Because Mackie is suing Hipple to the tune of $60,000 for copyright infringement.

Now, we all know the economy sucks. And I usually reserve my outrage for predatory corporate entities bent on the economic pillaging of the individual content producer.

But now, things are apparently so bad, that it’s content-producer eating content-producer…a veritable Lord of the Flies scenario for image-makers.

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In the words of the ill-fated Simi Valley motorist  Rodney King, “can we all just get along?”

Apparently not.

Hipple’s stock agency, upon receiving notice from the “artist” and his legal team, took the picture down from their site. But that wasn’t good enough. Mackie, who had wisely registered his piece, is now seeking punitive damages to the tune of the aforementioned $60 grand.

For more information on how this case is playing out, and how you can help (this affects each and every one of us who shoots travel pictures in public places), hit the jump.

Here’s Hipple’s statement on the case:

Now if this doesn’t qualify as fair use of the sculpture, I don’t know what does. “Fair Use” is a legal concept that allows a certain amount of copying of someone else’s work—you can get a fuller idea of how it works at the Stanford Fair Use Project website.

Think of it this way: if Mr. Mackie is correct and this isn’t fair use, then he can file a $60,000 law suit against anyone who, when strolling along Capitol Hill, thinks the dance steps are nice and takes a photo or video. He may not find you if you just leave the image on your camera or computer, but as soon as you post it to Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, etc., he can (and apparently will) sue you.

We’ve had cases like this before. When Anish Kapoor’s Cloudgate sculpture (aka “The Bean”) was first displayed in Chicago’s Millenium Park, they tried to prevent any professional photography of the publicly financed and displayed artwork. That lasted about a year or so before it was knocked down.

In the meantime, Hipple has set up a legal defense fund site to which you can contribute. If you are a member of ASMP (American Society of Media Photographers), write to your local chapter to see if we can get the organization’s Legal Action fund (to which I am a regular contributor) to adopt Hipple’s case. And if you can’t afford to do either, send Mike an email of support.

This is an important case and from what I can glean, Hipple doesn’t have the means to fight it. But if somebody doesn’t come to his aid, one thing is for sure….

Photographers are going to get walked over….again and again.

Don't click this, it's just a screen grab!

….they couldn’t do any better than Geographic shooters, and all around wags, Cary Wolinsky and Bob Caputo did in this short piece.  Talk about being shot out of a cannon (that’s cannon with two “n’s”), they launched their new blog, Pix Boom Bah, with this wacky video.

The site looks like a place where humor and high production values will help teach basic photography concepts, served up by these two veteran Geographic shooters (and fledgling standup comedians!). Finally, photography has its own mini Monty Python troupe!

Photo © Bob Krist

Nikon announced several new lenses today, one of which I got to play with a while ago.

Of course, I knew that an announcement was forthcoming, I just didn’t know when (because like the husband, the photographer is always the last to know).

In fact, If I hadn’t gotten a nasty email from a Czech photographer this morning who absolutely hated one of the pictures used in the official Nikon web announcement (namely, mine!), I would have never known the lens was launched.

Ah yes, there’s nothing quite like getting a new orifice torn while you’re enjoying your morning java to really jump start your day!

Unlike my critic, however, I was blessed with the opportunity to play with a prototype of the 28-300mm for a couple of days out in San Francisco last February.

I have to say that this lens, along with the venerable 18-200mm Nikkor, has completely turned my head around when it comes to the viability of a variable aperture uni-zoom as a professional tool. This one, in particular, blew my mind and spun my head around 360 degrees…(think Linda Blair in The Exorcist!). I couldn’t find a downside to it.

It’s sharp end to end, not too big or heavy, and ergonomically pleasing to use. It features a zoom lock, which is important because, while it’s not overly large for what it is, it’s a substantial piece of glass, and I highly recommend keeping the zoom lock on while you’re walking around. You can read about the specs here and also see the full-sized samples here .

You know I’m not too technical (they had to loan me an FX camera, a D700, to shoot with) but I can tell you that this is an awesome piece of glass. You literally could shoot a whole job with this baby with no compromise that I could discern (although I’m sure someone in, um, the Czech Republic might be able to!)

The VR works well and makes up for the F/5.6 at the long end (although, as a regular user of the 70-300mm VR on my D90, this is no surprise, or hardship, for me). If I were an FX travel shooter, this lens would be in my bag (paired, most likely, with the 16-35mm f/4 VR).

Man, that would be a combination (throw in the 24mm f/1.4  and the new  85mm f/1.4 for available light and bokeh issues, and you’re in FX travel-shooting heaven, my friends! Four lenses that can do it all).  But if you could only carry one lens for your FX explorations, this would be it, no doubt.

