livebooks blog

• Cable channel Bravo confirmed that a new reality show featuring celebrity and fashion photography duo Markus Klinko and Indrani is slated for a debut in January 2010. The glamorous pair were the creators behind iconic images including the album covers of David Bowie’s Heathen and Beyonce’s Dangerously In Love. American Photo’s State of the Art blog has more details. Another interesting development about photography invading mainstream TV is the anticipated launch of the Photography Network this September. An excerpt from their marketing pitch hopes Photography Network will be to photography “what HGTV is to home and garden and the Food Network is to food.” For a sneak peak, check out their demo reel.
• Following complaints from photographers and an NPPA letter to Amtrak in January, Amtrak issued a new set of guidelines last week that incorporate NPPA’s recommendations. The new policies state that Amtrak police should not “delete, destroy, or alter photographs and video, along with the directive that they shall not request others to delete, destroy, or alter photos or video either.” After a lot of mixed messages and mistreatment from Amtrak, this is finally some good news for photographers.
• After months of anticipation, the Getty Flickr stock collection is finally here. While most would agree it is impressive in terms of quality and quantity for something on Flickr, it comes with a hefty price tag also. We’d love to hear what you think about its potential and problems.
• Big congrats to beloved Scotsman Harry Benson for receiving a CBE from Princess Anne at Buckingham Palace yesterday morning! Check out Harry’s insightful advice for young photographers here on RESOLVE.

• The Guardian reported Monday that after ratings for the Academy Awards last year plunged to a historic low, producers asked key actors and presenters not to enter via the red carpet this year so viewers would have to watch the ceremony to see their gowns. Not surprisingly, the photographers who make their living from photos of Oscar gowns were pissed. The ratings this year jumped 13 percent — and in typical over-simplified fashion, we bet the academy attributes that to this new policy (not the fact that the styling was classy and classic this year, the presenter was hot, or even, that people need Hollywood distractions more when the economy’s in the toilet), and keeps it.

• In an official announcement released via the NPPA website, Pete Souza, the recently-appointed official White House photographer, filled out his team with Chuck Kennedy as assistant director of the White House photography office and Lawrence Jackson and Samantha Appleton as official photographers. Kennedy’s precisely executed inauguration picture made front covers of hundreds of newspapers all over the world. Jackson was most recently a staff photographer at the Associated Press in Washington DC, and Appleton, named one of the “30 Under 30″ by Photo District News, is known for her projects on Iraq and Africa. Souza said she will be primarily assigned to cover the First Lady. We wonder if it’s common practice to have a woman photographer specifically assigned to the first lady. Anyone know?

• After months of speculations, Rocky Mountain News owner E.W. Scripps announced yesterday that the publication will cease operations after its last edition today (February 27, 2009). The paper, which has been serving Denver for 150 years, has won 3 Pulitzer Prizes in photography since 2000. Sadly this is likely the first in a long line of newspaper closings; the San Francisco Chronicle also announced this week that it is looking for buyers in a bid to save the paper. We can’t decide if it’s poetic justice or just sad irony that the best reporting on the closing was done by the paper’s own staff via Twitter.

• Defense Secretary Robert Gates has finally lifted the 18-year-old photography ban, now allowing caskets arriving at Dover airforce base in Delware to be photographed, as long as families of the deceased agree to it. The Dover Air Force Base is the military’s largest mortuary facility, where bodies of American troops are sent before traveling to hometowns. We hope this is part of the wave of change apparently sweeping Washington. If those photos had been allowed earlier, maybe we wouldn’t have had to wait so long for that change.

Harry Benson, the always-dapper, world-renowned photographer, showed up for this recent liveBooks Photographers In Focus video interview in a well-fitted suit — albeit without a tie. According to Harry, his attire isn’t just good fashion sense, it’s also good business sense.

“If you need to go to the White House for a press conference, dress like a professional, not a plumber,” he says. “It shows respect for yourself, as well as who you represent.”

Harry should know, considering he photographed every U.S. president from Eisenhower to George W. Bush. He says he has seen photographers turned down for jobs simply because they were wearing jeans and no jacket.

“It is something that is so obvious to me, yet so many young photographers seem to fail to recognize it,” Harry says.

Now that he mentions it, that suit does look pretty comfortable — we bet he was wearing it even when he was bouncing on beds with the Fab Four. No wonder the Queen of England named the Scottish photographer a CBE (a designation just one level below knighthood) in January.

Check out the video for more Benson insights into being the best photographer you can be.

