Announcements

I won’t be writing a feature or post about an update on Iloilo rather I’ll be talking about improvements on ExploreIloilo.com particularly about my watermarks, which I know some (or most) of you might have some negative comments about.

Let me share to you a little bit of history about how I started with photography. It won’t be too long, I promise.

I started taking pictures of Iloilo 8 years ago, I was still in high school and was using a low-tech webcam (0.3 megapixels) with built-in memory to take pictures of Iloilo for a project I did in high school. Soon after, I discovered Skyscrapercity.com (SSC) and began posting my pictures on a thread about Iloilo. While I was posting these pictures on SSC and discussing about Iloilo, many Ilonggos joined the site and we had a little Ilonggo community. Sometime in between, some pickpocket had stolen my camera while I was trudging along Iznart St. and I was forced to borrow cameras from friends and relatives.

Whenever I posted pictures, fellow forum members started to give positive reinforcements, which fueled me to take even more pictures of Iloilo to share online. More people noticed my pictures and I was surprised to read some compliments about them since I didn’t study or had any background in photography and I just do it for fun.

Thereafter, a fellow forumer donated a camera to me after my incessant posts about “how I don’t have a camera and how I can take even more pictures if I had one.” I still “exclusively” use the camera to date by the way. Plug: Thanks gd manong Wecky! That camera you invested to me has opened a passion for photography, priceless personal development and opportunities.

As I started to blog on IloiloOnline, I put a relatively unobtrusive watermark on the bottom right side of my photos. And then, I went on to ExploreIloilo.com and did the same thing.

Unfortunately for me, as the popularity of Explore Iloilo grew so did its spread throughout the internet and even in real life. People started to copy/paste my pictures to their blogs, websites, and even friendster profiles. This part is okay with me but the thing that ticked me off was that a few websites had used my pictures for commercial use and posted them without any credit and what’s worse is that they even cropped out the watermark. My frustration was later aggravated after seeing my photos in the frontpage of some of the local dailies. Uncredited, no permission, plus with cropped out watermark. I’ve already anticipated people doing that but didn’t expect such “respected” media entities to disregard such basic media ethics. Thus the start of the huge, obtrusive, annoying watermarks on all of my pictures.

Recently, a fellow blogger and forumer (aka IAMME) posted his pictures on the internet and I was surprised to see that he has removed his center-photo watermark. I was like, what was he thinking? I later thought a lot about it and started to remember all the people who’ve told me to remove my watermarks and the times I told them about how they were necessary. And then, I started reminiscing about how I started with photography and how back then, I did it because I loved showing my captured moments (or my interpretation of it) to the world.

I’ve realized now that I got carried away and that I have lost track of the reason why I was doing these things in the first place. In light of that, from now on I will be taking my watermarks off the center part of my photos but will still retain the watermark on the bottom part of the photo to let people know who to credit the photos to.

With regards to possible copyright infringement violations in the future. I don’t take it sitting down. As of the moment, a demand latter is already being processed to a big company who has posted my photos without permission. I am serious in putting an end to people just taking pictures from blogs and using it for their company to profit.

Hint:

ExploreIloilo.com has certainly grown bigger than me and there will be more changes in the website, hopefully they will come out as improvements. You will notice them in the coming weeks.

That’s all for now. Comments are appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to read this post and continuing to support Explore Iloilo.

ExploreIloilo.com is currently looking for people interested in contributing write-ups about Iloilo. The website has grown and attracted a bigger audience overtime, it certainly needs to be infused with fresh and a more diverse angles on Iloilo.

Be a writer for ExploreIloilo.com and promote Iloilo to the world!

A Happy New Year to Everyone!

The New Year calls for a fresh layout for Explore Iloilo. Right now, I’m having an ongoing construction of the new theme, which has a Magazine/Newspaper Style with a simplified approach. Still doing some heavy work at constructing the front page and conceptualizing most parts of the website.

Right now, comments and suggestions are very much welcome. I’ll need all the help I can get.

It’s yet again (near) the end of the year! Here’s a summary of the performance of Explore Iloilo Continue Reading »

Check out the individual town profiles of each of Iloilo Province’s 42 towns and 1 city. Each Town Profile contains information about the town’s Tourism, Location and Map, Accessibility, Geography, People, Governance, Political Subdivisions, Contact Details, Links and Resources.