Here’s another frame of a very cool performance artist called Chi Energy, whom I bumped into while shooting the Chinese New Year parade in San Francisco:

Photo © Bob Krist

Hit the jump for more of Chi and San Francisco with the new lens…

Photo © Bob Krist

Photo © Bob Krist

Photo © Bob Krist

Photo © Bob Krist

]]> http://www.bobkrist.com/blog/samples-with-the-new-af-s-nikkor-28-300mm-f3-5-5-6g-ed-vr/feed/ 111 http://www.bobkrist.com/blog/terrorists-sick-of-being-treated-like-photographers/ http://www.bobkrist.com/blog/terrorists-sick-of-being-treated-like-photographers/#comments Sun, 08 Aug 2010 16:05:13 +0000 Bob http://www.bobkrist.com/blog/?p=4695 This just in: In England, terrorist organizations have hit out at the police crackdown on citizen journalism, which has led to radical extremists across the country being treated just like common photographers. Oh, the humanity!!!!

Don’t believe me? Why not? I read it on the internets, so it must be true:-).

http://newsarse.com/2010/08/06/terrorists-sick-of-being-treated-like-photographers/

www.whattheduck.net

I just read Andrea Pistolesi’s post A Requiem for Travel Photography, (first brought to my attention on Tewfic El Sawy’s excellent Travel Photographer blog).

For those of you who may not recognize his name, Andrea is one of the busiest and most talented travel shooters around, with a string of publication credits that would choke a horse. If I had a quarter for every assignment I lost to Andrea over the years, I’d be very well off—this guy can shoot (and write, in English, even though he’s Italian!).

I highly recommend taking a read of the whole post, but to summarize, Andrea posits that travel photography as a profession is gone, primarily because most of the publications that made assignments are either gone or severely cutting back. But he ends with a very cogent and insightful observation:

“I keep thinking that the world has a lot of stories worth to be covered photographically. The real task is to modernize our scope, create new ways of distribution (using the new technologies, think of the iPad for example), reach the young reader.

For the Travel Photographer the time has come to drop the “Travel” label. Everybody has a camera in his pocket today. The photographer is somebody able to see in a personal, strong way, and pass the message on..

Wow, Andrea’s analysis really hits a home run (or, more culturally fitting, scores a big goooooaaaaaal). To find out what this might mean, hit the jump.

Nobody needs more shots of the neon-festooned hotels in Miami's South Beach, but a story about a cool character who lives and works there, like muscian Leo Casino, might find a market in the new media environment. Photo © Bob Krist

It’s finding the stories in our travels and a personal way of telling them, that may help us all survive in the new media market. And it sure jibes with my experience. A lot of travel photography I see (and have done myself on occasion) lately is trophy hunting more than story-telling.

Like the photo tours and cruises, where the leader takes the group to all the best spots so everybody gets “the shot.” Or going and nailing the skylines, the icons, etc. that have been done before (and yes, we try to do them better, but sometimes, in the older professional travel photography business paradigm, you just needed them).

I know that my last few months have been spent grappling with new media, trying to learn the new grammar of visual storytelling with moving pictures.

It’s all brought me back to wanting to tell stories, like the picture page spreads I did on local characters in Jersey City and Hoboken for The Dispatch back when I was a fledgling news shooter in the mid-70′s, rather than shooting single iconic photos that have been done before.

Problem is, there’s no clear market for these stories, local or exotic…. yet. But hopefully there will be, because the net is very niche, and because the billions of pictures of every place from the Taj Mahal to Monument Valley out there being licensed or sold outright for pennies, combined with the dearth of editorial outlets, really have doomed the old paradigm.

And I’m hoping, but not entirely sure, that the new paradigm might include a pay-to-play, decent-money-for-decent-content, business model.

So besides learning a new way of telling visual stories, I’m also going to try to go for a new paradigm in my own travels. Just like the Slow Food movement has taught us to slow down and really eat, I’m thinking of Slow Travel—-go fewer places, stay longer, and dig out the stories of the people who are in the place.

That doesn’t mean I won’t accept the run and gun assignments that have been a career staple (I say that knowing that although no photo editors read this blog,  I should cover my kiester just in case one stumbles upon this post… Yes, Mongo have camera, will shoot fast for food and mortgage money!).

So, like Andrea Pistolesi,  I’m hoping that professional travel photography (and photographers!) don’t need a requiem just yet……maybe just a major makeover!

