Oakland-based photographer Jennifer Little had her home broken into last week, and her loss was devastating. In addition to stealing 8 of her cameras, the burglars also took 21 hard drives containing Little's life's work as a professional photographer.
On Monday, two professional photographers were robbed of their camera gear in broad daylight in the Visitacion Valley neighborhood of San Francisco. The two suspects were reportedly armed with pepper spray, and they made off with equipment worth over $7,000.
We seem to be hearing more and more stories of camera gear offices being broken into and plundered. Late last year it was $2 million in gear from three businesses in California. Last month it was $586,000 from LensProToGo. Now the latest is the Florida-based gear rental shop, The LensPal.
I just installed an ANKR in my camera bag. Over the past 10 years I’ve had this reoccurring dream about my camera gear and my backpack being stolen. I’ve actually had two cameras stolen over the years, unfortunately.
Legendary photojournalist Steve McCurry's assistant has been arrested in connection with the theft of prints, books, and items from McCurry's studio worth a whopping $654,358.
Richard Prince has caused quite a commotion over the past week after it came to light that he has been selling other people's Instagram photos for upwards of $100,000. Now, one of the people he took from is responding in a clever way: she's reselling Prince's artwork for $90 instead of $90,000.
There are many people who have studied and understand the art world better than me. But there is one thing that I’m sure of: Richard Prince is a jerk.
A former Ryanair flight attendant has pleaded guilty to stealing items that passengers left behind on airplanes. He was busted after a man accidentally left his DSLR behind and then later found the same camera for sale on eBay.
Photographers who are out and about often have thousands of dollars in camera gear kept inside a camera bag, and keeping an eye on your bag at all times can be taxing and sometimes impossible. KitSentry is a new product that's designed to keep an eye on your gear so you don't have to, giving you peace of mind to help you focus on making photos.
“If you don’t want your photos stolen, don’t post them on the Internet.”
This is an argument I have heard over and over again, mostly from people who have never had their work borrowed. Which of course is like saying, “I know you were home, but if you didn’t want your belongings stolen, you shouldn’t have left your door unlocked.”
In 2011, photographer Jessamyn Lovell was at San Francisco gallery SF Camerawork when her wallet was stolen. Not long after, the unauthorized charges started pouring in.
Infuriated at what was taking place, Lovell decided to track down her thief rather than simply replace her cards and move on with her life. In doing so, she turned this art gallery mishap into an art project all its own.
Last year, anti-theft service Lenstag pulled all of its stats together to figure out what photography gear is stolen the most and where it's most likely to be stolen from. Now, one year older and a full ten times bigger, they decided to give the infographic a more comprehensive go.
What would you do if you found your photograph misused, not by a celebrity or a company, but by the head of government of a country? That's the question facing Cambridge, Massachusetts-based photographer Bimal Nepal.
Nepal, a photojournalist whose work has appeared in National Geographic, recently found his photograph shared without permission by the prime minister of India.
There are a lot of great, fun, and interesting things people can do with an iPhone and that FLIR 'predator vision' infrared camera case we told you about at the beginning of this year. But, as it turns out, there is also a very bad thing people can do.
Using just an iPhone and the Thermal camera case, people can actually steal your PIN codes, be that for an ATM or that keypad on your car or garage door.
This post is something I’ve struggled with for months, and debated even writing. But it’s time to share my story, and explain why I’ve been absent.
Well, this is awkward. From the looks of it, Lens Rentals Canada is suspending services due to the theft of their equipment while in transit.
Update on 12/16/21: This video has been removed by its creator.
These days, there are a number of search engines, sites and services that can help you track down your camera if it's ever stolen from you. Unfortunately, finding the camera is often only half the problem -- you still have to get it back, and sometimes that can be pretty tricky.
We're big fans of anybody who helps to stop gear theft, and so naturally, we've always been big fans of the free service Lenstag. Initially unproven, the service made its first recovery a couple of months ago, and as its database of registered gear expands, it can only get better.
But Lenstag isn't just resting on its laurels and waiting for that moment to come, content with what it has achieved. No, the service is branching out with an awesome new feature that will help you keep track of unauthorized use of your images as well!
Update on 12/16/21: This video has been removed by its creator.
Note to any camera thief who attempts to get rid of the camera at a pawn shop: it might be beneficial to at least know how to turn the thing on. Not only that, but when questioned about where you “found” the camera and when asked to file a missing item report, don’t run off -- I’ve heard it doesn’t help with the whole suspicion factor.
It was bound to happen eventually, but it still caught us by surprise when it did. Found last night and published earlier today, Photo Stealers' Corey Ann discovered that one of her images had been used by another 'photographer' who is passing off a whole bunch of other photographers' images as her own.
It's a sad day for the Internet... according to Trend Micro's security analysts, it's been discovered that photographs of both sunsets and -- even more heartbreaking -- cats being shared across the web contain malware capable of getting into your bank accounts.
