Two months after she settled a copyright suit brought by photographer David LaChapelle, pop singer Rihanna once again has the blogosphere in an uproar. Recently, a LiveJournal blog posted screenshots from her new video, “You Da One,” alongside images by photographer Sølve Sundsbø. The scenes from the video show Rihanna in a bowl-cut wig wearing what appears to be a nude bodysuit with the shadows of various shapes projected on to her body. The shots are remarkably similar to editorial work Sundsbø has done, which Fashionista reported appeared in a 2008 issue of Numero magazine. Neither Rihanna nor Sundsbø, who is represented by Art+Commerce, have released statements regarding these latest accusations.

Earlier this year, Rihanna was sued by LaChapelle for copyright infringement, who claimed scenes from her video “S&M” borrowed heavily from various sadomasochistic images he’s made. The two reached an out-of-court settlement agreement, the terms of which were not disclosed.

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© Shikhei Goh

A close-up photograph of a dragonfly weathering a rain storm in Indonesia’s Riau Islands earned photographer Shikhei Goh the $10,000 grand prize in the 2011 National Geographic Photography Contest.

In a statement, National Geographic magazine photographer Tim Laman, who was one of three judges for the competition, celebrated the photograph’s “beautiful light, rare action in a close-up image, as well as its technical perfection.” Goh’s photograph also won first prize in the “Nature” category.

A photograph by Izabelle Nordfjell of a Sami reindeer hunter preparing to take a shot while his son covers his ears won first prize in the “People” category, while George Tapan’s image of
a rainbow stretching out over the ocean off of the Philippines’ Onuk Island received first prize in the “Places” category.

These photographs were selected from more than 20,000 images submitted by professional and amateur photographers from more than 130 countries.

Galleries of the winning images and honorable mentions are online here.

The other judges were National Geographic magazine photographers Amy Toensing, and Peter Essick.

Over on PDNOnline we’ve gathered together the biggest photography news stories of 2011, a year marked infringements on the rights of photographers, by sticky legal cases whose results will be felt long into the future, and by tragedy. The 15 stories we highlighted were the most-read news articles and blog posts on PDNOnline and PDN Pulse this year.

Which of these stories do you think was the most important news story of the year? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter has named Judith Puckett-Rinella as Photography Director of the magazine, effective January 3, publisher Conde Nast announced this morning. Puckett-Rinella replaces Susan White, who left the magazine several months ago to become executive director of licensing for Trunk Archive.

Carter praised Puckett-Rinella in a statement issued by Conde Nast for for having “the right combination of experience in photojournalism and classic portraiture” and he added, “besides that,  she’s just a fabulous human being.”

Puckett-Rinella joins Vanity Fair from the The New York Times Style Magazine, where she has been a senior photography editor since 2005. Last spring, she told PDN in an interview how she sources photography. For more information, see People on the Move.

Related story: Client Q&A: T Magazine‘s Judith Puckett-Rinella

The Photographer’s Advisory Board for National Geographic magazine has launched a new Web site to showcase the work of National Geographic photographers. Membership in the group, dubbed “The Photo Society,” is limited to photographers who’ve published at least one feature story in the magazine.

The purpose of the group and their Web site is to promote the work of the photographers, and to inform the public about their work. It also appears the site is meant to help would-be (or wannabe) National Geographic photographers understand what it takes to work for the magazine.

“Explaining the diversity and composition of this group is the easiest way to answer the question, ‘How do I become a National Geographic photographer?’” writes photographer Randy Olson on the site. “‘It is not easy or glamorous,” he explains, “And this is not where you begin your career. You are competing with world-class documentary photographers and within that genre there are men and women who are the absolute best at their specialty.’”

Check out The Photo Society site here: http://thephotosociety.org/

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), a non-governmental group that deals with “complaints about advertising” in the U.K., banned a Miu Miu fashion ad shot by Bruce Weber because they found it to be “irresponsible and in breach of the Code in showing a child in a hazardous or dangerous situation.” The child in question is 14-year-old American actress Hailee Steinfeld, the breakout star of last year’s True Grit.

The ad shows Steinfeld donning 1940s-inspired Miu Miu clothing while sitting on abandoned railroad tracks. The ASA accepted parent company Prada’s explanation that the setting was meant to depict an actress on a movie set, relaxing between takes and rubbing her eye nonchalantly, rather than to suggest the young girl is upset and contemplating suicide. The ASA also acknowledged that the ad was geared toward a mature audience since it was published in Tatler magazine, whose readership is for the most part adult. However, the ASA still found the ad to be troublesome since Steinfeld is shown in a “potentially hazardous situation” and noted the “ad must not appear again in its current form.”

