Freelance photographer Marc Feldman lost his job when Getty Images discovered that he had sent in an altered golf photo for distribution. But Feldman says that it was all an innocent mistake.

Feldman says he was in the press tent after the event, reviewing some photos. The golfer in the image, Matt Bettencourt, and his caddie came by to look at photos as well. The caddie had suggested that the photo would look better without him in it, and Feldman demonstrated how easily he could be removed.

The photographer said he thought he saved the altered image on his desktop, but somehow accidentally transmitted the image along with his final images to Getty.”I certainly did not mean to send both of them to Getty,” he told Guy Reynolds, the Dallas News photo editor who originally blew the whistle on him. Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier today, Dallas Morning News photo editor Guy Reynolds noticed a strange relationship between two Getty images of golfer Matt Bettencourt at the Reno-Tahoe Open golf tournament. One photo featured a tight image of the golfer holding up his ball, victorious, after the 11th hole. The other image, vertical, shows the golfer in the same position, but with another person standing in the background, possibly the golfer’s caddy. Initially, Reynolds assumed the photograph was taken by two different photographers, from different angles. However, upon further inspection, Reynolds realized the photo was taken by the same photographer, Marc Feldman, and it appeared that the tighter image was actually altered to omit the second person. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re suffering from post-World Cup withdrawal, this might cheer you up: models frolicking on a soccer field. Actually, these women are doing much more than than that in fashion photographer Giuliano Bekor’s behind-the-scenes video of the Bebe 2010 World Cup campaign. Shooting and directing by example on the turf of the Los Angeles Memorial Stadium, Bekor pushes his models to the limit. These ladies are doing things I’d certainly never attempt in a dress and stiletto heels — running on grass, for one.

(via Fstoppers)

Portuguese photographer Antonio Simoes was in South Africa to shoot the World Cup when he was robbed at gunpoint in his hotel room yesterday morning.

Two men entered his room at the Nutbush Boma Lodge at about 4am, pointed a gun at his head, and stole roughly $35,000 worth of camera equipment. Two other journalists staying in the hotel were also robbed that same morning.

Simoes, who works for Portuguese sports newspaper O Jogo, tells the Associated Press:

One of the guys pointed a hand gun at my head, and then they took all my gear — cameras, lenses, laptop. Then they told me to lie on the bed and they covered me with a blanket, pressed the gun against my head and told me to sleep.

$35,000 worth of gear… Wow. Any guesses to what he was carrying that adds up to that figure? If you’re going to be photographing in South Africa this summer, be careful.

(via PDN Pulse)

Image credit: The Robbery by gcfairch

At just 3 years old, young photographer Ruby Ellenby captured the attention of her hometown last month with her first solo exhibition in San Francisco. Tonight, Ruby’s story was featured on NBC Nightly News. The piece offers a mini behind-the-scenes peek at how Ruby goes about shooting, and some of her fans share their thoughts. Cute!

(via NBC Nightly News)

The British government recently commissioned photographer Simon Roberts to create a public photo collaboration called The Election Project. In short, Roberts is creating documentary-style photography that follows the 2010 UK General election, and he is organizing a website to which people all over the UK can submit their own photographs of local political activities.

Roberts will also be traveling the country for three weeks in a motor home to document the election on the local level, with emphasis on the relationship between politicians and voters.

Community involvement is key to the project. Visitors can submit photos and “vote” (add favorites) for photos via the project’s Flickr photostream. Roberts wrote on the project site:

The General Election is, by definition, a democratic process. Your contributions will add a vital collaborative and democratic dimension to the project. This will undoubtedly be the most photographed election in British history.

Many of the posted public photos have a charmingly amateurish quality to them, a rawness that Roberts says he prefers: “The public’s images will also help to provide an antidote to the more stage-managed photographs increasingly seen of the campaign trail,” the photographer wrote.

It’s a fairly interesting glimpse of the elections thus far. You can see the batch in The Election Project’s gallery – which might take a while to load, since all the photos are currently posted on a single page. Pagination, much? Maybe it’s all in the name of equal representation.

(via The Photoletariat)

Photojournalist Daniel Morel shot an iconic image of a shocked woman looking out from the rubble moments after last January’s earthquake in Port au Prince, Haiti. Within an hour, Morel jumped on Twitter to share 13 high resolution images he had uploaded on Twitpic. By the next day, the photo of the woman was picked up by Agence France Presse (AFP) and Getty Images, was run on the cover of several publications and websites.

But Morel said he never authorized the news wires to distribute his images. In fact, several of his images were credited to another person, Lisandro Suero of the Dominican Republic, who reportedly has no photographic background. However, Suero tweeted Morel’s images without the photographer’s permission, and claimed copyright as his own:

And so began a legal storm.

Now Morel is being sued by AFP after he sent them cease and desist letters that the agency calls an “antagonistic assertion of rights.”

According to court documents, AFP claims that they did not infringe on Morel’s copyright and is suing Morel for “commercial disparagement,” as well as “demanding exorbitant payment.” AFP says that Twitter’s Terms of Service allowed for them to use, copy and distribute the image, and that Morel did not specify limits on how the photo should be credited.

Morel responded, saying that he was not familiar with Twitter’s TOS, and maintains that the images were stolen from his account without his permission, distributed and sold by the agency, which then “induced” other publications to violate Morel’s copyright. In a counterclaim to the agency’s complaint, Morel’s lawyer, Barbara Hoffman wrote:

To the extent that under the circumstances a specific intent in posting the images on Twitter can be attributed to Mr. Morel given the circumstances, … he posted his images online and advertised them on Twitter in the hopes that his images would span the globe to inform the world of the disaster, and that he would also receive compensation and credit as a professional photographer for breaking news of the earthquake before the news and wire services.

Some publications, including The Wall Street Journal, NBC, and the Associated Press contacted Morel to exchange compensation for his permission to publish. Others did not.

In order to enforce his copyright, Morel sent several cease and desist notices to several publications.

It seems that the case really boils down to the semantics of the Twitter TOS.

What might be worth noting is that the court documents from AFP frequently cite Twitter’s TOS, which mostly regards the text in Tweets, and does not extend to content linked to (otherwise, entire sites’ content might be considered royalty-free). Morel uploaded on TwitPic, which has a separate Terms, and is an entirely separate entity from Twitter.

Media Nation blogger Dan Kennedy posted PDFs of AFP’s complaint against Morel and Morel’s answer.

Whatever the verdict, this suit may change the manner in which photographers and journalists transmit their data via social media, even in difficult emergency situations like post-quake Haiti.

Do you have legal insight, experience with copyright infringement, or any thoughts about social media and the TOS?