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Our publisher is Rohn Engh, and to get his weekly take on current
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Photographers Follow On Tumblr – Conor Risch: “Photographers have used micro-blogging site Tumblr as a tool to share their work with audiences online, many of them building followings that number in the thousands and even tens of thousands. But photographers also use the site to follow other shooters, keeping up with what their peers are doing and passing along work they like or admire. http://pdnpulse.com/2011/10/who-photographers-follow-on-tumblr.html
PHOTO: Jody Rojac
FASTER THAN A… ( QUICK JOURNALISM ) -- Blurb,the photo book company has launched a mobile media story app - New mobile platform enables anyone to quickly compose and share media stories directly from their iPhone. A BLURB MOBILE story can range from sharing a personal moment with friends and family, to a real-time report from a front-line photojournalist covering breaking. Produced by individuals with a passion for capturing life’s moments, news, etc. http://www.photographymonthly.com/News-and-Reviews/2011/4/Blurb-launches-mobile-media-story-app
Could Vivian Maier, an Unknown Photographer, Be a Master? (Video)
Maier was discovered by Chicagoan John Maloof while he was searching for photographs of Chicago’s Northwest Side for his new book, according to a report by Chicago PBS station, WTTW. At an antiques auction, he bought a box of negatives that belonged to this obscure woman, acquired by the auction house from her storage locker that had overdue payments. When Maloof scanned the negatives, he was astonished to see shots that captured scenes from the streets of mid-twentieth century Chicago in all its essence.
Via Roy Ikawa
HIT THE STREETS -- Street Photo Contest at B&H - From March 1st through March 14th, B&H is holding a street photography contest sponsored by Leica. The winner will be announced on Tuesday March 15th. US residents only. SOURCE: Photostream; http://www.flickr.com/groups/bhphoto/discuss/72157626049167531/ TAKEAWAY: As an editorial photographer, this one should be easy for you. And did you notice…? The Sponsors know their First Amendment Rights and did not require model releases for pictures used for editorial purposes.. Maybe that’s why they said, “USA only” as lots of countries don’t have the same Freedom of Speech as the USA.
PHOTO: Mr. Mattng on Flicker
NEW TWIST -- Irish start-up Picturk to create images of the future - Picturk, the recent winner of the NDRC ‘Lift Off’ competition, has set its sights on bringing a new twist to the internet-based stock photography market – through ethical crowd sourcing using local camera clubs. http://www.siliconrepublic.com/start-ups/item/19913-picturk-to-create-images-of/
OUT ON THE STREET -- Ten Tips for the Aspiring Street Photographer. Kim: “Let’s face it, starting street photography is no easy task. For the average photographer, going from shooting flowers into shooting people in the streets is like stepping into a Ferrari after driving a Toyota Prius. It is intimidating at first, but quite exhilarating once you try it out. After shooting on the streets for about four years, here are my top ten tips for somebody (with absolutely no background in street photography) to get their feet wet.
SOURCE: Eric Kim http://www.digital-photography-school.com/10-tips-for-the-aspiring-street-photographer#ixzz0ybNpAoM5
PHOTO: Eric Kim
TAKEAWAY: Check this one out for sure. You'll find some inspiring editorial photos. Many of them were probably set up to illiustrate an idea.
Be sure to read the comments on this one also if you're an aspiring to be an editorial photographer. Too bad that so many photographers are misinformed about what is legal and what is not about taking pictures in public. (Street photography) Of course, as you already know, the short answer is the publisher, not the photographer is hit with a suit, and you'll be happy to hear that over the last century (yes, 100 years) there have been very few publishers hit with any fine(s).
Why? Because they know their First Amendment Rights. (Freedom of the Press). They continually protect it with their bevy of attorneys.
Also, the reality is people who "sue" go after people with deep pockets, not street photographers.
