© 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

Twitter has launched its native photo-sharing feature, allowing Twitter users to post photographs to Twitter without using a third-party service such as TwitPic or yfrog.

Images of 3mb or less can now be posted to Twitter by clicking a camera icon in the bottom left of the status update window. The image will only appear as a thumbnail in Twitter feeds, but users can click on a particular tweet to see the photo enlarged on the right-hand side of the page.

The launch of the function is good news considering the once-popular TwitPic signed a deal in May to license users’ photographs without compensation through World Entertainment News Network, provoking the ire of many its users.

Still, photographers should be aware that Twitter’s terms of service still give them the right to use your content or let others use your content.

Here is the relevant verbiage:

“You retain your rights to any Content you submit, post or display on or through the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods  (now known or later developed).

“Tip: This license is you authorizing us to make your Tweets available to the rest of the world and to let others do the same.

“You agree that this license includes the right for Twitter to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals who partner with Twitter for the syndication, broadcast, distribution or publication of such Content on other media and services, subject to our terms and conditions for such Content use.”

Last year, photographer Daniel Morel sued AFP and Getty for unauthorized use of his images of the Haiti earthquake, which he uploaded to Twitpic. The defendants tried to argue that, according to the Twitter terms of service, whatever is posted on Twitter is free for the taking by anyone with access to Twitter. A federal judge rejected their argument as a misreading of Twitter’s terms of service. While those terms give Twitter and its “partners and affiliates” the right to use, copy, reproduce, publish and distribute content uploaded to Twitter, the judge noted that AFP, Getty and other defendants were merely users of the service.

Related story:
Daniel Morel Wins Pre-Trial Victory Against AFP, Getty

Police in Georgia arrested four photographers, including the personal photographer of Georgia’s president and a photojournalist with European Pressphoto Agency, during an early morning raid today, according to a statement from the Georgia Interior Ministry. The BBC reports that the ministry has accused the photographers of working against the interests of Georgia by supplying the special service of an unnamed country with information.

The four photographers are Irakli Gedenidze, photographer to President Mikheil Saakashvili; Georgian foreign ministry photographer Georgy Abdaladze; and Zurab Kurtsikidze of EPA. Gedenidze’s wife, Natia, was also arrested and is under investigation. Associated Press photographer Skakh Aivazov was also detained, but was released after several hours, AP reports.

Relatives of the photographers reported that they were arrested in their homes in the early morning by plainclothes officers who seized cameras, cellphones and computers, according to Reuters. Dozens of journalists rallied outside the Interior Ministry in Tbilisi to protest the detentions.

The photographers’ arrests came the same week several Georgians and some Russians were convicted in a Georgian court of spying for Russia, which fought a war with Georgia in 2008.  As the BBC notes, this is the first time journalists have been accused of spying.

Press photographer Maryam Majd has been detained in Iran’s Evin Prison, says a group of 32 Iranian photographers who have written and signed a petition demanding her release.

The petition says that, “Although the arrest of Maryam Majd has not been confirmed by the Iranian government’s official sources, the repeated illegal actions of the state-run media have caused serious concern about this young photographer’s current condition.”

According to the Los Angeles Times, Majd was preparing to leave Tehran to shoot the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup tournament when she disappeared without notice on June 16. Majd is one of the few Iranian photographers to document female sports and has long campaigned for the government to allow Iranian women to attend soccer matches.

The petition demands “that Maryam Majd is released unconditionally from prison,” and “that [she] is able to resume work in her profession.”

The photographers also urged the Iranian Photojournalist’s Association to “act according to its responsibilities to its members” and investigate the situation, as well as “to inform photojournalists about the consequences of their work.”

According to a post on a “Free Maryam Majd” Facebook page with close to 2,000 followers, Majd’s family has been to see her at Evin Prison and reports that “her physical condition is OK,” and that “She expressed her glumness for home and her friends and family.”

The International Press Institute reports that two other Iranian female journalists, Zahra Yazdani and documentarian Mahnaz Mohammadi, were arrested shortly after Majd.

