Author: Mark E. Johnson

May 28, 2011

When Becoming Almost Famous Means You’ve Been Actually Robbed

Over at MSNBC.com, Bob Sullivan has one of the best pieces on copyright and how it has affected average people who make extraordinary images. He highlights the case of Stephanie Gordon, the woman who made the image of the space shuttle launching through the clouds a few weeks ago. You’ve all seen the image by now – did you know...

Categories Ethics & Legal/Good Work/Photojournalism

May 27, 2011

A Prize for AP’s Charlie Riedel

The Associated Press has given a prize to staffer Charlie Riedel for his work during this week’s tornado disaster in Joplin, Missouri. And a well deserved one, at that.

Categories Good Work/Photojournalism

May 27, 2011

Are You Using Twitpic? Maybe You Shouldn’t Be

It seems that Twitpic, one of the most popular photo services tied to Twitter, has signed a deal that takes your images and controls the commercial usage of them, possibly without any payments to the you. May be time to check what service you’re using on your Twitter clients and read the terms of service carefully.

Categories Ethics & Legal/Journalism/Tech Talk

May 27, 2011

When the Subject Controls the Image, It Isn’t a News Photo Anymore

Stephen Crowley tackles the issue of hand-out photos coming from the White House over on the New York Times’ Lens blog. Well worth a read. I particularly love this segment, referring back to reenacting photos at the White House (a practice that has now been stopped): But a staged or restaged situation — often rich in absurdity and unintended humor...

Categories Ethics & Legal/Thoughts & Theory

May 27, 2011

Why Buying Gear Now is Hard

As my most recent crop of students headed out the door earlier this month, they all started to come in with gear questions – what do I need? Where do I get it? How do I get it at a good price? As I’ve noted before, we have a great program here at the University of Georgia where we supply...

Categories Tech Talk

May 26, 2011

Why You Always Carry Spare Memory Cards

It seems like a silly enough statement: Why do you carry extra memory cards? Why do you leave some open space on the ones you have? Because you never know when a volcano is going to erupt. No, really: Ingolfur Bruun writes on the Reuters photo blog that he came across an erupting volcano and only had seven frames left...

Categories Business & Industry/Good Work/Photojournalism

May 25, 2011

This Is the Police: Put Down Your Camera

NPR has a story up about a couple of incidents where citizens were detained or arrested for photography police officers at work. This is pretty chilling: Consider what happened to Khaliah Fitchette. Last year, Fitchette, who was 16 at the time, was riding a city bus in Newark, N.J., when two police officers got on to deal with a man...

Categories Ethics & Legal/Photojournalism

May 25, 2011

Young Photographers of Atlanta

Passing this along … there’s now a Young Photographers of Atlanta group on Facebook with plans to meet on the third Monday of each month. If you’re shooting and young, go sign up.

Categories At Work/Business & Industry/Photojournalism

May 23, 2011

How the AP Preps for Disaster Stories

Posted on Facebook of all places, the Associated Press has a short piece up on how they prepared for the tornado coverage over the last few days. Not too deep, but you get some idea as to what they go through. The last segment where Charlie Riedel talks about being on the ground, though, is pretty important. In all the...

Categories Business & Industry/Craft/Ethics & Legal/Photojournalism

May 22, 2011

South African Photojournalist Reportedly Killed in Libya

Libya is rapidly turning into one of the most dangerous places for journalists, particularly photojournalists. The New York Times is reporting that it appears South African photojournalist Anton Hammerl was killed on April 5. In a statement posted Thursday night on a Facebook page dedicated to Mr. Hammerl’s memory, his family criticized how the Libyan government had treated them. “From...

Categories Business & Industry/Photojournalism