News in brief: Flickr re-confirm user rights

After TwitPic’s recent brush with licence grabbing, a few other photo sites have gone under the loupe – and Flickr decided to post their response to the issue in their most recent blog post.

‘There has been some discussion on the web as of late about image ownership on photo sites so we wanted to take a moment to address this on Flickr,’ the blog post notes drily.

In their official statement, Flickr say that they ‘feel very strongly that sharing online shouldn’t mean giving up rights to your photos,’ and continue to confirm that their terms of service only includes a licence required by Flickr to operate its service – specifically, it ‘grants Flickr the right to (…) create the small, medium, and large sizes, display your photos on the site, etc. It doesn’t mean that we own them. When you upload your photos to Flickr, you retain the rights to your images.’

That’s the spirit, Flickr. Well done.

There’s more on the official Flickr blog.

What is this? - In our NewsFlash section, we share interesting tidbits of news. Think of it as our extended twitter feed: When we find something that get our little hearts racing, we'll share it with you right here! Loving it? Great, we've got lots more News Flash articles - and, of course, we're still on Twitter as well, for even shorter news tidbits.

News in brief: It’s all about the final result

I stumbled across a lovely article by ctein on The Online Photographer, where he talks in great detail about a rather bloody fantastic image.

“Making that photograph was a significant challenge”, he writes, and explains how he managed to push the boundaries of what was physically possible in photography, in order to to capture a picture of a space shuttle back in 1975.

In all the hard work he did to get the photo, he learned a brutal lesson… the story of which is definitely worth a closer read…

What is this? - In our NewsFlash section, we share interesting tidbits of news. Think of it as our extended twitter feed: When we find something that get our little hearts racing, we'll share it with you right here! Loving it? Great, we've got lots more News Flash articles - and, of course, we're still on Twitter as well, for even shorter news tidbits.

News in brief: Street photography and approval

Just stumbled across a great article by Kirk, about approval, tacit approval, implied approval and how it all applies to street photography.

The article discusses basic law in the US, what you’re able to do (and not to do!), along with a great discussion about the what, hows, and wherefores.

One part that particularly rang true with me was the following:

Sometimes I’ll see something I like and I will try to make eye contact with the person if I am too far away to speak to them. Doesn’t happen often because I’m most likely to be using lenses shorter than 85mm and that puts me close enough to be sociable. The deal I make with myself and the rest of society is this: If I’m part of society I need to understand that there are some unspoken rules that we all (to some extent) share. One of those is to respect a person’s sense of security and safety. Another is to respect a person’s circle of comfort and finally a respect for a person’s ability to control their own public image. I may have the right to do something or take a photograph of someone but that doesn’t give me the ethical or moral strength to create unpleasant situations for the subjects.

The rest of the article is well worth a read as well – Read the full story on the Visual Science Lab.

What is this? - In our NewsFlash section, we share interesting tidbits of news. Think of it as our extended twitter feed: When we find something that get our little hearts racing, we'll share it with you right here! Loving it? Great, we've got lots more News Flash articles - and, of course, we're still on Twitter as well, for even shorter news tidbits.

Meeting mr. Ray

12 meters under the ocean, in a ton of Scuba gear. My Canon Powershot S95 is loaded into the underwater housing I reviewed a while back. We've only just come down the mooring line at Koh Bon, just off the coast of Thailand, in the Andaman sea.

Suddenly, one of the divers in my group shouts. I laugh - someone shouting under water does work, but it's not a very useful way of communicating. When I'm laughing, my mask gets water in it, and I clear it from my dive mask, whilst looking in the direction the diver is pointing.

Out of the blue, I can see an enormous animal. Three meters across, easily. It's a Manta Ray, and it is coming toward us. Slowly. Gracefully.

What can I say. Wildlife photography is one thing. Wildlife photography in the ocean, where animals either don't know or don't care what you are, is something different altogether.

One things is for sure - it's a dive I'll remember the rest of my life.

---

Do you enjoy a smattering of random photography links? Well, squire, I welcome thee to join me on Twitter - Follow @Photocritic

© Kamps Consulting Ltd. This article is licenced for use on Pixiq only. Please do not reproduce wholly or in part without a license. More info.

Leica (not) in bed with Apple

So the internet has been a-twitter about the Black Design Associates concept which marries a Leica M9 with an Apple iPhone, creating the Leica I9 concept. The idea is that you’d use Leica optics and sensors, but your iPhone to control the camera.

