A photographer recently tipped us off about a Chinese Web site that is publishing the work of photographers without their knowledge or permission. The site is branded as if it were produced by Leica, but according to a Leica representative they have nothing to do with it. “Leica Camera always respects the rights of artists and does not support the unapproved publication of artwork,” a Leica spokesperson told PDN via email.

Leica did not, however, comment on whether they would pursue legal action to have the site taken down.

An Austrian store that apparently sells Leica cameras and photographic prints is the site’s only sponsor.

A few of the photographers whose work is used on the site are: Phillip Toledano, Steve McCurry, Marcus Bleasdale, Annie Marie Musselman, Robbie Cooper, Kosuke Okahara, Dominic Nahr and Michal Chelbin.

The site is also marketing an app, downloadable for free through the Apple iTunes App Store. When you open the app a grid of famous photographs, including Annie Leibovitz’s image of Yoko Ono and a naked John Lennon, appear on the screen.

Work by Stephen Shore, Lynn Goldsmith, Jonas Bendiksen, Erika Larsen, Sebastião Salgado and others appear in the “A Pic a Day” section of the app. In the app’s “Magazine” section, entire photo essays appear, many of them current. For instance, Sebastian Liste’s 2010 Ian Parry Scholarship-winning essay on homeless families inhabiting an abandoned chocolate factory in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, appears.

Photographers we’ve spoken with had no idea this Web site existed and was using their work, nor were they aware of the app, and we’re assuming that none of the photographers whose work is being used gave permission.

Does your work appear on the site?

Since one of its oil wells blew out in the Gulf of Mexico more than three months ago, BP has demonstrated a certain aversion to the truth about the disaster and its consequences.

Against that backdrop, The Washington Post has reported that Gawker and other blogs have so far identified at least three BP handout photos that were digitally altered. For instance, in one image from the inside of BP's Houston command center, a staff photographer pasted images onto some blank video screens. In another, a helicopter parked on the deck of a ship was made to look as if it was flying over the Gulf of Mexico.

After the altered images came to light, a BP spokesperson posted the originals for public scrutiny, explained what alterations had been made, and said BP had instructed the staff to "refrain from doing this in the future."

Caveat emptor.

Photographer and cameraman Wes Skiles, who explored, mapped, and filmed caves around the world for three decades, died Wednesday afternoon while on a dive near Palm Beach, Florida. He was 53.

Diving companions found Skiles unconscious on the ocean floor near a reef, shortly after he had signaled to them that he was going to the surface for more film. His companions pulled him to the surface and tried to revive him while rushing him to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The cause of his death is unknown. A medical examiner will conduct an autopsy, according to the Palm Beach Post.

Skiles was a long-time contributor to both National Geographic magazine and National Geographic Television, At the time of his death, Skiles had just finished shooting a scientific expedition related to marine life off the Florida coast on an assignment for NGTV. “The shoot had wrapped, but he stayed on with the researchers” to do more shooting, says National Geographic spokesperson Beth Foster.

Skiles also shot the cover story for the current issue of National Geographic, about the dangerous submarine caves of the Bahamas called blue holes.

"He set a standard for underwater photography, cinematography and exploration that is unsurpassed. It was an honor to work with him, and he will be deeply missed," said National Geographic editor-in-chief Chris Johns in a statement on the publisher’s Web site.

Skiles grew up exploring the caves of northern Florida. On its Web site, National Geographic credits him with developing and refining a technique for using multiple strobes to dramatically light the underwater environment of caves.

He was also the creator, director and cinematographer of the PBS series, 'Water's Journey' and his production company, Karst Productions of High Springs, Florida, directed and filmed all the underwater scenes in a feature film titled 'The Cave'.

He is survived by his wife, Terri, and two children.

First we had the case of the missing caddie. Now one of the stars of MTV's Jersey Shore — the prosaically named JWOWW — appears to have lost her belly button to a clumsy Photoshop job.

Check out the nearly buttonless shot to the left from Maxim; and the "before" photo to the right with strategically placed religious ornamentation dangling.

(If you ask us, they both look like disasters…waka waka.)

(From Gawker via ONTD)

 The deadline to enter Vimeo's first video awards competition is July 31. The Vimeo Awards  are intended  to honor creativity and originality (no rehashed clips stolen from TV here) in video creation. The contest is open to videos in nine categories, including Documentary, Narrative, Music Video and Original Series. Two finalists will be selected in each category by a panel of judges, then the jury will select one  Best Video winner who will receive a $25,000 grant to produce new work. 

Vimeo has so far named 19 judges who will review entries in different categories. Designer Neville Brody, Ricky Van Veen of Connected Ventures and Ze Frank of the daily video blog "The Show" were recently added to the roster. Other judges  include directors David Lynch, Roman Coppola, Lucy Walker and Morgan "Super Size Me" Spurlock, multimedia artist and composer DJ Spooky, Motionographer.com founder Justin Cone and photographer Vincent Laforet. 

