Welcome to the Privacy and Terms page of PNW Lens Connection.
This is the more “user-friendly” of my privacy pages. The rest are auto-generated by my GDPR/CCPA compliance plugin and may have some strange-sounding legalese. I’ve linked to these pages here for convenience (it may be in a menu toggle farther down on this page if you are viewing this on mobile).
Some of the verbiage that I find strange are the “Do not sell my information” which is used in CCPA legislation. The plugin I use tends to interpret analytics as the selling of information. And I do use analytics. However, what I do NOT do is collect and outright SELL information to third parties. For instance, I do not collect a newsletter list and then sell that list. The only case in which I would do such a thing is if I outright sold an entire website that included said newsletter — and I’d let subscribers know first so they could unsubscribe if they wanted to.
Privacy and Terms, in a nutshell:
This page includes both privacy info and terms and conditions for things like use of images, refunds, etc.
I DO use some Google services to view the number of visitors to this site and which pages they are visiting. And I do have various contact forms, etc with which you might share information.
Various Privacy Pages and Documents:
Below are the various privacy and cookie policies for this website. As I mentioned, most are auto-generated.
Who I am
This website is created and run by Cheryl Dimof. I am an individual amateur photography enthusiast in Poulsbo, WA.
Photography Terms of Use
On this website, all photography is done by myself. The only case where I’ll use outside resources on this website is if I start posting ABOUT photography and must use other photographs as an example. In such cases, I will give credit.
License terms for photography is “All rights reserved” for most images. However, I do plan to have many galleries published that will either have downloadable purchases available or enable users to purchase prints.
Where there are social sharing icons, using them to share images on social media is acceptable. And in the case an item is purchased — photo or print — it grants the user the right to use the image. In the case of downloadable images, images can be used for publication on the web, blog posts, etc. Customers who purchase images do not need to provide attribution but must not claim authorship of the image. Purchasing a downloadable image does not grant rights to mass-produce items for sale with the image on it.
Photographic Prints
On this website, physical prints are automatically processed via White House Custom Colour via Imagely unless stated otherwise, and are only available to customers in the US and Canada currently. The order is fulfilled and shipped by them and does not pass through my hands before it gets to you, as I am unable to maintain a large inventory of various prints. I may, from time to time, offer prints that I have in-house. Likely, however, I will use another format to sell those and list them via a post on this website.
Purchasing Images
My payment processors are either Stripe (for most credit cards as well as Apple Pay and Google Pay) or Paypal (which also allows you to use Venmo). The shopping cart on this website works a bit different than on some other sites.
You do not log in or set up an account. After you make your purchase, you’ll be immediately given a link to the download page for your image(s) — in the case of downloads — and also get an email with that link so you can access it later. The process is similar for prints except that you don’t get a download link, just a confirmation link, and should get information about your purchase when it ships.
Personally, I like this — it makes purchases quick and simple and does not force people to have an account.
Image Sizes
The images you see in galleries are sized down and compressed to help with page loading speed, which may affect how they appear in their lightbox. The original images are backed up and are the ones that are used for downloadable images (though these are resized according to the size you order) and original images are used in any print. Original images may be of various sizes according to the camera that was used to capture them and the amount of cropping done post-processing.
For downloadable images, the longest edge size is as follows:
- XS 400px
- S 800px
- M 1200px
- L 2000px
- XL 4000px
- Grande 8000px
However, some photos may not be available in the largest sizes. Most of my photos are taken with a high resolution camera. However, some older photos may not be this large or some images may be cropped in post.
Returns and Refunds
On downloadable images, I do not offer returns and refunds unless there was some sort of issue that could not be resolved.
For photographic prints, I do not take cancelations that have already been processed by WHCC just because of a change of heart. If there was a problem with the order (quality, positioning of the image, damage in transit) please contact me via the contact page form and I will try to resolve it via Imagely to get you a remake (in the event of damage) or a refund. Ultimately, I want you to be happy with your image but need to go through the processor first to resolve what I can before offering a refund out of my own funds.
In the case of purchasing a printed image/item that I had in stock or printed myself, I do (unless they are a personal portrait) accept returns in the same condition they were shipped within 30 days. I cannot offer to pay for return shipping nor refund original shipping charges.
Collection of Information on this Website
Please, please, check the corresponding cookie policy for your area for more up to date information than below as it gets automatically updated. Occasionally, I may miss a change to the website here.
Google Analytics
I use Google Analytics and Search Console to compile website stats and see how many visitors are visiting specific pages. Information collected may be geolocation, IP address (though it get anonymized), demographic information.
Newsletters
I manage my own email newsletter in-house rather than use an outside service such as Mailchimp. All information is stored on my own server. At the least, subscribers must provide an email address, but may disclose additional information if they wish. In addition, I do collect IP/Geolocation information in case I want to target a newsletter to a specific geographic area.
Contact and Comment Forms
Users must leave an email to use contact and comment forms on this website. I use Akismet for spam protection as well as Google reCaptcha v3 (only on contact forms currently) — both of which will collect some basic information to distinguish spam and bots from valid submitters. When you fill out a comment, by its very nature you are disclosing some information about yourself, if only your opinions:)
Website Security
I currently use a bot protection and malware service that is web hosting based. It may evaluate some user behavior and geolocation to decide is an action is potentially malicious.
I currently am only using Google reCaptcha on the contact form on this website as this site does not maintain any user account, but may re-implement it on comments depending on what results. I use Askismet to combat comment spam.
Google Maps
I use Google Maps on some of the “photojournal” posts on this website to show where they were taken. You may be prompted to allow your location to be known if you want to be shown your location on the map along with the map marker, so if you allow that you’ll be providing some geolocation information. Here’s Google’s privacy policy.
YouTube
I may occasionally post YouTube videos on this site. Here’s YouTube’s privacy policy.
Akismet
I use Akismet to prevent comment spam. Here’s Akismet’s GDPR info.