It's nice being in San Francisco where there are more photoblogs, twitpics and Flickr pro accounts than privately-owned motor vehicles. It makes it real easy to find a photo of pretty much anything that happens to be going on. Apparently, it also simplifies the Gap Inc. product design process by saving the clothing giant the trouble of actually creating graphics worthy of adorning yuppie babies.
According to Mediabistro, it seems that was the case after local photographer and vintage car enthusiast Chris Devers posted this photo of a vintage Jaguar to his flickr account. Devers later caught wind of a strikingly similar image appearing on a "Pumice Grey Thermal Body Double" from Baby Gap. Ignoring the obvious outrage associated with dressing one's offspring like a tiny version of...well the drummer from The Offspring, Devers isn't too pleased that the Gap is turning a profit from his photo. The photographer, in his own words:
I have various thoughts about what’s going on here — for example, the mind-boggling idea that some unknown factory in southeast Asia somewhere is cranking out thousands of $16.95 tshirts with my photo on them on behalf of the Gap, and yet they never attempted to contact me about their use of my work — but I’m trying to keep most of my thoughts to myself until Gap has a chance to respond.
The evidence that Devers has laid out, point by point on his flickr page, is pretty damning so hopefully Devers will be duly compensated. In the meantime, we promise not to use your contributions to the SFist Flickr pool for SFist's Spring Fashion line. At least not without asking.
