Snapped Shot

One wonders what the indomitable nonpareils of Norfolk would think of this one:

Palestinian boys ride dyed donkeys at Marah Land zoo in Gaza City October 8, 2009. Two white donkeys dyed with black stripes delighted Palestinian kids at a small Gaza zoo on Friday who had never seen a zebra in the flesh. A genuine zebra would have been too expensive to bring into Israel-blockaded Gaza via the smuggling tunnels under the border with Egypt, said zoo owner Mohammed Bargouthi. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem (GAZA SOCIETY ENVIRONMENT ANIMALS)

Is a dyed donkey deserving of divergent discourse? Or is a painted pony as pleased as a pickle at his precious new apparel?

(On a completely unrelated note, it would seem that somebody has finally had enough coffee to activate his trusty thesaurus.)

What better way to celebrate the long and distinguished* ties between Jerusalem and the Islamic world than to burn the American flag?

A Shi'ite Muslim shouts slogans beside a burning U.S. flag during a protest rally to mark al-Quds (Jerusalem) day in New Delhi September 18, 2009. The annual al-Qods day rallies are a show of support for the Palestinian people. Al-Quds day is held on the last Friday of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi (INDIA POLITICS CONFLICT RELIGION)

* Yes, I'm being sarcastic.

On a serious note, there appears to be some pretty heavy protesting in Iran right now. Opposition parties are reportedly chanting "DEATH TO RUSSIA" again, in defiance of the dictatorship's preferred American and Israeli whipping boys. Not sure how heavy things are going to get over there, but it's obvious from here that the Iranian people blame the Obama Administration for their continued oppression.

I hope all of you supposedly Democratic-leaning Americans are proud of that.

In any case, I'll be adding the best of the worst photos to this thread, so please do stay tuned for more! Continue reading »

Yeah, the headline's play on the classic Cure song. My apologies for the pun.

Still, you have to admit... It's one of the most touching love pictures, ever. Even the hardest of hearts wouldn't dream of denying these two their love:

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez delivers a speech, at the national stadium in Sweidah province, some 106 kilometers (66.25 miles) south of Damascus, Syria, Friday, Sept. 4, 2009, where a large Venezuelan community live. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez attacked Israel Thursday during his visit to Syria, calling it an imperialist nation that annihilates other people. The attached poster depicts Chavez, left, and Syrian President Bashar Assad. (AP Photo/Bassem Tellawi)

In our first effort to expand the scope of this site, allow me to present our newest feature: Photo Fun! I'm going through the newswires for today, and pulling the best (and worst) pictures of the day, and will be chronicling them below for fun and profit (profit not included).

But enough about that. Let's get on with the links!

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Respect my authoritah! Nothing says "respectable" like a world leader posing with an aspiring 70's porn star.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Libyan leader Moamar Qaddafi in Sharm El Sheikh. More than 50 heads of state from the developing world are meeting in Egypt to tackle the fallout from the global economic meltdown, with calls for a "new world order" to prevent a repeat of the crisis. (AFP/UN/Ho/Mark Garten)

Continue reading »

The proof? It's in the pudding:

An Iraqi army solider patrols as an Iraqi female employee woman passes by during a ceremony where the US army gave 2 bulldozers to the Baghdad municipality at Yarmouk joint security center of U.S and Iraqis, in Baghdad, Iraq, on Monday, March, 16, 2009. U.S. troops will not be removed from areas of Iraq that are not completely secure or where there is a high probability that attacks could resume after the Americans leave, Iraq's prime minister said Sunday. Nouri al-Maliki said in an interview with The Associated Press that he had told President Barack Obama and other top U.S. officials that any withdrawals 'must be done with our approval' and in coordination with the Iraqi government. (AP Photo/Karim Kadim)

It would appear that Hamas is going for the softer look:

Masked Palestinian Hamas members are seen during a demonstration to show solidarity with Sudan, in the Bureij refugee camp, central Gaza Strip, Friday, March 6, 2009. The International Criminal Court's decision to pursue a sitting head of state on war crimes charges puts others around the world on notice, but it's also raising questions about which leaders are being targeted. African and Arab nations say they will support al-Bashir, fearing the warrant issued against him Wednesday will bring even more conflict in Darfur. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)

Professor Peter Friedman (pictured, right, with apologies to Rohit Bothra) has some interesting new commentary on the Fairey case.

