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Neon Alley, a public-art project in Pueblo, Colorado, devised by sign collector Joseph Koncilja
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A vintage Polly Gas sign in Neon Alley, a public-art project in Pueblo, Colorado, devised by sign collector Joseph Koncilja
A classic, illuminated Greyhound Bus Lines sign in Neon Alley, a public-art project in Pueblo, Colorado, devised by sign collector Joseph Koncilja
Neon sign in Bishop, a small town in Inyo County, California, at the northern end of the sweeping Owens Valley in the Eastern Sierra Mountains
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Neon sign in Bishop, a small town in Inyo County, California, at the northern end of the sweeping Owens Valley in the Eastern Sierra Mountains
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Three of the original illuminated signs in Neon Alley, a public-art project in Pueblo, Colorado, devised by sign collector Joseph Koncilja
Summary
Title, date and keywords based on information provided by the photographer.
Neon Alley began with 12 illuminated signs, including this one, in 2014, with plans to increase that number to 100 or more in a single narrow alley between B Street and C Street, directly across the street from one of Colorado's great architectural structures: the Pueblo Union Depot. The installation is illuminated 365 days a year from 8 p.m. until midnight. Polly Gas was a brand name of the Los Angeles-based Wilshire Oil Company, which operated in Southern California from 1935 until they it was purchased by Gulf Oil in June of 1960.
Credit line: Gates Frontiers Fund Colorado Collection within the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
Gift; Gates Frontiers Fund; 2015; (DLC/PP-2015:068).
Forms part of: Gates Frontiers Fund Colorado Collection within the Carol M. Highsmith Archive.
In 2015, documentary photographer Carol Highsmith received a letter from Getty Images accusing her of copyright infringement for featuring one of her own photographs on her own website. It demanded payment of $120. This was how Highsmith came to learn that stock photo agencies Getty and Alamy had been sending similar threat letters and charging fees to users of her images, which she had donated to the Library of Congress for use by the general public at no charge. In 2016, Highsmith has filed a $1 billion copyright infringement suit against both Alamy and Getty stating “gross misuse” of 18,755 of her photographs. “The defendants [Getty Images] have apparently misappropriated Ms. Highsmith’s generous gift to the American people,” the complaint reads. “[They] are not only unlawfully charging licensing fees … but are falsely and fraudulently holding themselves out as the exclusive copyright owner.” According to the lawsuit, Getty and Alamy, on their websites, have been selling licenses for thousands of Highsmith’s photographs, many without her name attached to them and stamped with “false watermarks.” (more: http://hyperallergic.com/314079/photographer-files-1-billion-suit-against-getty-for-licensing-her-public-domain-images/)