I hope this has opened a window and let some fresh air in on this subject (in case you can't take pictures freely in public) and helped you re- gain your First Amendment Rights. -Rohn
SHARING INTERESTS -- Networking: The good, the bad, and the inevitably awkward. - For this month’s Q&A, Jacqueline Bovaird gets people’s reactions to networking. We’re not talking about social networking here, but rather the good ol’ fashioned meet and greet. Almost everyone acknowledges the inevitable awkwardness, but also accepts the value of fostering a supportive community. My advice is not see people as a business connection, because that becomes transparent quickly. Instead, think of networking as meeting people within your industry who inevitably share the same interests. SOURCE: Jacqueline Bovaird; Stone Thrower; http://stone-thrower.com/2010/04/22/networking/
NOT SO FAST -- The dangers of digital content . With budgets tight and social media the hot trend, a virtually endless stream of businesses large and small are turning to crowdsourcing to generate digital content on the cheap. The result? The likelihood that unimaginable numbers of copyrights are being infringed on daily basis without the copyright holder or the person using the images realizing that there’s a problem. SOURCE: Martin Bryant The Next Web http://thenextweb.com/uk/2010/01/18/flickr-independent-dangers-digital-content/
THE CUP OVERFLOWETH -- Crowdsourcing In 2010: Will We Keep Supplying The Media Free Content? Usually when we think of crowdsourcing, it's with an eye towards corporations like Pepsi or McDonald's, who hold contests for viral content and reward the winners with a prize that is less than the cost of actually getting a development team together. But news sites like Digg, Reddit, and Wikipedia all run off of the power of its users. The Democratic Party used crowdsourcing to get young people off their butts and voting for the first time. Non-profit media groups to use the technique to both engage audiences and save money. SOURCE: FISHBOWL ; Drew Grant. http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/media_events/crowdsourcing_in_2010_will_we_keep_supplying_the_media_free_content_147534.asp
SNAPSHOTS -- Street Photography with High Dynamic Range – The HDR images I have seen don’t strike me as editorial in nature, but, according to this article, it is possible to co-mingle your creative juices with documentary composition. Read on for tips and advice from a seasoned professional. http://tinyurl.com/streetHDR
INVENTIVE PHOTOGRAPHERS -- For the street photographers who work the crowds around the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree money does grow on trees. With digital cameras and ink-jet printers powered by car batteries, they churn out images at about $10 a pop. Mr. Mendes works the same crowds, cradling like a piece of sculpture a vintage Speed Graphic camera outfitted with two flash units and a Polaroid back. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/nyregion/03polaroid.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
GIVE NOT TAKE – Help-Portrait Movement Unites Communities Worldwide – The world stood still as photographers worldwide united in a photography movement called Help-Portrait, which gave more than 40,000 individuals portraits to treasure for a lifetime. More than 8300 photographers and volunteers participated in 715 locations in 42 countries. http://www.facebook.com/helpportrait Takeaway: Don’t just take pictures; Give them. http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/helpportrait/prweb3365464.htm
SPOOKS GALORE -- On Street Photographers, Spies, Perverts and Pedophiles - Michael Coyne: "Everywhere I go I see people pointing their phone cameras at everything and anything - but
bring out a Digital SLR and the whole world goes into panic. I can never
work this out. Does it mean that spies only use a Nikon D3 with a large zoom
lens? SOURCE: BlackStar Rising. Michael Coyne http://rising.blackstar.com/of-street-photographers-spies-perverts-and-pedophiles.html TAKEAWAY: Here are two suggestions for this dilemma
1.) Tourists are harmless, non-threatening photographers. Dress like one (straw hat, Hawaiian shirt/shorts, flip-flops) and smile at security guards and self-appointed vigilantes.
2.) Don’t fight it. Join ‘em. Convince Nikon et al, to design and build a powerful camera that looks just like your brother-in-law’s ipod. Always take photos with it left-handed. As an added precaution, wear a suit and tie. -RE
UNFREE PHOTOS FROM THE CROWD: -- “User-created ads” create photo rights conundrum. Toyota flap over Flickr photo illustrates the copyright issue problem; Ad Age provides answers. SOURCE: Abbey Klaassen ;Advertising Age http://www.autonews.com/article/20091110/ANA08/911109986/1018
PORTFOLIO PUSH – Getty Images Launches "Call for Artists" on Flickr - Literally thousands of Flickr photographers have been invited thus far (the Flickr/Getty private member only contributor group on Flickr counts over 12,000 members) there wasn't really a way for a photographer to try and be included in the program if they didn't get a Flickr invite. Until today. A "Call for Artists" will provide the Flickr community with a forum to "pitch" their work for the collection. http://thomashawk.com/2009/11/getty-images-launches-call-for-artists-on-flickr.html
