Rick Sammon's Travel Photo Tips

Photograph Rick Sammon-All Rights Reserved
Photographer Rick Sammon offers some travel photography tips for getting those images that are frequently (or not) elusive for some of us. There are quite a number of such tips, ranging from Dressing for Success to Drag the Shutter to Create a Sense of Motion.

Most of the tips are aimed at part-time photographers, and I agree with all of them except the final one...and that's the one in which Rick suggests paying a small fee to adults in exchange for their picture. I seldom pay people for photographs unless they are performers who earn a living from their craft, and expect something in return. Naturally, we all have our personal techniques, and there are no absolutes...however I espouse a somewhat contrary view.

You can also read my POV: The Ten Commandments, which is the most popular post on The Travel Photographer's blog in terms of readership numbers.

(Via Imaging Insider)

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Gnawa Festival: What Worked/What Didn't

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy -All Rights Reserved
To end the recent string of post-expedition navel-gazings, here's what I think worked and didn't in terms of gear during the Gnawa Festival photo-expedition. As readers of this blog know, I opted for a minimalist equipment load, and stuffed my Domke F-3X with the following:

* Canon EOS 5D Mark II
* Canon G10
* Canon 17-40mm f4.0
* Canon 28-70mm f 2.8
* Canon 24mm f1.4
* Marantz PMD 620 Audio Recorder
* Acer Aspire One 8.9-inch Mini Laptop (w/LR2 and SoundSlides)
* A 250gb G-Tech Mini G-Drive External Hard Drive

I used my 5D Mark II fitted with the Canon 28-70mm f2.8 about 70% of the time, the 70-200 f2.8 about 20% of the time and the 17-40mm f4.0 the balance. The 24mm f1.4 never left the bag this time. Wherever I went, I felt I needed the flexibility of zooms, and a prime wouldn't be useful in the situations where I photographed. I experienced initial difficulty in focusing on moving subjects, and blamed my 70-200 lens until I realized that I hadn't turned on my camera's AI Servo AF mode!

I have to say that my beloved 70-200 f2.8 is on its last legs. I guess it dropped too many times in Orissa, on Angkor Wat's stone slabs, in Bali's rice paddies and elsewhere. It now wobbles and rattles and, while it still works, it also earned a well deserved retirement...maybe as door stop.

My experience with the G10 was an unhappy one, and I left it aside after a few tries. I had high hopes that it would be a perfect street camera for the alleys of the medinas, but it frustrated me and I gave up after a while. Larry Larsen, a member of the photo-expedition, used his as a point & shoot and seemed reasonably content with its images. Perhaps he managed his expectations better than I did. I have no doubt that in the right hands and used in the appropriate conditions, it's a fine little point & shoot. However, in my case I expected something more...but I didn't have the time nor patience to work at it.

I thought the PMD 620 recorder performed quite well in the rather extreme situations I put it through. Since most of the Gnawa performances were held in small zaouias, the din of the iron querqab (castanets) used by the Gnawa caused significant distortion in the recordings. Moving around to better positions was impractical, so I had to choose a spot where to stand or sit, record and photograph...not exactly an easy thing to do. I tried using Audacity's filters, but the distortion on some of the sound tracks is still too harsh. As one expert told me when I complained, distortion happens and we have to live with it (or not) sometimes.

Both the Acer and the G-Tech Mini G-Drive performed flawlessly. No complaints there.

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End Of Year Photograph

Photo © Muhammed Muheisen/AP

This is my 2116th post since I started The Travel Photographer blog, and with it I'd like to close 2010 with this lovely photograph by the very talented Muhammed Muheisen.

It appeared on the LENS blog of the New York Times a few days ago, and it shows three young refugee girls; two from Afghanistan and the third from Pakistan, attending a Qur'an class in a mosque in Islamabad. You may want to click on it to enlarge it.

The expression of the cute middle one is just sublime...especially that her cloth prayer book is upside down. Not very attentive are we now? And the "I Love NY" hoodie worn by the third girl kept a smile on my face for a while.

