm.

 

Later in my teens, I sold my first photo to a local newspaper. I was hooked - and a camera hasn't been too far from my side since then.

 

Over the years, I've worked in a variety of professional photographic fields, as is easily noticeable from the diverse genres represented in my images. However, these days, family and other business and volunteer interests have me doing less commercial work and more of the and fun and leisure type.

 

My gear preferences vary just as widely: I carry a compact Micro Four Thirds camera pretty well everywhere I go, but most of my commercial work is still done (at least for now) on Nikon full frame. When I specifically shoot street photography, though, I alternate between my Olympus PEN-F system, Fujifilm XF10 & X100F, and Leica M10 with Leica, Zeiss, and Voigtländer lenses.

 

When a bout of nostalgia hits me, I even supplement my street photography with film cameras, like my Voigtländer R2A, 1954 Leica M3, or one of my many other fifties Konica, Minolta, Topcon, Canon or Retina rangefinder cameras from my collection.

 

For more images, including work-related and personal, check out my website or other social media.

 

Thanks for visiting!

 

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▇ Why do I put a white border around my photos?

 

1) I often print dark with more contrast, so a looser arrangement adds more separation between the image, background and other photos displayed next to it. This is especially noticeable when viewers have dark mode selected on their browser.

 

Also, Flickr packs photos very close together, and often it reduces the impact of a photo if another one is crammed up close next to it.

 

Other photo-sharing sites recognize this and display images with a white space between images.

 

Such as 500px. Take a look to see what I mean:

500px.com/explore

 

Then, compare it to Flickr:

www.flickr.com/explore/

 

2) Similarly, a white border emulates how I display them when printed and framed. A matte most always adds a finished look to a framed photo.

 

3) For me, it's nostalgic, and color images look the way I was used to seeing them as 35mm slides.

 

4) I have many photographic interests and shoot a variety of genres and styles. A white border gives my stream a consistent look that I repeat on all my social media posts.

 

5) A frame or border makes photos a little less desirable to unauthorized downloaders by adding an extra step to crop it out.

 

6) While not foolproof, adding a border (and a visible watermark) adds a layer of complexity to AI scraping and data mining.

 

It either forces the AI to recognize it as part of the image or requires the image to be cropped or altered, which reduces the quality or usefulness of the image for training purposes.

 

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▇ Copyright Notice:

 

All images appearing here are copyrighted and may not be published or used for any purposes without my permission. For licensing, please contact me at viewfindr2 (at) gmail.com.

 

Also, all my images are real photographs created by me, my camera and the developing and processing skills I've learned over many decades, and are not fake, unethical, Frankenstein AI-generated fraudography created by narcissistic, un-creatives from other peoples' copyrighted art.

 

Please note: I don't provide images to commercial clients for free or just a photo credit (don't even ask!). However, I do make exceptions for some educational institutions and non-profit charities that can prove their charitable status.

 

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▇ Join the Anti-AI movement

 

Please help protect the interests of photographers everywhere by joining and supporting Not-by-AI.

 

 

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