Your photo might be in use without permission.

Commentary / criticism, so falls under Fair Use.

Credit to photographers would have been nice I guess, but also kind of a call-out in this article. Though, he's kinda right.
 
In my culture he is kinda coward.

And bashing of photog who is recognized by Leica Blog and was on exhibition in known gallery is kinda questionable.
 
Well that's a personal opinion/judgement you are free to make. Legally, nothing in the article is untoward, in terms of the photo usage - at least from what I can tell. I am not a lawyer though nor do I purport to be one, and Fair Use can only be proven in the court of law.
 
I agree with his take on "Street photography", that 99% of it is garbage. Once the masses got access to a cheap means of production and publication, we got millions of photos of banal garbage, maybe some kitsch here and there, a clever double entendre, and a whole ton of borderline voyeurism. Having worked in the construction field, I would rather see images of actual concrete or asphalt streets.
It doesn't matter if someone is prominently featured by Leica because they will publish someone who has purchased tens of thousands of dollars worth of gear, who has a blog or knows someone who talks loudly, before they will feature some poor schlep who is shooting with a beat up film Leica and using it for real news work. That's 'cause money talks now, not talent. Maybe content, if it is scandalous or lewd enough but that has a short shelf life.
As for not crediting a photographer, that's a cardinal sin. This writer is making money off the backs of other people's work, regardless if it is garbage or not. They need to be contacted for permission and credited if given that permission. Just because something is on the internet, doesn't mean it's free for the taking. Even if it is trash.
Phil Forrest
 
Those would count as criticism and review - as long as he'd criticised (or ridiculed) them in the caption or text. So no need for permission.
 
According to the article this photo is garbage.
2855-061.jpg

Robert Frank, Americans.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/776516?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents


Because it is cliche according to the dude. And I'm afraid he was wrongly barking at lady behind bus stop photo. It has something above this expert sensing capabilities.

Not to mention photo I recognized first. It just great sense of humor in this photo.
 
A cliche becomes a cliche when it's overused. Frank's work was groundbreaking at the time so it wouldn't have been considered a cliche. The photos that copied his style became cliches.
 
Phil_F_NM said:
I agree with his take on "Street photography", that 99% of it is garbage. Once the masses got access to a cheap means of production and publication, we got millions of photos of banal garbage, maybe some kitsch here and there, a clever double entendre, and a whole ton of borderline voyeurism. Having worked in the construction field, I would rather see images of actual concrete or asphalt streets.
Click to expand...


I agree totally though I suspect your 99% may be a bit conservative ... it is such a heavily diluted genre that it's actually becoming quite hard to define!
 
I see the writer's point, with regard to 99% of street or arrow signs, and WRT random photos of nothing, for no reason.

Would have to disagree WRT those "easy" juxtapositions... something I've had too few opportunities at (and missed seeing a bunch, I'm sure). Those are just the photographer having a bit of fun, and sharing with others. You see some potential, you work out the setup, wait, wait, shoot, miss, wait, shoot, and maybe finally get what you had in mind. You've made something that came out of your mind; it doesn't matter if it's been done before.

I agree that it would have been nice to provide credit-links to the photographers. But, I think that, in the writer's mind, the photos were so bad that he did not want to hold the photographers up for derision.
 
So, we must have brochure where all originals has to be listed.
All of these cliche talks are just as accurate as demanding songs to be performed only by original writer. Blues are just cliche players then.
Blues Brothers are so cliche players.
 
My guess is the photographer that wrote that was a little jaded at the time. He labeled himself as a "war photographer" back in the day and did make some good images in Afganistan, but of the effects of war, not the actual war itself. I can't recall what he did after that. I think he gave up photography a few years ago, which is why I stated he was probably jaded. I believe he had a blog too which means that was probably a repost, so it might not have been faithful to the original.
 
css9450 said:
I'm not even sure what we're supposed to be shooting any more.
Click to expand...

I hear you.

The way I see it, one should not worry about what one is supposed to shoot.

Have a vision, a desire, capture images that you want to capture and don’t worry about what other people think. No matter what kind of photographs you create if you decide to share them with others there will most likely be someone that likes what you’re doing and very much likely that there will be a lot of people that will think your images are garbage; especially if you share on the internet.