I hope it does the same to my readers.

Till next year!

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POV: Is This The Xmas Spirit?

AP Photo/Hussein Malla/ Courtesy Denver Post PBlog

The human genius in reducing religious and/or social events down to nauseating manifestations of mindless consumerism, bad taste and repulsive glitz is seemingly alive and well in all major cities, minor cities and wherever there's the need for marketing, selling and buying.

However the 2010 award for the most loathsome display of this talent belongs to the Emirates Palace Hotel (Abu Dhabi), whose general manager Hans Olbertz, was quoted as saying the 43-foot (13-meter) fake fir has 131 ornaments that include gold and precious stones including diamonds and sapphires valued at $11,000,000.

Notwithstanding the fellow's subsequent apologies, and his admission that it was "over the top", the tree stands as a symbol of what Christmas (and every other religious observance) should not be.

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ROFL: So You Don't Look Like A Bozo?

Photo Courtesy PDN

Photo District News magazine has a section called Objects of Desire, which features photo related gear that photographers ought to drool over....at least, that's what they're supposed to do.

It's not a feature to really take seriously, but I sometimes drop by to marvel at what is being pushed...and occasionally what I see gives me a good laugh. 

But never as much as at the latest product featured which is the Lino Pro Field Jacket (as seen in the above photo)...a gawd-awful concoction of a jacket that's described by the PDN writer as one of the "snazzier" products seen at the Photokina show a few months ago.  Not only that, but he goes on to write that "this jacket is trim and form fitting so you don’t look like a bozo."

Er...no. Wearing this jacket would make me (and anyone else) look like a bozo, and deservedly so.  Not a single self-respecting photographer, photojournalist, serious hobbyist who would be seen dead in a jacket like that.  Whoever dreamed this jacket up hasn't a clue as to what photographers like and need to wear...or doesn't care...whatever they do/will is certainly not a $480 stylish padded shoulders jacket with a "full Italian" design . Moreover, the majority of photographers would spend $480 much more intelligently. So an object of desire? Um...not in the least. Imagine this Italian styled jacket in Helmand Province or in the favelas of Rio or even in the placid Thar Desert of Rajasthan !!!

I found the simplest and least flashy to always be the best option. A $45 safari jacket (with no logos) from a well-known sport outfitter is one of my favorites, as well as a durable black canvas jacket (unfortunately now no longer sold by GAP).  I've seen similar simple jackets worn by photographers in the field, and they certainly don't look like bozos....and they're happy they weren't fleeced out of $480.

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POV: Weeding The Subscribers: It's Time Again

It's the time of year when I have to start weeding (a more delicate term than 'purge') inactive subscribers from my newsletter mailing list. I have to do this about twice a year now.

Campaign Monitor tracks the number of newsletters opens for each subscriber, so it's easy to determine the rate of open of each. If that rate is less than a certain percentage, the subscriber is dumped. As I use a pay-as-you-go option to send out my newsletters, each subscriber costs me...and if there's no reasonable open activity during a 12 months period, then it's to the dumping grounds we go.

It's more efficient for all concerned, saves me money and un-clutters the disinterested subscribers' mailboxes. Last year, I weeded out about 300 subscribers. The total amount of weeded subscribers over the past 3 years is now about 900. Nothing to sneeze at!

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POV: Face Covered, Women Only...Must Be Islamic!

Photo © Gali Tibbon/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

 But it's not. The caption as per the WSJ Photo Journal is this:

"A member of the religious group Women of the Wall wore the traditional Jewish prayer shawl of men called the tallit during a prayer service at the women’s section of the Western Wall in Jerusalem Monday."

So the traditional Jewish prayer procedures at the Western Wall call for the separation of women from the men, and for women to cover their heads and faces?

Huh? You mean like in traditional Islam?

Gosh.

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POV: Passport Renewal

Here's a statement which could irk all the Libertarians and Tea-Party grumblers: I had an excellent experience with the US State Department's Passport renewal process! Yes, a government office!

