Photo Department Wins International Acclaim; Cheif Correspondent Quits in a Huff

The snowball is beginning to roll downhill on the Holla photo department's inevitable domination of the world market for tourist photos of Guatemala. The staff photographer's photo of a guy who sells pony rides in Antigua has been chosen for inclusion in the web-based promotional materials for the Friends of World Heritage. The photo is reproduced in extra-tiny eye-strain-o-vision on a flyer about how to be a socially conscious traveller or some such, and also included in a handy .pdf version, in case you want to carry it with you on your travels. (If you want to see the photo in visible size, you'll have to check it out on Flickr or you can see it real big, too.)

This organization, Friends of World Heritage, contacted me after finding my picture on Flickr, with a message that said something to the effect of: "We like your picture and we reckon you're amateur enough to give your work away for free, and we don't really want to be paying actual pro photographers for their work." I looked at their website, which looks professional enough, and it's got an actual UNESCO logo on it, so it must be a legit and worthwhile organization. So I told them that they could use my picture for free as long as I was attributed as the photographer. Which they did, on a separate page (way at the bottom), that nobody would ever look at unless some browser malfunction took them there by accident. (Some Holla readers may recognize another name on the list, as well -- pure coincidence.)

Anyway, since the Holla's prose has never been published anywhere outside of this shabby forum, the photo department has had to receive several lectures reminding them that we are all one team and that they best not let it go to their heads, as 99% of the photo departments' masterpieces languish in obscurity on Flickr.