A music video for the indie rock band Wolf Parade, shot by photographer Chris Hornbecker with director Scott Coffey. “Yulia,” the story of a Russian cosmonaut lost in space and his lover’s quest to connect with him, was chosen as a winner in the Video category of the PDN Photo Annual.

Tod Brody's lawyers say they no longer want to defend him over this image.

Lawyers for the photographer who allegedly provided a photograph with a forged model release for use on the cover Vampire Weekend’s “Contra” album are trying to quit the case.

The lawyers, who represent Tod Brody, complained to the court that their client doesn’t respond to their phone calls or e-mails, and has refused to pay his legal bills. So they want to drop him as a client.

Read the rest of the story here.

Hasselblad said they were going to do it at photokina 2010 and now they have.

The company announced this morning it is now shipping the H4D-200MS, a multi-shot medium-format digital camera system, which can produce a staggeringly large 200-megapixel image file.

According to what we heard at a press conference at photokina in Germany last year, the sensor in the multi-shot device moves to different positions to create a series of captures of a subject; the various image captures are then combined to build one huge photo.

Of course, since this is an extended multi-shot device that will take 30 seconds to complete one capture, it’s really only usable for shooting photos of still objects.

And, of course, it’s mind-bogglingly expensive, retailing for approximately $45,000 (32,000 Euro) plus tax.

To see samples produced by the Hasselblad H4D-200MS, click this link.

More details in the press release after the jump.

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Tim Hetherington’s friends and family were joined by soldiers from the platoon depicted in Restrepo, Hetherington’s award-winning documentary, to celebrate the photographer/filmmaker’s life and recall his talent and generosity at a memorial service held May 24 in New York City. Hetherington was killed in Misrata, Libya, on April 20 in a rocket attack that also killed photographer Chris Hondros and wounded two other photographers.

Standing at the pulpit of the First Presbyterian Church with three other soldiers from the platoon with which Hetherington had been embedded in Afghanistan, former Sergeant Brendan O’Byrne spoke before a crowd of several hundred mourners. He began to deliver a prepared speech, then stopped. He said the speech “didn’t feel right,” and he wanted instead to speak directly about “what Tim meant to us,” the soldiers deployed to the remote Restrepo outpost in the Korengal Valley. “He came a stranger and left a brother,” said O’Byrne. “He went out there again and again and again. He didn’t have to.” He noted, “If it weren’t for him, our stories would have been lost in the chaos of war.”

O’Byrne said Hetherington continued their friendship after their time in Afghanistan.  “I came home with a massive amount of PTSD. Tim let me stay in his house,” and asked for nothing in return. “He said, ‘Get your feet on the ground, and don’t drink.’ ” O’Byrne said he had no words to describe what Hetherington meant to the platoon. “We cared about him so much.”

In his eulogy, writer Sebastian Junger, Hetherington’s frequent collaborator and co-director on Restrepo,  explained how Hetherington earned the respect and trust of the soldiers. “He was terrifyingly brave, and he made them laugh. If you can do only those two things and not fall behind on patrol they [the soldiers] are good to you.”

Junger said, “Tim changed the world with his work, and the world changed him. He was seeking those changes.” He said Hetherington “allowed people access to his heart.” In his work in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, Junger said, Hetherington was a better journalist thanks to his openness to experiences and people.

Idil Ibrahim, Hetherington’s girlfriend, said many mourned him as a talented photographer, filmmaker, teacher, colleague, friend, “and brother from the front line.” To Ibrahim, however, Hetherington was, among other things, “partner, love, future, friend,” as well as “movie star,” “preferred dance partner,” “poet,” and “fashion stylist.” Though she said, “I mourn the loss of our future together” and “the children we’ll never have,” she noted that shortly before Hetherington left for Libya, they had a conversation about death. “I’ve truly lived,” Hetherington told her. She said Hetherington “exuded joie de vivre,” and was “the most brilliant person I know.” She said, “He taught me most about love and for that I’m truly grateful.”

Photographers Chris Anderson and Mike Kamber talked about the Hetherington’s photography. Anderson said that while poring over Hetherington’s work recently, he forgot about photographic craft, and felt that he was seeing into people’s lives. “His work was not about reporting a story but about recording an experience he shared with people,” Anderson said, before reading an impressionistic passage from the foreword to Hetherington’s first book, Long Story Bit by Bit: Liberia Retold, in which he had described the sights and rhythms of a street in Monrovia.

Kamber said that for a generation of photographers, Hetherington seemed to be “leading us forward. He was changing photojournalism. He was also leading us forward as a human being” through his humility and imagination. Hetherington, he said, was capable of “flights of fancy,” like an idea he had to do a piece on soldiers sleeping in their outpost in Afghanistan. The idea became Hetherington’s acclaimed multimedia installation, “Sleeping Soldiers.”