]]> http://www.bobkrist.com/blog/is-travel-photography-dead/feed/ 21 http://www.bobkrist.com/blog/why-i-gave-up-the-big-bucks-of-corporate-work/ http://www.bobkrist.com/blog/why-i-gave-up-the-big-bucks-of-corporate-work/#comments Sat, 03 Jul 2010 00:00:33 +0000 Bob http://www.bobkrist.com/blog/?p=4607 Click here to view the embedded video.

Back when I was a young(er) buck, I used to do a lot of annual report photography for many of the Fortune 500 companies, especially the pharmaceutical and telecom companies….they were all based in Jersey and so was I.

So it was a no-brainer to drive down the Turnpike, show a portfolio, and hopefully snag some work from them. But the above video more or less sums up why I left that world after a few years and went into the low-pay, slow-pay world of editorial travel from the fat-cat world of corporate dayrates.

Yes, those dayrates helped to pay my mortgage and educate my children, but the process nearly drove me out of my mind. Watch the movie, and you’ll get an idea why!

I had all but given up on the video footage I shot with my D300s when leading a photo safari in Tanzania last February for National Geographic Expeditions. Although I used a beanbag and did my best, the ever so slight movement of the Land Rover, even parked with the engine turned off, were enough to give most of my clips a little shake. A shake that became painfully obvious on my 30″ Cinema Display!

Of course, I didn’t notice it at the time on my LCD—I thought everything looked solid.  Oh, the lessons learned (see the post–Prides Cometh Before a Fall)

I’m working with the son of a friend this summer, trying to learn Final Cut Express, and together, we tried to salvage what we could from my clips, posted above. As regular readers know, I’m currently struggling with video and wondering if I might be better off forgetting the whole thing and sticking to my strong suit, or plunging ahead.

Plunging…hmmn, unfortunately, that’s still the operative word when it comes to my video chops so far. But I’m not giving up yet!

I spent last weekend shooting video of the first ever Jazz Academy at Solebury School, one of the projects of the Jonathan Krist Foundation.

We had students from inner city Camden and bucolic Bucks County side by side all weekend, learning jazz from some great pros like James McBride, George Laks, Brent White, Marlene Rice, Devyn Rush, Jamal and Nasir Dickerson, Hassan Sabree, and Dave Bachart.

Next week, I’m teaching my travel photography class up at the Maine Media Workshops….it’ll be great to be back in New England, teaching a subject that I know something about!

Yes, the good folks at Popular Photography who depend on you, the photo enthusiast, for their bread-and-butter subscriptions have no compunction about ripping off your work. Where, you might ask, is the love? I suspect it’s left on the conference table in the Legal Department, in the folder marked “F__k ‘em if They Can’t Take a Joke,” or “Their Ignorance is Our Bliss.”

Truth be told, Pop Photo has been sliding down this path for a while under their new ownership and without the guidance of the late, great Burt Keppler, and the host of real photographer friends on staff like Monica Cipnic, Mason Resnick, and the crew from that era.

Fortunately, an organization called www.pro-imaging.org is helping to call out these rights grab contests. They offer the all-type jpeg seen above that you can use as a contest-entry, calling out the organizers of these rip-off contests and offering to educate them on issues of rights and rates.

Their Bill of Rights for photography competitions is worth a read, since these contests are springing up like weeds from all quarters, and many of them have this boilerplate ripoff rights language.

This kind of pro image-creator rights activism used to be the mainstay of the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) before that organization got bogged down in a lot of internecine squabbles about dues increases, director payments to one another, and gadfly censuring.

I’ve been an ASMP member since 1982, but am reconsidering renewing in 2011 because of this bureaucratic nonsense and the erosion of member benefits that seem to move in lockstep with ever-increasing dues demands.

Pro-Imaging.Org looks to be a UK-based entity and is totally non-profit and run by volunteers. The membership is £30, which is about US$50 (as opposed to ASMP’s current $335 per year). And all the money goes to the programs (photo contests are just one aspect…they deal with all types of rights-grabbing organizations), not the leadership.

It’s too soon to tell how effective Pro-Imaging.org will be in the long run, but so far, I like the cut of their jib and it’s worth my $50 to help their cause.

Hit the jump for a read of the Travelographer of the Year contest rules. 

Warning….your sensibilities as an image producer are guaranteed to be offended, sometimes resulting in agita (aka “heartburn”), and general irrititability. If symptoms persist, see a lawyer!

