Staff Photographer Fired for Image Manipulation

A staff photographer has been fired for compositing two image to change the story of the original photographs. This is a story we have seen before and one we will see again. I have posted in the past about image manipulation and while I am sorry for the photographer losing his job, I totally get it when it comes to journalism and the editorial markets.

They report the news through words, images, and video these days and when authenticity is often suspect, the guidelines have to be rigid. Unfortunately the photographers Photoshop work was poor and brought attention to the image pretty quickly. He composited two images of a snowy egret and a great heron, one stealing a forg from the other. The poor PS work is related to repeating bushes in the background. The newspaper ran an apology and explanation and the photographer was shown the door.

This whole issue has me wondering these days regarding what is truth and what is a lie, especially during our ugly political campaigns chock full of lies, innuendo, and propaganda. Tell some obvious lies in WORDS and not much happens, but tell a lie with a PHOTO and there is an uproar. Is there a difference? … Continue Reading

VM Release: A Model Release App for the iPhone

VM Release has created a new APP for the iPhone allowing photographers to capture model releases from those they photograph and all digitally using the iPhone. This is pretty cool and certainly has its usefulness for those photographing people and private property.

The app has a Adult Release, a Minor Release for the kids, and a Property Release for that farm photo you just took. The app maintains a database of releases that can be downloaded and archived on your computer as well as sent from the iPhone.  It has the ability to enter the photographers signature after the shoot, the models, and a witness signature as well. You can also create a jpg or pdf of the release to submit with the original images. The price is great as well at $9.95.

The site and video states the releases are perfectly legal but it does not state who decided a digital release was legal. I assume they are legal documents since Getty and Alamy have signed on and promote the app to members. I cant help but wonder about the legality as it has always been my understanidng that you needed a paper release with the signature written with real ink.

About 5 years ago I was hired by an out of state lawyer to go to the hospital in my town and photograph a womans injuries as she recovered from a head on car collision. The lawyer told me I could not shoot digitally and had to shoot film and send the negatives with the prints. He said with all the potential image manipulation taking place that the court would not accept digital pictures of the woman’s injuries.

Is there a difference between a digital photo and a digital model release as far as the courts are concerned? I am not sure. Any lawyers out there? … Continue Reading

Proposed Legislation Would Make Photographing Farms Illegal

The War on Photography continues!

Since 9/11, banning photographers and photography has been running full steam ahead. In some cases the courts have rejected these bans as unconstitutional while some appear to remain intact.

Now legislation has been proposed in several states, and passed one house, that would make it a felony to photograph Agribusiness, farms, and livestock operations without permission from the land owner.

The motivation behind this is to shutdown animal activist groups who gain access and secretly tape and/or photograph animal abuses. Of course it is impossible to catch these folks in many cases so instead the law would make everybody an activist and a criminal when doing photography or video of agribusiness without permission, and, from anywhere: public property or private.

‘Catch one shoplifter in the store, then it’s fair to assume that everyone in the store is a shoplifter.’

I have enjoyed many road trips across the U.S. and have photographed many farms, especially in the Midwest where there are many bright red barns and silos. Some of these images have appeared in calendars and magazines. Sometimes I got a property release and most of the time I did not. But if these laws make it on the books, doing what I have done for many years would make me a felon!

In my opinion, this is just another example of growing censorship and the power of special interests to push through legislation protecting their legal and on occasion, illegal activities.

You can read the whole story here on PDN. … Continue Reading

Image Manipulation: Have I Gone Too Far on This One?

In my post here I discussed how I think the debate over image manipulation was mostly a waste of time. Nature photographers are artists who use nature to create art using a camera.

I have said it before: I am not a photo journalist documenting the ‘news that is occurring in nature,’ but am instead using nature as my palette to create nature art. Instead of using a brush and paints, I use a camera and Photoshop.

I am not shooting for the natural history publications. I want to create commercially viable images of nature that succeed in the market.

What’s got me a little fired up is what some are calling the Photoshop Law. I don’t know a lot about it but I am hearing it would require full disclosure of images that have been ‘Photoshopped.’

I think they are mainly going after fashion and cosmetics advertising and if they succeed, at some point that might expose all photography using any image editing tools. Every single digital photo, shot in RAW needs to be ‘Photoshopped’ to make it useful.

That prompted me to revisit this subject. I recently hiked to my favorite waterfall in the world and photographed it again. I discovered a new perspective (for me) and shot it and it had a lot of dead debris I removed. More on that coming up! … Continue Reading

Call to Action: Denali NP Plan to ‘Do-Away’ With Photographer Passes & Give Them to Tour Companies

It has come to my attention through various photographers that Denali National Parks new Road Plan will end the Road Pass program for professional photographers. For many years photographers have been allowed to apply to enter a lottery allowing them to win a road pass that allowed entrance into the park for a set number of days.

The parks new road plan will eliminate the road pass program for photographers and gives those spots to tour companies and cruise lines. Apparently, the cruise/tour industry has a large and aggressive lobbying group that has pressed the park for some time to do-away with the photo passes and allow more tour buses instead.

