Welcome to episode 27 of The Circle of Confusion, the professional photography podcast.
This week, Neil, Peter and Roger cannot stop laughing.
Facebook buys Instagram for “One billion dollars!”. French professional photographers defend their copyright. A US photographer sues shoemaker Skechers for copyright infringement and demands a quarter of “an Instagram” in damages. And a print collector sues photographer William Eggleston for printing too many photographs.
There’s also a chance for you to win a great prize – a Vanguard Skyborne 51.
And last, but certainly not least, we have an entire segment that we couldn’t include in episode 2 of Dynamic Range here for you for free on the blog.
To hear episode 27 hit the play button below. And don’t forget that you can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes.
F in Instagram – $1bn
Facebook is notorious for claiming ownership of anything its members put on up on their Facebook pages. In the past, a couple of sneaky attempts at rights grabs by the company have caused a bit of a stink. Now that it has spent a vast amount of money on Instagram, the photo sharing app, it will be interesting to see whether it tries to do the same to Instagram users. Or will it kill Instagram altogether? We discuss the acquisition and look at the reasons given by some industry commentators.
Sketchy Skechy – $250,000,000
US photographer Richard Reinsdorf has taken Skechers to court for infringing his copyright. The best place to read commentary on this case is over at Rob Haggart’s excellent A Photo Editor blog. We discuss the case and outline Skechers shaky defence that it was co-creator of the photographs in question.
William Eggleston – $ALotLessThanBefore
Collector Jonathan Sobel is suing photographer William Eggleston after the latter recently sold new prints of photographs that had previously been marketed as limited editions. According to Sobel, the release of new prints has devalued his work. There is a great interview with him on the PDN site: Art Collector Jonathan Sobel Explains His Beef with William Eggleston. Neil and Peter debate the wrongs and rights of the case, as well as the folly of issuing limited editions to begin with.
(French) photographers’ rights – $0
The Union des Photographes Professionnels – Auteurs is campaigning for photographers’ rights in an eye-catching, and some would say eye-watering, way with this photograph:
This is what life is like for many professional photographers, according to the UPP in France
Prize
Bag maker Vanguard gave us one of its Skyborne 51 backpacks to review as part of a group test in the show, and we have that bag to give away. Despite the pummeling it got during the test, it is in almost mint condition and Vanguard has said we can either keep it or use it as a prize. So guess what? We’re keeping it using it as a prize.
All you need to do to be in with a chance of winning it is to purchase a copy of either episode 1 or episode 2 of Dynamic Range between 5th April 2012 and 31st May 2012. Your name will go into the hat and we’ll announce the winner on 7th June in the podcast.
It’s a great prize and we’d like to thank Vanguard for its generosity.
Correspondents
We’re looking for half a dozen or so correspondents dotted around the globe to help us expand the podcast’s information base. If you’d like to help us out, drop us a line and we can arrange a Skype call to chat to you about becoming one.
We’re really pleased to announce that Tom Waugh, a long-time listener based in Switzerland, is the first to join us. Tom has a great blog called Waugh Stories, so why not check him out? He’s at a very interesting point in his career as a professional photographer.
Our correspondents will start contributing to the show in a month or so, and Tom will be one of the first you’ll hear from.
Again, if you’d like to be involved, just drop us a line at mailbag@circleofconfusion.ie.
FREE SEGMENT FROM DYNAMIC RANGE EPISODE 2
We produced an abundance of great content for episode 2 of Dynamic Range. We can’t possibly include it all in the release next week, so we’ve decided to give you an entire segment for free here. It’s offered in full HD, and will play automatically at that resolution in full screen mode. If your broadband connection is having trouble with that, click the little gear icon near the bottom right of the player to choose a lower res.
If you like it, why not buy the full episode? It’s available for pre-order here: Dynamic Range Episode 2.
What do you think?
As ever, we’d love to hear your views and get your feedback.
Disagree, agree or have a completely different take on what we’ve discussed? Please get in touch by leaving a comment or emailing us at mailbag@circleofconfusion.ie.
Also, if you see or know something you think we’d be interested in discussing on the blog, we’d love to hear from you too.
Lastly, if you’d like to put yourself forward as a correspondent (we’re especially keen to hear from female photographers to help balance our pool of photographers worldwide), then you know what to do.
Blatant plug for our wares
Don’t forget, you can purchase the first episode of our landscape photography video series Dynamic Range for just €9.95, and as a bonus, the pilot episode is just €4.95! You’ll receive the download link via email as soon as you’ve completed the purchase.