I had to renew my soon-to-expire passport, and I decided to jump the gun a month or two earlier than necessary.

I wanted my old one back as it still has a number of valid visas....and as I suffer from acute separation anxiety if I don't have my passport within reach (no, I'm not making this up nor is it hyperbole),  I chose the expedited route to speed up the process, and downloaded/filled the necessary application, and included a note saying that I needed the old passport back.

As I also wanted  extra pages, I spoke to a State Department employee to clarify whether I needed to pay extra. She checked and responded affirmatively.  I enclosed the fees required, and sent it off by Priority mail.

A few days later, I get a call from the State Department informing me that I had overpaid. We resolved the snafu in a couple of minutes, and within a few days, the new passport arrived along with the old one.

Easy, simple and very efficient.

Of course, my passport photograph looks like a mug shot...but that's a different matter.

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POV: My Photo~Expeditions: Verdicts

Wade Laube is a photo editor, a photographer and an opinionated ranter (the two last descriptions make him a "my-kind-of-guy"), and he's penned an interesting post on his blog titled Buyer Beware of the Dodgy Workshop.

He says this:

"The travel industry has offered photography-themed holidays for years. Hobbyists spend their annual leave somewhere picturesque, get expert tuition and access to expensive gear they wouldn’t normally, while the organisers make some money and everyone’s happy. But what aboveboard entrepreneurs started, parasites are mimicking."

And I couldn't agree more. Caveat Emptor is the rule here. I would also add that great photographers are not necessarily great travel photography workshop teachers and/or leaders. Some are and others are not.

Once again, here's Wade's wisdom:

"Ultimately what you need to ask yourself is whether you are purchasing a valuable educational experience. Are you just paying for the brand-value of a big name photographer and getting little more?"

Having one of the highest number of "repeaters" (returning participants) in the business is a fillip that I wear with great pride, and as one of the few in this business who's decided to reduce the number of expedition participants to a maximum of 5, I thought it useful to once again feature the verdicts of my past photo~expeditions as follows:

Bali: Island of Odalan Photo~Expedition

Tribes of Rajasthan & Gujarat 2010 Photo~Expedition

Bhutan Photo~Expedition 2009

Morocco-Gnawa Festival Photo Expedition 2009

Theyyam of Malabar Photo~Expedition 2009

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POV: Geniuses!

This will probably be one of my shortest POVs...but Stewart and Colbert are absolute geniuses! I prefer the "Keep Fear Alive" rally...its premise is so satirical that I can't wait to see the faces of the right-wing/tea baggers clowns on Fox.

But isn't it also sad that it's up to Comedy Show personalities to satirically stand up to extremism, and to highlight the hypocrisy of our politics, politicians, and mainstream media?

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POV: Hypocrisy

Photo © AP Photo/Bernat Armangue/Courtesy The Big Picture
This post has nothing to do with photography, but I've been thinking about the summer madness that enveloped us in the past few weeks; a madness that came to boil with the orchestrated (and well-funded) demonstrations against the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" and of course, our media's mendacious efforts to sensationalize all this even further...as well as the subsequent attack on a Muslim Bangladeshi taxi driver in New York City by a 21-year-old knife-wielding Michael Enright...and other acts of violence against Muslims in the Deep South and Upper New York state to name just some I've read about. This is against the backdrop of Mr Obama's enemies eagerly labeling him a Muslim...as if it mattered if he was.

In this frame of mind, I came across Stanley Fish's opinion in The New York Times (link further on), in which he writes:

"The formula is simple and foolproof (although those who deploy it so facilely seem to think we are all fools): If the bad act is committed by a member of a group you wish to demonize, attribute it to a community or a religion and not to the individual. But if the bad act is committed by someone whose profile, interests and agendas are uncomfortably close to your own, detach the malefactor from everything that is going on or is in the air (he came from nowhere) and characterize him as a one-off, non-generalizable, sui generis phenomenon." - Stanley Fish: We've Seen This Movie Before

How very (and sadly) true! Imagine the frothy headlines and cable news had this Michael Enright fellow been Muslim, and had stabbed a Christian, Jewish or even, dare I say it, an agnostic cab driver!

