Pastry chef Johnny Iuzzini. © Jeff Scott

Fine-art photographer Jeff Scott won the 2012 James Beard Foundation Award in the Photography category for Notes From a Kitchen: A Journey Inside Culinary Obsession. The award for the self-published, two-volume book, which is a collaboration between Scott and chef Blake Beshore, was announced on Friday, May 4, 2012, in New York City.

The book doesn’t contain any recipes, but instead aims to reveal the creative process for some of the top, young chefs in America. Shot documentary-style, Scott’s photos show the chefs at work and away from the kitchen as well as their personal notebooks where menus are planned and recipes created.

Some of the notebooks included in the book. © Jeff Scott

Other finalists for the prize were food, still-life and lifestyle photographer Joseph De Leo, who was nominated for The Cheesemonger’s Kitchen, and food and travel photographer Alan Benson, who worked on Rustica: A Return to Spanish Home Cooking. Last year, Danish photographer Ditte Isager won the photography award for her work on the cookbook Noma: Time and Place in Nordic Cuisine.

The James Beard Foundation is a non-profit organization that offers “events and programs designed to educate, inspire, entertain and foster a deeper understanding of our culinary culture.” Each year the foundation recognizes people in every aspect of the food and beverage industry—from chefs and restaurateurs to cookbook authors and food writers—who have excelled in their fields. Editorial and commercial photographer Landon Nordeman received the 2012 James Beard Foundation Award in the new category of Visual Storytelling for his Saveur assignments “The Soul of Sicily,” “BBQ Nation” and “Heart of the Valley.” Also of note: Gastronomica was awarded Publication of the Year alongside the Web site Food52.

Notes From a Kitchen: A Journey Inside Culinary Obsession. © Jeff Scott

To see the complete list of 2012 James Beard Foundation Book, Broadcast and Journalism Award winners, go to jamesbeard.org.

Related Article:

Cookbooks Come Out of the Kitchen

A federal court judge in Chicago has refused a textbook publisher’s request to dismiss a photographer’s claim of massive copyright infringement, saying Robert Frerck’s allegations that Pearson Education infringed about 4,000 of his photographs “are sufficient to put Pearson on notice.” The decision is likely to force the company to do what it has been trying to avoid: divulge its records so Frerck is able to identify all unauthorized uses of his images.

Frerck filed suit last August, and said he licensed the publisher usage rights to various photos between 1992 and 2010. He says the licenses were limited by the number of copies, distribution are, language, duration, and media (print or electronic.)

Frerck alleges that the uses often exceeded the license terms, and that the unauthorized uses weren’t an innocent administrative oversight. “Pearson often knew, from its pre-publication plans and its experience with prior editions, that its actual uses under the licenses would exceed the permission it was requesting and paying for,” Frerck asserts in his claim.

In addition, he claims, the publisher used some photographs with no license at all. Frerck says he doesn’t know the extent of those unauthorized uses, but asserts that “Pearson has created, or easily could create, a list of its wholly unlicensed uses” during the discovery process of the case.

He alleges that two Pearson Curriculum Group employees–Julie Orr, Image Manager, Rights and Permissions and Maureen Griffin, Photo Commissions Editor– have already testified that the company has printed textbooks in excess of photo license limits, and used images in some instances without permission.

“Pearson’s business model, built on a foundation of pervasive and willful copyright infringement, deprived Plaintiff and thousands of other visual art licensors of their rightful compensation and unjustly enriched Pearson with outlandish profits in the process,” Pearson alleged in his complaint.

Frerck’s claim is one of many filed against textbook publishers in recent years for unauthorized use of images, and uses far beyond the limits of usage licenses. Frerck cites claims by ten other photographers and stock agencies–including Norbert Wu, Louis Psihoyos, Grant Heilman Photography, DRK Photo, Pacific Stock and others–that are currently pending against Pearson.