EYE-TO-EYE – Photographer Jillian Edelstein, famous for her portraits of stars from Woody Allen, Kate Moss and Daniel Day Lewis to Nelson Mandela, is undertaking a photography project unlike any other she has attempted before. She plans to capture 121 eyes http://www.vogue.co.uk/news/daily/091109-photographer-jillian-edelsteins-ey.aspx
WHO’S IN CHARGE? Social Media-A New Sales Strategy; Today It Takes More Than A Website - The question is-how can it work for you? It is a very different means-one that you join and participate in rather than direct and control, as you often can with your traditional marketing media. New technology and the changing and developing expectations of your clients are driving this change. http://shutterbug.com/columns/business_trends/1009business/ TAKEAWAY: In the past, no matter what the profession, it was me,me,me. The new social media is reversing the normal hierarchy to “us,us,us…” That’s where you come in, somewhere in the middle, or even at the top, depending or your career skills. This new process allows the wave of voracious newly-available technology to make it possible for the democratic plebeians to filter upwards. Bravo! -RE
CHEAPER BY THE CROWD-SOURCING -- The PR announcement said that Getty Images is “restructuring” its Creative business responsibility for wholly-owned photos. Recently, reports emerged that Getty Images was shutting down its wholly-owned shoot operations after photographer Greg Ceo wrote that the Seattle creative shooting team will be let go as of 31 December. Contacted by BJP, Alison Crombie, senior director of public relations at Getty, says that “Getty Images is not undergoing “layoffs”. We are in the process of evolving our Creative business, which has been affected by the many changes in the traditional stock photography business over the last few years.” She added that the Creative Team would now focus on finding and sourcing emerging original photography, “as well as evolving the way in which we work with our contributors.”’ SOURCE: British Journal of Photography. DAILY NEWS.http://www.bjp-online.com/public/showPage.html?page=printer_friendly&print=870279 TAKEAWAY: Once upon a time, Getty Images decided it would staff in-house pros to take photos for Getty, so that Getty could enjoy full ownership of the images plus the profits, but the bean counters at Getty Images then found that the cost to develop, produce and take these images was much more than its budget would allow, so Getty has returned to the former system of letting the freelancers go out and take the pictures and let the freelancers foot the bill for the expenses of picture-taking. Crowd sourcing is now popular at Getty Images.
Humanitarian street photography Mike Hutmacher: Today I stumbled across this photograph by a fellow named David Taggart, a wonderful example of great street photography, but with a profundity most street photography — particularly my own — seems to lack.
Usually altruistic photographers lean toward pathos in their images. Newspaper photographers love pathos, including yours truly, because editors and reporters do. Let’s face it, pathos is photogenic.. SOURCE: Mike Hutmacher Photo by David Taggart
SEIG HEIL ! -- The event that the world looks to bring understanding and friendship to the planet now wants to control picture-taking. The Olympics recently warned a photographer about sharing photos on the Net. Would-be photographers in the spectator stands at the Olympics should look over their shoulders before peering through the lens because a powerful organization will be sure to watch what they do with those snapshots. http://bit.ly/Jr4aS http://news.google.com/news/search?aq=f&um=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=citizen+photography
A PICTURE, IS A PICTURE, IS A PICTURE. - – Cahse Jarvis said that, although he has some of the best equipment at his disposal, the iPhone "gave me total freedom," despite the embedded camera's constraints and parameters. “We think we want more choice, but we really want less.” Does having a 2- or 3-megapixel camera on your cellphone make you an artist or a photographer? Chase Jarvis would argue it does. The 38-year-old commercial photographer is a kind of platform-agnostic photo-evangelist. http://bit.ly/ynZmB
REGULATING US – Photography: a model of lost liberty (UK). There is no overarching ban on photography, nor is their likely to be. Yet, as a new Manifesto Club report by gallery director Pauline Hadaway outlines, there is growing regulation of citizen photography, with touchy subjects now ranging from policemen to transport facilities, from children's nativity plays to football matches. http://bit.ly/32Zo4Z TAKEAWAY: Is our Right of Freedom of the Press slipping away from us?
SPOT JOURNALISM -- Twitpic is a service that makes it easy to post images to Twitter, and to view and comment on photos from your Twitter account. It is also emergining as the trendy new candidate to kill old-school spot photojournalism once and for all. Will Twitpic Succeed Where Scoopt Failed? http://bit.ly/X3TtL TAKEAWAY: Getting a "scoop" for TV and newspaper journalists has always been the benchmark and goal. It looks like the demise of classic TV and newspaper news (both photos and print) is about to unfold.