—Kayla Epstein

Peter Parker, who was arguably the most famous newspaper photojournalist (albeit a fictional one) and superhero, has died. The final installment in the “Death of Spider-Man” comic book series went on sale June 22, Marvel Comic announced last week. (Speculation that Parker, Spider-Man’s alter ego, committed suicide after scathing reviews of his Broadway musical, “Spider-Man Turn Off The Dark,” are currently unfounded.)

Longtime fans of the web-slinger needn’t fear, though. The Spider-Man killed in this month’s Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #160 is a re-imagined version created in 2000 under Marvel Comics’ Ultimate Marvel imprint as part of an effort to appeal to a younger audience. One recent storyline involved Parker being fired from the Daily Bugle for doctoring photos.

While the Ultimate Marvel version was being published, the original Spider-Man was having his own adventures in several series that were published concurrently. The more seasoned Spider-Man, created in 1962 by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, will continue to grace his own monthly titles.

Somehow we knew the real Peter Parker would never Photoshop photos meant for publication.

A press photographer was shot in the leg during a second straight night of sectarian riots in Belfast, Northern Ireland, according to reports in the British press.

Three shots were fired during the riots on Tuesday night, one of them striking the photographer in the leg. The photographer is said to be in stable condition at a hospital. His name has not been released pending notification of his family.

The loyalist group UVF (Ulster Volunteer Force), which is supposed to be observing a cease fire, is believed to be stoking the violence in the Short Strand neighborhood—a small Catholic enclave in a largely Protestant section of Belfast. On Monday rioters attacked houses and shots were fired before police dispersed the crowds. The violence resumed Tuesday night and rioters attacked police forces with “petrol bombs, bricks, golf balls, laser pens and lumps of concrete amid the worst rioting in the area for 10 years,” according to the Daily Telegraph.

Catholic and Protestant leaders have blamed the other side for provoking the violence.

At this year’s LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph in Charlottesville, VA, artist LaToya Ruby Frazier made her intentions as an artist and activist clear in a powerful presentation of her work that combined diaristic snippets about her relationships with her grandmother and mother with stories about the community of Braddock, PA, where she was raised. Frazier’s reading, reminiscent of a prose poem, was intensely personal, heartfelt and, at times, forceful and defiant, drawing on the history of Braddock as a once-prosperous steel town, and on its current state where poverty, joblessness and pollution-related health issues plague the largely African-American population.

Frazier’s work has previously been included in high-profile group exhibitions such as the 2009 Triennial at The New Museum and a 2010 group exhibition at PS1 MoMA, and she has had solo and two-person shows at her gallery, Higher Pictures in New York, and elsewhere. The work she has presented thus far has been comprised primarily of self-portraits and portraits of her grandmother and mother, whom Frazier taught to photograph and considers a collaborator. Yet the full breadth of her work and her ambition for it has not been widely known, she says.

“Until I spoke today, I don’t think people were aware of what the work was about, because it’s complicated,” Frazier told PDN after her Master’s Talk. “Today was a huge breakthrough to be able to come here and talk to people.” (more…)

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?

A standing ovation for photographer/writer Ruth Gruber, who in her 19 books documented refugee crises and humanitarian issues, marked an emotional high point at the International Center of Photography’s Infinity Awards, held last night in New York City. Gruber, 99, won the Cornell Capa Award, named for ICP’s founder. She told the audience that Edward Steichen had told her to shoot with her heart. “I try to use these images to fight injustice and hopefully bring peace to the world,” she said.

Many of the awards underscored the ICP’s original mission as an institution devoted to supporting humanistic photography. In his opening remarks, ICP director Willis Hartshorn noted the increasing dangers facing photojournalists around the world. He expressed gratitude for the safe return of two past Infinity winners, Tyler Hicks and Lynsey Addario, who had been captured and detained in Libya this spring, and noted the deaths in Libya in April of Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros. He said their work was “a testament to their dedication to the spirit of ICP’s mission.”

In accepting the Lifetime Achievement award, Elliott Erwitt said, “The wonderful thing about being a freelance photographer is the opportunity to be in marvelous situations sequentially.” In the video that preceded his speech, he noted that Photoshop, while a powerful tool, has hurt photography’s credibility. In the video, Erwitt then donned a black wig, fake mustache and sunglasses, and adopted the persona of a pretentious art photographer who “adores Photoshop.” The art photographer’s advice to young photographers: “Photograph many famous people and print the pictures big. The bigger they are, the more artistic.”

