Copyright and 'Orphan Works' in Photography

Copyright in Photography.

The definitive term of what copyright is: The exclusive right to publish, perform, film or record literary, artistic or musical material. So this means that copyright gives the author of the work be it film, art, music or photography, the exclusive right of ownership on the works, so the only person who is allowed to copy or reproduce the works is the author.  So for example, when a photographer takes a photograph the copyright belongs to them, unless it is an image taken by an employee for an employer; being commissioned to take images for a newspaper, magazine or other projects where the photographer has been hired to do a job, then the copyright will belong to the employer unless stating otherwise in their contract. But if a photographer is taking the image for their own personal use that is not attached to a contract then all rights are reserved to the photographer. 

The reason there is such thing as copyright, is to protect the author/creator from having their work stolen and passed off as someone else’s - plagiarism. Copyright stops other people from copying and mass producing your own creative work and making money off it.

One of the recent debates with regards to copyright in photography is the recent law that was passed by parliament called ‘Orphan Works’ which are photographs that do not state who the image was taken by, so basically it means that if an image has been found on the internet for example and someone wants to use it but cannot contact the photographer who took the image because they may be deceased or there is no record or information leading to who the photographer is, so as long as a ‘diligent search’ has been carried out and there is still no information to who the photographer is, these images can be licensed for commercial and non-commercial use. 

According to a BBC news report on the matter of Orphan Works, it states that ‘However, in order to do so, the company in question would have to prove to an independent body that a "diligent search" to find and approach the copyright holder had taken place without success. If the body is satisfied there has been a sufficient search, it would then allow the company to pay a licence fee to use the material. From what I have gathered, the money that is paid by said company as the licensing fee is held by the independent body in case the copy rights holder comes forward or is found. Then that money would be paid to the rights holder.
              
I personally think that as a photographer any image I take should belong to me no matter what, if I have taken that image it belong to me and only me should I chose to sell it or mass produce it. I think the fact that a company can just own a body of work because they claim to not be able to trace the copyright holder after a ‘diligent search’ which the company’s probably don’t actually adhere to! 

I think it’s very unfair that companies can make money off this and only have to pay a simple licensing fee! If one of my images were to be used in such a way and I found out or was contacted eventually after the company gained full licensing to my image and all I was entitled to is the licensing fee but yet the company could have made  thousands or millions I would be so outraged. 

I don’t think this should be allowed as it just gives companies the chance to use and abuse peoples work, what about the people who have deceased and can’t speak for themselves beyond the grave? What if someone had their whole life’s work taken advantage of and the photographer didn’t ever want people to see it publicly because it was extremely personal to them? But then some company comes along and just steals this person’s work and makes money off it? It’s not fair in any way shape or form. It takes away from the creative mind behind the image and even the personal attachment. If the person was alive all they are entitled to is the licensing fee?? 

According to the Stop43.org.uk site, the person would have to discover that their image has been exploited, re-claim the parentage of the work and then claim a PORTION of the licensing fee – so they wouldn't even be entitled to the full licensing fee as well as any money the company made from using your image. I think this legislation is just a 'legal' form of thievery and is not fair to photographers who have had their work fall in to the categorisation of  Orphan Works.

www.stop43.org.uk

Please do feel free to leave your thoughts on this matter below.

Is Photography Art?

Is photography art?

I think the idea that photography is art is a matter of individual opinion. Many people will say that it is art and many people will say that it is not. These days there are many social mediums where you can take a picture on your mobile phone and add a creative filter and make it look nice and pretty, although they may look nice, I personally wouldn't class that as art because no actual thought or planning goes in to the composition of the photograph. 

            When you look at the oldest surviving photograph by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce which is dated around 1826, it doesn't look like much now but I think back then it would have been an amazing development, photography was still in the early stages of development back then and no one had figured out how to get the image to last, but when French artist Louis Daguerre and Joseph Nicéphore Niépce ( who is essentially the father of photography) teamed up and formulated the basis of getting an image to last permanently, as the methods they were currently using wasn't making the image last permanently.
         

   Eventually they were close to discovering a successful method but Niépce died in 1833 and Daguerre continued to develop the method and once he had perfected it he named it daguerreotype. The Daguerreotype was a very long process and since the early days many new methods of photography have been developed up to the most recent in digital photography. It’s safe to say it has come a long way since the 1800’s.
        

    I think when you look back at the earlier forms of photography it wasn’t so much art because it was a way for people to have a lasting image of their loved ones, if it wasn't for photography back then we wouldn’t know what our great, great grandparents might have looked like or what the landscapes looked like, earlier forms of photography was more of a record of history and wasn't being used in a creatively thought out way. I think there’s a difference between documentary photography and artistic photography.
    

