Earlier today, Dallas Morning News photo editor Guy Reynolds noticed a strange relationship between two Getty images of golfer Matt Bettencourt at the Reno-Tahoe Open golf tournament. One photo featured a tight image of the golfer holding up his ball, victorious, after the 11th hole. The other image, vertical, shows the golfer in the same position, but with another person standing in the background, possibly the golfer’s caddy. Initially, Reynolds assumed the photograph was taken by two different photographers, from different angles. However, upon further inspection, Reynolds realized the photo was taken by the same photographer, Marc Feldman, and it appeared that the tighter image was actually altered to omit the second person. Read more…
It’s the end of an era. Photojournalist Steve McCurry has developed the last roll of Kodachrome film produced by Kodak.
National Geographic has been following the final journey of the last Kodachrome roll ever since Kodak’s announcement last year that it would retire Kodachrome. Kodak has been manufacturing Kodachrome since 1935.
McCurry developed 36 slides on Monday at Dwayne’s Photo Service in Parsons, Kansas, which is the last labs to process the film type. The final images were shot in New York City, but the last three frames were taken in Parsons.
If you’ve got undeveloped canisters of Kodachrome of your own, Dwayne’s will develop them only through December of this year.
New York City graffiti artist Poster Boy, Henry Matyjewicz, is famed for his rearrangement of subway advertisements into bizarre satirical collages. But as of late, the 28-year-old has been mired in legal troubles, ending in an 11 month sentence for missing a hearing.
Matyjewicz was arrested late last year and charged with the felony and misdemeanor counts for his graffiti. He plead guilty, managed to dodge the felony count, and instead received 210 hours of community service and three years of probation. He completed his service, but was soon rearrested for making more graffiti, as well as jumping a turnstile at a subway.
Initially, the district attorney’s office tried to overturn the original plea deal that exempted Matyjewicz from jail time for his repeat offense. However, the judge, Justice Michael Gary, eventually agreed to uphold the deal because he’d neglected to inform Matyjewicz that further offenses would not be so easily excused.
It would seem that Matyjewicz was home free, except for one mistake — he missed his hearing date. An arrest warrant was issued, and though the artist appeared a day late, saying that he’d forgotten to come in, he was taken into custody over last weekend.
On Monday, Justice Gary sentenced Matyjewicz to 11 months for what Gary says was a violation of the plea deal. The New York Post suggests that Gary’s judgment might be vindictive, since he couldn’t penalize Matyjewicz for his repeat offense.
The New York Civil Liberties Union has teamed up with amateur photographer Antonio Musumeci in a lawsuit that challenges a federal ban on photography. Musumeci, a software programmer, filmed the arrest of a protester outside of the Manhattan Federal Court last year, and then was himself arrested.
Musumeci was standing in a public plaza when he was arrested, but he says a Federal Protective Service inspector told him that it was illegal to take photos. The inspector then made Musumeci sit on a sidewalk for 20 minutes while his camera and memory card were confiscated. He was then ticketed for “violating the regulation barring photography.” Though his ticket was later dismissed in court, his memory card has not been recovered.
The man returned to take footage at another protest, during which he deliberately stood on the public sidewalk, but says he was threatened with arrest once again.
Now the NYCLU has picked up Musumeci’s case to challenge the ban on photography near federal property by suing the Federal Protective Services, FPS Inspector Clifford Barnes, and the Department of Homeland Security.
Executive director of the NYCLU wrote in a statement:
“In our society, people have a clear right to use cameras in public places without being hassled and arrested by federal agents or police… We understand the need for heightened security around federal buildings, but the government cannot arrest people for taking pictures in a public plaza.”
Google recently added high-quality street level photographs to Google Earth, presumably using the imagery captured through its Street View van cameras. While it’s an interesting development, the fact that everything is flat is a bit strange, and makes you feel as though you’re looking at an outdated video game. How many more years do you think it will be until we’ll be able to virtually tour the streets of a city in true 3D?
The New York Civil Liberties Union has teamed up with amateur photographer Antonio Musumeci in a lawsuit that challenges a federal ban on photography. Musumeci, a software programmer, filmed the arrest of a protester outside of the Manhattan Federal Court last year, and then was himself arrested.