I take the kind of pictures that I like to take and I love to share my images here and on my blog. I’m pretty sure that my style of photography is not everyone's cuppa tea but what would be the point of being a photographer if all I was doing was trying to please everyone else instead of myself. Since I’m not dependent on my photography to earn a living and I do it merely as a form of enjoyment and as a creative outlet it would be foolish to worry too much about what others think.

When I go to an art museum or a photo exhibition I may pause a long time in front of some images and really feel something; maybe even feel something intense. Other images I may briefly look at and then move on quickly to the next. Whatever the case I always enjoy the experience of visiting the museum.

Compliments are nice, constructive criticism is valuable, self fulfilment is important; having fun is the ultimate.

These are just the rambling thoughts of a retiree with a camera and some free time on his hands.

All the best,
Mike
 
I think the true mark of an amateur is freaking out when somebody reuses a work on a blog or something else inconsequential. When people are selling your works on T-shirts and mugs, etc. is when you know you're a pro.:D


I didn't bother reading the whole article. I'm well aware of Sturgeon's Law. We should by now, all know that most photographs are junk. Just pointless, inane reproduction - and now pointless, inane reproduction is easier to accomplish than at any point in the past.
 
tunalegs said:
I think the true mark of an amateur is freaking out when somebody reuses a work on a blog or something else inconsequential. When people are selling your works on T-shirts and mugs, etc. is when you know you're a pro.
Click to expand...
I disagree. As someone who does make his living from photography, I aggressively work to stop unauthorized use of my photos. Letting people use them for 'inconsequential' things makes the photos appear free and makes it harder to collect from commercial users who steal them.
 
Much of his general critique of street photography has validity, as long as you view the photos through the lens of 'is this image giving a unique message'. There is a lot of dreck out there, with people posting endless random images of people on the street. This gets very repetitive, and he's right that there should be a lot more editing and culling of posted work.


Having said that, does he credit the people who took the images? I'm not seeing that, and that's a no no, in my eyes. If you're going to use publicly posted images in your article, the least you can do is reference the sources.
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
I disagree. As someone who does make his living from photography, I aggressively work to stop unauthorized use of my photos. Letting people use them for 'inconsequential' things makes the photos appear free and makes it harder to collect from commercial users who steal them.
Click to expand...


Fair use only makes work look "free" to people who are too stupid to understand or respect fair use in the first place - meaning it makes no practical difference. I can't think of an equivalent in photography, but in comic publishing, there is a problem with rather a lot of sites that will repost most of, if not an entire work (we're talking hundreds, sometimes thousands of pages - of multiple titles) to rake in advertising money. They don't give a sh!t if somebody used a panel or a page on their dumb blog - that's not what gives them the idea. To be fair, this is apples and oranges (few photographers produce books, postcards, shirts, or other miscellaneous merch. so the nature of competitive reproduction is admittedly markedly different), but either way reproduction for the sake of critique isn't inspiring anybody to steal images for T shirts.
 
But reproduction of an image without attribution, on a page or site that relies upon clicks and may have sponsorship is absolutely making money off another's work. It's not selling the work overtly, but it is the thing which draws consumers of the media to the site, earning the owner more advertising clicks and those pennies add up. Anyone uses my work without notifying me and I find out, they get an immediate cease and desist letter from me with an unveiled threat of legal action. I've had to bring an attorney to bear only twice and in both instances the offender was not selling my work but using it to further their business without notifying me and without attribution.
Phil Forrest
 
tunalegs said:
Fair use only makes work look "free" to people who are too stupid to understand or respect fair use in the first place ...
Click to expand...

Fair use is generally taken to be no more than 10% of a given work. This was the standard we worked with in college education material production. It was usually less than one percent. With a photograph though, severe crops are usually worse than not showing anything at all. So in this case, the standard was no more than 10% of a body of work. For example two pictures of a 20 picture exhibition.

Our district lawyers left us with the (unconfirmed) understanding that this would be defensible in court if it ever came to that. To my knowledge it never has.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top