I'm all for a little monkey business when it comes to taking photos and playing around with your gear, but this guy here might've taken it a bit too far...
Dear Photography Thieves,
I’ve always known you were out there, even in the days of film. In a photography world filled with negatives and prints, you crept quietly in the shadows and, let’s face it, it was harder then, wasn’t it? But now, with the digital age and that glorious thing called social media, it’s so much easier. It’s really a boom time for you. It’s like you hit pay dirt. And, after reading a month’s worth of Photo Stealer’s entries, all I can say is: You. Must. Be. Exhausted.
Purloining somebody else's photos to promote your photography business has become depressingly common lately, but occasionally a new cretin comes forward to push the practice to a new level of sadness.
We take no responsibility if you're all of a sudden afraid to take your camera anywhere after reading this (especially if you have a Nikon D7000 or a Canon 60D), but this gear theft infographic by anti-theft service Lenstag is packed interesting information that we think every photographer should be aware of.
(Private Video -- Use password "stolen")
Often there's a fine line between inspiration and theft. But watching side-by-side comparisons of wedding workshops conducted by videographers Adam Forgione and Rob Adams, it's hard not to conclude there's wholesale plagiarism going on.
Lenstag's stated goal is to put a stop to camera and lens theft, and for that reason alone photographers love them. The service is basically an online registry where you can securely document all of the gear you own and, in the event the unthinkable happens, report it as stolen and make it much more difficult for the thieves to sell that piece of gear.
But Lenstag creator Trevor Sehrer wasn't done when he debuted the website -- which you can learn a lot more about here. Last week Lenstag took another step towards the company goal when it released brand new iOS and Android apps.
A late-breaking holiday shopping tip: If someone offers you a screamingly good deal on a Leica Summilux-C movie lens, be very suspicious. That's because there's currently $500,000 worth of stolen gear floating around the black market -- including a $200K set of Summilux-C lenses -- that was taken off the set of a Los Angeles film shoot..
Photojournalist Christopher Morris has documented some of the world's hottest war zones, reclusive North Korea and the 2012 Republican National Convention. But it took modern Detroit to totally punk him, with thieves there stealing $15,000 in camera equipment and another crook cheating him out of $200 in reward money later that same day.
Sure, Instagram has provided some folks with a ready-made market for selling illegal items or doing unsavory things, but the photo sharing services has also expanded the boundaries of how incompetent a crook can be.
In the digital age, having your photos stolen usually indicates copyright infringement by someone who decided to use your work without permission online. But for Ukranian-born photographer Aleksandr "Sasha" Onyshchenko, the term recently took on the old definition: two of his prints were literally stolen right out of the gallery they were being displayed at in broad daylight!
British photographer Jason Sheldon has won a settlement of £20,000 (about $32,300 US) over a stolen image of his (seen above), after initially being offered less than one percent of that.
It's one thing to swipe a photo and slap it on your website, and quite another to enter that stolen image into a high-profile photo contest passed off as your own work.
That is exactly what Mark Joseph Solis, a graduate student at the University of the Philippines, is discovering as he becomes a subject of international ridicule for winning several thousand dollars worth of prizes with a purloined portrait.
It's rare that we get to report happy news from the intellectual property side of the photography business, so let's take heart from a win-win settlement achieved between a wronged photographer and viral media site BuzzFeed.
A Malaysian researcher may have dealt a major blow to image thieves by using the mathematical formulas behind Sudoku puzzles to create hidden, super-strong watermarks.
It's unfortunate that this is a piece of advice we need to give, but alas, it's necessary: never leave your camera gear unattended. One photographer recently learned that lesson the hard way at an outdoor wedding he was shooting when he was deprived of some $6,000 of camera equipment in one fell swoop. And what's more, the entire theft was caught on camera by the wedding's videographer.
One of the downsides to living in an uber-connected digital world is the ease with which intellectual property can be stolen. Whichever bogus excuse they choose to use, many people seem less than concerned when it comes to stealing someone's photography and claiming it as their own these days.
One such person is Instagram user @bogdhan, who recently won Samsung's 'Live in the Moment' Instagram contest (and an NX300) using a photo that he never actually took.
From the annals of "How Low Can You Go?" comes word from Hawaii of a stolen camera whose memory card had a family's only photos of a two-day memorial service.
This is Hafid. About 4 months ago, Hafid stole a phone from a German tourist who was vacationing on the island of Ibiza, Spain. Hafid didn't, however, delete the original owner's Dropbox app or disable the automatic upload feature.
So ever since the phone was stolen, she has received periodic updates about Hafid's life in Dubai, which she has kindly uploaded to a Tumblr blog, complete with humorous commentary.
Thou shalt not steal.
It's one of the first things we learn as kids: don't take something that doesn't belong to you. And it's a hard lesson to learn, for as children, we feel the entire world belongs to us. I learned this lesson the hard way. No, I didn't shoplift...I stole little metal ashtrays from a Burger King in Panama City, Florida. I did it. I admit it.