Canon adds the EOS 60D to its range of HD-DSLR, offering full manual controls in movie mode
With digitalization streamlining the photographic experience it seems no coincidence that Lomography should be in its ascendancy. In her classic text On Photography,Susan Sontag writes that faster, better technology will cause some individuals to want to produce photos with a special, handmade quality, “an aura,” so to speak.
Visa pour l’Image, the premier International Festival of Photojournalism held in Perpignan, France. This festival is a unique event where you can join thousands of kindred spirits who share a love and passion for photography.
I only mention this because I’ve come across this recently. Someone who recently posed for me as part of a portrait set then refused to allow me to publish the image on my Flickr account. I didn’t mind deleting the image at the time because this person seemed particularly concerned about having their image floating about the Internet and I didn’t intend to sell the image for any commercial usage but the request then started bugging me… Did this person really have the right to ask me that? And what were my rights over the image I took and over the low-res copy of the image that I gave to this person?
On the whole, people in France seem to be somewhat jumpy about having their image taken and most especially about having their image published, whether that be in a commercial or non-commercial context. More often than not when I approach a stranger in the street to ask if I may take their picture I’m met with a suspicious question, why?, what for? or who are you? and as I flounder to explain that this person, in this context with that fabulous hat would simply make a great image then the moment is lost and the picture made worthless anyway (perhaps I just look like an untrustworthy character).
This suspicion has been tranformed into legislation and a very strong notion of the right to privacy. In the text of French law you can find that
Toute personne dispose sur son image, partie intégrante de sa personnalité, d’un droit exclusif qui lui permet de s’opposer à sa reproduction sans son autorisation expresse et spéciale, de sorte que chacun a la possibilité de déterminer l’usage qui peut en être fait en choisissant notamment le support qu’il estime adapté à son éventuelle diffusion. Source Educnet
Basically that any person, who appears on any image and who is recognisable in that image retains sole control over their apperance in that image and can enforce the right to determine if and under which conditions their image will be made publically available (within the limits of free speech of course).
In the United Kingdom, where I am from, I always thought that there was no notion of personal image rights as such and regardless of whether the subject grants rights to a photographer, it does not mean the subject can demand the physical media from the photographer. The image always remains the property of the photographer. And that the subject has very few rights over his or her own image taken in a public place with no blantant harassement or invasion of privacy (long angle lens photography through windows and so on).
But apparently laws are changing…
The Data Protection Act could soon be interpreted as expending an individual’s right over the processing and publication of their image and Anti-Terrorist laws are making public photography a bit of a minefield. No-one is entirely sure where to tread.
It has long been the norm that model release forms are required for any commercial licensing of an image and the subject can choose where and how their image is exploited. All very reasonable of course but should this really extend to photos taken during public events in public places? The general advice to photographers now is to get a written release whenever possible in order to prevent legal attacks on their work. But where could this lead to? Could I face a hefty fine or the destruction of one of my images because an isolated and recognisable stranger in the crowd decides to enforce his or her rights over that image and because I failed to secure hundreds of release signatures?
I find this a bit of a shame. I don’t belive that photography is a crime and I think that suspicion and a fear of prosecution could soon make street photography virtually impossible. Cartier-Bresson said that to photograph was to live and that
It is through living that we discover ourselves, at the same time as we discover the world around us.
If we lose the right to freely photograph the world around us then we effectively lose the right to document our own lives and to explore our own vision of our place in that world. As far as my particular portrait photo is concerned I do have the right to own that image but not now to diffuse it in any way, commercially or otherwise. I can’t share what I saw and what I chose to immortalise on film. It’s just as well then that I sliced up the negative in a frustrated and somewhat sulky rage…
Gallery Celebrates Social Media’s Impact on Photography
LONDON, UK Leading East London photographic gallery theprintspace will make the virtual a reality this September when it opens its doors for SoShowMe, an exhibition curated entirely from its social media interactions.
See some of the entries and shortlistings here.