Photographer Bill Campbell sees this as just another version of the War on Photography as he wrote in his blog post here. Alaskan photographer Tom Walker has worked with the park to avoid just this sort of thing from happening. Here are some of his comments:

“For almost two decades large tour companies, through the Alaska Tourism Industry Association (ATIA) have lobbied for increased bus access to the park. For over ten years, for example, they have pushed to have Denali’s Professional Photographers Permit System (ProPho) revoked, and that vehicle allocation replaced with tour buses.” and “The group determined from this experience, that once again public concerns are being discarded and the outcome of the “public process” is mere window dressing.”-Tom Walker

Today is the day your help is needed! October 31′st is the end of public comment so you are NEEDED TO TAKE ACTION TODAY by leaving a comment.

Please go to Bill Campbell’s blog for the full story and links to the Draft Road Plan and the Comment Page for Vehicle Plan.

PLEASE MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD and lets be louder than the Tour Company Lobby!

Removing Photographers Name is Violation of DMCA

A federal appeals court recently ruled that removing the photo credit of an image use in a magazine is a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

This is a significant decision since it rules that a copyright notice placed in the gutter of a magazine qualifies as copyright management information under DMCA.

For those unfamiliar with the Act, the DMCA prohibits among many things, the removal of any copyright information or encryption technology used to place a copyright on a digital image. This decision moves beyond digital copyright information attached to a digital image file and includes a copyright printed in a magazine. … Continue Reading

Why The Debate Over Image Manipulation Is Mostly a Waste of Time

The debate over whether or not image manipulation should be done and whether it is ethical or not rages on and in my opinion, much of it is unnecessary.

The opinions vary widely over disclosing what is real and what is not and some question whether any digital photograph can be believed. There are now even attempts to set ethical standards for digital photography manipulation.

Images have been manipulated since photography was invented and some of the most recognized photographers in history were heavy manipulators, like Ansel Adams among many others. You have probably already heard this argument. His and many others works are celebrated today as the Master’s of the medium.

Magazines, ad agencies, and other end-users routinely manipulate both stock and assignment photos. Most of the time the viewer never knows, unless a poor manipulation lands the image on the Photoshop errors sites. Rarely does anyone cry foul, unless of course the photographer did the poor job or cheated some rules.

… Continue Reading

I Copied A David Muench Picture and it Never Sold!

Yes, I confess, I did it. This was back when I was a student at Brooks Institute of Photography in the 1970s. In my very first class, the instructor had us study many of the well-known photographers throughout the history of the medium, including David Muench. I quickly became a David Muench fan, and, in fact, he has been my hero since those early days. He is a ground breaker, capturing countless never-before-seen locations in new and innovative ways as many of the early landscape photographers did.

So many times I wished I had entered the business when David Muench had. It must have been easier. If you documented the landscape where nobody spent much time, then every image would be a new, never-before-seen image. There were fewer photographers then and less competition.

In reality, I’m sure it was not that easy. Most likely, many of the battles would have been the same as they are today: working hard to build name recognition; finding clients; creating unique imagery; and building a successful business. … Continue Reading

Saturday Reads: Photograph Farms and You’ll Get Arrested; Image Theft: There is an APP For That

As if the world is not already weird enough and photographers right to photograph freely in public are continually threatened, there is legislation pending in Florida and Iowa that would make it illegal to photograph farms without permission.

What? As Vinny said: “git outta heer..”

Carolyn Wright of Photo Attorney, in her piece: Are Proposed Bills to Prevent Photos of Farms Legal?, she has a great explanation and some prefessional opinions on this legislation and how far she thinks this will or will not go.

There’s An App for That, But You May Not Want To Use It.

A new iPhone app, Color, is a smart phone photo-sharing app that has buried in its Terms of Service, the right to use any image taken with their app, in any form forever and ever and yada, yada. The problem here is that smart phone images are making the rounds of the publishing world and are becoming a legitimate form of documentary photography. So if you use their service you agree, by simply using the app, that they can use your images any way they wish, period.

That’s scary for the working photographer and it should be for any photographer. You never know what global news story you could encounter in an instant and have this company potentially grab your earnings. Is that likely? I don’t know. Is it possible? Yep! You can read a full story here on the Russian Photo Blog.

There is also an article by Skip Cohen about ‘who you are’ as a photographer and he discusses the About Me aspect of some photographers websites. He really takes a good look at just how much info you want or should be including in the About Me part of your website, and if you are in business this is a worthy read.

Here Is A Perfect Reason Why You Need Solid Model Releases

Rob Haggart, publisher of aPhotoeditor.com, wrote about a model who signed a model release, and is now suing the photographer because they did not like how the image was used.

Carolyn Wright of Photoattorney.com offered her opinion and essentially states that the issue will most likely hinge on how solid the model release is.

Whether the model prevails or not, here is another reason for photographers to check their releases for the proper legal definitions. And should the photographer lose here, does that mean the releases are not worth the paper they are written on? Will photographers then be required to clear all uses with models before the proposed usage? Geez, imagine if that became the case: no more online automated sales since everything would have to be done by hand to get the models permission. Obviously that is a stretch and I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

The sad part though is it will most likely cost the photographer a whole bunch of money in legal fees, something not many can probably afford in this market.

For the story: http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2011/04/04/models-turn-on-photographers-after-stock-sales/http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2011/04/04/models-turn-on-photographers-after-stock-sales/