It’s a pretty nifty idea, although chances of Leica going for anything like this are beyond slim – Leica tend to make cameras for the ages, and Apple aren’t known for their open standards: Nobody knows whether the iPhone 5 will have a shape (or connector) anything similar to the iPhone 4. Besides, it’s not like Leica to interface with anything.

Having said that, I do hope that someone, somewhere, decides to make one of these cameras – the screen on the iPhone 4 is legendary, and slotting it into a dozen-megapixel camera with some decent optics would be hellatasty indeed. Something for Panasonic, perhaps? Do it!

More info on Engadget!

News in brief: Cities, Time lapsed

It can be no secret that the crew here at Small Aperture are big fans of Timelapse photography… so when Dominic Boudreault created one of the finest examples we’ve seen in a long time, we decided we just had to share it with you!

Turn up those speakers, set your screen to Full HD, sit back, and gawp at this…

Timelapse – The City Limits from Dominic on Vimeo.

In his own words: ‘I shot this timelapse montage from late 2010 through early 2011, it’s one year in the making, and my goal was to show the duality between city and nature.’

What is this? - In our NewsFlash section, we share interesting tidbits of news. Think of it as our extended twitter feed: When we find something that get our little hearts racing, we'll share it with you right here! Loving it? Great, we've got lots more News Flash articles - and, of course, we're still on Twitter as well, for even shorter news tidbits.

News in brief: The itty-bitty medical camera

Having cameras shoved in various parts of your anatomy isn’t exactly a pleasant experience, so the smaller the things, the better. I’m thinking that a 0.99mm diameter camera, with a 0.66 x 0.66mm CMOS sensor and 45,000 pixels of resolution is a pretty good deal.

It’s been developed by the Israeli company Medigus for use in disposable instruments where they need tiny cameras. Things like cardiology or robotic surgery. Astonishing!

(Headsup to Engadget)

What is this? - In our NewsFlash section, we share interesting tidbits of news. Think of it as our extended twitter feed: When we find something that get our little hearts racing, we'll share it with you right here! Loving it? Great, we've got lots more News Flash articles - and, of course, we're still on Twitter as well, for even shorter news tidbits.

April photo competition winner!

We’re sorry that it has taken us longer than usual to announce the winner of April’s photo competition. Haje was struggling for connection to the intergoogles whilst idling on a boat somewhere off of Thailand (hard life, isn’t it?) and then we had our customary email avalanche to decide on a winner. But we’ve got there! We found a picture featuring a part of the human body that made us go ‘Oooh!’ So, Ladies and Gentlemen, please raise your glasses to April’s winner…

The Rickshaw Puller, by Sakshi Kumar

Many congratulations to Sakshi Kumar for his photo The Rickshaw Puller! Drop me a note, Sakshi, and I’ll arrange for you to collect your prize from the amazing Fracture.

Also, this month, we’d like to give an honourable mention. It’s the first time that we’ve done this, but it’s our competition, so why not? Well done to Kevin Thornhill for his photo Entwined in Love:

It’s a compliment to all of you who entered that we took so long to find a winner.

May’s competition is up and running. The theme’s insects. All the details are here, though. Fracture are providing a fabulous prize again, so please do submit an entry!

Groovy USB film rolls

I might be in a permanent grump about the poor design of USB sticks, and how they take up too much room when they’ve been slotted into the side of my laptop and interfere with other things I want plugged-in, but I think that I can forgive these babies their bulk. The guys at Photojojo have taken to upcycling used film canisters into USB sticks. How cute are they?

They’ve 4GB of storage, which is up to 1,000 photos, and cost $20. You won’t know which variety of film you’ll get though. Maybe something from Fujifilm; perhaps something from Kodak. 24 or 36 exposures? Who knows!

Head over to the always-fab Photojojo for one.

(Pics are of course from Photojojo.)

Postagram posts your Instagrams

After Haje’s dismal experiences with ShootIt postcards sent directly from his phone, he’s been looking for alternatives. Maybe Postagram, with their Instagram-stylee postcards, can help? The app is free to download and postcards are 99 cents each. You can expect delivery within a two to five day time-frame in the USA. Anything going overseas might take longer.

Unlike a traditional postcard, the image doesn’t take up the entirety of the front of the postcard. Instead, the square (2.5 by 2.5 inch) Instagram-esque image pops out to become a free-standing picture. There’s room for a Twitter-length message, too.

Postagram was initially designed for use with Instagram, but a recent update means that you can send a picture from your phone’s album, too.

This one might be worth a shot.

Postagram is available for download from the iTunes store.