Hetherington’s sister and brother, Victoria and Guy, shared stories of how Hetherington’s energy, curiosity and desire to engage with people were evident even at a young age. Both siblings emphasized that Hetherington, who was born in England, “loved his life in New York,” and in particular, Victoria noted, “the lifelong friends” he made there.  Victoria noted how much Hetherington enjoyed the company of his friends’ children and his own nephew and niece.  After she informed her children of their uncle’s death, she said, her four-year-old daughter worried that God wouldn’t let him into heaven: “Because he’s the naughtiest person. He throws us in the swimming pool with all our clothes on.”

Victoria quoted a line attributed to Abraham Lincoln: “In the end it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years,” and expressed her gratitude that her brother had experienced so much in his 40 years.

At the end of the memorial service,  O’Byrne and the three soldiers from his platoon walked up the aisle of the church and presented Hetherington’s family with a folded US flag.

After the memorial, a reception was held at the Aperture Gallery, where an installation of “Sleeping Soldiers” and Hetherington’s video, “Diary,” about his work covering conflict, are on view through June 23.

Related Stories:

Tim Hetherington Killed in Libya

Hetherington, Hondros Families Choose Memorial Charities

Chris Hondros Remembered as Humanist, Friend

Hondros Dies of Injuries in Libya

A London celebrity photo agency that has won rights to distribute pictures posted on Twitpic has told PDN that it has “no direct relationship with those posting images on Twitpic.” The statement implies that the agency, World Entertainment News Network, will not share licensing revenues with the image owners.

As The New York Times reported yesterday, WENN announced earlier this month that it had struck a deal to distribute images posted to Twitpic. Twitpic members retain the copyrights to the images they post to the service, but the Twitpic terms of service give Twitpic “a worldwide, nonexclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute” images posted by Twitpic users.

In response to a question from PDN about whether image owners would receive a share of revenues from the sale of Twitpic images, WENN CEO Lloyd Beiny said via e-mail that his company has no direct relationship with those image owners, “so I regret I am unable to respond to your question.” He declined to be interviewed by telephone.

Twitpic has not responded to the same question about compensation for Twitpic users, but if it has plans to share with them any proceeds from its deal with WENN, it hasn’t announced them.

But Beiny’s response to our question reveals a new level of power imbalance in the stock business: namely, the power of an agency to legally license copyrighted images without any interference from or obligation to the owners of those images. The Twitpic terms of service effectively “launder” the images of substantive ownership rights and control.

Image owners allow it to happen, though. Nobody forces them to accept the Twitpic terms of service. For many, it may well be a perfectly acceptable trade-off for a chance to share their images with the world. For others, the terms may come as an unwelcome surprise, but the onus is on Twitpic users to read and understand the service agreement when they sign up for an account.

Related Story:

Time To Quit Using TwitPic?

Pop singer Beyoncé has debuted a new music video for her song “Run the World (Girls),” and because it seems to reference the work of other artists, The Guardian newspaper of London has raised the question: Is it homage or appropriation?

“The most obvious influence is the work of South African photographer Pieter Hugo,” The Guardian says, on the basis of some footage in the video showing Beyoncé with a couple of hyenas. But to compare those fleeting video images to Hugo’s “hyena men” of Nigeria is quite a stretch, and a little insulting to Hugo’s fine work.

Screen grab from Beyoncé's new video: a Pieter Hugo ripoff? Really?

“The work of another photographer, Ed Kashi, can also be discerned in shots of buffalo, sand, and burning cars,” The Guardian writer continues.

Sand? Wait. Are they sure Beyoncé didn’t appropriate scenes of sand from David Lean’s film, Lawrence of Arabia?

Lest anyone think The Guardian writers are completely dotty, they note that their rival, The Daily Mail, compared the choreography in the video to Riverdance. “The words Mad Max were bandied around, too,” says The Guardian.

Not that The Guardian needs help here, but I thought the opening dance moves looked a little Michael Jackson-esque. Watching the video over my shoulder, my 13-year-old daughter declared Beyoncé’s costumes “a total rip-off of Lady Gaga.” And those hyenas “appropriated” from Pieter Hugo were leashed with chains. Perhaps that’s a rip-off of Rihanna’s S&M video, which is allegedly a rip-off of  David LaChapelle’s work. What’s next? Is Helen Reddy going to come out of the woodwork with a charge that “Run the World (Girls)” is a rip-off of “I Am Woman”?

If Pieter Hugo had a monopoly on pictures of hyenas, and Ed Kashi a monopoly on pictures of burning cars or sand, the courts would be clogged until the end of time with squabbling artists. Fortunately for everyone, though, ideas are not protected–only the executions of ideas are.

