TWiP #184 – Photoshopped Hope
January 19, 2011 
3 Comments
This week on TWiP: The Shepard Fairey “Hope” poster controversy is settled, more 3D from CES, and an interview with Chris Marquardt, host of Tips From the Top Floor.
Hosts: Frederick Van Johnson, Alex Lindsay, and Nicole Young.
NEWS & DISCUSSION
Shepard Fairey and AP Settle Legal Dispute Over Obama “Hope” Poster
As you may recall, a legal battle ensued after artist Shepard Fairey was accused of copyright infringement for using an AP photographer’s image to create the iconic “Hope” campaign poster of Barack Obama. The two parties settled their dispute recently, agreeing to share the rights to create future posters and merchandise with the “Hope” image.
Alex pointed out that this legal battle further emphasizes the fine line between when art is considered new enough to be “transformative” art and when art is too similar to copyrighted work, resulting in infringement. Nicole says it also depends on scale and intent. It’s one thing for someone to take small images and make a composite for their own personal computer desktop, but a completely other story if someone egregiously and knowingly creates artwork based on copyrighted work in order to sell for profit. Finally, looking at the “Hope” poster and the original photograph side-by-side, they seem to be similar enough that it’s no wonder that Fariey’s work was not considered to be true transformative art.
iStockphoto Accepting Contributor Submissions of Editorial Images
iStockphoto has begun accepting editorial photographs in categories such as products, architecture and landmarks, travel, and lifestyle. This change comes with new considerations for those who plan to submit these kinds of images. Unlike other photos on iStockphoto, most editorial images do not require a model release. They also cannot be digitally manipulated or tweaked beyond what you could do to an image in a darkroom. In order to maintain editorial integrity, these images will also need to have more details and descriptions in the photo’s caption than iStockphoto has traditionally required. These new photo categories could mean a new source of revenue for seasoned and aspiring photojournalists and travel photographers.
3-D Comes to Photo Printers
At CES this year, an ongoing theme (and sometimes criticism) was the focus on 3D technology whether vendors, manufacturers, or consumers are ready for it. It was there that Kodak revealed an all-in-one printer that comes bundled with special processing software to create a 3D image. Users are instructed to shoot the same scene twice with an offset of two to three inches between the images. Next, the software and printer output a photo ready to view with the included 3D glasses. Alex thinks true mainstream penetration of 3D technology into consumers’ everyday lives is probably two to four years away. First with HDR, and now with 3D imaging, he thinks photographers should pay attention to and prepare for the convergence of new technology and photography to stay ahead of the curve and competitors.
SanDisk Unveils World’s Fastest High Capacity CF card
The world’s fastest 128GB CompactFlash card with a 100MB/s write speed (and a price tag of $1500) was recently revealed by SanDisk. Alex points out that the target audience for this has to be photographers who shoot tons of higher-end video like Apple ProRes 444 which needs a lot of headroom when writing to the card.
INTERVIEW WITH CHRIS MARQUARDT
Chris Marquardt is host of the Tips From the Top Floor podcast and Frederick had a chance to catch up with him recently in New York.
Based in Germany, Chris got into photography during childhood and continued to pursue it throughout his life. Eventually, this fed into his love for multimedia, resulting in his involvement in podcasting in 2005 which in turn led to his involvement with live photographic workshops.
Chris mentioned how digital photography has expedited how quickly shooters learn and improve their photography and how fast podcasting has taken off, accelerating what he himself has learned about photography.
At the same time, Chris also points out that the exponential growth of camera technology (megapixel count, memory card size, etc.) has resulted in a deceleration for him, making him want to switch back to the analog days, i.e, film. Chris now shoots more and more with film to slow down and learn about the roots of photography. Frederick is all for nostalgia, but points out that the digital advocates will say why not achieve the look and feel of film within Photoshop? What motivates Chris is technology. In this case, having an older, mechanical camera in your hands makes you realize they are intricate works of art. He continues to explore different camera bodies and film sizes and the “character” of the gear that emerges from its use. Analog gives him a lot of freedom to experiment.
Finally, Chris talked about PocketChris Photography Basics, a free iPhone app that visually teaches things like exposure and depth of field in a very tactile and interactive way. There’s also his PocketChris Advanced Photography I app priced at $1.99 for more experienced shooters.
To find out more about what Chris is up to, visit chrismarquardt.com.
LISTENER QUESTIONS
Every week our producers scour the TWiP forums to find the best questions for us to answer on the show. Here are this week’s questions:
Question #1: Brandon T. from Vancouver said he will be shooting a wedding in which the bride and groom will arrive to the reception in a helicopter(!) and wants tips on how to get stunning shots. Alex highly recommended having two shooters. One shooter can grab the conservative, expected, classic images and the second shooter can try the more experimental, creative shots. Also consider having a shooter stay with the couple so you can capture the bride and groom inside the helicopter. Because the whole thing will be chaotic and over in a matter of seconds, plan ahead as much as possible and do your homework like knowing which way the Sun will be shining. A UV filter protecting your lenses would be a good idea too because of all the debris kicked up by the rotors. Nicole said it also depends on how much access you have because you could mount gear inside the helicopter and trigger it from the ground. Consider asking the bride and groom beforehand to pause for a few seconds after they are clear of the helicopter so you can fire off some shots then. Frederick advised to check out how other photographers on flickr, iStock, or Google Images have shot helicopters to gain inspiration for images to try for.
Question #2: Jon Decker from Brooklyn, NY wanted to know if, when using a zoom lens in manual focus mode: is it effective to zoom into a point of focus before zooming back out to compose the shot or does doing so make the lens lose its initial focus? Nicole’s experience is that it depends on the lens because at least with the newer ones you can zoom in, focus, and then zoom out. She added, don’t forget about Live View if your camera offers it because it will let you zoom way in using the LCD to nail the focus.
PICKS OF THE WEEK
Alex: Fujifilm FinePix 3D W3. This is the new version of their 3D still and video camera, an improvement over previous models in the line. A fun way to experiment with 3D images.
Nicole: Craft & Vision eBooks. Lots of great photography topics taught by pro photographers. Available in both ebook PDF and iPad app formats.
Frederick: Syl Arena’s Speedliter’s Handbook shows how you can get big light from small speedlights by diffusing them, bouncing them, etc.
WRAP UP
Follow us on twitter.com/ThisWeekInPhoto
Join the Flickr critique group. You can also join our Facebook group.
Frederick Van Johnson – www.frederickvan.com and twitter.com/frederickvan
Alex Lindsay – twitter.com/alexlindsay and youtube.com/alexlindsaypxc
Nicole Young – twitter.com/nicolesy and nicolesyblog.com
CREDITS
TWiP is brought to you by the following sponsors:
Audible.com, the leading provider in spoken word entertainment. Audible has over 75,000 titles to choose from to be downloaded and played back anywhere. Visit Audiblepodcast.com/twip for a free audiobook of your choice.
FreshBooks, an easy to use online invoicing service for photographers and other creative professionals that saves you time, gets you paid faster, and makes you look professional. Get started today with a FREE package at freshbooks.com.
Ford which introduces the all-new 2012 Ford Focus Electric with voice-activated Sync and MyFord Touch – featuring gas-free power, zero CO2 emissions, and battery management technology that lets you go the distance. Learn more at focuselectricpower.com.
Producer: Suzanne Llewellyn
Show notes by Ernest Aguayo: www.aguayophoto.com or www.twitter.com/aguayophoto
Photo above by Gustav Holmström
Bandwidth provided by Cachefly
Intro Music by Scott Cannizzaro