FREE FOR ALL -- Twitter Photographer Asks Sky News to Pay Up - When there's a major
emergency these days, breaking news outlets routinely turn to Twitter for citizen journalism photos. This can be risky. Sky News seems to have blundered into a hornets' nest with a recent online story about a police shooting in London. http://www.pdnpulse.com/2009/08/twitter-photographer-asks-sky-news-to-pay-up.html
SPEAK UP. -- Social media is here to stay. The big question, “What’s next?” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8
GEO GETS WITH GOSSIP -- National Geo gets itself a Social Director. - National Geographic recently hired Robert Michael Murray, the developer of emerging technology platforms for Georgetown University and the 2000 Democratic National Convention, will be in charge of promoting sourcing National Geographic content into the new and emerging social media platforms. http://stone-thrower.com/2009/08/17/national-geo-gets-itself-a-social-director/
LIGHTS OUT. Digital Photo Services: PicMe, BubbleShare, Riya .. They have faded to black.
"Ultimately it's very difficult to be in the consumer photo space," says Raiz. “Names like Flickr, Facebook, Photobucket, and Google (with its Picasa application)—have sucked all the oxygen out of the photo management and photo sharing market.” We can't out-market them." http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2009/08/14/dark-day-for-digital-photo-services-picme-bubbleshare-riya-fade-to-black/ TAKEAWAY: The photo management and photo sharing business is a brutal business to try to compete in. Even if you offer free services, you have to have the traffic to keep your customers happy. Without traffic you are a ghost ship floating on the open seas. The goal for individual stock photographers is to learn how to get traffic to their own personal website by getting on the first/second page of a Google search. (No one looks at Page 3.) -RE
DIGITAL DILEMMA? Photography contest breaks own record. The Iowa State Fair is full of interesting statistics, but consider this one: This year's photography salon received 4,577 entries. That's almost 1,000 more than last year and 200 more than the previous record, set in 2007. http://bit.ly/yeNce TAKEAWAY: Wouldn’t you love to be a photo judge in that one?
ALL THE NEWS THAT’S FIT TO PRINT-FREE - When Sky News needed a picture to illustrate a shooting at Waterloo Station, they found what they needed on Twitter: a photo of the crime scene taken by Joe Neale and posted to Twitter using Twitpic. http://onlinejournalismblog.com/2009/08/19/what-happened-when-sky-news-took-images-from-twitter/ (Thanks to Frank Nowikowski ) TAKEAWAY: Newsworthy pictures taken by “the crowd” benefit the reading public with its timeliness. Old news is like 2-day old bread. It’s stale. We all benefit by timely news. It’s fresh. But if the news organization attempts to find the author of the pictures to no avail – what’s a news editor to do? Publish or trash it? This is an interesting dilemma the Copyright Office (with its interest in such “orphans”) -- will have to tackle. Watch for the debate. –RE
NO HELP WANTED -- Downturn in Print Media Hurting Photojournalists. When photojournalists and their admirers gather in southern France at the end of August for Visa pour l’Image, the annual celebration of their craft, many practitioners may well be wondering how much longer they can scrape by. Newspapers and magazines are cutting back sharply on picture budgets or going out of business altogether, and television stations have cut back on news coverage in favor of less costly fare. Pictures and video shot by amateurs. on cellphones are posted to Web sites minutes after events occur. Photographers trying to make a living from shooting the news are calling it a crisis. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/11/business/media/11photo.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
PHOTOS DO TALK -- How To Bring Documentary Images to Decision Makers - After spending two years documenting the work of hospice volunteers inside the Angola Penitentiary, photographer Lori Waselchuk wanted to show administrators, doctors and guards at other prisons how much prison hospice programs can
benefit inmates. http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/content_display/features/pdn-online/e3i1b84df344ab297f3e244752088ab87c5 TAKEAWAY: This kind of documentary photography not only works in prisons to convince the hierarchy of what’s happening down in the trenches, but other institutions like mentally handicapped, displaced persons, even local schools.
KODAK EXUMED? -- A Copenhagen-based company, Phase One that caters to professional photographers, announced a plan to acquire some of the high-end photography assets from Eastman Kodak..http://news.cnet.com/8301-13580_3-10272665-39.html
CALL FOR PIX “With a Little Help From My Friends” - In Rick Sammon's new book he plans to include a chapter featuring the work of other compact camera shooters: "Cool Compact Camera Shots From the Field."
