Last month Agence France-Presse (AFP) made news, instead of just reporting it like usual. The issue? Without permission, they published and distributed images that photojournalist Daniel Morel had posted to his personal Twitter feed.
Oops. Morel noticed and sued AFP, lighting up Internet message boards and blogs.
AFP defended their actions by claiming that photographs posted to Twitter are free to re-distribute under the site's terms of service.
Morel clearly disagrees, and now so does the U.S. District Court. The court ruled this week that Morel can move ahead with copyright infringement lawsuits against AFP and any outlet that licensed the photos from them.
As noted just about everywhere (including here: "They Gave Us the Greens of Summers"), last year Kodak stopped producing Kodachrome, one of the finest films ever made.
If you have any left in the fridge, don't bother using it. Why? Because as of Friday you won't be able to get it processed anymore; tomorrow the last lab still running Kodachrome jobs is using the last batch of chemicals Kodak made. For more information, see CBSNews.com's story "Kodachrome: The Legendary Film's Last Days."
The film will still make news, though. Sometime soon the images exposed on the last roll of Kodachrome will be made public. That final 36 frames were shot by longtime National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry this past summer. See The Wichita Eagle's article "Last Kodachrome roll processed in Parsons."
With all this snow dumped on so much of the U.S. the past few days, photographers everywhere are being tempted out of the warm indoors to shoot some snow scenes.
If you're one of those braving the cold to photograph the frozen landscape, remember the most important technical tip: Don't trust your camera's meter.
Today a friend of mine shared a Chicago Tonight video about Vivian Maier, a professional nanny and amateur photographer who passed away in 2008. She was passionately private and kept her photographs to herself.
Thus, her outstanding photographic work was destined for obscurity until a young Chicago man — John Maloof — found Maier's negatives in some of her belongings that he'd purchased from a furniture and antique auction. Her secret prowess was obvious, so Maloof dedicated himself to revealing her work to the world.
The Chicago Tonight video can be seen on the WTTW website. It's a great story that's well worth ten minutes of your day.
For even more information, check out the Vivian Maier blog that Maloof is writing.
Lastly, see Maloof's pitch for funds to produce a documentary on Maier's life and photography work, tentatively titled "Finding Vivian Maier."
I've been looking for a good photo gallery of images from last night's eclipse, but haven't had much luck. I'm sure some great work is out there, but it hasn't been herded into one place yet. (At least not one place that's easy to find.)
However, I did find this pretty good item: A time-lapse video of the eclipse by William Castleman, a professor at the University of Florida.
Incidentally, I didn't bother trying to shoot last night — I was traveling yesterday, which left me way too tired for a cold overnight excursion. Besides, all the reports I've heard from area photographers are that clouds blocked the whole show in and around New York City and Connecticut, where I'm based.
Oh, well. I can shoot the next winter-solstice lunar eclipse. In 2094.
Overnight tonight in North and Central America, the full moon will fully eclipse. This provides a great opportunity for photographers who don't need sleep.
Bring a tripod, a long lens and, if you're north of about the 35th parallel, a good parka and some hot chocolate. The eclipse will last from 1:33 till 5:01 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. However, the effect will be most visible — and most visually unique — at the mid-point of the process (during the total eclipse) from 2:41 to 3:45.
Along the same lines, the science editor for MSNBC.com has published some photographs of a 2004 eclipse that were made from space. The montage image isn't all that spectacular, but is interesting nonetheless. See "Holiday calendar: Lunar eclipse as seen from space."
AOL News has published an article and photo gallery about the best images of 2010 from my favorite camera, the Hubble Space Telescope.
"You are dealing with the most incredible pictures of the universe that have ever been collected," says Ray Villard, a spokesman for the Space Telescope Science Institute. "These pictures speak of death and creation, stars blowing up and stars being born — they become almost spiritual. And they become very evocative to people."
The Geminid meteor showers are in full glory, hitting their peak tonight.
Incidents of visible shooting stars are expected to come at a rate of as much as two per hour. This presents a great opportunity for photographers willing to brave cold overnight temperatures.
The half-moon light will provide a nice, subtle illumination to the landscape. Set your shutter speed to about 30 seconds, determine the corresponding aperture and ISO, and you're ready for some great astrophotography chances.
I'm thinking this is more creepy than anything else, but it's interesting nonetheless: A photography professor at New York University has had a camera surgically installed in the back of his head.
The camera will be used for a project (titled "The 3rd I," of course) by automatically making a photograph of whatever's behind Professor Wafaa Bilal once per minute. It also makes him the world's first biological tripod.
Why? "This will expose the unspoken conditions we face," Bilal says. "A project like this is meant to establish a dialogue about surveillance."