But in my view, here's what Mr Fish's excellent opinion piece left out:

Much hot air has been expended in calling on moderate Muslims to "rise" and "excoriate" the radical Muslims who commit acts of violence. Why should the large majority of the 1.6 billion Muslims, who are not fools, take that transparent bait? The radical Muslims who commit these acts do them as individuals, not as representatives of their faith, tradition or religion. They can say that they do so as loudly as they want...as much and as stridently as the right-wing radicals say that only they speak for real Americans...but they don't.

And whether the right-wing clowns like it or not, Mr Obama's statement at his inauguration is a fact.

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and nonbelievers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth."

By the way, Muslims in America are responding to the intimidation by producing ads such as this:

9/11 Happened to Us All

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POV: Robert Fisk Is A Mensch

What does Robert Fisk of The Independent have to do with photography? Probably nothing, but he's a mensch, which in Yiddish means "a person of integrity".

And why do I think that? Well, it's about his opinion piece on Octavia Nasr of CNN (or I should say, previously of CNN) and the British ambassador to Beirut, Frances Guy (still at her post, as far as I know).

Here's a quotation from this opinion piece published in The Independent of July 17, 2010:

"I loved the "controversial" bit – the usual "fuck you" word for anyone you want to praise without incurring the wrath of, well, you know who. The Foreign Office itself took down poor Ms Guy's blogapop on old Fadlallah, thus proving – as Arab journalists leapt to point out this week – that while Britain proclaims the virtues of democracy and the free press to the grovelling newspaper owners and grotty emirs of the Middle East, it is the first to grovel when anything might offend you know who."

Read it. And if you're interested in the Middle East, and why we are where we are now, you may want to read his incomparable The Great War For Civilization.

I am amazed at the number of younger photojournalists/photographers who "parachute" into Iraq and Afghanistan with only a rudimentary knowledge of history, and who tell me that after having 5 cups of tea with an Afghan family, they "understand" the culture.

This book has all they need to know and will set them straight...alas, it's a thick volume, so I'm not holding my breath.

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POV: I Don't Kneel To A Golden Calf

A few days ago, I posted an opinion piece (or POV) on a renowned photographer about to engage in a project which I deemed unrelated to his travel documentary specialty.

As a consequence, I was criticized by a half dozen people in the blogosphere who, perhaps having misread the gist of my opinion, disparaged my photography, my prior career, my being Egyptian-born (as if that made me unfit to speak my mind), etc. Bah.

I was reminded of Jean-Jacques Rousseau who said: "Gratitude is a duty which ought to be paid, but which none have a right to expect" when I noticed some of the disparaging remarks on that blog were made by the very same people whose photographic work was frequently lauded, applauded and supported on my blog. Double Bah.

I don't know for sure why these people resorted to abusive ad hominem, but one of my guesses (and I have a few) is that they sought to get back at me for not being a lemming, for being an iconoclast of sorts, for not sharing their "gods", golden calves and icons, or to force me into a mold of their choosing. People simply don't like people who are not like them and don't act like they do...it's small-minded tribalism.

So move on boys and girls...I don't need you to tell me what to think and say, nor do I kneel to your golden calves. Get it?

Just so we're clear: A few expressed their disagreement with my view, but did not resort to insults. To those, I say thank you for your point of view...and let's agree to disagree.

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POV: Les Chiens Aboient La Caravane Passe

My post on McCurry's taking a celebrity photography project was criticized on another blog by a handful of readers as being misplaced, rude and judgmental...which puzzled me since I specifically wished him the best of luck with his new project, and described him as a pioneer and an inspiration to many.