GENERAL RULES & LIMITATIONS: By entering, you represent that: (i) your entry is your own original work; and (ii) you own or have the rights to convey any and all right and title in any material submitted as part of your entry into the Contest. By entering, you grant to Sponsor a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to edit, publish, promote, republish at any time in the future and otherwise use your submission, along with your name and likeness, in any and all media for any purpose, without further permission, notice or compensation (except where prohibited by law). By participating in the Contest, you agree to release Sponsor and its parent companies, affiliates, subsidiaries, employees, directors, officers, and agents from any and all liability, claims or actions of any kind whatsoever for injuries, damages or losses to persons and property which may be sustained in connection with the receipt, ownership, possession, use, or misuse of any prize. Sponsor is not responsible for technical, hardware or software failures, or other errors or problems which may occur in connection with the Contest, whether computer, network, technical, mechanical, typographical, printing, human or otherwise, including, without limitation, errors or problems which may occur in connection with the administration of the Contest, the processing or judging of entries, the announcement of the prizes, in any Contest-related materials, or that may limit prize fulfillment or a participant’s ability to enter the Contest. Sponsor reserves the right to amend these official rules and to permanently disqualify from the Contest any person it believes has intentionally violated these official rules.
PRIVACY: By entering, you agree that the information you provide may be sent to promotional partners of the Sponsor. You may be contacted by the Sponsor and/or promotional partners with future promotional offers. Information provided by you to participate in this Contest is subject to the privacy policies of the Sponsor.

Photo © Bob Krist

I’m just putting together a stock submission of images from Buenos Aires  for a European magazine client when I came across the above pic of the Capitolio dome in Buenos Aires. It’s the seat of the government and notice how it’s nicely etched with light.

There’s a story behind that, and it’s another tale of who you know, not necessarily what you know.

My excellent friend and fixer, Bernardo Galmarini, knew the building manager of the Palacio Barolo building, an unbelievably beautiful art deco masterpiece from which we shot this view. It’s a work of art, and topped with a real working lighthouse complete with giant bulb and fresnel lens. That’s Bernando, below, checking his settings by the glow of the lighthouse.

Photo © Bob Krist

For the story of how we lit the dome of the Argentinian parliament without bringing the country’s Air Force or the Secret Service down on our heads, hit the jump.

Both the building manager and the architect were avid photographers and huge fans of….wait for it….Joe McNally (so am I…hell, who isn’t?).

Well, it turns out that my appearance with Joe in the Nikon Lighting DVD was enough reflected glory that they warmed up to me as well (although they both kept citing the part of the outtake reel where I’m sitting in a wedding dress, posing for Joe, and laughing, but that’s another blog post).

As dusk fell, it was obvious that the capitol dome was not going to be lighted, so Bernardo and I asked our hosts if we could swing the lighthouse fresnel around, and throw some light on it. They looked at each other for a moment, and said let’s do it, and voila! The dome was lit.

We could only do it for a minute or two, as nothing was pre-arranged with the government and we could all end up in jail for targeting the capitol, even with a spotlight. But that was all it took. Below is a view of the unlit capitol, as well as the beautiful lighthouse atop the Barolo building.

Photo © Bob Krist

Photo © Bob Krist

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Which all goes to show you that it’s good to have famous friends when you’re in high places!

]]> http://www.bobkrist.com/blog/friends-in-high-places/feed/ 25 http://www.bobkrist.com/blog/no-truer-words/ http://www.bobkrist.com/blog/no-truer-words/#comments Tue, 11 May 2010 12:08:02 +0000 Bob http://www.bobkrist.com/blog/?p=4389

Photo © David Kay

You don’t often think of the U.S. government when you think of wise persons with perspective, experience, and fundamental good taste. And yet, I know just such a guy, who did Herculean work on behalf of all of us while in the employ of Uncle Sam.

David Kay was a weapons inspector for the UN, and is a very very good photographer. He spoke truth to power during the runup to the Iraq invasion, and since then, he’s retired and taken a seminar or two with me. Honestly, I’ve wanted to pick his brain (he knows what really went on in Iraq and a lot of other places) more than he’s wanted to pick mine (the longer I do photography, the less I know about it).

In fact, I linked to his blog, Trust Your Cape, ages ago.

Anyway, I was reading his always-interesting observations the other day and came across the following passage, which is just about the most cogent sum-up of our current photographic situation as I’ve come across:

Remember the days of Kodachrome 25 or 64 when the shot you took was the shot you got. Sure you could add filters and make variations in EV, but in the end the image that was on the piece of film was the image you were left with. Not today! We are rich in possibilities, have a poverty of time and, perhaps most frightening of all, dependent upon our own visual judgment and tastes.

Damn, if that doesn’t about say it all. I’m glad David is enjoying his photography these days, but I wish he were back in the trenches on our side, because we need guys with his brains and perspective watching our backs (and our fronts) if we’re going to make it through the 21st century…..