Photography Culture

Kirk Tuck Takes a Stab at Amazon’s Seamless Background Patent

Chris Gampat
No Comments
06/09/2014
2 Mins read
Chris Gampat Kita St Cyr's Images (7 of 14)ISO 1001-80 sec at f - 8.0

Last Updated on 06/09/2014 by Chris Gampat

Chris Gampat Kita St Cyr's Images (7 of 14)ISO 1001-80 sec at f - 8.0
Model: Kita St Cyr

A little while back, Amazon decided to patent the process of shooting video and photos on a seamless background. Amazingly, the world had been doing this for years. We all thought it to be ridiculous, as did Colbert. But Kirk Tuck has thought it to be even more ridiculous and writes what is some awesome satire after working on a set doing nearly the same thing that Amazon has patented.

Kirk has surely let us all know how crazy the idea of the patent is, but he also goes on to find things that weren’t patented. For example, he states that after talking with his IP attorney:

“We were in a bit of disbelief when we discovered that no one, not even David Hobby, had patented the technique of using a battery powered flash off the camera. I found this amazing and my attorney thought it was a delicious place to start. We applied for two patents: One for using the flash off camera with a cable and the other for using a flash off camera with a radio trigger. Now, please understand, we aren’t patenting the technology for getting the flash off camera, just the action of using the flash off the camera. You are now forewarned so put the damn flash back on your hotshoe and suck it up!”

And he continues to state that they went after other patents. Even more crazy is when he states the desire to patent the reading of a tweet.

Kirk’s blog post brings up a bigger point though: corporations have always gone after some crazy things. With Amazon going after shooting on seamless, also consider that the Time Warner company owns the rights to the Happy Birthday song. This is the reason why when you go into an Applebees (in the US) that the servers come up with some sort of silly song for you.

But more so, we believe that it will change photography even more where folks will try to shoot with a more lifestyle approach.

 

amazon blog post kirk tuck patent Photography seamless white shoot
Shares
Written by

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.