In January of this year I received an email through the contact form on this blog. It was from a graphic designer is Chicago who was searching the internet for an image of an empty parking lot. He stumbled upon an image of mine from this blog post – Relieving Parking Lot Boredom. More specifically he was interested in the last image of the post – From The Corner.

This graphic designer, Brian Maher, BZA, was working on an album cover for an independent producer and was hoping I would allow him to use my image. I can honestly say that I was immediately overwhelmed by the thought that an image I had taken, one that was from the beginning of this photography journey would even be considered for something like this. Of course, the next thought to enter my mind was why not an image I considered one of my best? But I do not need to bore you with the internal machinations of my mind.

I had some serious thinking to do about this request.  It was actually a really good thing.  It forced me to evaluate why I do this photography thing.  What am I after?  What are my goals?  In the end I realized that I do this picture taking thing for me.  I love that other people enjoy my images.  And don’t get me wrong, when an image on Flickr makes it to explore and the LIKE count goes through the roof, my ego follows.

Part of my decision process also considered the effort Mr. Maher put forth to contact me.  To explain what he wanted to do and was willing to move on if I decided to not allow him the use of my image.  He went above and beyond, I respect that.  I allowed the use of my image only asking for credit and a link back to my blog.  I didn’t give it another thought until today…

I received an email from Brian.  He did end up using my image which you can see here – MANIK Nightfall. I really like what he did to the image. It is not unlike some of the manipulations I do of my own images to create the picture I see in my head. And I won’t lie… it is really cool that this is from one of my images!

If you can’t tell… I have been floating all day on cloud nine!