Anticipating Pearson’s response, Frerck alleged in his own claim that the publisher’s strategy for getting claims dismissed is to argue that copyright owners can sue only for infringements for which they can provide evidence at the time they file their claims. And that’s exactly how Pearson sought to have Frerck’s claim dismissed. But Pearson hides its infringements from copyright owners, Frerck argues, so copyright owners can’t produce evidence unless a claim is allowed to go forward, forcing Pearson to divulge its records of image use. Judge Robert M. Dow, Jr. agreed, saying Frerck provided enough evidence of specific infringement to make all of his claims “plausible.” (Civil Action No. 1:11-cv-5319)

Related:
After Flouting Print Run Limits, Publishers Face Dozens of Lawsuits

On May 3, the day after he receives the Lifetime Achievement Award at the International Center of Photography’s Infinity Awards gala, renowned photographer Daido Moriyama will be signing special editions of his latest book at the ICP in New York City.

The ICP says that the first 200 buyers of Moriyama’s new book, Color, will be able to choose one of 20 original prints which will be inserted in the book’s front cover and then signed by Moriyama himself.

Copies are $200, or $180 for ICP members. The sale not only celebrates Moriyama’s achievements, but also supports the ICP museum, educational programs and community outreach.

The event starts at 6pm at the ICP Museum’s bookstore. Books will be available on a first come, first served basis, and the photographer will only be signing the editions of Color that were made especially for ICP.

Any unsold copies will be available through the ICP store or online.  For further information visit the events page at www.icp.org

Information about the ICP Infinity Awards ceremony and dinner, taking place May 2, can be found at  www.icp.org/support-icp/infinity-awards

Related Article:

Moriyama, Ai Weiwei to Be Honored at ICP Infinity Awards

Images © Koto Bolofo. Left: Perfumer Geza Schoen. Right: Paper Passion.

When bibliophiles celebrate print they often talk about the weight or feel of paper, about color, binding, typeface, design… but scent?

Leave it to print purists and publishers Gerhard Steidl and Karl Lagerfeld to pay attention to the often-overlooked, olfactory component of the print experience. It was Lagerfeld who first pointed out the scent of print to Steidl, which led to a collaboration between Steidl, Wallpaper* magazine and master perfumer Geza Schoen to create Paper Passion perfume—”For Booklovers.”

The scent debuted this week at at the Wallpaper* Handmade exhibition in Milan, which runs through April 22 at the headquarters of men’s clothing designer Brioni, and it will be available to the public on May 30.

The perfume comes hidden inside the pages of a Steidl-published book, designed by Lagerfeld, which includes various odes to the printed page and its characteristic scent.

As Lagerfeld has said, “The smell of a freshly printed book is the best smell in the world.” Backlit touch-screens may be the future, but the future doesn’t smell nearly as nice.

The late photographer and filmmaker Tim Hetherington created one of his first major projects by embedding in 2003 with a Liberian rebel group attempting to overthrow then-president Charles Taylor. Hetherington’s Liberia work was collected in his 2009 book Long Story Bit By Bit: Libera Retold.

In a new paperback book, Photographs Not Taken (Daylight, $14.95), edited by photographer Will Steacy, Hetherington is among 70 photographers who described photographs they were unable or unwilling to take.

Hetherington wrote about living with “a rag-tag army of heavily armed young men” as they fought their way into the capital, Monrovia. In his story, which is excerpted today on the Web site of Obit magazine, Hetherington describes advancing with the rebels into the city, only to retreat exhausted and outgunned during a counter-attack.

The experience of being under fire and out of control sapped Hetherington of his ability to photograph a horrific auto accident he witnessed just as he and the rebels he was with escaped danger. “My brain was like a plate of scrambled eggs,” he recalled.

Read Hetherington’s full story at Obit magazine.

For more about Photographs Not Taken visit Daylight’s Web site.

A series of photographs Robert Frank made in 1958 on commission for The New York Times, which were once thought to have been thrown out, have been discovered by the family of Louis Silverstein, a longtime art director at the Times. The photographs are featured today on the Times‘ Lens blog.

A year before he published his groundbreaking book The Americans, Frank was hired to create the photographs by Silverstein, who headed the Times’ promotions department at the time. The images were used for a promotional book distributed to Times advertisers.

