Bert P. Krages

I am an attorney in Portland, Oregon who practices in the area of intellectual property. I have also been an avid photographer since my teenage years. In the late 1990s, I became concerned about the prevalence of misinformation in the photographic community regarding what photographers could or could not legally photograph. Addressing this problem was my motivation for writing Legal Handbook for Photographers, the first edition of which was released on September 1, 2001. Following the events of 9/11, photographers faced an enormous wave of violations of their rights by overzealous law enforcement officers, security guards, and other parties who had the irrational fear that photography of subject matter in public view was somehow putting society at risk of terrorism. In response I became even more active in defense of the rights of photographers. One of my endeavors was to prepare a document titled "The Photographer's Right," that summarizes the right to take photographs in public spaces. This document was graciously welcomed by the photographic community and has been downloaded from my website over a million times (www.krages.com).

As an attorney who has handled many copyright matters, I have noticed that many people are unaware of the distinction between observation and seeing. In other words, looking at something is a different experience than consciously noting the details and spatial relationships. Although there are many excellent books on photography, there seemed to be an absence of books that offered a structured approach to enable photographers to enhance their abilities to "see" and evaluate scenes. My approach to developing the skill of "seeing" is set forth in The Photography Exercise Book. Basically, the book explains how you can acquire and hone the most important skills associated with photography through exercises that involve photographs that are within the reach of almost anyone regardless of where they live or what equipment they might own.