Click here to view.

Some of my pictures (and Rex Delsar Dianala a.k.a. “IAMME”) of the New Iloilo Airport has been published in the latest issue of Philippine Expat Travel and Lifestyle Magazine.

The photos section of the site has been replaced by a newer and better one, click here to check it out. It’s actually a photoblog but unlike most photoblogs that post only one photo per update, Iloilo in Pictures will be updated with a lot more pictures per update since I have tons of them to show to all of you.

During the next few weeks, I’ll be updating it with 5 pictures per day at the most so, make sure to visit it everyday because there will be a new photo each time you do.

Also, what’s exciting about it is that anyone can contribute their photos to the collection. The first thing they should do is contact me through: admin [at] exploreiloilo [dot] com, it’s really very easy and convenient. All they have to do is have a flickr account and use the “blog this” feature.

Enjoy!

Iloilo in Pictures - Iloilo’s Premiere Photoblog
(http://www.exploreiloilo.com/photoblog/)

Check this out:

The Photo I took of Iznart Street during the after noon rush hour had appeared on the April 11th issue of The Guardian, who claims to be Western Visayas’ Most Widely Read and Respected. It was not only displayed at the home page of The Guardian’s Online Edititon, but it was printed on the front page of the actual newspaper, which circulates all around Western Visayas and as claimed by them garners 38% market share of Western Visayas’s advertising budget.

The first time I saw it I saw shocked and enraged. I know it’s my photo because you can never duplicate a street scene, especially cars, the people and other details. Someone from the Guardian might have taken this photo from this page I posted months ago.

What’s worse was that they cropped out the watermark in the lower right part of the photo. It would have been a great opportunity for this site to be advertised like that.

In reaction, I immediately saved the original photo in my USB drive, bought a copy of the newspaper, and headed to their office in La Paz.

When I entered their office, I asked the secretary if who was responsible for publishing the photo on the front page. She called up some guy named “Alex”.

Then this guy walk out of the door, it turned out to be Mr. Allan Francis Angelo (actually he’s one of my favorite news writers, hehe) who found the pic on the net while googling. He told me that the lay-out people cropped out my watermark since they didn’t know better. He said that it is their newspaper’s policy to credit photographers of the photos they publish, especially when they just found it online and he apologized to me about what happened. He promised that they are going to include my photo with the added credits on their next issue.

I wasn’t ecstatic about it. I told him that the photo you published in the front page of your newspaper is mine, and it had already circulated all over Western Visayas without any credit to me, the photographer (I also was thinking that during their next issue, they will not post the picture with the added credits on the front page).

To make things even, he proposed that I send him a feature about Explore Iloilo, which he will publish in The Guardian. I guess it’s a good deal already, so I left with a courteous goodbye and a lighter mood.

He even offered me to be a freelance photographer for The Guardian, I guess I’d have to think and talk to him more about that part since I’m not very confident about my photography skills and since I’m not using professional equipments (SLR).

Well that’s all for that, I’ll be guarding my photos more securely this time and if you have seen any of my photos displayed somewhere, please please please inform me because they might have taken it without my permission.

Check out the April 2007 Issue of Smile: Inflight Magazine of Cebu Pacific. I, Marcos Caratao Jr. a.k.a “chymera”, has just been featured as their local guide for Iloilo. My 1/4 of a page spread (hmmphhh) is found on the 89th page of the mag. Continue Reading »

As requested by lewdsaint, I will be launching a new forum for Explore Iloilo, this time it will be more permanent. It’s still in the development phase and will be ready after 2-3 days. You can have a sneak peak here.

I wanted the Explore Iloilo Forums to be different from other existing forums by having it focus more on Iloilo’s infrastructure, economy, and heritage. The forum also features a sub-forum of each municipality and city in Iloilo.

Suggestions are highly recommended at this point.

Also, I’ve busy silently tweaking many aspects of the website including a better comments area in the posts. I highly recommend all of you to sign-up at gravatar.com and upload your avatar, which will appear everytime you comment on any post in the site.