The thrust of my post was not about McCurry or his future but to stress the need for all of us to diversify by learning and using multimedia, FCB and Soundslides...and not remain stale and repetitive. In fact, here's a quote from the post which encapsulates my point of view:

"McCurry is one of the pioneers of travel photography and is an inspiration to many who follow his style....and to read of this new project is an uncomfortable reminder that things are changing in this industry, and that photographers (whether involved in travel, documentary and editorial) need to be sharp, varied and inventive."

So to these half dozen readers I make no apologies nor do I need to rethink/reword a single syllable of my post. Not only did you misunderstand my post's intention, but dismissed it as a rant (my POVs always are), denigrated my photography (I do that all the time so get in line and get a number), sneered at my having been a banker in my previous life (many people have more than one career, so I don't understand your point unless, God forbid, you're envious) and so on. Heck, even my country of birth was mentioned...what does it have to do with my blog posts unless it's a jingoistic innuendo? Yes, the mind boggles.

Let me also say that one of my readers also misunderstood what I meant, and had the courtesy of emailing me expressing his viewpoint, and asking for clarification. I responded, and we ended up agreeing on certain issues and disagreeing on others.

As for my pontificating, as a couple have described my post(s), that's exactly what I do here on this blog. That's what this blog is about and will continue to be. You don't have to pay any attention to it. If it aggravates you, just improve your life and remove it from your reading list, because the mission of this blog is to pontificate and to support emerging talent...period. If you don't like it, just don't read my "rants" and "pontifications"...it's really that easy. I'm only a banker-turned-photographer after all...remember?

However, I'm so enamored by the term that I will soon change the sub title of this blog to include it...perhaps like acerbic pontification...or acerbic soap boxing...thank you for the unintended suggestion!!

New Note: I have to thank all of those who emailed me expressing their support and sharing their unbridled puzzlement at the criticisms, and to those new friends who, as a consequence of all this, have now joined my newsletter mailing list! No new post today...i want to keep this one up for a while.

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POV: From Afghan Girl To Martin Scorsese?

Photo Courtesy The Guardian -All Rights Reserved
I was saddened by reading an interview with Steve McCurry recently published in The Guardian in which he shares the news that he's preparing a project in which he would be taking portraits of 30 celebrities in their home cities: Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese in New York, Amitabh Bachan in Mumbai. A sort of project that Annie Leibowitz would do...but Steve McCurry? C'mon!

I was also saddened to read that McCurry would be setting the shots, and choreographing the image-taking...the Leibowitz's style. While I'm told by various participants on his photo trips that he frequently stages scenes during his workshops, photographing celebrities requires a different type of discipline, and a different type of mind-set....and is not one hard core travel photographers would be stylistically and intellectually willing to do. Maybe I'm too idealistic?

Naturally, this project will be financially rewarding for McCurry and I wish him the best of luck with it....however, I can't help but feel a twinge of regret (and sadness, as I said twice already) that we are witnessing the dimming of a star.

After all, McCurry is one of the pioneers of travel photography and is an inspiration to many who follow his style....and to read of this new project is an uncomfortable reminder that things are changing in this industry, and that photographers (whether involved in travel, documentary and editorial) need to be sharp, varied and inventive. Resting on one's laurels is always a fatal mistake, and this is especially true in this tumultuous industry.

A photojournalist presented a body of work during the Foundry Workshop in Istanbul, but the consensus was that it was old and passe...and not relevant to the present day and age...photographers or photojournalists clinging to their past are like people breathlessly running after a Third World public bus on a pot-holed road, with young passengers hanging like a bunch of grapes from its doors and windows....and no available toe-holds in sight.

So let's be smart....let's learn multimedia, Final Cut, Adobe Premiere, Soundslides...audio techniques...learn DSLR videography....let's use Twitter & Facebook intelligently...do anything to find a toe-hold. If not, we'll be left inhaling exhaust fumes and waiting for celebrities to show up (if we're lucky).

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POV:The Future of Travel Photography Gear?

Yes, I caved and got an Voigtlander 40mm optical viewfinder for my Panasonic GF1. It's well suited to the Panasonic 20mm 1.7 lens.

