Here's to Hoping I Don't Regret This Decision: Ped Xing, Now Online

One thing I've always been concerned about when it comes to the internet is privacy, and the fact that once something gets posted to the internet, it's basically available for anyone to see and use, forever and ever, amen. Sure, websites allow you to pull or edit things, but who's to say someone hasn't already downloaded what you've said or done and shared it with the other half of the world by now?

This is one of the main reasons why I've always been fearful over sharing what I would consider one of my "creative highlights" of my life, Ped Xing. Ped Xing is a project I did back in 2005 for one of my school district's "senior project" requirements. (That's a long story by itself, so I'm not even going to try explaining it.) Honestly, it was a project I had always wanted to do, but now that I had a legitimate reason for "having" to do it, I figured that now (then) was as good of a time as ever.

Since the final project was submitted, Ped Xing has stayed under my watchful eye for over four years now, residing only in a photo album that I show curious friends, and the occasional CD that I send out to people who I can't directly show the album to. (And maybe a random sample photo for some online friends or two.) I've always been afraid to go into other forms of publication with it, just because who knows who's going to steal it.

Recently, I sat down for lunch with Katie Sekelsky, a good friend and founder of the famed Taco Club. As a professional graphic designer and long-time webcomic writer (I suppose I should give a courtesy link to her newest upcoming project, Magpie Luck), she's had a bit of experience with copyright issues, and planted some seeds in my head. Seeds like, "You really need to put Ped Xing up on Flickr." Evil seeds.

But I'm afraid my work will be stolen or plagarized, he said tepidly, possibly misspelling that last word. "Don't worry, you can put it under a Creative Commons license," she said, or at least that's how we're paraphrasing it.

I don't know why it's taken me so long to do this, but I've finally decided to upload Ped Xing for all to see. For now, I'm being kinda stingy with my license, putting a "Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic" Label on it, which, I won't lie, I'm not entirely sure what it means, but it's at least a step in protecting my work. (I might peel back the No Derivative bit later, but for now, my idea = my idea, kthnxbye.) Hopefully in the future, I'll be able to bring this project back for a second go, and we'll have even more fun with cardboard men.

For now, click the picture below to see the album on Flickr. At some point in the future, I'll upload the photo captions/descriptions and other literary bits that went into this project. Enjoy!



Fair warning: I had long hair at the time of this project.