Rick says, “If you'd like to be in the book, I'd just need a low res shot for now. 72 PPI, 5x7, JPEG. Send to ricksammon@me.com with a quick tip... must have a tip! http://rickrawrulessammon.blogspot.com/2009/06/with-little-help-from-my-friends.html
GETTING GOOD GOSSIP. Build a Tribe for Your Photography. First came the Web. Then came blogs and podcasts and Facebook and Twitter. Most of us think of these innovations as new ways to communicate. But we should also think of them as new opportunities to lead. http://rising.blackstar.com/build-a-tribe-for-your-photography.html
VIEWING EVERYTHING Google crowdsources Street View imagery - Google Maps' Street View feature uses imagery collected by cameras mounted to Google cars, but now the company is blending in photos taken by the public as well. Panoramio, which Google acquired in 2007, lets people share photos that have been geotagged with location data so they can be shown on a map. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13580_3-10173905-39.html?tag=mncol
SPREADING THE WORD. Images tell the story of homelessness, AIDS and more. While most non-profits can't afford high-end photography, multimedia and social media are becoming powerful tools for spreading humanitarian messages. Such photography in support of non-profits is getting a boost from Getty Images, which is starting a project called Grants for Good. http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/philanthropy/2009/02/19/but_sometimes_pictures_say_a.html
I Heart Magazine i s a just-launched street photography publication that targets photographers, designers, musicians, and collectors worldwide. A feature on pop culture products is also included in the magazine.
Addam Winsenburg is the creative director of the title, which is produced in the US by I Heart Publishing and distributed globally. Winsenburg hopes to publish triannually or quarterly. Freelance photographic submissions are accepted. Details are posted at http://www.iheartmagazine.com/index2.html
HEY! THAT’S ME IN THAT ART SHOW. – At this art exhibit in Minneapolis, the portrait subjects are all unknown to the artist, painted from anonymous images selected from online stock photography databases. The composition and size of the portraits on view — a series of more than 50 faces, all 12.5 inches by16.5 inches, in gouache on paper — are immediately evocative of entertainment-industry head shots. As you wander through the gallery, the portraits, seen together, offer a taxonomy of youth. http://www.minnpost.com/artsarena/2009/02/17/6741
/review_melba_prices_portraits_of_youthful_promise TAKEAWAY: Here’s a naïve use of someone else’s stock photo. Is it copyright infringement? Well, it’s naïve copying, yes, but it’s also charming and it’s art (the usual blanket justification) featured in a nationally-known art gallery. Can we fault the innocent infringer, especially when the intent was to “make art”? Who knows. Let’s vote on it.
DELICATE VOTE. New Hampshire resident barred from taking pictures at meeting. Atkinson, NH resident Gary Brownfield was taking photographs at the town's deliberative session Saturday, but was told almost immediately that he had to stop. Moderator Frank Polito stopped discussion and asked Brownfield to stop taking photographs, saying he was causing a disturbance. Polito went so far as to put the question to voters, asking the audience whether Brownfield's photography should be banned, and they overwhelmingly agreed. http://www.eagletribune.com/punewsnh/local_story_034032654.html TAKEAWAY: Some citizens are all too quick to give up their rights.
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GETTING YOU WHERE YOU LIVE. In the next month, Blue Dasher's fleet of image capture vehicles will photograph every public street and highway in the Tampa-St. Pete metro area. The company's searchable database allows users to visually explore and navigate a neighborhood from ground level through panoramic street-level photographs. http://www.gisuser.com/content/view/16725/2/
CAMERAS AT WORK. Are You Being Watched? Every day, tens of thousands of visitors come to Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda market, to throng around the stalls packed with fruit and vegetables, and buy from the colorful hawkers. And their movements are being watched by surveillance cameras. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1060789.html
DON’T SNAP ME! -- Bid to rein in cellphone photography may prove to be tone deaf, critics say. A New York congressman has introduced a bill that would force U.S. phone manufacturers to program an audible tone that plays every time the cellphone's camera is used, in an effort to stem the voyeuristic tide of revealing, unauthorized photography. http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/40413
THE CROWD IS GROWING -- Select Flickr users begin to get Getty invites. The arrangement between Flickr and Getty Images is finally moving forward. Early Wednesday the Yahoo-owned photo-sharing service announced that invitations from Getty have been going out in high numbers. Some members who have had one or more of their images chosen to be on Getty's sale site could have gotten notice as early as last week. http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10147022-2.html?tag=mncol
THE PLANE CRASHES; SO DOES TWITTER. The speedy spread of a close-up photograph of the US Airways plane that crashed in the Hudson River Thursday, Jan 15, resulted in TWITTER -- that hosted the photopicture -- going down. An application called TwitPic, that allows users to take pictures from their mobile phones and append them to Twitter posts, failed after at least 7,000 people attempted to view the photo of the airplane taken from a commuter ferry by Sarasota, Fla., resident Janis Krums. http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10143736-93.html?tag=mncol