The images depict New Yorkers, many of them carrying or reading copies of the Times, going about their business on the streets, in taxis, at the airport, and at notable locations such as Grand Central Station and the Statue of Liberty.

Silverstein’s wife, Helen, recently discovered the prints with the help of Jeff Roth, a Times librarian. The prints remain with the Silverstein family. Some of the photographs were not published at that the time in the promotional book, and have not previously been seen.

A previous version of this blog post stated incorrectly that the photographs had been rediscovered in the Times’ archive.

© Pieter Hugo, from Permanent Error

The Photographers’ Gallery in London has announced the four artists shortlisted for the 2012 Deutsche Börse Photography Prize. The prize of £30,000 (about $47,000 US) is awarded to a living artist who has made a significant contribution to photography in Europe between October 1, 2010 and September 30, 2011.

Rinko Kawauchi of Japan is nominated for the French edition of her book Illuminance, which was published earlier this year in Germany by Kehrer Verlag (the book originated and was published in the US by Aperture, and Éditions Xavier Barral published the French edition).  For more on the book, see “In a Moment,” PDN March.

South Africa-based photographer Pieter Hugo is nominated for his book Permanent Error, portraits of men and boys working in a dump  for toxic electronic waste in Ghana. (See our story on the project, “Digital Divide,” PDN, May.) The book was published by Prestel.

British-born artist John Stezaker, who makes photographic collages, was nominated for his 40-year retrospective, exhibited this year at the Whitechapel Gallery in London.

American Christopher Williams is nominated for a show of his work at the Budweis in the Czech Republic. Williams, “as much conceptual artist as photographer,” according to Photographers Gallery, has been creating images of cameras, vehicles and other technical devices for 40 years.

The jurors for this year’s Deutsche Börse Photography Prize are François Hébel, Director, Les Rencontres d’Arles; photographer Martin Parr; Beatrix Ruf, Director/Curator, Kunsthalle Zürich and Anne-Marie Beckmann, Curator, Art Collection Deutsche Börse, Germany. Brett Rogers, Director of The Photographers’ Gallery, is the non-voting Chair.

The winner will be announced in April 2012. Previous winners of the prize have included Jim Goldberg, Juergen Teller, Rineke Dijkstra, Robert Adams and Andreas Gursky.

Related stories:
Notable Photo Books 2011, Part 2

Jim Goldberg Wins $50,000 Deutsche Borse Photography Prize

Stephen Ferry has received the first-ever Tim Hetherington Grant, it was announced this morning. The grant was established to honor Hetherington, the photographer and filmmaker who was killed in Libya in April, 2011, and is administered by World Press Photo and Human Rights Watch with the support of Hetherington’s parents.

For more on the grant and Ferry’s work see our story on PDNOnline.

Photographer collective LUCEO Images announced the opening of an online store that the group of documentary photographers hopes will allow them to “assert more creative control over the production and distribution of our work,” they said.

The group will sell limited- and open-edition prints, books and other creative work through their online store. The store’s proceeds will go into a general fund supporting new projects by the photographers, as well as other initiatives like their grant for student photographers and their donations in support of other photographers through crowd-funding sites like KickStarter and Emphas.is.

LUCEO is launching the store with the sale of the second issue of their magazine, 2×2. The magazine features the work of members Kendrick Brinson and Matt Eich, and it is also being sold in a limited edition featuring two prints.

The collective plans to offer a new print for sale on the site every two weeks.

More at store.luceoimages.com.

Coincidence? The covers of Jonathan Franzen's Freedom (left) and Sanna Kannisto's Fieldwork.

The cover of the French edition of Jonathan Franzen’s bestselling novel Freedom bears more than a passing resemblance to Sanna Kannisto’s photo book Fieldwork, which was published earlier this year by Aperture. The similarity led Aperture publisher Lesley A. Martin to accuse the French publisher, Editions de l’Olivier, of creating a “copycat cover” via Twitter.

Both covers feature photographs of flying birds against white backgrounds, and the covers are also laid out almost identically, with the titles and author names at the centers of the covers.

Somewhere in France a graphic designer has some explaining to do.