In the end, Beyoncé’s video may be an unoriginal pile-up of cultural references. But it almost certainly doesn’t rise to the level of a copyright crime.

related:
LaChapelle Sues Rihanna for Infringement
You Be the Judge: Did Rihanna Infringe David LaChapelle’s Work?
Rihanna’s Lawyers Give David LaChapelle a Spanking

Piergiorgio Casotti‘s web documentary, “Arctic Spleen,” is a journey inside the grim reality of Greenlandic youth where two percent of the young population commits suicide every year. The trailer shown here is an overview of the 14-minute film that was chosen as a winner in the Video category of the PDN Photo Annual.

Twitpic, the picture sharing service of Twitter, has signed a deal that allows a third party agency called World Entertainment News Network (WENN) to license images posted on Twitpic, according to The New York Times.

Under the terms of the deal, the celebrity news and photo agency would be allowed to authorize uses for photos it doesn’t own, and take legal action against anyone who uses Twitpic images commercially without the agency’s permission. Whether or not WENN will share revenues with the owners of the images is unclear, but it apparently has no obligation to do so. (CEO Lloyd Beiny did not immediately respond to questions about whether WENN would share any revenues.)

How could this be, you might wonder? Well, the Twitpic terms of service–which users agree to when they sign up for a Twitpic account–give the photo sharing service “a worldwide, nonexclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the [images uploaded to Twitpic] in connection with the Service and Twitpic’s (and its successors’ and affiliates’) business.”

In short, if you upload your images to Twitpic, you are are agreeing to make them available for license without any promise of compensation, or control over how they might be used or distributed.

For the record, Twitpic account holders retain ownership of their images. And WENN says that it is primarily interested in pictures uploaded by celebrities with Twitpic accounts, according to the Times story. But as the Times story notes, the Twitpic terms of service “do not distinguish between the rights of celebrity and non-celebrity users.”

Coincidentally, the Twipic terms of service are at the center of a legal dispute between photographer Daniel Morel and two other photo agencies: AFP and Getty Images. They distributed Morel’s exclusive images of the Haiti earthquake without his permission, after he uploaded them to Twitpic. They claimed they did nothing illegal on the grounds that Twitpic terms of service allow Twitpic users to reproduce and distribute images uploaded by other Twitpic users. Morel’s lawyers counter that the Twitpic terms of service give only Twitpic and its business partners the right to reproduce and distribute Twitpic images, and AFP and Getty are not Twitpic business partners. That case is still pending.

The North Face Brand Manifesto from Camp 4 Collective on Vimeo.

The above video, created by Camp 4 Collective for The North Face under the creative direction of Factory Design Labs, was a video winner in this year’s PDN Photo Annual.

Camp 4 Collective create adventure and expedition-based films that follow athletes to some of the most beautiful and remote locales in the world. Another of their films, “As It Happens,” recounts a climb a pair of Camp 4 climbers/filmmakers made in Nepal, which they documented in real time, sending dispatches via a satellite modem powered by solar energy. “As It Happens” was recently a Vimeo editor’s pick.

After a long silence, journalists are now talking about the inequality in care paid to photojournalists working in war zones, and the local fixers who help them in their work. The issue is now being addressed by the Poynter institute, the non-profit journalism education organization.

Reporting on the Poynter Web site, writer Steve Myers talks to photographers and editors about what protection, if any, they are authorized to offer local fixers if they are injured or threatened while on the job. Joel Simon of the Committee to Protect Journalists notes, “I’ve seen news organizations absolutely step up and support people—even people who have been contracted informally—and I’ve seen news orgs turn their back on people.”

One problem, Simon explains, is the variety of relationships between fixers and the organizations who hire them, “from the one-time assignment to the everyday job, from the driver hired by a full-time employee to one picked up by a freelancer.”

Photographer Lynsey Addario, who worked with two drivers who met bad ends—one, a driver in Afghanistan’s Swat valley who was killed when he fell asleep at the wheel, another who was very likely murdered when Addario and three New York Times colleagues were captured in Libya—argues that the Times has compensated locals when appropriate, but points out that not all hires are alike. “A blanket rule would presume that all situations abroad with local hires are black and white, and anyone who has worked overseas knows that that just isn’t the case.”

The New York Times has been criticized for its treatment of the three media assistants who have died while working for the Times since 2003. Bill Keller, executive editor of the Times, tells Myers that the paper has spent hundreds of thousand of dollars to repatriate media assistants who have been in danger in Iraq and elsewhere. “We have relocated local hires when their work put them at risk, paying all of their costs.” Keller adds that freelancers on assignment for the Times are placed on the newspaper’s insurance plan when they enter conflict zones; for locals, however, “we assume responsibility for death, disability and medical at our own expense.”

One interesting note: the Committee to Protect Journalists says that media companies can get specialized insurance for its fixers in conflict areas. The policies are expensive. Photojournalist Teru Kuwayama, who has been outspoken in his criticism of news organizations’ treatment of fixers, says taking out such policies on fixers would be a “massive step forward.”

The full article can be found at: Poynter.org.

Related stories:

Talking about the Deaths We Don’t Talk About

What to Expect if You’re Injured on Assignment