The video, showing many of Erwitt’s amusing photos, brought laughs from the audience, but at the end of the video Erwitt said, without disguise, “I think there is sadness in many of my pictures. But humor and sadness are closely related.”

Adrees Latif,  a photographer for Reuters, won the Photojournalism award for his coverage of the floods in Pakistan. He thanked ICP for honoring images of “one of the worst humanitarian crises of our time.”

Abelardo Morrell, winner of the award for Art, showed his camera obscura images for which he is best-known, and also recent work he has done exploring the west, using a tent to create images that are cast on the ground. The Infinity Award for Publication was awarded to From Here to There: Alec Soth’s America, the catalogue of a Walker Art Center retrospective of Alec Soth’s career. Soth (“Rhymes with both,” the photographer said in the video shown before his speech, “it’s a lifelong problem”) said he became photographer because he is “a socially awkward person” who “wanted to work alone,” but over time he’s been drawn more and more into collaborations like the one he had with the Walker Art Center. “The truth is, I like it.”

Other awards given out were the Applied Photography award, given to fashion photographer Viviane Sassen; the Writing award, given to writer and curator Gerry Badger; and the ICP Trustee Award, given to the Durst family of real estate developers, who are also ICP’s landlords.

Among the photo industry people attending the Infinity Awards were photo editors Kira Pollack, Paul Moakley and Patrick Witty of Time; Michelle McNally of The New York Times and James Estrin of the Times’ Lens blog; New Yorker director of photography Whitney Johnson and her predecessor, Elisabeth Biondi; Jack van Antwerp of The Wall Street Journal; Chris Dougherty of People; David Friend, editor at Vanity Fair;  Stefano Tonchi, editor of W; Glenda Bailey, editor of Harper’s Bazaar; photographers David Burnett, Misha Erwitt, Ron Haviv, Rick Smolan, Susan Meiselas and Lynsey Addario who, having spent the last few weeks in New York accepting an Overseas Press Club award and giving interviews, was on her way home to New Delhi.


—Holly Stuart Hughes

Helene Cooper at the New York Times has a post today on The Caucus Blog that reports the White House is “leaning towards” releasing photographic evidence of Bin Laden’s killing.

“It looks like him, covered in blood, with a hole in his head,” an unnamed official told Cooper. There are reasons the White House wouldn’t release the photo, including their desire to honor Muslim law, which led to Bin Laden’s burial at sea, and concern that releasing the photograph might provoke Bin Laden’s followers, or perhaps even violate international law.

In her article Cooper notes that in addition to voices on the political right and conspiracy theorists, many ordinary Americans are interested in seeing the photo to provide “closure” to the September 11 attacks and their aftermath.

It’s interesting to consider, however, whether seeing will be believing. The ordinary citizens who believe Bin Laden is dead seem likely to accept a photograph as the final bit of proof.

But a photo, if released, may do little for conspiracy theorists and others who disbelieve the claim Ben Laden is dead, except of course touch off another round of debate and analysis centered on the image itself and its validity.

In an age where a fake photos of a dead Bin Laden were already picked up and circulated by news organizations, much to their embarrassment, it is certainly conceivable that a photo could be created and/or staged. It begs the question: can a photograph alone bear the burden of proof any longer, or will the public require testimony from imaging experts in order to accept the validity of the image? Will a photograph do anything to convince those who already question the US government’s claims?

UPDATE, 5/4/11, 3:15pm EST:

President Obama has decided not to release photographic evidence of Bin Laden’s death, saying in an interview with 60 Minutes, a transcript of which was read today at a White House press briefing, “we don’t trot this stuff out as trophies — that’s not who we are.” Though Obama appears to be positioning the decision as a moral and ethical choice by the government, the fact that a photograph would do little to prove Bin Laden’s killing to those who don’t believe it happened must have played a role, making the release of the photo a decision with more potential downside than upside.

When issued by a government, the decision suggests, photographic evidence isn’t worth much, except to those who would use it as—positive or negative—propaganda.