Of course, I'd ordinarily blockquote Professor Friedman here, but considering that this is a Copyright case, and I don't want to annoy him with yet more commentary appropriation, maybe a more non-cribbed analysis would be in order?

The good Professor is continuing down the basic line of thought that he's been saying from the very beginning of this case:—The Fairey Obama posters are creative works that are, in essence, fair uses of the original AP photograph. He brings some new ammunition to the table in this latest argument, though:

In a nutshell, the elements of the photograph copied (or "appropriated," to use Professor Friedman's often-used terminology) by Fairey—Namely, the angle and basic composition of the photograph—are not protected by Copyright law.

Again, I'm no expert on copyright law, and Peter certainly brings the usual case law-based punch to the discussion, but this would seem to me to bring up a very dangerous argument, as far as protecting the business of wire service photography goes. Saying that the arrangement, angle, and crop of a wire service photograph is not protected by Copyright law is, essentially, to say that the photograph itself is unprotected. Which, of course, could definitely put a pretty significant chill on the services that wire agencies provide.

I'm not sure that this is necessarily a bad thing, since I'm still somewhat irate that the AP has used the Copyright bludgeon against me, but there are definitely some merits to such an argument. Continue reading »

The press loved to hound President Ford for his clumsiness, according to one of Pat Oliphant's accounts of political cartooning I read way back when.

Keep that in mind when you read this caption:

President Barack Obama waves and learns the door on Marine One is much shorter than he is, and bumps his head slightly, Monday, Feb 9, 2009, as he leaves for a trip to Andrews Air Force Base, Md. and then onto Elkhart, Ind. to hold a town hall meeting on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)

(h/t Dan Riehl)

Update: Heh—Basil says it best.

Apparently, spray-painting one's iconic artwork (allegedly!) all over the private property of Boston is not the best way to make friends:

BOSTON (Reuters) - An artist who created an iconic red, white and blue portrait of President Barack Obama that appeared on thousands of posters and T-shirts was arrested in Boston on graffiti charges, police said on Saturday.

...

Police accuse Fairey of damaging property with graffiti in several locations and issued warrants for his arrest on January 24, Boston police spokesman James Kenneally said.

An arraignment is scheduled on Monday. If convicted on all charges, he faces up to three years in jail, Kenneally said.

My good friend Peter Friedman has outlined more reasons why he thinks the Associated Press will fail in their pursuit of Shep Fairey (the text in bold being added by me for clarity's sake):

(1) It's Transformative: As I’ve already made clear, I am convinced of that Fairey’s image sufficiently transforms the image of the AP photograph to be considered genuinely tranformative. Except for the fact that both are plainly images of Obama and that in both his expression and the tilt of his head are the same, the two images are entirely different. They are so different, in fact, that for many, many months no one, much less AP, was even able to identify the image from which Fairey started from. The physical changes Fairey has rendered to the image are plain. He has changed elements, and, through his painting style, simplified the elements significantly. In one image, you have all the complex information of a photo; in the other you have three colors arranged in a small number of blocks and lines. Finally, the photo could not possibly have become an iconic image of the presidential campaign. The Fairey poster did.

(2) The Nature of the Copyrighted Work: The AP photo is a generic wire service photo. While photography is, of course, a creative endeavor, some images are more creative than others, and the AP photo of Obama is about as generic as they come. First, it’s an image of the most recognizable face in the world. Second, there is nothing special about it. This generic nature of the work is emphasized by the fact, as I pointed out above, that it took months before someone (not from AP), after scouring the internet on a search for the source of Fairey’s image, finally found the right one. AP had not even known its copyright image was part of a poster that was visible all over the country and in all the media.

(3) The Amount and Substantiality of the Portion Taken: In fact, this might be the factor that counts most seriously against Fairey, but even this factor is, I believe, a close call. As i explained above, about all Fairey’s image ultimately uses is the expression and the tilt of Obama’s head. The very nature of the image is changed from that of a photograph to that of a semi-abstract painting. The background is changed. The color of the tie (a generic tie on a generic suit) is changed. The circular Obama symbol on the suit’s lapel is added. And, of course, the word “HOPE” is added.