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There’s no better argument for eschewing a buyout or work-for-hire contract, than Michael Grecco’s real-world example of how he earned more than $140,000 in licensing fees over an eight-year period from one advertising client. Because the contract had a set licensing period, every time the client wanted to use the images after the license expired, Grecco had to be paid again. John Harrington, Grecco’s partner for the 2011 PhotoPlus Expo seminar Licensing: Putting Money Back in Your Pocket, presented a similar case study to demonstrate how he earned $940 from an editorial client who wanted to use additional takes from a cover shoot for two sister publications not included in the license.

Of course, none of these fees would have been possible if their licensing agreements, which should always include the terms of usage (length of time, type of medium, region, etc) and exclusivity, were not clearly defined. Harrington is a big proponent of PLUS (Picture Licensing Universal System), a non-profit organization with the goal “to simplify and facilitate the communication and management of image rights.” On its site, UsePLUS.com, there is a License Generator tool that allows users to create a license based on the criteria entered. The trade organization American Photographic Artists also has licensing information on its site, APANational.com, or you can work with an intellectual property attorney who specializes in artists’ rights. Grecco also mentioned the importance of obtaining model releases and keeping them on file, especially if you plan on selling images commercially.

An important component of licensing is copyright protection, which Grecco and Harrington also discussed. Though as the photographer you technically own the copyright of an image at the click of the camera’s shutter (unless you’re doing work-for-hire or you’ve ceded the rights of the image), actually registering the photo at the U.S. Copyright Office will make prosecuting an infringement case much easier—a lesson Grecco learned the hard way when his photos were infringed: once when a derivative work was created and another time when a work was reprinted, both without his permission.

Grecco briefly touched on his system for registering his images with the Copyright Office, which he does en masse while the photos are still unpublished (once they’ve been published they must be registered individually): He fills out the necessary forms at Copyright.gov; creates CDs or DVDs with the files, organizing them using Print Window for Mac software; and sends the discs via a shipper that provides proof of receipt, such as FedEx or UPS. This last part is particularly important since the copyright goes into effect on the date it’s submitted, which means the date it’s received by the U.S. Copyright Office.

Though the licensing process seems onerous, it’s worth the extra work; both Grecco and Harrington use their knowledge of copyright and licensing to negotiate better fees from clients. And making extra money on photographs you’ve already taken, that’s just a smarter way to do business.

Aiming to shed some light on how photography mavens find innovative work, W.M. Hunt moderated the seminar Your Picture is Fabulous: The Tastemakers and Why We Look at What We Do during the 2011 PhotoPlus Expo. The panel featured a gallery owner (Yossi Milo of Yossi Milo Gallery), a magazine photo editor (Caroline Wolff of W) and an agency director (Kelly Penford of Jed Root)—in other words, a wide array of influential people every photographer dreams of impressing.

Though it’s not easy to articulate what makes a photograph cutting-edge, Hunt, a photo collector and former gallery director, noted that he needed to be excited by the work and told the story of traveling to Paris to see photojournalist Luc Delahaye’s Taliban Soldier, a large-scale image of a Taliban fighter lying dead in the dirt. Though Vanity Fair and The New Yorker both passed on the photo (American Photo ended up publishing it) when he returned to the U.S., Hunt was able to sell the image to a collector for $15,000—using just the color Xerox of the print—proving he had indeed discovered something new. Milo seconded Hunt’s sentiments, saying he wants to be blown away by a work and cited the example of Kohei Yoshiyuki’s series “The Park,” which not only excited him, but also had an amazing concept he was intrigued by.

Yet Hunt readily admitted that it’s hard to be fresh and pressed the panelists to find out what is trending now. In a word: technology. Milo said he’s been looking to younger photographers and is currently captivated by innovations in the picture-making process. An example is Matthew Brandt’s series “Lakes and Reservoirs,” in which he develops the photographs using water from the lake or reservoir featured in the photo. Wolff explained that she recently commissioned on online video from Santiago & Mauricio in which still images contained moving droplets of water, while Penford added that digital is the only acceptable method for his clients, who expect to see instantaneous results.

