Saturday, September 11, 2010

Your Client Obligations Regarding Retouching

In our "day job" as a professional photographer, we retouch photos. SOME photos, not all. Certainly, we do not retouch images that are going out to the news media on behalf of clients. We have a policy of not retouching photographs that we provide for editorial purposes to editorial clients. However, when providing retouched images to corporate/commercial clients, where those images end up we have no control over. However, what we DO have control over is whether or not we would allow out "into the wild" the un-retouched images of the same subject from the same shoot, and we do not, for reasons that will become clear in a moment.

We have an obligation, in some cases like that of a plastic surgeon, to not reveal what re-touching was done. Whether it was a bit of acne removed, or two chins, no one need know. When we allow out of our hands un-retouched images, it becomes a recipe for disaster, and litigious clients/subjects can make lives miserable in a New York minute.

(Continued after the Jump)

Enter Jezebel. Somehow, this website got ahold of the unretouched image(s) of Jennifer Anniston that appeared on the cover of an Austrailian magazine. Anniston is no stranger to admitted Photoshopping of herself. She admitted as much back in December of 2008 for a GQ cover she appeared on, to Barbara Walters, in the view, as Jezebel reported here. What Jezebel didn't have, at that point, was the before-and-after versions of the image. Now, for another cover, they do.

On August 20th, Jezebel published This Is How Your Jen Aniston Sausage Gets Made, showing the before/after images from the shoot. Well, rightly so, the photographer - Alexi Lubomirski, filed a cease-and-desist against them, which Jezebel is fighting, as they explain here - Why You Must See Unretouched Images, And Why You Must See Them Repeatedly. The problem that Lubomirski seems to have is that, since the commentary/criticism is about the photograph, he may well have fallen into the fair use category, where he cannot preclude the use of his image since the commentary is about the image itself. Surely, lawyers will battle this one out, but the damage is done to Lubomirski's reputation.

Somehow, one of Lubomirski's images got out, and that's a problem. If you are doing retouching, you have a critical responsibility to not let the un-retouched images out. Further, if you are hiring a retoucher, you need to make sure you have an NDA agreement with them for all your client work, and further, that they may not show images of yours that they have done work on, as examples of their work, because of the need to protect your clients' interests.


Please post your comments by clicking the link below. If you've got questions, please pose them in our Photo Business Forum Flickr Group Discussion Threads.


[More: Full Post and Comments]

Friday, September 10, 2010

PBN Readers - A Blogging Note

We here at Photo Business News have been hard at work on a number of projects, both personal and professional, including a few weeks of much needed R&R during August, so we went on temporary hiatus. Not to fear, we're still here, and are moving forward with lots of things this month!

In addition, I will go back and take a look at August as my time permits, and so will be doing some back-posting, so you may see some posts tagged as "August" which were written now. Not to worry - it's my take on August things which will end up getting filed away in the "August" archives, where they belong!

So, enjoy!

(Comments, if any, after the Jump)

Please post your comments by clicking the link below. If you've got questions, please pose them in our Photo Business Forum Flickr Group Discussion Threads.


[More: Full Post and Comments]

The TSA - Misguided Government Propaganda Targets Photographers

Well, your government is at it again! The Transportation Security Administration, not content to make photographers lives miserable enough, has decided to use - literally - as their poster child - photographers, to illustrate terrorists.

First - let's get one thing straight - if a terrorist wants to see a map or other landscape around anything - they'll use Google Maps.

Second - they wouldn't be so damn obvious. I mean, what terrorist who snuck into the US and is in a terror cell wants to get kicked out for taking photographs? I'd think they'd want to get sent to heaven with 72 virgins after doing something worthy of martyrdom? Heck - photographers are martyrs enough at the hands of underpaid photo editors, and without the 72 virgins!

All kidding aside - the TSA is way way out of line here, and as someone who has suffered at the hands of unruly law enforcement over the years - including the TSA - I know all too well how bad it already is.

Carlos Miller, over at Photography is Not A Crime (here) does a great job of highlighting this point (and seems to be the originator of the TSA poster image), which was followed on by Wired (here).

The TSA would like to defend itself, of course. They've tried blogging about terrorist appearances here -

With this great graphic:
So why bother using a "photographer" to illustrate it? Take away the long Canon lens (any self-respecting terrorist would be a Leica user, to be sure) and you don't know where that "guy" (or is it a woman?) is looking? Why, they're looking at the private jet? Frankly, the figure of a lone person would be a better illustration.

Back in December, RedState.com did a great piece on what's wrong with TSA's terrorist policies, check it out here.

In the end, this is just one more mis-guided attempt by the far-less-than-efficient US Government attempting to thwart the rights of a free people.
(Comments, if any, after the Jump)

Please post your comments by clicking the link below. If you've got questions, please pose them in our Photo Business Forum Flickr Group Discussion Threads.


[More: Full Post and Comments]
Newer Posts Older Posts