Photographer Releases Classy Response After His Work was Stolen for a Political Attack Ad

Local Alaska photographer Mark Osborne found a nasty surprise waiting for him in the mail a few days ago. Among the bills and junk mail was sitting a political attack ad aimed at a friend of his running for the State of Alaska House of Representatives, and illustrating the ad was an screen grab from a video taken by Mark himself.

Osborne was, understandably, a little annoyed. And so he shot the response above to explain the situation, express his displeasure, and laugh at the situation a bit while he was at it.

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Osborne explained the situation a bit further when he got in touch with us over email to let us know about the video:

Legally they CAN steal the image. But I sent them an invoice for my services as a joke/but seriously as well… As I don’t want my work to be used against my friends! Its for a seat on the State of Alaska House of Representatives so its not a big league election. Just represents about 30k people or so… Its not usually such a nasty fight. The local opponent of my friend didn’t authorize the Attack ad…

The invoice he sent to the Republican Party is for $2,500 because, as he puts it in the video, he would charge a lot to have his work on an attack ad because of how distasteful they are to him. But in reality, he doesn’t expect to get paid. The invoice, and the video, are just there to make a point and perhaps shame the party a bit for stealing his work.

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