The image in question:
When my photo ended Up on Vin Diesel’s Instagram feed
Okay, maybe it’s not the funniest story, but it’s definitely an interesting one. Back in 2013, I took a trip to New York City. As an avid amateur photographer (then and now), I snapped loads of photos all around the city. One evening, we went up to the Top of the Rock, a famous viewpoint that offers stunning views of the NYC skyline. Around sunset, I took the photo below. It’s quite distinctive—partly because of the cloud cover, with one particular cloud hovering over the Empire State Building, which was lit up in red at the time.
I must’ve published the photo online somewhere to showcase it, and since then, I’ve spotted it in two unexpected places. Now, I’m not too fussed about copyright issues—I’m just happy that someone thought the image was good enough to use. But the first place I saw it was pretty surreal: Vin Diesel’s Instagram feed. Yes, that Vin Diesel. It wasn’t an official ad or anything—just a post on his feed with my photo as the background. It was pretty cool to see my work associated with Fast and Furious, even if I probably should’ve been paid for it. But hey, I’m not sure if the website where I originally published the image meant I gave up any copyright claims, so I didn’t pursue it. Still, it’s not every day your photo ends up on Vin Diesel’s Instagram!
I’ve attached a screenshot from my old Android phone (yes, it’s that old) showing the post. The image was originally shared on The Verge, a great website for tech and culture. And if you look closely, you can see the distinctive cloud cover and the Empire State Building—it’s unmistakably my photo.
The Second Surprise: An Animation Website
The second place I found my photo was on an animation website that demonstrates different web animation techniques. I’ve actually written a blog post about this topic that still gets decent traffic—people visit my site to learn how to add animations to their websites. I even made a video tutorial about it. But back to the animation website: they used my photo as a cover image with an overlay. At first glance, it’s not obvious, but if you look closely, you can tell it’s my image. To obscure its origin, they flipped it horizontally, so it appears reversed.
In reality, if you’re looking at the Empire State Building from the Top of the Rock, the World Trade Center should be on the right (as it is in my original photo), not on the left. Flipping the image is a common trick to dodge copyright issues since, technically, it creates a “new” image with pixels in different places. But the distinctive cloud cover and the World Trade Center’s position in the distance make it clear that it’s my photo. What’s even funnier is that I’d visited this website dozens of times before suddenly realizing they were using my New York cityscape!
What did I learn from this?
I’m still not entirely sure about copyright law. While I probably should have been compensated for these uses of my image, I’m not too concerned. It’s just a hobby for me, after all. That said, in the future, I might consider uploading similar photos to platforms like Getty Images, where I could potentially earn from them. But for now, it’s just nice to see my images being used in different places, even if one of those places is Vin Diesel’s Instagram feed!
