The nearly simultaneous publication recently of three photo essays from Afghanistan in three different publications stirred up some partisan debate last week on Michael Shaw’s BagNews Notes blog. Shaw noted that the three award-winning photojournalists who shot the stories – James Nachtwey, published in Time; Tyler Hicks, published in The New York Times; and Louie Palu, published in the Toronto Star-  had all been embedded with helicopter medavac units, and all showed them tending to wounded soldiers.

“Is this pure coincidence?” Shaw wrote, “Or, does it illustrate (too well, in this case) the acumen of the Pentagon in the mediating of war access? Either way, in the aggregate this is a stunning display of American chauvinism given the intimate framing of the war in such a redundantly heroic narrative, all eyes on our warriors as saviors on high.”

Shaw wrote that he didn’t want to “take anything away from the thoroughly accomplished” photographers, only to critique how “big media” has filtered coverage of the war. The New York Times did not respond to our requests for comment; a spokesperson for Time would say only that the publication of the three stories “is pure coincidence. To suggest anything otherwise is completely inaccurate.”

But at least one of the photographers cried foul, and passionately.

“It just makes me angry. [Shaw has] taken one photo out of an entire essay, and used it to suit his argument. What he’s saying is important, but he misused my photo” to say it, Palu says.

Contrary to what Shaw wrote in his original post (which Shaw has since amended), The Star didn’t hire Palu to shoot the story. He says he took the medevac embed last fall as part of his Alexia Grant project to document the social, cultural, and political fabric of the Kandahar region. The Star picked up his story-which included more than medevac pictures–afterwards. Part of Palu’s motive for taking that embed, he says, was to get access to civilians. And the medevac embed was one small part of a six-month trip to Afghanistan.

“I’m not defending the military or Pentagon,” he says. “Obviously, the images [Shaw selected] are good publicity [for the US military,] but I’m showing a lot more than heroic medics. I’ve shown civilians people ripped apart, and soldiers missing their legs, with no medics tending them”

In other words, he says, he’s made a lot of photographs of military and civilian casualties that don’t make the military look good at all. But photojournalists covering the war just can’t seem to win, he says. “If we cover just dead bodies and dead soldiers, we get criticized…We’re finally showing casualties, and getting criticized for showing casualties because we’re showing medics saving them.”

The Star‘s Foreign Editor, Colin MacKenzie, said Shaw’s blog post “takes us back to the beginning of the embed debate, at the dawn of time. Yeah, you’re covering your team, in effect. Implicit with the embed is, you’re with your guys, and that’s the price you pay for access.

“The images are implicitly rah rah because you are rescuing people. If it was the only coverage that The Times and Time magazine and The Star were doing, it [Shaw's criticism] might be a fair accusation. But none of the organizations have confined our coverage to rah rah embed stuff.”

After PDN contacted Shaw about Palu’s comments, Shaw added a note to his post clarifying when Palu shot the images, but he told PDN via email, “I’m less concerned about HOW they got there than THAT they ARE there and what effect they have, once there, on the public mind and the behavior of the citizenry.”  The blog is concerned with published images and the messages they convey, he says; film critics don’t interview  movie stars before writing reviews, and he doesn’t  interview photographers.  “That’s not to say that I don’t also have a lot of opinions about the powers that be and how corporate media, the military and the government are extraordinarily sophisticated about visual messaging (by commission AND omission) in the shaping of public opinion. I do, I don’t hide it and I don’t apologize for it. “

He notes that he’s familiar with Palu’s work, and knows him as “someone who has no qualms about speaking truth to power.” But he’s concerned with the military’s control of news. “It’s the frustration over the military’s media control and censorship, combined with big media’s recent attraction to uncomplicated ‘personal interest’-type pieces.… that, I believe, has produced such a strong and confirming response to my post from shooters and citizens alike.”

Shaw adds, “I’d go so far as say that, if only a fraction of Louie’s work from Afghanistan had been published flat out (especially his earlier work from the South), and we didn’t have the media filter to contend with, the US would probably have withdrawn several years ago.”

--David Walker
(images, top to bottom: © JAMES NACHTWEY FOR TIME; © TYLER HICKS/THE NEW YORK TIMES; © LOUIE PALU/ZUMA PRESS; )

In the spirit of the popular blogs “Stuff White People Like” and “Stuff Journalists Like,” someone has started a little Tumblr blog called “Sh*t Photojournalists Like.” Seemed inevitable, right?

So what do photojournalists like, according to this blog? Well, there are a couple of things we like as well such as “Coffee Mugs that Look Like Lenses” and “Shooting Wide Open.”

What else? See for yourself and add your own suggestions here.

Photographer and “Strobist” blogger David Hobby noticed TechCrunch grabbed one of his photos from his “all rights reserved” Flickr stream for use in a blog post today. He’s not happy about it and called the AOL technology news Web site out on taking his work without permission.

“Tell you what. Just ask me for permission to use this picture in these comments and I will grant it,” Hobby wrote in the comments below the TechCrunch article, which was about Twitter’s new look. “[H]aving [my photographs] taken from a place where there is even an ‘all rights reserved’ notice RIGHT NEXT TO THE PHOTO is not cool—even if you run a linked credit.”

Given the subject of the TechCrunch article, Hobby is appropriately also using his Twitter feed to point out the copyright violation to his followers.

Update: TechCrunch and the author of the article have apologized for the infringement and asked permission to use the photo.

One interesting aspect of publishing “PDN Photo of the Day,” our photography blog, is seeing which photographs and photographic subjects attract the largest number of readers. Often our readers enjoy photographs that we find interesting and beautiful, then share the posts with friends, and the audience for a particular entry grows exponentially. Other times a post we’re particularly excited about receives a more modest response for one reason or another.