        Documentary photography is powerful in its own right as it’s a record of human history, wars, politics, culture and so much more, when you look at the work of great photographers such as Henri Cartier Bresson and Dorothea Lange, their images are moving and inspirational because they capture real life in a beautiful way but I guess in their own way they are artistic because they had an eye for capturing a moment in history with the natural composition of their images. If you look at the image by Cartier Bresson – Kashmir, The 4 woman praying at dawn in Srinagar, the image does look as though it could have been a painting; it’s an amazing and inspirational photograph. The image by Dorothea Lange of the Migrant Mother is another powerful image, a painter couldn't have caught that kind of pain, suffering and emotion as a photograph could, and you can see it in the eyes, its natural real art.
        

    When an artist uses a real life model to paint, they aren't really capturing a person’s identity, the eyes usually look dead and emotionless, but when a good photographer captures a moment it says so much more than a painting ever could. There are photographers such as Andre Kertesz who I guess in a way redefined what photographic art was with his series of distortion images, the compositions of his images went against what ‘normal’ photography was and opened a door to what you can do with an image and how it is viewed.
        

    Of course there is an official genre of fine art photography. Which is inspired by great artists of time, you can see this in the works of photographers such as David Lachapelle who has said that his work is greatly inspired by the works of artists such as Michelangelo Merisi Da Caravaggio and Andrea Pozzo and the Baroque style in general. This shows greatly in his work as the compositions are thought out and planned in great detail and obviously staged using props, lighting techniques and background sets to create the final image. With the works of Ansel Adams, his landscape images look like a work of art, again they almost look like they could have been painted by an artist. It’s all in the composition and angles at which he’s taken the pictures. They remind me of dreams.
         

   In conclusion, in my own opinion I do think that photography is an art form. It takes a great eye to compose a photograph worthy of being called a piece of art. There is a big difference between photography and mobile snap shots. Again I do believe that it is open to a viewer’s own personal opinion on what they perceive as art and whether or not they see something artistic about a photograph and whether or not an image is saying something to them with regards to feeling and emotion. Over time photography has developed in to art from the methods we chose to compose the image and the final outcome. As beauty, art is in the eye of the beholder. You either relate to it or you don’t.

View from the Window at Le Gras, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce.

Kashmir – The 4 Women Praying At Srinagar, Henri Cartier Bresson

The Migrant Mother, Dorothea Lange

Distortion, Andre Kertesz

Cathedral, David Lachapelle

Half Dome, Merced River, Winter, Yosemite, Ansel Adams

Media, Politics and the Editors Decision

Media, Politics and the Editors Decision.

I personally tend not to read newspapers or watch the news anymore because as times gone on I’ve started to realise how much of the media is controlled and influenced by politics. It’s a case of either being left wing, with newspapers such as The Guardian, Daily Mirror and the Daily Star.  Then you have right wing newspapers such as, Daily Mail, The Telegraph and The Sun.

I came across a good and slightly humorous description of the newspapers and their targeted audience on yahoo answers:

 "The Times is read by the people who run the country.
The Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country.
The Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country.
The Morning Star is read by the people who think the country ought to be run by another country.
The Independent is read by people who don't know who runs the country but are sure they're doing it wrong.
The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the people who run the country.
The Financial Times is read by the people who own the country.
The Daily Express is read by the people who think the country ought to be run as it used to be run.
The Daily Telegraph is read by the people who still think it is their country.
The Sun's readers don't care who runs the country providing she has big ****.
The Sport is read by the people who think that Elvis is running the country from his secret lunar bunker assisted by a team of topless aliens. "

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20120715153441AA2mWT8

Of course depending on what type of paper it is and which audience its aimed at is always going to effect the content of the ‘news’ paper. To me it seems that most of these publications go out of their way to slander each other (left wing Vs right wing) and to prompt propaganda that is going to benefit them. Of course the editor’s decision has a huge part to play in this because they dictate what we see and what we don’t. I think this debate strongly links to the debate of truth in photography, because it is the editor’s final decision on what gets published.

I think a very strong example of how politics pretty much run and influence the media is when Rupert Murdoch started to take over British newspapers like, The Times/The Sunday Times, the Sun and News of the World, the content of the papers changed greatly. For instance, Don McCullin was one of the staff photographers who worked with The Times and the type of images he used to take was a true representation of what was going on in the world, his images were raw and extremely over whelming but still informative and raised awareness of the tragedy in the world. But when Murdoch took over he completely changed the image of the paper from being a serious and informative news publication to one that was filled with less important news and  celebrity gossip because he wanted the paper to be more light hearted.