Our May photo competition

Summer is on its way (in the northern hemisphere, at least) and I’ve already had to usher several bees out of the kitchen of the Small Aperture mansion. Unusual ladybirds have graced the pavements of east London recently, too. And we’re waiting for the emergence of dragonflies and mayflies a little later this month. For May’s competition, therefore, we’re looking for pictures of insects. And of course the super-dudes at Fracture are supplying a prize for our favourite entry.

You’ve from today (that’s Wednesday 4 May) until Wednesday 25 May to submit your picture (just the one) to the Small Aperture Flickr pool.

Any questions? Ah yes, the April competition winner, I hear you ask. We’ve been beset by a minor technological impediment there. Haje is currently incommunicado. As soon as he’s the chance to look at the entries and we’ve indulged in our ritual round of email indecision, we’ll announce the winner. I promise. Any other questions? No? Well, you know where to find me if you do.

As ever, I’ve reproduced The Rules, just in case.

The Rules

• If you decide to enter, you agree to The Rules.
• You can’t have written for Small Aperture or be related to either me or Haje to enter.
• One entry per person – so choose your best!
• Entries need to be submitted to the right place, which is the Small Aperture Flickr group.
• There’s a closing date for entries, so make sure you’ve submitted before then.
• You have to own the copyright to your entry and be at liberty to submit it to a competition. Using other people’s photos is most uncool.
• It probably goes without saying, but entries do need to be photographs. It’d be a bit of strange photo competition otherwise.
• Don’t do anything icky – you know, be obscene or defame someone or sell your granny to get the photo.
• We (that being me and Haje) get to choose the winner and we’ll do our best to do so within a week of the competition closing.
• You get to keep all the rights to your images. We just want to be able to show off the winners (and maybe some honourable mentions) here on Small Aperture.
• Entry is at your own risk. I can’t see us eating you or anything, but we can’t be responsible for anything that happens to you because you submit a photo to our competition.
• We are allowed to change The Rules, or even suspend or end the competition, if we want or need to. Obviously we’ll try not to, but just so that you know.

(The picture of the fly is Haje’s. Awesome, no?)

Blurb's come a long way, baby

Back in 2006, when Blurb entered the brave new world of publish-it-yourself photobooks, it offered one type of paper, one size of book, and a plain black linen cover. How times have changed. Blurb grew in popularity, and so did its range. And from today, with the launch of the new ProLine, there’s even more swanky and professional-looking choices. You can choose from two new types of cover (charcoal or oatmeal, in linen), five new end sheets (charcoal grey, dove grey, warm grey, black and white), and two new types of paper from Mohawk Fine Papers.

Eileen Gittins, Blurb’s CEO seems really quite chuffed with the new ProLine and the degree of customisation it allows people. They’ve listened to their customers and given them more professional choices. That included making Mohawk papers available for Blurb’s customers. There’s a heavy uncoated paper that’s an organic-y feel, or the pearl photo paper, which makes it feel as if you’ve a personalised book of photographic prints at your fingertips.

This is the ProLine, it has been designed for professionals wanting to showcase their work and get the oohs and aahs that it deserves, so it has a price to match. But don’t worry, Blurb hasn’t lost sight of what it does best: allowing anyone to create a photobook and tell a story.

Want a make a photobook with Blurb? Head over to the Blurb website.

National Photography Symposium 2011

Do you have any plans for the weekend 13-15 May? How about attending the National Photography Symposium in Liverpool? (If I didn’t think that Haje would do something unspeakable to me for cracking a joke about Liverpool – he has a soft-spot for the city – I would. Instead I’ll say that I rather like the word ‘symposium’. If you went to one in Ancient Athens, it was a raucous drinking party.) The organisers have lined up a host of interesting speakers to discuss everything from ‘Photography, Espionage and the State’ to visions for a national centre for photography.

Now, The Financial Times has dubbed this event ‘the most important forum in UK photography’ and whilst I can’t vouch for that, the programme does look quite enticing. I’m quite intrigued by the session led by Sara Jayne Parsons on Gertrude Bell, a photographer (amongst other things) whose work in the region that we now know as Iraq contributed to its formation as a country. But you might prefer to discuss the impact of the Hargreaves report with Andrew Wiard, or perhaps think about how photography can work in conjunction with other creative media to preserve and protect rights.

It’s £100 for a weekend ticket, or £60 for just the Saturday session. There are concessionary rates available, too. For more programme information and ticket details, trundle over to the National Photography Symposium website.