As the year drew to a close, we decided to get in touch with the editors of four photography blogs published by major newspapers to see which of their posts were the most-viewed this year. (more…)

If you’re looking for some good reading over the holidays then check out PhotoShelter’s list of their Favorite Photo Blog Posts of 2010.

The list is a hodgepodge of photo industry posts from a variety of blogs, subdivided into 9 different categories. And, we might add, three stories from our very own PDNPulse blog made the cut.

Check out the full list on PhotoShelter’s A Picture’s Worth blog.

"Charity, Bournemouth" 2008; ©Paul Russell

Yesterday, we told you about the street photographer who was questioned by police after taking photos in Times Square and many of you weighed in with your commentary. And while being a street photographer in New York City may not be easy for various reasons, it doesn’t compare to Great Britain where it can be downright criminal thanks to that country’s strict anti-terrorism laws.

According to Wired.com’s RAW File blog, that’s changing with a recent amendment to Britain’s “Prevention of Terrorism Act” which had declared photographers “suspicious” merely for carrying photo gear. (And you thought things were bad in Kuwait.)

The “suspicious” photographer law was amended this past summer and, somewhat coincidentally, a new book is out from Thames & Hudson (get it: London and New York) entitled “Street Photography Now.”

The book is a compendium of famous and lesser known street shots from a range of photographers, including Martin Parr, Joel Meyerowitz, Trent Parke, Michael Wolf, Bruce Gilden, Matt Stuart, Nick Turpin, Alex Webb and many others. Check out the video slideshow from the book below.

(Via RAW File.)

Street Photography Now from Third Floor Gallery on Vimeo.

Resnick was questioned by a police officer moments after he took this photo. ©Mason Resnick

Mason Resnick, a photographer and editor of the Adorama Learning Center, was shooting in New York City’s Times Square yesterday when he felt a tug on his camera strap. His first thought was that someone was trying to steal his camera. When he looked up though he saw the stern face of a New York City police officer staring back at him.

“What are you doing?” the officer grilled him.

When Resnick explained he was a street photographer who was capturing candids of people in Times Square, the officer pressed him by saying he had received “several complaints” about Resnick.

“I was following you for several blocks,” the officer said. “There are a lot of school groups here today, lots of children.”

Resnick was nonplussed.

“That inference was pretty clear,” Resnick wrote in his blog for Adorama. “I was being not so subtly being accused of being a pedophile.”

Resnick was able to able to quell the situation by showing the officer the images he had shot — even though he was no way legally obligated to do so. In the end, Resnick, who was testing the Leica X1 and D-Lux 5 digital cameras for Adorama as part of a Street Photography Stress Test, decided that arguing further was not worth it.

“Even though I know I have the legal right to take pictures in public places (this has been challenged many times in U.S., Canadian, and UK courts and in every case, the photographer’s rights have been affirmed), I also advise my students that when an officer tells you to stop taking pictures, you stop, and don’t argue Why? Because he is armed, and has the power to arrest you—and he may not be well-versed in the rights of photographers.”

What do you think of how Resnick handled the situation? How would you have handled it? Have you noticed more harassment from police officers for taking photos in public places lately?

(Read more about Resnick’s experience in Times Square here.)

A handful of blogs recently pointed out a new Transportation Security Administration poster depicting a hooded photographer shooting pictures outside an airport fence. The poster encourages people to report suspicious activity, e.g. suspicious-looking people mulling around airports with cameras.

According to TSA representative Anne Davis, the posters were created for General Aviation (GA) facilities, the hundreds of smaller airports all over the country used by private aircraft owners at which TSA has no jurisdiction. The poster is not for commercial airports, so it shouldn’t increase the likelihood that your average nervous traveler is going to call the authorities if they see you taking pictures of an airplane while you’re waiting for your next flight to board.

But the posters could encourage local law enforcement and security personnel to question and/or harass professional photographers and hobbyists more than they already do. Davis says TSA works with these small GA airports and offers them guidelines on how to operate security, but has no real control over whether their suggestions are implemented. Operation of GA airports is left up to local, not federal, law enforcement.

Davis says the posters were given to GA airports, but she did not know where the posters would be hung, and said that GA facilities might choose not to hang them at all. She also was not sure why a photographer was the suspicious person of choice for the posters, rather than, say, someone trying to break into a GA facility or loitering around aircraft.

“I always suggest that photographers check with the airport press office,” before photographing around GA airports, Davis says. By law, though, photographers don’t need permission to photograph anything from public property. And the unfortunate message the TSA is sending with its poster is: cameras in the hands of government agencies protect us; cameras in the hands of private citizens and the press are a threat.

Long-time National Geographic contributors Cary Wolinsky and Bob Caputo have just launched PixBoomBa.com, a web site of photographic tips delivered in a humorous, self-deprecating style through video, illustrated text and blog formats.

The goal of the site is “to make both technical and aesthetic elements of good photography accessible to anyone interested in making better images, no matter their skill level, equipment, or budget,” the two photographers explain in their press kit.

“PixBoomBa is a family business with Italian/Jewish roots,” Wolinsky tells PDN. “It is never just the two of us. We have an insanely dedicated team of freelancers and volunteers working around the clock.”

The demo version of the site was geared primarily to beginner/intermediate level photographers, with a tutorial on white balance, basic portraiture, and depth of field. The videos are intended to be as entertaining as they are informative. Wolinsky and Caputo ham it up in one video about how not to photograph strangers (a corresponding “Actual Info” article provides the useful tips).

To support the site, Wolinsky says he and Caputo will run advertising by the artisans and institutions that support PixBoomBa. They are also looking for partners interested in licensing PixBoomBa content.

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.