Shepard Fairey’s image below has achieved legendary status as one of the most recognizable icons of the now historic Barack Obama presidential campaign. The image above it may become as legendary for being the foundation of a successful copyright infringement suit against one of the most recognizable icons of the Barack Obama presidential campaign. The case for infringement is very strong, but that’s not why I’m pissed off at Shepard Fairey.

Analysis by stevesimula on Flickr of the image by AP photographer Mannie Garcia compared with Shepard Fairey's Obama HOPE poster.

Last year, at the Microsoft Pro Photography Summit, I advocated a policy of letting your online images get swiped for non-advertising use as long as they were accompanied by click-through attribution to your web site. I feel very strongly that there is more value using your images to get exposure on the web versus the money you would earn in selling your photos to blogs and other online entities. This assertion has been heard with differing degrees of shock and appreciation. I have been sure to put my photos where my mouth is with the following paragraph on the “about” page of my website:

“Copyright rules governing the material on this site: As long as you don’t use any of the copyrighted material on this site for advertising purposes or in association with anything illegal, AND you give me attribution in the form of a link back to this site, then grab the goods.”

Before the internet became a quotidian communication medium, Shepard Fairey was a significant figure in the underground art world. However, his huge popularity in the mainstream, especially the popularity of his Obama image, is a direct result of the internet. Acknowledging Mannie Garcia, the photographer who provided the image for his art piece, would have been an extraordinary example of online creative kinship.  The type of creative kinship that fuels the remixing of existing creative works found online, as well as some of the best applications that have ever existed via the open source software movement. (If you’re reading this in a Firefox browser you’re reaping the rewards of this ideal.) Mr. Fairey could have brought Mr. Garcia some significant attention without detracting from his own.

In failing to do so, Mr. Fairey let us all down. He violated the unspoken, inviolate rule of the internet community. Acknowledgment has been expected online community behavior since the pre-browser days of the internet. It is the one continuous thread that makes the evolving internet a successful democracy.

I’m sure Mr. Fairey was totally unaware that his piece was destined for such popularity. I’m also aware that Mr. Fairey is notorious for using his work to challenge established social norms. But the Obama campaign was different. It was one based on change. It offered real hope that the ideals of the rest of us, the public, would finally take precedence over the few with access to power. Mr. Fairey’s failure to recognize the importance of the celebrity of his Obama piece as an endorsement of the true democracy of the internet is a disservice to us all. Especially when one considers how easy it would have been to give credit where credit was due.

Fine art and portrait photographer Michael Jang tells some great “breaking into the biz” stories in this video interview from our Photographers in Focus series. While still in art school, he used a letter from his teacher and some creative subterfuge to crash big Beverly Hills parties — and make the images that launched his career. We wanted to make sure you got a chance to see it if you haven’t already.

Michael is in San Francisco like us, so we thought we’d check in and see what he’s been up to lately. He’s excited about his recent conversation with aspiring photographers at the University High School here in town. Check out the San Francisco Chronicle story about his visit to the school as well as a collection of his very early family photos, which have just been acquired by the SFMoMA this year. Michael also gave us some bonus video footage of him speaking at a Photoshelter panel discussion.

“Don’t lose sight of why you want to be a photographer and your love for photography,” he advises. “If you can make good pictures, people will find you.” His point — that the real issue is not how to make money, but how to make great pictures — might not be the most popular, since it’s not the easy solution, but judging from the applause after Michael’s comments, it needs to be said more often.

• After Tom Gralish helped pinpoint the photo that was used as the starting point for the famous Obama HOPE poster (by Mannie Garcia for the AP), the AP on Wednesday “reached out” to the lawyer of Shepard Fairey, who created the poster and is now much richer and famouser. Carolyn E. Wright, the author of the Photographer’s Legal Guide and the writer of the Photo Attorney blog, wrote a long post Thursday analyzing the AP’s case and concluding that she, at least, would take the case. via: Online Photographer. John Harrington has several good posts on it too: here, here, and here.

• Everyone is atwitter over Paolo Pellegrin’s photo essay for the New York Times, Great Performers. And they should be. It’s stunning and unveils just how staged most celebrity photos are with its dedication to a photojournalistic truth. It also reminded me instantly of Paolo’s Iraqi Diaspora project, which I saw at Visa pour l’Image this year, and which had everyone in Perpignan atwitter to see a photographer so skilled in black and white also blow us away with color.

• Greg Gibson has a great post on his blog explaining in detail how McLatchy-Tribune News Services photographer Chuck Kennedy convinced the White House to let him set up a remote camera at the foot of the podium during Obama’s swearing in. Probably the most impressive part is seeing just how many front pages ran the image…a great lesson for photographers about always trying to do something new, even when it seems like it’s all been done before.