Amateur Photographer magazine is doing something about all the stories in the news of photographers being stopped and harassed by police in Britain. They’ve created a special lens cloth that has guidelines that were issued to Metropolitan police officers last year printed on. The lens cloth set will be bundled for free in the July 10th issue of the magazine, which hits newsstands on July 6 and lands in the hands of subscribers on July 3.

Now who’s going to step up and make one for photographers in the United States?

Image credit: Photograph by Amateur Photographer

A banner on Andrew Romanoff’s Senate campaign website provoked a bit of an outrage from a minority group when people realized that it was digitally manipulated.

The original photo shows Romanoff, the Democratic candidate from Colorado, at a campaign kickoff.

The photo for the banner was tinted blue, and then had several people from other images spliced into it, presumably in order to make Romanoff look like he was surrounded by more followers. Some of the added people include an African American woman to the right of Romanoff, as well as a Latino American man towards the center of the banner. The photo changes caused some minorities to believe Romanoff was trying to appear like his supporters were more diverse.

The Photoshopped African American woman, Andrea Mosby, told reporters that she has no problem with the photo-tweak, since she supports Romanoff and was at the same rally.

Others disagree on principle. According to the Denver Post, Colorado minority leaders wrote to Romanoff’s campaign, expressing that they were “shocked, disturbed and outraged” that the campaign felt the need to manipulate an image to appear like he had more minority supporters. Some 25 people signed the letter that called the candidate’s integrity into question, saying:

“We are NOT random people to be moved around for aesthetic reasons…We are NOT political pawns to be used when convenient nor do we accept being manipulated and repositioned when it serves one’s political motives…The Photoshopping in of minorities is not acceptable and falls far short of the integrity we expect of candidates running for the US Senate.”

Romanoff’s campaign said that the banner was intended as a photo collage or montage of the event, designed by a volunteer to reflect the overall attendance at the campaign event.

Romanoff later removed the image from the site and issued an apology:

This decision and a description of it have caused offense. I regret that and have removed the montage from our website. I take offense at any suggestion that our campaign attempted to deceive anyone. That’s outrageous and false. I bring a lifetime of commitment to equality and opportunity, and I reject these attacks on my character. I am very proud of the diverse support we’ve already received and continue to earn every day.

(via Denver Post)

Burger King recently partnered up with marketing agency Ogilvy for a unique “Have It Your Way” campaign. In order to convey how personalized the orders are, they used a hidden camera and printer to slap a candid photograph of the customer’s face right on the burger wrapper. A separate hidden camera was used to document the reactions of the customers after seeing themselves on their food.

Some customers pulled out cameras to remember the unique wrapper, while others stated they would save the wrapper itself. I found it pretty funny how unflattering the candid portraits were.

(via CNET)

Our recent post showing vinyl records at 1000x magnification was pretty popular, and many of you had ideas for things you’d like seen under a scanning electron microscope.

ASPEX, a company that manufactures scanning electron microscopes (SEM), recently launched a “Send Us Your Sample!” campaign. All you need to do is fill out a form and send it into the company with the sample you’d like photographed, and the company will publish the resulting photograph online and notify you via email when it’s up.

The photographs above show the torn edges of a piece of paper. You can see previously completed requests in this gallery.

(via Boing Boing)

The Nikon Coolpix site now features an interesting tool for viewing photos, utilizing the viewer’s webcam and hand motions to flip through and zoom in and out of images. (Think: that one Spielberg film with Tom Cruise…)

The online tool, Virtual Touch Experience, is a javascript app that the user drags to their browser bookmark bar. When the bookmark is clicked while viewing compatible image sites, the images are opened for interaction in another window.

Virtual Touch Experience is a clever ad campaign designed by MRM Worldwide for Nikon’s touch screen Coolpix S70. According to the press release, it’s supposed to emulate the touch screen experience of the camera, as well as Nikon’s emphasis on the human element/touch in photography.

Though Virtual Touch Experience isn’t something you might actually integrate into routine photo viewing, (personally, my arm got really tired, and then I felt a little silly), it’s an interesting idea to make photos more interactive.

We’re curious to see if photo viewing and sorting could go the way of physical interactivity using hardware motion sensors like Nintendo Wii or Microsoft’s Project Natal someday.