![Je regardais avec une sorte de vertige cette ronde qui m’environnait, immobile et convulsive à la fois […] Les visages effrayants, cette foule de têtes sinistres ou terribles. Source: Sud-Ouest
Victor Hugo writing about his visit to the St Michel Basilique and the 74 mummified corpses which he found in the crypt. The mummies were dug up from around the main church in 1791 when it was decided to move all the sépultures to the central Bordeaux cemetery at Chartreuse but these 74 humain remains were in such good condition that the church decided to set up a rather grotesque display in the bell tower’s crypt. The mummies were seated in a circle around the crypt and for a number of years were a major tourist attraction. Victor Hugo popped in for a visit but so did Stendhal, Théophile Gautier ou Gustave Flaubert. It wasn’t until 1979 that the local authorities decided to give the mummies a slightly more respectful and anonymous resting place in the cemetery at Chartreuses. However many residents of the St Michel quartier regret the fact that their ‘treasure’ was spirited away by the authorities and tourists still come to visit the crypt to breathe in the ghostly atmosphere.](http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l7ahlz17g31qbdpfco1_500.jpg)
Je regardais avec une sorte de vertige cette ronde qui m’environnait, immobile et convulsive à la fois […] Les visages effrayants, cette foule de têtes sinistres ou terribles. Source: Sud-Ouest
Victor Hugo writing about his visit to the St Michel Basilique and the 74 mummified corpses which he found in the crypt. The mummies were dug up from around the main church in 1791 when it was decided to move all the sépultures to the central Bordeaux cemetery at Chartreuse but these 74 humain remains were in such good condition that the church decided to set up a rather grotesque display in the bell tower’s crypt. The mummies were seated in a circle around the crypt and for a number of years were a major tourist attraction. Victor Hugo popped in for a visit but so did Stendhal, Théophile Gautier ou Gustave Flaubert. It wasn’t until 1979 that the local authorities decided to give the mummies a slightly more respectful and anonymous resting place in the cemetery at Chartreuses. However many residents of the St Michel quartier regret the fact that their ‘treasure’ was spirited away by the authorities and tourists still come to visit the crypt to breathe in the ghostly atmosphere.
This little gadget is a Mamiya Pistol Camera. Research on pistol-shaped cameras started in Japan in the late 1940s, certainly instigated by the police forces. The intended use was to catch photographic evidence of criminal behaviour in the act and the demand from the police forces was made more pressing after the “bloody May Day incident”, a clash between Tokyo protesters and policemen on May Day 1952. Policemen were injured while taking photographs of the protesters as with their eye on the viewfinder they could not see their opponents. The Japanese police wanted a camera which would be easy to aim without raising it to the eye, and a pistol-shaped camera was considered ideal because the policemen are supposedly good at gun handling.
Only 250 of these cameras were ever produced and were never deployed widely in the Japanese police force, although they were used in training. There is one currently on sale on Ebay, it’s price is currently at $16,200 US but it’s expected to go for $25,000. A mere bagatelle mon ami!
Until a few years ago, taking photographs in public was banned in Saudi Arabia.
Now a group of women Saudi photographers have released a new book and staged an exhibition in Washington, offering a unique glimpse inside their culture.
Watch a short BBC report here
Now this is very useful. I’ve been experimenting with a ColorSplash flash on my Lomo LC-A but most of my pictures are either totally blown or washed out. So after a little digging around on Google I found recom273’s post on his own tests with the same set up.
He’s come up with this nice little chart:
f16 with 400iso at 80cm seems to be a good choice, I’ll wander out tonight and give it a go!
You can also have a look at this Flickr discussion for a little more information.
My daughter is now so used to having her picture taken that she either pulls a special ‘photo face’ or ignores the camera completely, refusing to give it any special attention at all. Which makes taking engaging portraits of her particularly difficult. So I have to cheat and take pictures when she’s asleep.
BETASOM - The submarine base in Bordeaux was built by Italian engineers during WWII and Italian submarines operated in the Atlantic from the base between 1940 and 1943, date of the Italian Armistice. German forces then took over the base until the last two remaining U-boats left Bordeaux in 1944, just 3 days before the Allies arrived in the city on the 25th of August.
The Base is now host for a range of exhibitions installed by the Mairie of Bordeaux. Until the 26th of September Yann Artus Betrand’s 6 Milliard d’Autres project will be occupying most of the 12.000m2 of the base which is open to the public.
Benjamin Frank
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