(12.30.2005) Starting on January 1, 2006, a California law goes into effect that metes out stiffer penalties against forcefully aggressive photographers, also known as the paparazzi.

The paparazzi have been known for aggressively positioning themselves before celebrities and/or stalk famous people in almost any circumstance to capture images that demand huge sums of money and garner a worldwide audience.

In this new California law, these photographers will now be liable for three times the damages they inflict, plus lose any payments their published photos might earn. Publishers can also be held liable.

California Assemblywoman Cindy Montanez drafted the bill, which was signed into law in October by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Alhough the legislation targets paparazzi photographers, it could stymie photojournalists seeking storytelling images by giving celebrities a greater ability pursue a lawsuit.

Montanez said the new law “specifically crafted in a way so there is no infringement on the rights of journalists.” according to an Associated Press report.

The new legislation amends a bill passed in 1998 that established “constructive trespass” for photojournalists. It said that using a long lens to capture an image of a person who had “a reasonable expectation of privacy” was tantamount to trespassing, according to an Associated Press report.

The Associated Press and other media outlets reported on the legislation this week

Posted by Administrator as WNPA Report at 7:38 PM EST

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(12.29.2005) The Second Annual Kaveh Golestan Photo Journalism Award took place in the auditorium of the Artists Forum (Khaneh Honarmandan) in Tehran on Saturday 5th November 2005 (14th Abaan 1384).

This award was initiated by his family and friends in memory of Kaveh Golestan, the internationally recognized and accomplished photojournalist who was killed by a landmine in April 2003 while working with the BBC in northern Iraq.

It’s not in English, but if you can navigate the site, you can view the final images HERE

294 photographers took part in this year competition. 208 had Tehran addresses; there were 207 men and 87 women. There were 927 entries for the single photograph category, and 2981 entries for the picture story category (each of which could have 7-10 pictures). This made a total of 3908 entries, which were all seen by all the judges.

Ten photographers were honored in the ceremony; Sepideh Shahverdi, Touraj Khamenehzadeh, Mehraneh Atashi, Behnam Sediqi, Abbas Kosari, Saman Aqvami, Hassan Qaedi, Nasrollah Haji Hamid Foroutan, Amir Kholousi and Mohammadreza Ali-Madadi. They were given an honoring diploma and 1 million rials.

Posted by Administrator as WNPA Report at 1:53 PM EST

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(12.28.2005) Evan Siegle, a staff photographer at the Green Bay Press Gazette, compiled his top images from 2005 into a photo gallery, available on the newspaper’s website.

You can view his gallery HERE (27 images)

Siegle has been a photographer at the Press-Gazette since January of 2002. Previously, he worked at the Beloit Daily News and Southern Lakes Media. He graduated from Clarke College, Iowa, in 1997 with a bachelor’s degree in communications.

Some of his highlights have been covering the Green Bay Packers, traveling to central Mexico for an indepth documentary of Hispanic migration to Northeast Wisconsin, and being selected to be part of the USA Today/Gannett 2006 Winter Olympic photo team in Turin, Italy.

Posted by Administrator as WNPA Report at 1:10 PM EST

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(12.27.2005) A judge ruled last week that a photo taken by Peter Turnley of a slain U.S. soldier during an open casket funeral did not violate the privacy of the late soldier’s family.

The media was invited to attend and take photos at Sgt. Kyle Adam Brinlee’s funeral held in a high school Auditorium in Oklahoma. Turnley photographed the sergeant’s uniformed body as it lay in the open casket.

The photo appeared in an August 2004 photo essay in Harper’s magazine titled “The Bereaved: Mourning the Dead, in America and Iraq.”

Members of Brinlee’s family claimed the photo was “so extreme and outrageous as to go beyond all bounds of decency.” They claimed invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress and sought more than $75,000 in damages.

U.S. District Judge Frank Seay recently ruled against the family.

“In fact, plaintiffs appear to have put the death of their loved one in the public eye intentionally to draw attention to his death and burial. That would be the only reason for inviting the press to attend the funeral,” the Judge wrote in his summary judgement.

The judge ruled that Brinlee’s death was newsworthy and therefore protected under the First Amendment.

