In the 1970s, Stephen Shore, then a young photographer with one museum show to his credit, had dinner with Ansel Adams, the legendary landscape photographer. In the course of their conversation, Shore realized that he had no interest in taking beautiful pictures,  but only in “exploring the medium of photography.” During his keynote speech on the first day of PhotoPlus Expo, Shore shared roughly four decades of work exploring what a photo is, how a photographer creates a photographic image, and how the two dimensional picture plane conveys so much, including an illusion of three dimensional space, a reference to a place and a time, a wealth of cultural and historical references, and more.

One of Shore’s earliest encounters with photography came when he was eight years old and an uncle, seeing how much Shore enjoyed his darkroom kit, gave him a copy of Walker Evans’ American Photographs. “To say I was influenced by Walker Evans misses the point,” Shore said. “I feel a spiritual kinship with him.” Many of Evans’ interests, including his documentation of American culture and architecture, and his fascination with vernacular imagery, have also preoccupied Shore throughout his career. Shore noted that Evans’ work is a “paradigm” in the original, scientific sense of the word: unprecedented, but also open ended, allowing others to follow and continue the path the originator of the paradigm has forged.

The images Shore exhibited in his first show in 1971, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, were highly conceptual, and inspired by the work of Ed Ruscha. At the same time, however, Shore was fascinated by vernacular images, and with two friends, he mounted an exhibit made up of police photos, press photos, pornography confiscated by a police officer in Amarillo, Texas, and postcards.

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A photographer recently tipped us off about a Chinese Web site that is publishing the work of photographers without their knowledge or permission. The site is branded as if it were produced by Leica, but according to a Leica representative they have nothing to do with it. “Leica Camera always respects the rights of artists and does not support the unapproved publication of artwork,” a Leica spokesperson told PDN via email.

Leica did not, however, comment on whether they would pursue legal action to have the site taken down.

An Austrian store that apparently sells Leica cameras and photographic prints is the site’s only sponsor.

A few of the photographers whose work is used on the site are: Phillip Toledano, Steve McCurry, Marcus Bleasdale, Annie Marie Musselman, Robbie Cooper, Kosuke Okahara, Dominic Nahr and Michal Chelbin.

The site is also marketing an app, downloadable for free through the Apple iTunes App Store. When you open the app a grid of famous photographs, including Annie Leibovitz’s image of Yoko Ono and a naked John Lennon, appear on the screen.

Work by Stephen Shore, Lynn Goldsmith, Jonas Bendiksen, Erika Larsen, Sebastião Salgado and others appear in the “A Pic a Day” section of the app. In the app’s “Magazine” section, entire photo essays appear, many of them current. For instance, Sebastian Liste’s 2010 Ian Parry Scholarship-winning essay on homeless families inhabiting an abandoned chocolate factory in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, appears.

Photographers we’ve spoken with had no idea this Web site existed and was using their work, nor were they aware of the app, and we’re assuming that none of the photographers whose work is being used gave permission.

Does your work appear on the site?