But this is not about the viewfinder or how much better the GF1 feels with it...it's about the above 'minimalist' gear which is an option when I'm planning an assignment or a photo trip. I can have all this in a small Domke bag, and have spare room for a book, an audio recorder, an itouch and lots more.

Imagine the bliss of having all one's gear in a small and light bag!!!

Here's a statistic: The combined weight of the GF1, the Acer netbook and a WD Passport hard drive (from their individual listed specifications) is 3.8lbs. The combined weight of a Canon 5D Mark II and a 24-70mm 2.8 lens is 3.9lbs.

Am I contemplating chucking out the DSLRs and lenses? Not at all. What I now have available to me is equipment which, depending on the nature and duration of the trip and/or assignment, is a viable alternative.

The easy one first: the WD Passport 750gb is small and worked well so far. It may not be as tough as a Lacie Rugged, but it's functional, provides ample storage and is inexpensive.

The not-so-easy: I've used the Acer netbook on 3 or more photo expeditions, and it also did okay. However, its Windows XP software is a major irritant, and its Atom processor is really sluggish. I seldom have it process any image files, and just use it to save my RAW files on its 160gb hard drive and on the WD Passport. An eventual alternative to the Acer could be an iPad, if and when it allows connectivity to an external HD.

Another not-so-easy: The GF1 is a delight to use, and the quality of its images is almost as good as from an entry-level DSLR....but almost is the key word. Having said that, it's still a lovely tool to use on walk-abouts, for environmental portraits and as a back-up. It'll be very useful in situations where photography may be frowned upon (like religious rituals) or where one doesn't want to be labeled as a professional photographer.

I'll be taking the GF1 (along with my Canon gear) to Istanbul in a couple of weeks, and will further test its walk-"aboutability".

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POV: The Guardian Eyewitness iPad App

I saw this posted on various blogs, and thought I'd add my two cents. It's the newly released Guardian Eyewitness app for the Apple iPad, shown off by photographer David Levene. I can't argue with the premise that it's gorgeous...but what does it bring to the table beyond what a laptop and/or netbook already does? The Guardian photographs can be appreciated on a laptop/netbook as well, no?

I have a Mac Book Pro and its display is equally gorgeous. I have a cheap Acer netbook, and its display is certainly not as great, but it's cheaper than the iPad, and it allows me to use all types of software, and fiddle with my photographs using Lightroom...infuriatingly slow perhaps, but it does, and iPad does not.

I frequently visit the Apple store in the Meatpacking district to play with the iPad (by the way, there are fewer tourists on the second floor, where iPads are also available).

As I've said before, I haven't seen anything to convince me that the iPad is a must-have for photographers...so until it does, and despite the Guardian's app and others like it, I'll wait and see what comes with the device's future iterations and new apps.

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POV: Imitation...Flattery or Buggery?

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
The answer? It depends.

This time, I'm not referring to visual plagiarism but to the imitation of style and copying of unimaginative itineraries in the travel photography tours/workshops industry.

Many travel photographers recently awoke to the fact that tours and workshops can add a little something to their bottom line (actually, big and small name photojournalists are doing it as well), and their offerings are all over the internet. Their target market is made up of working and non-working photographers, who seek to build an inventory of images, either to show friends and neighbors, enter and hopefully win competitions, or to sell as stock and to publications.

All this sounds lovely but regrettably, the disease currently afflicting photojournalism seems to have spread into travel photography as well. It's rather disconcerting to see a lack of imagination in many travel photography tours, a frequent "borrowing" of regular tourist itineraries, and the liberal sprinkling of the sentence "photo-shoot" and "wake up at dawn" and similar verbiage in the marketing blurbs, as if that's enough to give legitimacy to the notion that these trips are really tailored for photo enthusiasts.

As regular readers of this blog know, I've swatted off a number of attempts by established travel photographers to either flagrantly filch my itineraries (inclusive of hotel names) or to get a copy of my mailing list for my photo~expeditions, or to join that mailing list to get advance notice of my itineraries. Oh, yes...corporate espionage is alive and well in the travel photography workshop business, but that's par for the course.