Rupert Murdoch made a point to back politicians during election times if he thought they had a chance of winning, so he would purposefully help to promote them and to paint their opponent in a negative light, of course this is going to affect the voting public’s choice on who they end up voting for.  A prime example of this is that he had formed a very close relationship with Margaret Thatcher and during the 1992 general election he helped John Major to win the election by helping to promote him in his newspapers and slander the opposition. So I think it is safe to confirm how much of an effect politicians have on the media and news, they just use it as a tool for gaining power and for controlling what the general public sees.

With regards to politics and the media, a good example of this is of Kim Jong Un, the political leader of North Korea, when his uncle Jang Song-Taek fell out of favour with the leader, Kim Jong Un had him photo-shopped out of many images in papers and a documentary that had already aired on TV in North Korea, which was re-aired with the updated version without Song-Taek in, not long after Kim Jong Un had his uncle executed and supposedly fed to 120 dogs! Again this shows how much power Politian’s have over the media where they can just cover things up and control what the public are allowed to see and aren’t! I mean surely politicians shouldn’t have the right to be able to have images edited that have already been released?

My conclusion on media, politics and the editor’s decision is that in this day and age, we have to really look for the truth because it’s not going to be in the newspapers on sale in shops anymore. The day has gone where the things we read about what was going on in the world wasn’t so hugely influenced by politicians and the easily swayed editors in charge of publications. Even the images we see can’t be trusted much because they literally have the power and authority to sensor certain imagery as well edit. I think their main agenda is to manipulate what we see and read to further their propaganda for power, money and their ‘right’ to involve their selves in other countries affairs which in fact usually leads to war till they get what they want. 

How do we know what's real anymore?

The Truth in Photography & Digital Manipulation debate:

Robert Capa: The Falling Soldier.

When looking at an image one often wonders if what they are looking at is real or whether it has been staged or manipulated in any way, especially in today’s time of technology. One of the most famous pictures in debate, taken by Robert Capa titled ‘The Falling Soldier’ during his document of the Spanish Civil War in September 1936, has been the centre of much speculation that it was in fact staged rather than an actual man being shot dead by an enemy sniper.

The main arguments about this image are that it wasn’t actually taken in Cerro Muriano like Capa had said, but in fact taken in a town 35 miles away called Espejo, Capa is said to of passed through the town early in September 1936 and during that time not a single gun-shot had been fired during the beginning of the conflict, so the soldier would not have been shot by the enemy. It has been speculated that the image and the others in the series he did on the Spanish Civil War are all staged. People have suggested that maybe the soldiers he was photographing were not in the ‘heat of battle’ but instead during an exercise where Capa shot the images and got them to stage it all as if in battle.

After reading two news articles on the subject one that discussed the image in a negative light – bent on trying to prove whether the image was fake or real, then another article that discussed the image in a positive light with appreciation and looked at it for what it is – a single image that is now iconic rather than a visual document.

The first article was from the New York Times website from back in August 2009. The article was very well presented with a lot of information and research to back up the theory of the image by Capa being faked.

The second article was from LIFE.com, the image was originally used for a LIFE magazine article in June 1937 on page 19 with the bold caption ‘ROBERT CAPA’S CAMERA CATCHES A SPANISH SOLDIER THE INSTANT HE IS DROPPED BY A BULLET THROUGH THE HEAD IN FRONT OF CORDOBA.’ In the article with regards to the debate of whether or not the image was in fact real or faked, LIFE.com’s argument was that the image is just an image and pretty much that we shouldn’t think too much about it. Maybe that’s because they were the publication that released the image so they are trying to save the ‘integrity’ of the magazine perhaps and that’s why they are defending it?

But maybe the reason that Capa submitted the image was just to keep to his assignment and give the magazine what they wanted? In my opinion I do believe that the image could have been faked but more for reasons that the photographer was trying to keep to his assignment brief.

When I look at an image I do wonder a lot these days If what I am looking at is real or modified, a lot of magazines and newspapers make you see what they want you to see, a photographer can take an image and very easily change it in any photo editing software programme, they can remove people out of a picture or they can add people in to a picture, so it does often make you question if you are looking at a real image or a fake one. I can understand that image manipulation may be necessary in some situations but not all. When a photograph has been changed I believe it is no longer a photograph because it’s not genuinely portraying the truth because that didn’t happen… In the case of ‘The Falling Soldier’ image I don’t believe this is the case because it shows a man falling over, the lie is that the information provided alongside the image in the article was false.