News in brief: Ever lost your camera or had it stolen?

You may not be aware, but your camera probably embeds its serial number in every one of your photos – so if someone is taking photos with your stolen camera, you can track them down.

Now if only there was a way of doing that… Enter Stolen Camera Finder, a brand new website designed to help you get re-united with your camera.

How very nifty.

What is this? - In our NewsFlash section, we share interesting tidbits of news. Think of it as our extended twitter feed: When we find something that get our little hearts racing, we'll share it with you right here! Loving it? Great, we've got lots more News Flash articles - and, of course, we're still on Twitter as well, for even shorter news tidbits.

Sony World Photography Awards - the winners!

Many congratulations to the winners of prizes at last night’s Sony World Photography Awards, in particular Alejandro Chaskielberg who took home the Iris d’Or, Chan Kwok Hung who was named as overall Open winner, and Bruce Davidson for his Outstanding Contribution to Photography Award. It was a very swanky night, and indeed the first time that the awards have been hosted outside of Cannes, with lots of lovely pictures to contemplate.

Chaskielberg won the People award in the Photojournalism category with his ‘High Tide’ series that explored the lives of a community of islanders who live on the Parana River Delta. He then went on to compete against the twelve other winners from the Photojournalism, Commercial, and Fine Art categories. Given the ridiculously high standard of all the entries, it was surprising to hear that the judges found it relatively easy to pick their overall winner: ‘These carefully directed pictures tell solid truths – about toil and communality and marginal economic survival – in a splendidly allusive way.’

The Hunter 1, part of L'Iris d'Or-winning series, © Alejandro Chaskielberg - courtesy of Sony World Photography Awards 2011

I thought that all three of the selections in the campaigns section of the commercial category were fabulous. And I did wonder if the judges might have second-guessed themselves when Fabrizio Cestari’s series of Christ-like surfers, which came third in the Lifestyle section of the Commercial category, raised the first spontaneous round of applause of the evening.

Surfism - A New Religion, third in the Lifestyle award, © Fabrizio Cestari - courtesy Sony World Photography Awards 2011

Amit Madheshiya’s series of images that recorded people attending travelling tented cinemas in India brought a huge smile to my face. That won the Arts and Culture award in the Photojournalism category.

Winner of the Arts and Culture award, © Amit Madheshiya - courtesy Sony World Photography Awards 2011

Congratulations are also due to Will and Matt Burrard-Lucas for their film ‘Migration‘, which won the Moving Image Award and the Student Focus winner, Louis Boulet of the Ecole Superieure Louis-Lumiere.

Winner of the Open Award: Buffalo Race, © Chan Kwok Hung courtesy of Sony World Photography Awards 2011

But the final word should go to Javier Arcenillas, who won both the Current Affairs and Contemporary Issues awards in the Photojournalism category: ‘Photojournalism… it’s very hard.’

Sicarios 10, © Javier Arcenillas - courtesy Sony World Photography Awards 2011

You can see all the winning images on-line at the World Photography Awards site, or take a look at the exhibition at Somerset House, which runs until 22 May.

Jim Goldberg wins Deutsche Börse Photography Prize

Jim Goldberg, who works for Magnum Photos, has scooped this year’s Deutsche Börse Photography Prize with his exhibition Open See, which documented the lives of immigrants and refugees from war-torn countries as they began anew in Europe.

He beat Thomas Demand, Roe Ethridge, and Elad Lassry to the £30,000 first prize at the awards ceremony last night. As runners-up, they each walked away with £3,000.

Brett Rogers, director of the Photographers’ Gallery which hosted the event, described Goldberg’s approach as ‘timely and inventive’. You can go look for yourself until Sunday 1 May as the winning series, together with the runners’-up pictures, will be exhibited at Ambika P3, at the University of Westminster.

World Photography Festival

This week is already pretty groovy: the weather here is glorious and owing to Easter and some minor royal wedding business, only Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are working days. Now add in the World Photography Festival that’s happening in London and we’re notching up towards awesome. We just have to hope that the weather stays glorious and that the wedding doesn’t grind London to a complete standstill. To be perfectly honest, I’m not optimistic on either count, but the line-up for the festival is looking good.

There’s a full schedule of events; I think you’d be hard-pressed to find something that didn’t appeal to your photographic soul. How about some in-conversation sessions with luminaries from the photography world, say, Bruce Davidson, Tom Stoddart, and Carol Allen Storey? If that doesn’t do it for you, there’s the iStockphoto Guerilla activities, giving you the opportunity to go out and shoot around London or in Somerset House. The self-publishing people Blurb are running workshops all week, talking about – slightly unsurprisingly – self-publishing.

