Photographer Brett Gundlock, one of several journalists arrested in June during the G20 protests in Toronto, had all charges against him dropped during a brief court appearance on Monday in Toronto.
Gundlock, a photographer Canada’s National Post newspaper, says his appearance before a judge took less than a minute, and all that was said was that the charges against him had been dropped.
The charges against another National Post photographer, Colin O’Connor, who was arrested during the protests, were also dropped, according to Gundlock.
“Out of all of the media they arrested and detained, they were obviously trying to influence the coverage of their actions,” Gundlock asserted in an email to PDN. “Media is there as observers, not participants. There were too many stories from the [G20] summit where media was targeted before the protesters.”
Related:
Government-issued Press Credential Didn’t Stop Arrest, G20 Photog Says
Photojournalists Arrested in G20 Clash
Each year, the non-profit Aftermath Project awards two $20,000 grants to photographers exploring the lasting effects of conflicts on civilian populations, in order to encourage conversation about the value of journalism that goes beyond the headlines to study the aftermath of war and strife. Grant winners and two finalists are published in a book. Applications for the 2011 grants are now available online on the web site of the Aftermath Project. Applications must be received by November 1, 2010.
The Aftermath Project is funded by donations from institutions and individuals, and does not charge an application fee for entry.
The 2010 winners were Polish-born, Italy-based photographer Monika Bulaj, who won for her project “Afghanistan: Not Only The War,” which explores Sufism and other minority religions in the country; and American photographer Danny Wilcox Frazier, who is working on “Wounded Knee: Generations Endure a Massacre,” a project examining the effects of both the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre and the 1973 uprising, during which armed Native Americans reclaimed the Wounded Knee land and held it during a 71-day standoff with Federal authorities.
(Photo © Monica Bulaj)
Related stories:
What it Takes to Win an Aftermath Grant
After the Headlines: Sara Terry on the Aftermath Project
Several agencies that supply celebrity photographs taken by
paparazzi to People magazine have banded together to demand additional compensation for the use of photographs in People’s forthcoming
iPad app, according to Hollywood Reporter.
The entertainment trade publication says the negotiations
are delaying the release of People’s iPad app, an assertion Time, Inc., owners
of People, deny.
“Photo agencies are taking a keen interest in the iPad
because while online usage of their snapshots commands a fraction of what their
fees earn from print usage, they recognize the potential for the tablet market
to be a game-changer,” the article says.
If a recent study commissioned by a consortium of publishers
that includes Time, Inc. is to be believed, the tablet market could drive $3
billion in revenues by 2014. According to a report published yesterday by Folio,
digital consortium Next Issue Media, which includes Condé Nast, Hearst,
Meredith, News Corp. and Time Inc., hired a consulting firm to evaluate the
demand for tablet subscriptions. The firm found that the tablet market for
newspapers and magazines could create $3 billion in revenue.
If the market for tablet editions of publications does realize this potential, photographers and their agents are likely to press publishers to negotiate additional compensation for tablet usage over the next few years.
Related: Wired iPad Edition Launches, But Will Photographers Get More For Ads
Business is apparently grim for NB Pictures, the agency that represent Sebastiao Salgado, Simon Norfolk, and 8 other photographers. Owner Neil Burgess, who was previously head of Network Photographers in London and the New York and London offices of Magnum Photos, has jumped onto the "photojournalism is dead" bandwagon in a dispatch to the EPUK blog. "I’m stepping forward and calling it," he wrote. “Photojournalism: time of death 11.12. GMT 1st August 2010. Amen."
The gist of his argument is that (news flash!) print publishers don't support photojournalism anymore. Burgess allows how "there are some things which look very like photojournalism," and then goes on to say, "but scratch the surface and you’ll find they were produced with the aid of a grant, were commissioned by an NGO, or that they were a self-financed project, a book extract, or a preview of an exhibition."
