Bay of Kotor, Montenegro (and the case of a wandering image)

This is still one of my favourite photos from several trips to Montenegro – taken on what I remember as an easy, rather carefree day amid what otherwise was often a somewhat grueling schedule among the mountains. It has proved a good image for me, being published several times over the years since I took it in 2006.

The Bay of Kotor (Bokor Kotorska) and the islands of Sveti Djordje and Gospa od Skrplja, from the village of Perast, Montenegro

This one photo has also been copied and reused on websites and blogs without my permission – let alone payment or a credit line – more than any other I have taken. A reverse image search on Tineye shows it appearing on sites in Russia and the Czech Republic, while last night I emailed the owners of 24 websites/blogs across Europe where it has been used, in most cases for over two years (one, as of writing, has already apologized and removed the image, though with no offer of payment for use thus far). The sites range from commercial travel sites to apartment rentals and taxi companies, which in almost all cases featured advertising (and gained revenue from this, in addition to that from the services they advertise), and in some cases claim copyright themselves.

Just for the record, I’m happy to supply an image to a charity or worthy cause without payment sometimes – though not to commercial sites without permission or credit. Doing so is simply not a viable commercial model, for obvious reasons.

Still, it’s a lovely spot, just a short minibus ride alongside the Bay of Kotor from the UNESCO-listed town of the same name, and overlooking the two tiny islands of Sveti Djordje (St George) and Gospa od Skrplja (Our Lady of the Rocks). The latter is actually an artificial island; and if it looks vaguely familiar (not that you can probably tell in this shot – and quite aside from the large number of times it features in images used to promote this wonderful little country on the Adriatic), that’s perhaps because it’s said to have provided inspiration for the 19th century Swiss painter Böcklin’s well-known work, The Isle of the Dead.

Copyright Action (http://copyrightaction.com) is a very useful website for anyone who finds their photographs have been used without permission/payment/credit.

And for those interested, this image was taken on a Nikon FM2n with an old manual focus Nikkor 20mm f/2.8 lens, on Fuji Velvia film (my ultimate travelling ‘kit’ until switching to digital in 2005-6). And it involved scrambling up a rather steep bank amongst several large prickly pear bushes…. ;~)