livebooks blog

Our sources informed us of Vincent Laforet’s new film – “a narrative short filmed exclusively with the Canon 5D Mark II” – a while ago, so we’re glad to be able to share it with you finally. The unofficial website will only tell you that it’s named “Betrayed“, and is directed by Joshua Grossberg with cinematography by Vincent Laforet and photographer Robert Caplin. Stay tuned to RESOLVE for more details.

According to an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, London’s National Portrait Gallery is furious about images of paintings from the museum’s web site showing up on Wikipedia. The core of the argument is whether these photographic images of the masterpieces are considered in the public domain or if they are creative work. The Gallery Hopper has details and links to related stories.

Need more Martin Parr in your life? Don’t we all? iGoogle has released a new Martin Parr theme with images by the Magnum photographer. Click here to see it for yourself.

Some people are still trying to figure out what “free” really means, Rupert Murdoch is just saying no. According to the Guardian, the media mogul “has lost patience with giving away his expensively produced journalism on the internet for nothing.” By June 2010, you’ll have to pay to read any News Corp content.

NPPA publicly objected to a recent comment by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano asking people to tell the police if they see someone “continually taking photographs of a piece of critical infrastructure that doesn’t seem to make any sense.” “Photography by itself should not be considered suspicious activity, and it is protected by the First Amendment,” the NPPA reiterated.

In an effort to save the financially troubled Gamma, the photojournalist arm of French photo agency Eyedea, directors are taking legal actions that will likely lead to a reorganization. As Fred Ritchin points out on After Photography, Gamma is largely responsible for the rise of international, multi-lingual news photo agencies.

It started last week when a Los Angeles-based photographer proudly posted on the Model Mayhem forum that Time Magazine used his $30 stock photo for its April cover. The pats on the back quickly turned to comments like, “you got screwed” and spread around the photo blogosphere, where Salon even picked up the story. dvafoto has a roundup of related coverage.

Conscientious has a couple posts related to the controversy around Edgar Martins’ work for the New York Times Magazine, giving Martins a chance to explain his side of the story. As usual, Joerg has been able to encourage meaningful discussions (here, here, and here) in the midst of a lot of reactionary commentary.

August 15th will mark the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, and Lens honors the event with an interview with legendary photographer Bill Eppridge, who was there with a “car full of film.”

The Associated Press announced that plans are underway to create a registry that will track online usage of AP content, including text, photos, and videos. The registry is expected to launch early next year, which will cover only AP text content initially, and be extended to AP member content as well as photos and videos eventually. Click on the image on the left to see a diagram explaining how the registry works.

Back in April, we talked about Chris Usher’s lawsuit against Corbis. Turns out Judge Sotomayor was one of three judges who ruled on the case. While most in the photo community are concerned that the case will become a judicial reference, consultant Leslie Burns-Dell’Acqua disagrees. Read her well-versed argument here, here and here.

Although there is no final word yet, edvidence suggests that Robert Capa’s iconic “Falling Soldier” photo was likely staged. Interest in the authenticity of the image has been rekindled as a result of a new traveling exhibition in Spain, which was organized by the International Center of Photography. Philip Gefter has a thoughtful essay on NYT’s Lens regarding this and other iconic staged images.

Kudos for Judge Tomar Mason for upholding the rights of photographers and journalists – a photojournalist student at San Francisco State University, whose name was not identified by request of his lawyer, does not have to surrender his photographs of a murder scene to police under the state’s shield law. Wired has the full story.

The arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. this week has not only been the latest topic of racial profiling, but also of citizen journalism. The widely distributed photo taken at the time of the arrest did not come from a news agency, but from the London-based “citizen journalist” site Demotix. PDN has more on the story, as does Fred Ritchin at After Photography.

Infamous downtown artist Dash Snow, only 27 years old, died July 13 of a drug overdose at a hotel in New York City. His controversial art and photography drew comparisons to Nan Goldin and Andy Warhol and was mentioned in Jorge Colberg’s post on Conscientious asking “What makes art?”

Renowned outdoor photographers Art Wolfe, David Doubilet, and Thomas Mangelsen have embraced a new “virtual stock agency” model developed by PhotoShelter. They have teamed up to create an agency called Wild. Art, a RESOLVE contributor, explains the decision in a great piece in Outdoor Photographer Magazine.

The Prix Pictet announced its shortlist of 12 international photographers during a special screening at the 40th Rencontres d’Arles last week. We are excited to see RESOLVE contributor Ed Kashi on the list. Other familiar names include Magnum photographer Christopher Anderson and Portugese-born photographer Edgar Martins, who found himself in the middle of a recent photoshop controversy.

After the French government allowed priceless Henri Cartier-Bresson images to be damaged and then promised to destroy them, the images have reemerged in the art market, in an incident that The Online Photographer has cheekily dubbed “oeuf on face.”

Mannie Garcia, the photographer who made the the image of Barack Obama that Shepard Fairey based his HOPE poster on, filed a court motion to join the lawsuit between Fairey and the Associated Press.