The awards competition is part of the lead-up to a two-day festival of screenings and parties to be held in New York October 8 and 9. 

You can find more info on the awards rules, eligibility, rights and categories at vimeo.com/awards/about.

We’re offering 3 PDN subscribers the chance to get an objective, constructive review by Web designers and  a client who reviews photo Web sites regularly.  We’ll publish photos from the three Web sites, and the reviewers’ critiques and suggestions, on PDNOnline.  

The three reviewers are:

Stella Kramer, freelance photo editor and consultant

Richard Koci Hernandez, photojournalist, Web design professor at University of California Berkeley’s journalism school

Brad Kuhns, VP/Customer Service, IPNStock and designer of photography and stock web sites

As in our July article, “Is Your Web Site Friendly or Frustrating to Clients?”, the three reviewers will offer their suggestions about image sizes, interface, ease of navigation, use of technology and search engine optimization.

For instructions on how to submit your Web site to get a free review, PDN subscribers should visit this page:  Have Your Web Site Reviewed on PDNOnline.  Send us your submission by noon EST on Monday July 26. That's when PDN editors will pick the 3 entries to send to our reviewers. 

 Photographer Emily Schiffer, winner of the first Arnold Newman Prize for portraiture, has used her $15,000 fellowship to bring five of her students from the My Viewpoint Youth Photography program at the Dupree YMCA in Dupree, SD, on the Cheyenne River Reservation, on a 10-day tour of New York City’s photo community. In addition to visiting photographers’ studios, galleries and museums, the students will be hosting a silent auction  Thursday night at the VII Gallery in Brooklyn. The auction is expected to raise funds to support the My Viewpoint program and an exhibition of the students' work.  

Samantha Herrald, Demi Beautiful Bald Eagle, Jessie Carlson, Carlys High Bear, Karlisle High Bear and a parent, Dana Dupris, came to PDN today for pizza and conversation. Since arriving in New York on Thursday July 15, they’ve met with photographers Lorna Simpson, Brenda Ann Kenneally and Marvi Lacar, toured the Smithsonian’s Museum of the American Indian, used the darkroom at the International Center of Photography, met with a college counselor, and been interviewed by Brooklyn teenagers for The Local blog, which also published some of the images they’ve shot in New York this week.   

Before they return to Dupree on July 27th, Schiffer has also planned a visit to the Open Society Institute, a tour of Chinatown,  gallery visits and lots more time to photograph. 

Since Schiffer started teaching photography in Dupree five years ago, the program has caught the imagination of photographers everywhere, who have supported it by donating film, cameras, an enlarger and more.  Among the photographers who have contributed to the silent auction July 22 are Kenneally, Ben Lowy, Michael Itkoff, Wyatt Gallery, Victoria Sorochinski and others. 

Maybe professional photographers (and journalists and magazine editors) are so excited by My Viewpoint because they recognize that the students in Dupree, ages 6 to 19, have forged something unusual and coveted: a supportive group of peers who  share their ideas and feedback, both in the darkroom and while shooting. “You’re my photo community,” Schiffer told them.  

The silent auction will take place July 22 from 6 to 9pm at VII Gallery, 28 Jay Street 
Brooklyn, NY 11201. To place an advance bid on or preview prints, visit the Preview page on Schiffer’s web site.

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.)

Today's New York Times includes a story about a jury verdict and $20 million judgment against Corbis for stealing trade secrets and defrauding a Seattle start-up company called InfoFlows, which had been hired to help the stock agency develop an image fingerprinting and tracking system to fight online infringement.

It's a compelling David-and-Goliath story about an entrepreneur named Steve Stone who entrusted Corbis with his company's unpatented technology secrets back around 2005. Stone later claimed that Corbis was patenting that technology behind his back as their own intellectual property, as they were pumping him for information. 

"The irony is that Corbis is an intellectual property company, and here they are stealing someone else's intellectual property," Stone tells PDN.

One problem with the Times story, though, is that it is last summer's news. The jury verdict came down in August 2009. The trial court affirmed the verdict last February. And now, almost a year later, the Times glosses over the date of the verdict as if it happened yesterday (yeah, we missed it, too).

Corbis spokesperson Dan Perlet says Stone "has been seeking coverage on this for ages and finally convinced the NY Times." Stone says he just started speaking publicly about the case because his talks with Corbis to settle it (and avoid their legal appeal) finally broke down.

In a statement that Perlet provided, Corbis says the court applied an erroneous legal standard in upholding the jury verdict. "The terms [of a contract between Corbis and InfoFlows] were clear that Corbis would pay InfoFlows to build a license management solution conceived and designed by Corbis, and that Corbis would own any resulting intellectual property."

We'll see about that when the appeals court rules. And we'll try not to miss it this time.