(4) The Effect of the Use Upon the Potential Market. This factor, which in the past has been referred to as the most important factor, isn’t even close. Fairey’s image has obviously had NO negative impact on the market for the AP photo. The only possible effect, a likely one, is that it has substantially increased the value of AP’s copyrighted image.

I agree with this outlook, for the most part. Fairey has definitely transformed something that would be an otherwise dull news photo from a press conference (sorry, my AP friends, but having great quantity of photos does not imply that most of them are quality) into something that's iconic—A putative work of art that that stands on its own merits.

There are some aspects of this particular case that are a bit troubling, however. Continue reading »

Speaking as someone who has been through this particular wringer before, I feel for the guy. Even if I don't buy into his particular form of "theft" art.

Details of the AP attack here—To make a long story short, "We own the photo that Fairey used, ergo Fairey owes us moolah."

May the best lawyers win! (Considering who Shepherd Fairey is, and how much money he's generated over the years, I'm sure he's got much more than a sporting chance.)

Previously: Red-on-red excitement, as Fairey is accused by art critics of "appropriating" (by which they mean: lifting) historical leftist art.

Update: Bob Owens points out that the case is not as clearly "fair use" as one would suspect.

Cue: D'ohbama picture?

Update: A defense of Shepherd Fairey, written by my good friend Peter Friedman.

Update: Allah weighs in.

There's a bit of a ruckus going on over in the JBlogosphere about an AP photograph from the Gaza Strip that appears to have been staged.

In this particular case, I don't think it's such a big deal.

Yes, the pictures appear to be spotless in an area covered in dust. There's probably a reason for it, though—The pictures were most likely picked up and cleaned by Mushir al-Masri, who is standing in the same frame.

To me, this seems to be a far cry different than fauxtography from the past. Take, for instance, the incident with toys in Lebanon, which we briefly discussed back when this blog first launched in 2006. In each and every one of the photographs in that particular series, the toy was presented completely devoid of context, leaving the viewer with the distinct impression that the dastardly Israeli military was intentionally aiming for children.

Compare that to now, when most readers already know that Hamas buildings were targets, and that Hamas-supporting legislators would most likely be back around to assess the damage (even if they're acting). I would suggest that showing these legislators in action is not intentionally misleading to the same level as the toys were, since we can see the context in which the photograph was taken.

As a side note, someone made an interesting comment on Carl in Jerusalem's post, reportedly passed on from an incoming photojournalist in the Gaza Strip:

... I would've thought there'd be more damage - true, all the Hamas buildings are destroyed - but that's maybe four streets in total and a building here, a building there.

So, my impressions are that the place is not nearly so destroyed by Israel as I was expecting it to have been from the pictures I saw.

I think it would be very enlightening to see aerial photographs of Gaza City, if the IDF were up to it.

(Oh, and yes: The title is a bad play on "Fauxtography." Seaux sue me. )

One can only imagine that the mystery of the mythical unicorn will be solved forthrightly:

A masked Palestinian militant from Hamas carries his weapon as he walks in the rubble of a house destroyed in the recent Israeli military operation in east Jebaliya, northern Gaza Strip, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2009. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer)

One can only hope that Kevin passes his handy Hamas identification guide on to Patrick Baz next time they run into each other.

Incidentally, for background on how Hamas was directly responsible for civilian casualties in Gaza, please see here immediately. How much longer will the Dudley Do-rights of Turtle Bay turn a blind eye to such blatant war crimes?

Technically, I suppose you could call this a "reaction." It's probably more accurate, however, to say that the man in this photograph is acting in front of the cameras. Without the ever-present photographers situated ever-so-conveniently on the hospital stoop, one would imagine that this man would feel no need to parade his emotions so openly.

Of course, it's pictures like this that remind us exactly why it is that we don't need the army of photographers on the ground in Gaza.

A Palestinian man reacts as he holds a blood stained sheet at the entrance to Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2009. Israeli forces shelled the United Nations headquarters in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, setting the compound on fire as U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon was in the area on a mission to end Israel's devastating offensive against the territory's Hamas rulers. (AP Photo/Thaer Al-Hasani)

Update: More acting for the camera's sake (mild content warning).

Update: And more. The only people in the world that are being fooled by this charade are those who have a stake in the battle (i.e., the Islamists that wish to see the total eradication of the Jewish State, and Leftists that despise the only bastion of democratic governance in the Middle East).