So how do you get your work in front of a tastemaker? Wolff said she reads a variety of magazines and newspapers, and used the examples of a few up-and-coming photographers she’s either commissioned or is keeping tabs on: She discovered Santiago & Mauricio through their submission in W’s Fashion on Film series; Chadwick Tyler was featured on the cover of Grey magazine; and Elle Muliarchyk’s “Dressing Room” series was published in The New York Times Magazine.

Penford said he looks at everything and anything, but emphasized the power of photo blogs. His agency currently represents Scott Schuman whose blog The Sartorialist receives millions of visitors each month, the popularity of which lead to new assignments, and recently signed Bill Gentle largely due to the photos on his blog Backyard Bill. Milo said he also reads a lot, both print and online, as well as travels and goes to shows. However, he tends to track photographers and follow them for a couple years to see how their style evolves before contacting them.

The moral of the seminar? Though there’s no way to guarantee your work will be deemed worthwhile by influential people in the industry, one thing that’s for sure is that it has to be out there in order to get noticed in the first place. Start a blog, enter a contest, send an introductory e-mail—do whatever you can to get your photographs seen by the right people.

In our feature “Does Editorial Post-Production Cost Too Much?” which appears in the November issue of PDN, photographers, retouchers and photo editors weighed in. They offered their experiences about both how much photographers and retouchers charge editorial clients, but how they explain their fees to clients.

“One of our biggest challenges is that the fees vary so greatly between photos,” Wired photo editor Zana Woods told PDN.

Kathy Ryan, the director of photography at The New York Times Magazine says she’s seen photographers asking for as much as $1000 per image.

Photographer Jeff Minton, who does most retouching himself, says he charges editorial clients a flat $75-$100 per image, depending on the work they want done, which is comparable to the price he once charged for custom color prints.

Retoucher Angie Hayes says some magazines at Condé Nast simply stick to a standard per-image fee of $350 for an inside photo, and $600 for a cover. Andi Kounath, owner and retoucher at redfishblack in New York, says small magazines “never pay for retouching.”

So, what do you charge for retouching? And do you think photo editors have a reasonable expectation of the costs of producing and delivering print-ready images? Do you incorporate retouching into your photo fee, or is it a separate line item? How do you calculate what post-production costs you? Is it reasonable for photographers to mark-up the cost of retouching when they hire freelancers? Are you losing money on retouching because editors don’t have the budget to cover the costs?

Please enter your comment below or in the Facebook discussion here.

© Jody Rogac. A recent entry on Jody Rogac's Tumblr.

Photographers have used micro-blogging site Tumblr as a tool to share their work with audiences online, many of them building followings that number in the thousands and even tens of thousands. (For more on how photographers are using Tumblr see our October feature, “Why Photographers Love Tumblr.”)

But photographers also use the site to follow other shooters, keeping up with what their peers are doing and passing along work they like or admire.

JUCO, the photography team of Julia Galdo and Cody Cloud, keep up with other photographers like Noah Kalina, with whom they share a rep, Chris McPherson, Elizabeth Weinberg, Ryan Schude, Dan Busta and the duo Day 19. (Kalina also published a list of photographers who have Tumblr pages, which is useful for people who are new to the site or want to find new people to follow.)

Ryan Pfluger follows Daniel Shea, Tony Katai, Christopher Schreck, Alexi Hobbs, and a Tumblr called “Mull it Over,” run by Jonathan Cherry, which features Q&A’s with new photographers once a week.

Alec Soth, who used Tumblr for a Magnum project earlier this year, says he recently “confessed” to an intern that he likes Terry Richardson’s Diary on Tumblr.

“In my Google reader, there’s a thousand unread things, and I find myself clicking on [Richardson’s Tumblr] repeatedly for guilty pleasure or whatever it is,” Soth says. “But there is a sense that I’ve followed him, I’m along on the ride, and I guess I’m hungry to experience that with other types of photographers as well.”

In addition to following professional photography peers like Emiliano Granado and Jessica Eaton, and an aspiring professional named Megan McIsaac, Jody Rogac follows current and potential clients like the New York Times T Magazine, Rolling Stone and Dazed & Confused to keep up with what they’re doing.

Sacha Lecca, a Rolling Stone photo editor who also posts his own images to Tumblr, says he generally follows photographers who he’s worked with, met or is familiar with. But through Tumblr’s “reblogging” function, where users share the work of others on their own Tumblr page, he can often “find out about someone I didn’t know.”

Related: Why Photographers Love Tumblr