The Stolen Scream

About ten minutes ago I finished watching this video.  It's about ten minutes long so you don't have to watch the whole thing, but it's basically about this 26 year old guy named Naom Galai who has become a model without really trying... Let me explain.  In 2006 he posted a set of pictures he had taken of himself to flickr.  They got great comments so he decided to upload some more from that photoshoot.  He uploaded this one,  and a few months later one of his co-workers told him that she had seen someone wear a tee-shirt with his face on it, she also asked why he hadn't told her she was selling his work.  He had no idea what she was talking about but later he saw what she meant.  He started to see t-shirts with his face on them.  Then he started to see his face everywhere, on murals, on posters, on book covers.  Only one person told him they had used his picture of his face and that was after they had used it.  He only got on paying gig from all the publicity this picture was getting, on Glimpse magazine (Glimpse is a political magazine put out by National Geographic.)  They did ask and pay him for use of his picture on the cover of one of their issues.  On the book cover, no credit was given to him, it was given to some other person who claimed the picture as their own.  Naom's face was the face of political protest in Iran, modern art in the Netherlands, and press conferences in Spain.  Throughout all this he said "Artist like their work to be published as to be seen by as many people as possible, I'm not a big fan of people stealing my pictures, but it's better than not having all those people see my pictures at all, it's another way to publish your work it's not me publishing it but other people do it for me."   Now he has a blog where he posts pictures of "his scream"  that's he's seen.
What I really like about this guy though, is that he cares about his art so much that he doesn't care if he doesn't make money off it or if people don't know it's his, he thinks it's better for people to see it than for himself to get credit.

Wow long post.