The March 2006 issue of Photoblogs Magazine is now online!

This sixth issue of PM marks our one-year anniversary. Please stop by and check out the work of this month's contributing editors: Sandip Debnath, who takes a look at migrating workers in India; Jackson Ellis, who traces the familiar and unfamiliar in South Korea; Ulrich van Stipriaan, who chronicles the return of a baroque church in Dresden Germany; Maile Lani, who looks for evidence of man in her new remote home in Canada; and Massimo Marengo, who presents a land of deserts, mountains, and telescopes; and have a look at the winners of Nitsa's Photo Challenge, too.

Tune in for the next call for submissions, opening in mid February.

From Matt

A New York court ruled this week that a photographer who took pictures of subjects on the street without their knowledge and then made hundreds of thousands of dollars selling those images did not have to get the permission of his subjects because the intention of the work was art, not commerce. The ruling reaffirms that people in public spaces cannot assume any privacy privilege, even if, as in this case, the subject was an orthodox jew, who regard portraits as graven images and disgraces the man in his community.

I know this is good news for a lot of street photographers out there who include people in their images, such as Travis Ruse (who brought this to our attention), but I can't help feeling that there's something intrinsically wrong about being able to 'abuse' someone's image in a case like this where, because of the subject's beliefs, the use of the image was a particularly strong violation. It was deemed by the court that profit was not the aim of the photographers work, and so there was no unauthorised commercial use, but nothing else was taken into consideration.

I agree with the idea that people are 'fair game' when they're in public, but at the same time I think there is an onus on the photographer to create their own boundaries. There is already enough suspicion and aggression towards street photographers in these times, a high profile case that says we can take your photo and get rich exploiting it isn't going to help.

Story link.

The OpenRAW project, which is asking manufacturers to drop encryption of RAW data and use a common format, is asking people to fill out a survey on their experiences of digital photography to help them direct their campaign.

There are obvious advantages to having a single RAW format for the end user (there are almost 200 different formats out there now) but it will take a lot to persuade manfacturers to drop what for them is potentially a competitive advantage.

Joseph has posted an excellent tutorial on building your own lightbox. If you're in the middle of a dark winter and frustrated by the lack of photographic opportunities then this could be your salvation!

From Lorissa:

I wanted to tell you all about ShutterSeek.com - a new, free, community-driven photography news/resource site. ShutterSeek allows you to add photography-related posts regarding articles, events and products, rate posts and comment on posts. It should be fun and hopefully a useful resource for all of us photography lovers.

Almost every view of the site has Atom and RSS feeds, so if you like a certain topic, you can subscribe to the feed for that section or tag.

For those of you who have a site dedicated to photography-related information, you can add in your feed(s) to ShutterSeek to be pulled into the Blogs section (and onto the front page if they are rated). As soon as more posts are added, a Tags section will be added with various tag clouds.

So, take a look, and if you know of an interesting photography article, product review or event, sign up and add a post about it! We are still testing things out, so if you find any bugs, or have any suggestions - let us know.

Cheers!
Lorissa

From JPG Magazine.

JPG Magazine Issue 4: No Theme is now available! For the final issue of our first year, we decided to take a break from the usual theme. We just asked for your best photos of 2005. And we got 'em!

Inside issue 4 you'll find 35 amazing photographs, an interview with Youngna Park and Zach Klein about their "Candy Cane for Your Portrait" project, and a set of brilliant lomos by featured photographer, Kevin Meredith.

+ Submissions open for Issue 5: Photography is Not a Crime

In a post 9/11 age of paranoia and suspicion, public photography has become threatening, even criminal. And we here at JPG are sick of it.

For Issue 5, we're asking you to go out in public and take photos. Insist on your rights as a photographer. Shoot where people tell you not to. And, of course, send the best one to us. Submissions are open now until January 15, 2006.

"I will make sure you will never be able to place an order on the internet again." "I'm an attorney, I will sue you." "I will call the CEO of your company and play him the tape of this phone call." "I'm going to call your local police and have two officers come over and arrest you." "You'd better get this through your thick skull." "You have no idea who you are dealing with."

These are all direct threats that I received today from an individual who identified himself as Steve Phillips, the manager of PriceRitePhoto in Brooklyn, New York when I called to inquire about my order with them. My crime? Telling him that I planned to write an article about my unfortunate experience with his company regarding the camera order I had placed with him yesterday."

Read the full article over at Thomas Hawk's blog.

I rather think the abusive salesman at PriceRitePhoto had no idea who he was dealing with when he tried to strong-arm Thomas Hawk. A compaint is on file with the New York Attorney General's office and outraged internet users have flooded the company with phone calls, emails, and even DOS attacks. None of these tactics are at Thomas' direction of course, but it's easy to understand the indignation when you read about the way Thomas was treated by this store. Not only was he repeatedly threatened, but the salesman even had the affront to call and harrass Thomas' boss!

It is simply unbelievable that a company could behave like this, and expect to make money doing it. It makes you wonder how many people have been pressured into spending far more money than they wanted to by unscrupulous companies like PriceRitePhoto. It really is a staggering story. If crooked salesmen are trying this pressure scam on the kind of people who would buy a Canon 5d, people who you would think, like Thomas, are well aware of what accessories they need or don't need, then I hate to imagine how many less well informed people have been taken in when buying consumer electronics over the internet.

If it wasn't for the overwhelming response of the blogging community, who have risen to challenge this assault on one of their own with such energy and commitment, this would be a sad sad story. It's wonderful to think of this bully being put so firmly in place by the defiance of ordinary people, an uplifting tale from the digital trenches.

Now it seems that picking on Thomas Hawk will be the last thing this company does.

For a play by play on developments check out Thomas' original post and the commentry on Digg.com.

The Daily Shooter

Smallest Photo Says:

Andrew Houser and Garth Leach bring you The Daily Shooter. A new online resouce for digital photographers. I've had a quick look and I'm thinking it looks VERY promising.

I was looking at some amazing images from Chernobyl after a friend sent me a link. I know there have been other pages of images from there so I began wondering how someone would get there because damn, those abandoned and decaying places are photographic manna. Plus it's just a part of history and, even if it's a sanitised tour, a challenging place to go.

I found a tour company in Kiev that arranges tours of the restricted zone for $100 each for 4 people. Flights to Kiev are less than £200 from London, going through Budapest, which is a nice place to stop off on the way.

I've travelled a lot and I'm still not sure if I'm seriously considering this or not, but the idea is compelling

Pictures never lie (yup!), but photo editors have their way. Hurricane Katrina apparently wasn't "true" enough (or rather, the photo editors of the major dailies thought they could do better). Kevin Drum of the Washington Monthly offers an interesting comparison of the highlights and contrasts used on a single photograph. Kevin doesn't profess to be a photographer, but he did notice the differences.

Frank Lynch