Newspapers often use digitally manipulated images alongside their articles; I came across a link on google from The Telegraph’s website of some famous images that have been digitally manipulated.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/8982502/Digitally-altered-images-famous-pictures-that-have-been-manipulated-using-Photoshop.html?image=8

I think it is wrong when a person gets photo-shopped in to a picture that wasn’t actually there if its representing a serious news article, its presenting a false account of what happened and is basically a lie. So it does make you think about any photos you see in the news and whether or not it’s a real image. It means that they could make up a story and manipulate an image to go with it. I personally think that images in newspapers and magazines should not be allowed to be photo-shopped purely for the reason of fake stories being told and then people believing it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/9002709/Kremlin-activists-caught-red-handed-in-Photoshop-smear.html

The Moral, Ethical Self and The Full Frame

The Moral, Ethical Self and The Full Frame

A large majority of photos taken for newspapers exploit tragedies in to today’s age, photographers probably get paid a lot more for an image that is over whelming and full of tragedy. It makes you question the photographer’s morals and ethical beliefs for a sum of money.

It is understandable that if we as the public did not see these kinds of images we would not actually know what is going on in the world and wouldn’t believe the severity of situations in other countries (giving that video didn’t exist). We would have to go by the description of newspaper stories and probably artist’s drawings and paintings, like how they did many years ago before photography came about. I don’t think that it would raise as much awareness because a story with description would not be as hard hitting as an image that can say more than words. The only ethical reason for taking such photos of tragedy, starvation and war would be for the photographer wanting to raise awareness of what is going on in the world, the unethical thoughts behind it would be many photographers taking the same picture and gathering around like a wake of vultures preying on their next meal.

A good example of how ethics and morals come in to play (or DON’T come in to play) when taking a photograph, is an image that was taken of a young 15 year old girl called Fabienne Cherisma, who had been shot dead by police for stealing, the first image is taken by photographer Paul Hanson, who said about the image, that his reason for taking the photograph was “For me, Fabienne’s death and her story is a poignant reminder of the need for a society to have basic security – with or without a disaster.” I can understand from a viewing perspective that it is important to see images like this in order to raise awareness of wrong doings in the world and to make people question why humans behave in this way and do such horrible things to one another.

The next image makes you think about the bigger picture and the full frame as well as the ethical decisions of the photographers taking the photos.  This image was taken by Nathan Webber, of the photographers gathered around poor Fabienne’s body snapping pictures to report back to the masses.

I think this image is a very good example of tragedies being exploited for the purpose of being able to sell a few newspapers and getting paid. It shows the full frame and really makes you think about when an image is taken and what’s actually going on outside the frame of the shot. I think this shot greatly violates the human rights of the girl because they are gathered around like vultures taking pictures of her lifeless body, I don’t think that when they were stood there taking these pictures, were any of them thinking, ‘if this was my child I wouldn’t want a load of photographers gathered around exploiting the death of my baby just to sell some papers or win an award’

I can understand that with regards to shooting an image, a photojournalist is going to shoot images of something that fits their brief for the assignment they are on and they aren’t going shoot images with loads of things that distract from the main subject. So this will always effect what the photographer is shooting as well as what we are seeing, we can’t always see the full frame because of course, that’s not what sells images and newspapers.

Whist researching I came across another debate on the ethics and morals in photography, the news publication The New York Post had put on the front cover ‘DOOMED: Pushed on the track, this man is about to die'. The photographer R Umar Abbassi snapped the photograph of the victim as he had been pushed on to the subway track instead of helping the man as a train was coming towards him, he snapped a picture instead claiming that he was attempting to get the train drivers attention with the flash from his camera, he claimed he was too far away to help the man and unfortunately the oncoming train took the man’s life.

To me this image shows that the photographer had enough time to frame the picture up so that he got only the train and the man struggling to pull himself up in the shot. If he really was just trying to get the attention of the driver of the train then the image would not have been so well framed, the shot would have been all over the place and probably showing other people standing on the side lines, but yet the shot is in focus and is well framed to show the train and the man.

I think this really crosses the line in what is ethically and morally correct. The man could have easily saved or helped the man stuck on the train line, instead he chose to take a photo, frame it up accordingly and then sell the image to the New York Post, also the NYP are equally as to blame for exploiting the tragedy with the way they presented the image on the front cover with the headline caption. It makes me think about what drives us as humans to feel the need to exploit such tragedies all just so that a newspaper publication can sell some new papers and for the photographer to make a quick buck. Not only has this image sparked a big debate on the unethical decision of the photographer for taking the picture but also for the way that the newspaper has presented it – in such a cold and disrespectful way. Again no thought was given to how the poor victim’s family would have felt about this. There is a big difference between trying to raise awareness of tragic events around the world and people just flat out exploiting other peoples misfortunes and trauma.