And what, pray tell, is wrong with that? At best, it's an argument for calling photojournalism by a different name (suggestions, anyone?). In the meantime, photojournalists are simply facing reality, and finding new ways to make it work. Witness the efforts of Magnum, VII, Noor, and other NB Pictures competitors, not to mention the explosion of documentary stories all over the web. (See also our story about alternative funding for photo-j in the August issue of PDN.) Burgess is correct that photojournalism is a terrible way by itself to make a living, and we owe it to every aspiring photojournalist to make that clear. But photojournalism isn't static, and until the passion for it dies, it certainly isn't dead. By the looks of things, that passion is as robust as ever.
The Committee to Protect Journalists has concluded that the Thai government has "done little to bring anyone to account" for the deaths of dozens of people and injuries of hundreds at anti-government protests in Bangkok this past spring.
Among the dead were freelance photographer Fabio Polenghi of Italy and Reuters cameraman Hiro Muramoto of Japan. The CPJ called the Thai government's investigation of those deaths "incomplete and opaque." The CPJ also accused the Thai government of obstructing efforts by news organizations, foreign governments, and family members to investigate the journalists' deaths independently.
CPJ says a Thai government fact-finding committee has stated publicly that it doesn't intend to assign blame for the deaths, making it unlikely that security forces will be held accountable for any abuses.
The violence erupted after government troops moved in to downtown Bangkok to forcibly remove protesters, who had occupied sections of the city for weeks in an effort to topple Thailand's dictatorship.
Security forces denied using lethal force except for self defense, and protest organizers said demonstrators were peaceful and unarmed. But CPJ concludes that "both sides engaged in lethal recklessness that led to the deaths of two journalists along with injuries to nine other reporters and photographers."
CPJ says its findings were based on extensive interviews with journalists at the scene.
Polenghi died of a gunshot wound May 19 while documenting police efforts to dislodge the protesters. CPJ says the photographer's family has been given conflicting information about the location of his wounds. (Polenghi was cremated before his family saw his body) They repeatedly requested an official autopsy report, without success, and they report that his camera, cell phone and other belongings are still missing.
Reuters investigated Muramoto's death and concluded he was killed by a high velocity bullet shot from street level. Protesters and security forces alike were using high velocity weapons, so it is unclear who is responsible for his death, CPJ says.
CPJ's full report
is available here.
The freelance photographer we told you about yesterday who was dropped by Getty after one of his images of a golf tournament was found to have been digitally altered has offered an explanation of what happened.
Marc Feldman, whose freelance status with Getty was terminated over the altered photo, told the Dallas Morning News he made "a fatal mistake."
"There was absolutely no intent to pass this off as a real image," Feldman explained to Dallas Morning News photo editor Guy Reynolds for the paper's Photography Blog. "Only a moron would have sent both."
A photo Feldman captured of golfer Matt Bettencort was distributed by
Getty Images even though a caddie had been digitally removed from the
background. Getty, which has a strict policy against altering its news
images, later put out a "mandatory kill" notice on the photo after Reynolds alerted them to it, and dropped
Feldman from its roster.
Feldman, 61, told Reynolds that he was in the press tent processing the images when Bettencort and his caddie stopped by to look at the photos. The caddie then suggested the photo would look better without him in it.
"So I showed them how easy I could do that," Feldman told Reynolds. "I thought I just saved it to the desktop not to the send folder. I certainly did not mean to send both of them to Getty."
What do you think about Feldman's explanation? Does it sound like a plausible, honest mistake? Have you ever done anything similar? Please leave your thoughts in the comments below.
Getty Images has severed ties with a freelance photographer after an image he captured of a golf tournament was determined to have been altered with software.
The photographer, Marc Feldman, was cut by Getty after the manipulated image was discovered by a photo editor at the Dallas Morning News.
"Getty Images actively advocates and upholds strict guidelines pertaining to the capture and dissemination of its editorial content," Getty's public relations manager Jodi Einhorn wrote PDN in an email.