There are sessions helping you to become a better photographer (including how to spot a photo to improving your portfolio), exhibitions of student work, film screenings, and panel debates (I’m looking forward to the photojournalism one, but the black and white one looks interesting, too).

The royal wedding has even managed to make its presence known, with the ability to track it pictorially, seeing who got the best photos and where they were used.

And don’t forget, the World Photography Awards ceremony takes place tomorrow night, too.

Honestly, I’ve barely scraped the surface there. You can look at a complete schedule and organise tickets over at the festival website.

Photographers' rights flashmob

Ever been part of a flashmob? No, neither have I. But if you fancy giving it a whirl it the name of photographers’ rights and in celebration of International Press Freedom Day, the dudes who run I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist! are organising one on Tuesday 3 May, 12:30, at London’s City Hall. It’s to highlight the increasing restrictions that private management companies are flinging at photographers who want to take pictures in public spaces. We’re talking about places such as Canary Wharf and the Thames Path between Tower Bridge and City Hall, here.

Ostensibly, anti-terrorist legislation is what justifies this behaviour. Having been on the receiving end of some vile, heavy-handed treatment by a security guard, I don’t wonder if they’re not just getting off on a power trip. Anyway, before I manage to ruin my peaceful Tuesday afternoon by getting worked up that street photography is going to be consigned to the albums of history, I’ll remind you: Tuesday 3 May, 12:30, City Hall, London. In case you were wondering, the National Union of Journalists London Photographers Branch is supporting it.

If you happen to have a tripod that you can bring along, too, then do.

More information from I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist!

TIPA awards 2011

The Technical Image Press Association has just announced their favourite products of 2011 from their General Assembly, which convened in Istanbul (lucky sods). Representatives from 29 member magazines didn’t just discuss which cameras and imaging products they liked the best, but that does seem to be the most interesting bit. There were over 40 categories, from best entry level dSLR to best photo kiosk (yes, really it was the Mitsubishi Gift Kiosk, by the way), so here are the edited highlights.

dSLRs

They’ve shared the love around here:

• Best entry level: Canon Eos 600D (yes, I want it even more now)
• Best advanced: Nikon D7000
• Best expert: Olympus E5 (it must be the being rugged thing)
• Best professional: Pentax 645D

Compact cameras

Nikon's P300

Again, there’s been another even split across different manufacturers for these prizes.

• Best general: Nikon P300 (did they read our reviews round-up yesterday?)
• Best expert: Olympus XZ-1
• Best superzoom: Canon PowerShot SX230 HS
• Best premium camera: Fujufilm Finepix X100

Mirror-less cameras

Okay, so they called them compact system cameras. And there aren’t so many from which to choose. But anyway.

• Best entry level: Samsung NX100
• Best expert: Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH2

Sigma 70-200 lens

Lenses

• Best entry level: Tamron SP 70-300mm F/4-5.6 Di VC USD
• Best expert: Sigma APO 70-200mm F2.8 EX DG OS HSM
• Best professional: Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM

And some of the rest

• Best film: Kodak Professional Portra 160
• Best tripod: Vanguard Auctus Plus 323CT
• Best imaging innovation: Sony SLT, Translucent Mirror technology

You can check out the full list of winners, including best inkjet paper and photobag, on the TIPA website.

Get to know CS 5.5 better, for free

The dudes at Adobe are offering a one-off workshop-come-seminar-come-learning event to get to know Creative Suite 5.5 that bit better. Guess what? It’s free. If you already use CS3 or CS4 and are thinking of upgrading, they reckon that it’ll be especially useful for you. You’ll get to see the new features in CS5.5, as well as learn lots of tips and tricks to make the most out of it.

The plan is for Team Adobe (or at least members of it) to show off some of CS5.5′s groovy new features. How about the content-aware fill in Photoshop or the bristle brush and beautiful strokes from Illustrator? Maybe you’re more of a web-design person, in which case you’ll be introduced to the new-fangled HTML5/CSS3 support and jQuery Mobile/PhoneGap integration, as well as being able to preview designs for desktop, tablet, and smartphone browsers alongside each other.

There are also fancy new tools that work in conjunction with the Digital Publishing Suite. Interactive publications here you come!

Fancy going? It’s at the Vue Cinema, Fulham on 11 May, from 09:00 to 16:00. Tickets are free, but space is limited. Head over to the Adobe events page to register.