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How about crediting the photographer?


Josh has this shot up currently on TPM, and it's a nice composition. Now, I think the exposure is off, and I question why the photographer shot at 400 ISO instead of something higher, which the 5D is fully capable. By shooting at 400 ISO, it's both underexposed and a little shaky. But despite all that, it is a nice shot.

So how do I know all that? Well, it turns out I've seen the photo (as many of you have) on Flickr, and I've embedded that photo below. While the photographer and Barack will certainly be pleased to see the photo shared widely, I think that TPM should always strive to properly credit the photographer when there is a photo that they deem newsworthy enough or interesting enough to feature on their widely-read website. Many might want to personally thank David Katz for taking the photo, or even ask if he could shoot events for them, or maybe buy photos. I have no idea. But even if credit is not  required (and based on the CC license on Flickr, it appears that credit is required), it is always appropriate to note the person behind the lens.

And this isn't the first time I've seen uncredited photographs on the TPM family of site. In another example, TPM reader DF posted a blog entry on TPM Cafe that included a qyadtych of an election night scene, and never mentioned who took the picture. I am an active photographer, and understand that the photos will travel far & wide once published on the internet, and that's fine with me, to a degree. But seeing photographs used on a site like TPM without attribution does not give the photographer the credit he or she undoubtedly deserves. 
20081104_Chicago_IL_ElectionNight0981

16 Comments

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Rec! It's about time someone mentioned this!

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Yeah, as a general principle, attribution is swell, but this photo is junk. Besides problems with exposure, Barack Obama is out of focus, especially around his eyes, and Michelle has two distracting high-lights on her mouth, and yes, Mildred, all of it could have been avoided.

If whoever made this mess has any pride in his or her photographic work whatever, which I doubt, he or she wouldn't even want credit for a head-on, under-exposed, out of focus snapshot.

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It's true, Jacob. This photo has zero technical merit; it's a snapshot aesthetic à la Mom and Dad in the living room, circa 1975. But that's probably exactly what the TPM gang liked about it. Subconsciously, I mean.

Only now, White Mom and Dad have been switched out with Black Mom and Dad. Which they also think is cool.

But snapshot or art shot, a credit would be the professional reflex. Tells us something about the site.

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All the more reason, journalistically, and scholarship-wise, as to history, to have a credit, i.e., who is the amateur that was allowed in the room with them at this time, and allowed to take this picture and allowed to disseminate it? The person acts as a reporter, the person is as a reportorial witness to history, sending out visual info. on the president elect, they shouldn't really get to be anonymous. Especially in this day and age of Photoshop where you can just make visual stuff up like you could always do with written stuff.

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I agree with gasket and artappraiser, and from the standpoint of the site, they should have included an attribution. My pissy remark came from the photgrapher's point of view, more or less, and now that I'm thinking about it...

Why doesn't Obama have a better photographer to catch these precious moments? If he's looking for someone to show him as he really is, a sociopathic con-man with no more principles than a hockey puck...

I'm available!

Harharharhar!!!

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Jacob, I'm dying to know what it is about Barack Obama that makes him a "sociopathic con-man" in your view. Frankly, you've always seemed to me to be utterly nuts. Like, just a complete tin-hat lunatic. I'm just wondering if you really are nuts, or if you have some important information that we 65 million Americans are unaware of.

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As long as it sucks, it's OK to steal it, right?

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"As long as it sucks, it's OK to steal it, right?"

Some unnamed commenter's comment sucks, and I stole it!

"As long as it sucks, it's OK to steal it, right?"

Who cares what idiot wrote that garbage?

Harharharhar!!!

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Speaking of stuff that sucks, I just downloaded a bunch of shit off your website and made t-shirts out of it. I took credit for the art, of course. I'm selling the shirts in novelty shops. They have quips underneath the pics like, "I think I just threw up in my mouth a little," and "Who put acid in my coffee?" Funny, huh?

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Good on you. Don't hold your breath, tho.

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Even aside from intellectual property issues, the lack of citation certainly is a strange way of doing business for someone with a P.H.D. in history.

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I thought this was going to be about the photo of the flirty girl in the "Don't Waste Water" t-shirt, running in the ad bar lately.

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She should put some pants on.

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Not sure she should, necessarily.

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Hey, we live in a world where musicians can no longer sell their music because it's too easy to steal, and software developers are forced to work for huge companies like Microsoft because it's the only way to guarantee they'll be paid for their hard work. So why should photographers or writers be any different? Information wants to be free--fuck the people who create that information. Right?

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The issue is not about an individual acknowledgement.
It is about admitting that others add to one’s creative output or Gestalt.
It is an acknowledgement of the whole can be more than the sum of the individual parts. I’m sure Ann Rand would have a problem with this concept. 

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