The Lens Lock is the latest product in the GearGuard gear locking system by Gary Fong (maker of the well known LightSphere). It attaches to the back of a lens like an ordinary rear lens cap, but can be secured and locked using a cable/lock combo. This allows you to lock the gear down when not in use (like you would do with a bike) or lock it together with other gear in your bag, preventing individual items from being stolen from your bag.
Read the rest of this entry »

This is probably the strangest story you’ll read today. When Neil Berrett quit his job in 2009, he sent his boss a kindly written resignation letter written on a cake. The photo of Berrett and his cake become widely circulated, and received hundreds of thousands of views.

Last month, Berrett received an email from People Magazine asking for permission to use the cake photo in an article. Berrett replied asking that the magazine license the photo, but never received a response. The next day, he suddenly found that the magazine had gone ahead and used his photo in an article titled “Take This Job and Shove It! 8 Memorable Quitters“.
Read the rest of this entry »

Acclaimed photographer Harry Benson was recently flipping through the New York Times when he came across an article about the Whitney Biennial exhibition in NYC, one of the leading shows for up-and-coming artists. He was shocked to find that the installation featured in the main photograph was using one of his photographs without permission.

It was a portrait of Michael Jackson that Benson had taken at Neverland Ranch:

He soon discovered that it was part of Lorraine O’Grady‘s art piece titled “The First and Last of the Modernists”. O’Grady had taken Benson’s photograph, desaturated it, and placed it in a diptych with a photo of poet Charles Baudelaire.

Here’s the photograph that Benson had shot for design magazine Architectural Digest in 1993:

PDNPulse reports that,

Benson contacted O’Grady, who lives in New York, to question her unauthorized use of his image. According to Benson, she told him she is “a conceptual artist.” [...] O’Grady also told Benson she was planning to reproduce the diptychs in an edition of 10.

A lawyer for the museum offered to place a credit to Benson next to the installation, but Benson refused, asking for the image to be taken down. Benson’s wife Gigi informs us that Benson has spoken to a lawyer and is currently waiting to see whether the museum takes action on his behalf.

What are your thoughts on this case? Is it image theft, or acceptable conceptual art?

(via PDNPulse)

Image credit: Photograph by Harry Benson and used with permission.