The next time you’re walking around with a DSLR around your neck and a stranger asks you for directions, you might want to keep a hand on your lens. Yesterday BBC’s “The Real Hustle” included a short segment in which they demonstrated how easy it is to steal a lens on the street. The con artists simply detach and pocket the camera lens of an unsuspecting photographer while pretending to ask for directions. Apparently this is a real con that thieves are using these days…

(via Pixiq)

Here’s another public service announcement for those of you who travel often (see our warning on zippered bags): the safes in hotel rooms may not be as secure as you think. YouTube user skyrangerpro recently discovered that the safe in his room could be opened with “000000″ regardless of what passcode he chose. This is presumably the “master password” the hotel uses when you’ve forgotten the one you’ve chosen, but the fact that some hotels leave this on factory default settings is cause for concern.

The next time you think about leaving some pricey camera gear in a hotel safe, makes sure all zeros isn’t a working passcode.

(via Reddit)

Earlier this year we saw the launch of two search engines — Stolen Camera Finder and GadgetTrak Serial Search — that help find stolen cameras by searching photos on the web for the serial numbers. The idea is neat, but no one knew whether it would actually help recover stolen gear or not. Turns out it does work.
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This comment posted (and deleted) by Reddit user WonkoTheLucid shows why photographers need to make sure their websites are secured properly:

My friends wedding photos were posted with watermarks on a photo reprint site for sale. The prices were a bit outrageous. Another friend who does web design clued me into manually entering the photo address to display a full resolution photo without a watermark. I wrote a script and downloaded 500 free high res photos. Burnt many dvd copies and mailed them to a bunch of random people who were at the wedding.

If you’re a professional photographer that lets clients review proofs online, make sure the high-res, non-watermarked versions of the photos aren’t accessible by simply changing a portion of the URL.

As a professional photographer, this really makes me angry [Reddit]

Fashion photographer David LaChapelle is launching a lawsuit against Rihanna over the controversial music video for her song S&M. LaChapelle alleges that “the music video is directly derived from and substantially similar to the LaChapelle works” and that it copied the “composition, total concept, feel, tone, mood, theme, colors, props, settings, decors, wardrobe and lighting” of eight of his photographs.
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Last Friday the art collective THIS had a gallery opening during which a patron asked to use the restroom shortly before closing time. Turns out it wasn’t just to relieve themselves — the person brazenly snatched a one-of-a-kind Polaroid photograph of Dennis Hopper taken by Jason Lee off the wall and walked off with it. Now Lee is personally offering a $25,000 reward for the return of the photograph.
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Flickr user Chris Devers recently found that one of his photographs had been used by The Gap as a design for children’s clothes (here and here). The photo itself was published under a Creative Commons license requiring attribution, non-commercial use, and no derivative works — usage conditions that were completely ignored.
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Think your camera gear is safe in your zippered bag just because you have have sliders locked up? Think again. This video shows how easy it is to break into a zippered bag without leaving a trace.

Yet another reason you should try and keep your gear in sight at all times.

The Lens Lock is the latest product in the GearGuard gear locking system by Gary Fong (maker of the well known LightSphere). It attaches to the back of a lens like an ordinary rear lens cap, but can be secured and locked using a cable/lock combo. This allows you to lock the gear down when not in use (like you would do with a bike) or lock it together with other gear in your bag, preventing individual items from being stolen from your bag.
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This is probably the strangest story you’ll read today. When Neil Berrett quit his job in 2009, he sent his boss a kindly written resignation letter written on a cake. The photo of Berrett and his cake become widely circulated, and received hundreds of thousands of views.

Last month, Berrett received an email from People Magazine asking for permission to use the cake photo in an article. Berrett replied asking that the magazine license the photo, but never received a response. The next day, he suddenly found that the magazine had gone ahead and used his photo in an article titled “Take This Job and Shove It! 8 Memorable Quitters“.
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