Author and game designer Greg Stolze has just published a new gaming book titled A Dirty World.  Besides the fact that I like games and film noir, I mention it because some of my images are in it. The original images I shot were dark, moody and show my early explorations of the femme fatale character.  In A Dirty World, the images are, well, dirty.  Retouched with scuff marks, stains and tears, the images have a sense of real world abuse far from their digital origins.  The game itself provides the same sort of filter, but on the real world.  Players experience an alternate universe filled with danger, seduction and tough broads.

The interesting thing about this experience is that I don’t actively push my images through stock houses or to publishers.  My images were spotted on the model’s Flickr page (see Monica Dahl’s Flickr stream).  This is just an example of how on the internet, random links between sites and search engines make everything a valid channel to promote your work.  In this case, the model’s own portfolio directed the author to me.

Not all photographers agree with this sharing philosophy upon which the internet was founded.  Many maintain a tight hold on their images and bend over backwards by doing things like watermarking, slicing images into multiple pieces, embedding them in a flash movie or disabling right-clicks.  While none of these are perfect solutions to stop “image theft”, I understand their motivation to maintain tight control over their usage.  I admit that I had similar notions early on.  But at some point, I decided that maintaining tight control over my images was more work than it’s worth.  Especially these days when letting your images circulate freely  is the best way to get them seen by people you would have never thought could use them.