View a non-Turnley image from the Brinlee funeral HERE

The Associated Press and other media outlets reported on this earlier in the week.

Posted by Administrator as WNPA Report at 6:25 PM EST

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NPPA announced today that open registration for all contest categories is now available on their website.

Contestants must register to obtain a unique username (I think it’s a number, actually) that you can later use to upload your images to the NPPA contest server.

Contest registration starts today, but the first day to submit images is January 3rd.

There are many rule changes and new categories, you can read about them HERE

Still photography registration can be found HERE

Posted by Administrator as WNPA Report at 7:30 PM EST

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Photo By Corey Wilson/Green Bay Press-Gazette

Green Bay Press-Gazette photo editor Jim Matthews, right, explains to long time staffer Patrick Ferron that in the south (Jim came from the Gainesville Sun) you must work 40 hours per week in order to collect a
paycheck. The two stand in the newly refurbished studio recently updated
from the 19th century by fellow staffer Corey Wilson.

Posted by Administrator as WNPA Member Pics at 6:51 PM EST

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Photo by Timothy Stein

Journal Times photographer Greg Shaver eyes up a potential shot during a multiple alarm fire in the Town of Dover in Racine County December 9th, 2005. In an attempt to keep warn (temperature 11 degrees with a wind chill of zero), Greg wears a knit hat under his stylish yellow hard hat which is required to be worn at fire scenes in the county.

Posted by Administrator as WNPA Member Pics at 6:48 PM EST

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It was about two years ago when I got my full fledged credentials as a fixer.

During a Badger men’s basketball game a student who had traveled hundreds of miles to cover it ran into a problem. Her camera body was shooting blank black frames about 99% of the time and she had no idea what to do. No one had an extra body for her to use.

Before she could give up on being able to shoot the game I offered my assistance.

With little hesitation I grabbed her camera, took the lens off and inspected it briefly remembering the wisdom on repairs of this nature handed down from Al Hoch during my internship at The Janesville Gazette.

I reached into my pocket, produced my apartment key, jammed it into the lens mount of her camera and bent the aperature lever back to spec.

The look on her face while I undertook this courtside repair was a priceless combination of shock and horror. The body was school property and she was clearly not qualified to authorize a repair, especially one of this nature.

The end result was that her camera worked for the entire game without a single additional blank frame.

It is in the spirit of this and other instances of snatching photojournalistic victory from the hands of defeat that I launch the Survivial Afield Category.

It is my hope that this portion of the blog can be a forum to discuss the less than everyday problems with equipment that we all face from the simple fix to an undertaking that would make MacGyver envious.

Posted by Nathan Pier as Survival Afield at 5:05 PM EST

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(12.21.2005) POYi is announcing its rules and submission deadlines for this year’s photo competition.

Entries for the 63rd POYi competition will be accepted online beginning January 3, 2006. The deadline for all entries is two weeks later, January 17.

For now, contest hopefuls are welcome to review the contest categories and
preparation of entry procedures at the official Web site, www.poyi.org.

POYi has a .PDF file with all entry requirements, rules, etc. The file, which can be downloaded to your computer is 2.5MB You can access it HERE

Contest organizers are encouraging participants to read the contents of the .PDF file as there are many changes to this year’s contest.

Visitors to the POYi web site will also see several years-worth of recent winners, a mere portion of the 63-year-old archive.

David Joles, formerly of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, earned second-place honors in last year’s competition for newspaper photographer of the year.

Posted by Administrator as WNPA Report at 2:12 PM EST

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December 18, 2005 Get the work calendar out, it’s time to block off time to attend the 2006 Wisconsin News Photographer Convention.

The WNPA Convention will be held Friday, March 31 with judging being held at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel building and Saturday, April 1 with speakers at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Event times will be forthcoming.

Mark Hoffmann, who is once again donating his time to help organize our annual convention, gave his wish list of speakers to Canon. Once he find sout who they’re sponsoring he will line up additional speakers to offer a full plate on convention day.

WNPA-sters are encouraged to make suggestions on who they would like to see at this year’s convention. Either post to this blog, or e-mail Mark Hoffmann at MHOFFMAN@journalsentinel.com.

Posted by Administrator as 2006 Convention at 4:46 PM EST

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