Michael Forster Rothbart Accepted by Blue Earth
Michael Forster Rothbart, Samuel James and Christoph Gielen have recently been accepted by Blue Earth for this year's round of sponsorships. Photojournalist Michael Forster Rothbart submitted his "After Fukushima" project, a series that explores the human impacts of environmental change in Chernobyl. Samuel James entered his "Niger Delta" project, which records the ongoing struggle for power, land and oil in Nigeria's Niger Delta...
Gursky's Print Most Expensive Photo Ever Sold
A print of Andreas Gursky's "Rhein II" broke records with its $4.33 million price tag at a Chrtitie's auction this past November, making it the most expensive photo ever sold. Gursky's had previously claimed the title of highest-priced photo with his diptych, "99 Cent Store"—purchased for $3.35 million in 2006. For a brief six months, Gursky lost his place when Cindy Sherman's self portrait, sold for $3.89 million in May 2011...
Cartier-Bresson Sets Personal Record at Christie's
It may be no $4.33 million price tag like Andreas Gursky's latest auction item, but Christie's also procured a record price for Henri Cartier-Bresson prints at $590,455 at their auction in November. The print, a 1946 shot of Derrière la Gare Saint-Lazare, Paris in 1932, shows a well-known image of a man jumping over a puddle. Other notable items included a collection of 51 Irving Penn prints that generated $2.85 million. The highest sale at the auction was $492,273, paid for Penn's "Woman in Moroccan Palace" from 1951...
Fashion Designer Sued for Copyright Infringement
The estate of rock 'n roll photographer Jim Marshall has sued fashion designer John Varvatos for using photos of celebrity musicians without permission in store displays. Well-known for his rock-n-roll-inspired designs, Varvatos has featured many musicians in his designs and displays through the years, including Green Day, Iggy Pop, Alice Cooper and Velvet Revolver. The images in....
Stan Stearns: 1935-2012
Stan Stearns, the man best known for his iconic picture of John Kennedy Jr. saluting his father's coffin in 1963, passed away from cancer at the age of 76. Born in 1935, Stearns first began working as a photographer at the Capitol newspaper when he was 16. He later worked as an Air Force photographer and for United Press International before setting up his own photography studio in Annapolis, taking wedding pictures, portraits and...
Bankruptcy Brings Accord to Monroe Estate
In order to pull itself out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the Shaw Family Archives (SFA) has agreed to a 5-year, $3 million licensing deal estate of Marilyn Monroe. Under the agreement, the Monroe estate would be able to commercially license hundreds of Monroe images shot by the late photographer Sam Shaw, as well as other photos from Shaw's collection including John Wayne, Sophia Loren, Marlon Brando and Audrey Hepburn. The Shaw estate, however, would retain the right to...
The New York Times Goes Social
The New York Times has launched a Tumblr blog titled "The Lively Morgue", an auxiliary site meant to showcase photographs from its archives. According to the Times, images will pull from a repository of 5 to 6 million prints and 300,000 negatives dating back to 1896, when it first published an illustrated magazine. The archives also include 13,500 DVDs. The site also features the notations on the back of the image, which include details about when and how often a photo was used...
Frank Ockenfels 3 Creates Ads for Mad Men
Los Angeles-based and well known celebrity photographer Frank Ockenfels 3 has created a series of print, online and outdoor ads for the fifth season premier of AMC's Mad Men. Working with AMC and The Refinery's Brad Hochberg, Ockenfels photographed all of the show's leads in character...
Seeing What Can't Be Seen with 'Femtophotography'
Femtophotography. Have you heard that photog term before? Most likely not, as it is a brand new tool which can take a picture from around the corner — literally. Using lasers pulses and computational algorithms, these femtophotography cameras can spot a hidden image and capture them in 3D. Currently, the images aren't crystal clear (or even quite like a photo yet), they are recognizable shapes. Kind of like a visual sonar, these bursts of light bounce off walls and floors to find the hidden object and...
Utah Proposes No-Photo Bill for Animal Farms
Framed as a means to prevent PETA and other animal rights groups from making distorted images of animal farms and operations, a Utah state lawmaker has introduced a bill that would make it a crime to photograph or videotape agricultural operations without permission from the owners. If the bill, Utah House Bill 187, passes, it...