Have I consciously imitated any other travel photographers as far as itineraries are concerned? Sure, I may have been inspired by some, but I always avoided cookie-cutter itineraries (excepting Bhutan, where these are based on annual festivals), and I consistently base my itineraries on what and where I want to photograph...not on what and where others want to photograph. And the formula works...with my expeditions often with long waiting lists.

Speaking of inspiration: 24 months ago, I introduced multimedia storytelling tutoring using Soundslides on my photo-expeditions, so I'm chuffed to see others have just started to offer it as well. Soundslides...not SlideShowPro, Final Cut Express or other software choices.

Dwindling viable opportunities, reduced prices for images, tougher competition and increased costs are the reasons many travel photographers cut corners, and look for guidance, inspiration and successful examples to emulate; and as a result, some cross the invisible line and become unimaginative imitators.

So back to my question. Is imitation flattery or buggery? It depends on how the one being imitated actually views it, and what is being copied. Some will consider it a rip-off...others -as I do- consider it the sincerest form of flattery.

You see, it's not buggery unless one is willing to be buggered...but let's also remember, taking without giving back is bad karma.

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POV: Is It "Visual Plagiarism"?

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved
It's rare for me to have an ambivalent view on anything, but I've stumbled across a "tweet" on my Twitter page (presumably from one of my 800+ followers addressed to another photographer) which prompts this post.

I don't want to divulge more details than is necessary, so I'll use this hypothetical example:

A travel photographer with somewhat of a distinctive style travels to a remote location and photographs its indigenous people. A year later, another travel photographer with more or less the same style travels to the same location, and photographs the same people. The latter photographer stays at the same accommodations, uses the same guide/fixer, and the subjects are the same. To my knowledge, there's no contact between the two photographers...and there's no exchange of information. However, the photographs closely resemble each other in terms of subjects and photographic style.

So the question is whether this constitutes plagiarism or inspiration. Taking the example of the Rebari shepherd in the above photograph, would it be plagiarism if another photographer traveled to Poshina in Rajasthan, stumbled on my local fixer who then somehow arranged this particular shepherd to be photographed? I don't think so.

Would it be different if the photographer, having seen the above photograph, asked the Rebari shepherd to adopt the exact same pose? Is that plagiarism or just being inspired?

Perhaps it's the degree of the imitation that resolves the question. If the photographer shot the same Rebari, and purposefully arranged the photo shoot so that he'd wear the same exact turban and tunic, against the same background? Yes, I think that's the answer. If the imitation is purposeful and premeditated, then it is plagiarism...otherwise, it's just flattery.

Yes, that's it...I think.

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POV: The Fact of The Matter...

The Marco Vernsachi & The Pulitzer Center "affair" seems to have somewhat calmed down after the considerable airing of divergent views, opinions and debate between photojournalists, photographers and journalists in the blogosphere.

Some of these views were expressed on Lightstalkers, which is a popular no-holds barred forum for photographers. Going through the posts, I saw one that claimed that the story (and its handling) was not only a blow to the credibility of photojournalism (which I agree), but also a blow to the credibility of some blogs (and their authors).

Huh? The Pulitzer Center was forced to formally admit (twice) its mistake in publishing an image of an exhumed corpse of a young Ugandan girl on its site, because of the bloggers' criticisms that it violated the rights of a child to dignity and privacy. If it hadn't been for the bloggers, these offensive photographs would be still on the Center's website, circulated on social networks and possibly worse.

I view this story and its results as vindication for those bloggers who had the courage of their convictions, and demand that these offensive photographs be pulled from the Pulitzer Center's website. It's hoped that the Pulitzer Centre will stand by its promise of redoubling its "efforts to authenticate every claim and to insure the privacy rights of individual victims".

The appropriate way to look at it is that the bloggers stepped in and redressed a wrong that would not have been committed had the parents of these unfortunate African children have recourse to a sophisticated legal system preventing such liberties with privacy rights.

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