Best pictures - ever!

September 2, 2007 @ 12:55AM

Best pictures - ever!

By Haje Jan Kamps

A friend of mine sent me a link the other day, and I’ve been deeply fascinated by it – and its concept – ever since. The website is known as ‘best pic ever’, and it’s probably a pretty good description of what the site does – and what it does really quite well.

Click on ‘random image‘, and you’re offered a series of weird and wonderful images. Some of them are truly some of the most creative photographs I have seen in my life. Others are less technically proficient, but are still likely to make you grin broadly.

Not all is well in paradise, however: Where are the photos coming from?

The site is a bloody good good source of inspiration – have a click-about, and explore the wonderful world of creative photography – as I said, the random image section will have you boggling for hours, and the ‘popular‘ list offers some insight into what the rest of the internet finds exciting.

“But, it’s a great site”, I hear you cry, “why don’t you like it?”

I don’t wanna be a spoilsport, but the site worries me more than a little: sure, the photos are amazing, but I can’t help but wonder where they all came from.

Paying for a selection of photos like this would be very expensive indeed – the stock value of this level of professional photography is immense – far higher than the level of advertising on the website would dictate. Of course, in the crazy Web 2.0 times, it’s always possible that the people running the website are doing so with capital investment money, but I doubt it…

(The photos used in this article are from iStockphoto.)

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Comments

Anonymous

4 years ago

Well, at least one of the photos has a copyright overlay, which means it probably didn’t come from a stock service: http://bestpicever.com/pic-291-Shedding-dragonfly
It’s at the photographer’s site here: http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=6022129

The image at http://bestpicever.com/pic-839-Were-toast appears to be taken directly from http://dirtymicrobe.com/products/toast/139/252

Also there’s a Calvin and Hobbes comic, which is also likely being displayed without permission: http://bestpicever.com/pic-676-Where-babies-come-from

The same people who made this site also made pileofphotos.com, which appears to be a similar concept and contain a similar level of probable copyright infringement…

On the contact page, there is an email address listed to report copyright violation, but it certainly seems like most of the site’s contents fall into that category.

Anonymous

4 years ago

Oh, and take a look at this URL: http://pileofphotos.com/view/20/High-speed-bullet-photography

Does that first photo look a bit familiar to you? The hyperlink on the image goes to this very site, and your associated blog post is at http://www.photocritic.org/2006/high-speed-photography/

Anonymous

4 years ago

Hey, don’t you work for T3? I would say that these two pictures look strangely similar: on bestpicever.com and on T3.co.uk. Do T3 license the images? If not, you may want to write them an e-mail or send some lawyers at them!

Anonymous

4 years ago

it is a slimy site. they give an “opt out” abuse email, but what are the odds you’ll ever find your photos if they are there?

Anonymous

4 years ago

Nate, you are right. More importantly, copyright law doesn’t work on an opt out principle. If I found these scumbags had used any of my photos, I would take them to the cleaners. They are obviously exploiting photographers, so they would be getting a big, fat invoice, along with a legal challenge to cease and decist. I can’t believe the cheek of it…

Anonymous

4 years ago

Yup, lawsuit waiting to happen. That’s for sure!

BTW, Haje Jan, a month ago I sent you an email regarding theft of your (and my) content on http://diyphoto.org/

Digital theft is more common than you wish to know.

mansoor

1 year ago

You do things when the opportunities come along. I've had periods in my life when I've had a bundle of ideas come along, and I've had long dry spells. If I get an idea next week, I'll do something. If not, I won't do a damn thing.It is quite acceptable.
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1 year ago

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Anonymous

4 years ago

as a side note, 80% of the “best pics ever” are complete crap

Anonymous

4 years ago

The user interface on the site could use some improvement, otherwise the photos are creative and inspiring.

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Anonymous

4 years ago

Not to mention a lot of the pictures are photoshop modified photos (see http://bestpicever.com/pic-636-Escalator-to-fitness and http://bestpicever.com/pic-517-Flamingo-tongue-snail and http://bestpicever.com/pic-860-Liquid-panty-remover) that have been posted on the popular site worth1000.com, where the own picture authors post their works and show off their ability with the program.

Judging by the content and some half-cropped copyright notices, they’re not paying royalties for displaying most of these pictures, and may in fact be stealing them.

Loads of rubbish, in my opinion.

Anonymous

4 years ago

I like Flickr’s last 7 days of interestingness function. Each time I refresh, I see a bunch of great photos. These are, of course, properly attributed, published with consent, and an example of the collective creativity of the online community.

Anonymous

4 years ago

They are indeed stealing the images.
The following photo taken by my wife of our Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, has been stolen from her Flickr site.
http://bestpicever.com/pic-382-Time-for-a-hair-cut-please

Original image location:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/julesangel/767728127/

An email demanding it’s removal has been sent (an invoice for it’s use may follow)
Many thanks to the blog reader who alerted us.
Regards,

Michael & Julie-Anne

Anonymous

4 years ago

I’m a friend of Jules and Michael’s and this site and people like this are leeches. They suck what they can from other people for their own benifit. Hope you get what’s comming to you. Karma is a great thing.

Bren

Anonymous

4 years ago

If you have a photo ripped off from Flickr be sure to notify the folks there (at Flickr).

Was the OP being facetious in regards to “best picss ever” being a good name for what the site contains? I agree with Nate — 80% are “complete crap.”

Anonymous

4 years ago

I prefer something like flickr grab – http://www.flickrgrab.com/interesting/today/ which shows some amazing latest images from – yep, you guessed it – Flickr! A great way to find excellent photographers.

The other site mentioned gets a big thumbs down :-(

Anonymous

4 years ago

Unfortunately, this pseudo-legal “opt-out” principle has been abused by many, many web sites. The web sites that come to mind right away are archive.org, which archives your site over the years if you don’t disallow it to do so (ex: http://web.archive.org/web/20040524234955/http://camerarepair.com/). That’s the most flagrant abuser. And let’s not forget that Google, yes GOOGLE, will cache your content and images unless you tell it not to. One should not have to opt out legally.

Jaimie
http://www.camerarepair.com/