"As such, when Getty Images was made aware of (the) altered image in our coverage of this event, it was immediately removed...from our website and a mandatory 'kill' request was sent to our feed-based subscribers. In adherence with our zero tolerance policy on photo manipulation, we terminated our relationship with freelance photographer Marc Feldman."
The story broke when photo editor Guy Reynolds of the
Dallas Morning News stumbled on the altered image while perusing photos of the Reno-Tahoe golf tournament. Reynolds found two Getty images of golfer Matt Bettencourt, one showing him with a caddy behind him, the other with just trees.
At first Reynolds thought the images were shot by two different photographers from slightly different angles but, as it turns out, both were credited to Marc Feldman, a Getty freelancer.
After inspecting the images more closely, Reynolds discovered they were the same shot but "one had been doctored with software to remove the other man."
Reynolds contacted Getty's picture desk in New York about the images and a "Mandatory Kill" advisory (to the right, above) was sent out shortly thereafter.
(Via Dallas Morning News' Photography Blog.)
Photographer Emily Schiffer
has organized a silent auction
fundraiser, Open Sky To Skyscrapers, on Thursday, July 22 from 6-9 p.m. at VII Gallery in Brooklyn, New York, to support her My Viewpoint Youth Photography Initiative.
Schiffer has been teaching students in the program for five years.
In 2005 Schiffer, the winner of the first Arnold Newman Prize for "New Directions in Photographic Portraiture" in
PDN's 2010 Photo Annual, partnered with the Sioux YMCA in South Dakota to found a photography program for youth aged 6 to 18 on the Cheyenne River Reservation. In addition to learning how to interpret life through a camera, Schiffer’s students developed and printed their images in the darkroom (see “
Teaching and Learning,”
PDN May 2010) and created a photo community where photography is collaborative, and where knowledgeable students can teach alongside their instructors.
In the next phase of this program, students and instructors are designing a group exhibition of their work. Five teenage photographers and three adults have traveled from South Dakota to New York to explore the ways in which the My Viewpoint youth want to exhibit their work and to begin the curation process. “In New York they’ll meet with curators and artists and then we can talk about what our pictures are like and how to install the photos in a way that helps the viewer connect with the subjects,” Schiffer told
PDN in May.
An online preview of the work to be auctioned off begins on July 15th at
www.myviewpoint.org and includes images by Schiffer as well as Ben Lowy, Brenda Ann Kenneally, Carlys High Bear, Suné Woods, Wyatt Gallery, Marvi Lacar and many others.
Institute for Artist Management, the management and production company founded last year by former VII Photo managing director Frank Evers, announced the addition of Robert Clark and Wayne Lawrence to their roster this morning.
Clark is a New York-based editorial and commercial photographer who has a long-standing relationship with
National Geographic and other magazines. His accolades include a 2005 National Magazine award.
Lawrence, a documentary photographer who resides in Brooklyn, New York, has shown his work in museums and art institutions such as The African American Museum of Philadelphia and the Open Society Institute. His work has been featured in publications such as
COLORS,
Mother Jones,
Newsweek and
VIBE.
British photojournalist Alixandra Fazzina has won the $100,000 Nansen Refugee Award, the United Nations High Commissioner announced today. The award is given annually to an individual or organization in acknowledgement of outstanding work on behalf of refugees. The recipient can donate the $100,000 prize to the cause of his or her choice.
Fazzina, who recently became a member of the NOOR photo agency, has spent the last ten years documenting humanitarian crises around the world, including the suffering of land mine victims in Kosovo, the use of rape in Sierra Leone and child abuse by militias in Congo and Uganda. Her most recent work explores the flight of refugees from Somalia to the Arabian Peninsula and smuggling in the Gulf of Aden, which was published in the book A Million Shillings: Escape From Somalia.
--Eli Meixler
Related story:
Agency News: Ed Kashi Joins VII, Alixandra Fazzina Joins NOOR