Unexpected Immortality

Every once in a while I see someone make use of the handful of pics that I have posted on Flickr.

Despite frequent suggestions from various friends that I turn pro, I've posted everything there under various Creative Commons and attribution licenses because quite frankly I'd rather have some people see what little work I do produce these days rather than try to make a few cents off of it.

Now, when my stuff starts showing up in galleries and people start paying $500 a pop for prints of my stuff to hang up in their living rooms, then I might have to start getting more restrictive.

The last time I really heard of any of my pics being used was from some European company that wanted to use some of my Cincinnati Zoo pics for thimbles or something of the sort.

However, today was the first time I think I've been someone make some use of the handful of "ancestor" pictures that I have up.

A blog called "BeingFrugal.net" used a pic of my mother's father's mother and step-father for a post called "The Wisdom of Generations Past".

I'm not sure what kind of traffic this blog gets, but it shows something like 2286 regular subscribers through Feedburner and there are four comments to the post already, so SOMEONE reads the thing.

Somewhat ironic in a way, because I know almost nothing about my step great-grandfather and the only thing I really know about my great-grandmother is that my mother tells me this is the only person my mother felt unconditionally loved by growing up.

If I remember correctly, she also had an ancestor named John Adam Roush and has something on the order of 1500 cousins with the family name of "Bible" who are currently living in Tennessee.

Yes, I wonder what they would have thought if they would have known that a simple snapshot would one day be viewed all over the world ...