Thomas Hawk Digital Connection

Please see important update below.

This is as close as I got to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. I only visited the exterior of their museum because of their crappy anti-photography policy in their museum.

It’s amazing to me that the Art Institute of Chicago (a mere few miles away, with a much better contemporary art collection) allows photography, while the backwards thinking Musuem of Contemporary Art does not. Further, some of the most significant contemporary art museums in the world allow photography including the MOMA in New York City and the SF MOMA in San Francisco.

As much as I would have liked to have visited the Museum of Contemporary Art while visiting Chicago, I am glad that they did not get my admission fee.

It’s terrible when museums like this put photographer unfriendly policies in place to try and sell more of their overpriced postcards and books at their bookstore.

The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago should change this anti-photographer and unfriendly photography policy.

Update: It would appear that the MCA has changed their no photo policy. In there house rules section they used to include the following verbiage: “Photography/Filming: Photography and filming are not permitted in the galleries, this includes cell phone cameras and video cameras.”

It now appears that this verbiage has been dropped from the current house rules section on their current website. There is also a comment on the post suggesting that they have changed their policy and now allow photography in their galleries. If this is true this would be a wonderful improvement and I look forward to visiting the museum on my next trip to Chicago.

May your 2010 be full of peace, joy and great photographs!

A few months ago I was excited to read about Starbuck’s joining Flickr and sponsoring an “official” Starbucks group there. I’m sure they had to pony up some big bucks to pay Yahoo/Flickr for that opportunity, but I was pleased to see them show up for the conversations that go along with a group on Flickr.

One of the first posts that was made in the new group though was by someone complaining about the fact that many people have been harrased for taking photos inside of Starbucks:

“I was given to understand that many managers and employees have violently opposed photos made on or of their premises.

Does this group represent a new turn in corporate spirit, or is it launched in spite of the unpleasant, even threatening experiences some have had at Starbucks?”

Initially things looked pretty good. The group admin, and Starbuck’s marketing rep, Anali Orr posted the following:

“Our formal policy is that all press-related photo inquiries need to contact press@starbucks.com prior to taking pictures in a Starbucks store.

However, we have no formal policy around customers taking non-press related pictures in-store so if you hear otherwise, it might just be because your barista is camera-shy ”

Great! Right?

Well, not so fast. It turns out that the situation is hardly clear at this point and after 3 Months we still have no idea if photos are allowed as originally suggested by Orr or not. What we do have are a series of week after week after week non-answers coming back from Starbucks marketing. Below are all of the responses filtered out from Starbucks which read like typical corporate doublespeak and delay tactics, with no official answer from Starbucks and no official answer anywhere near in sight.

2 Months Ago: “I am making great headway here and hope to have some detailed information for you all shortly. To give you an idea of what I’m up to, I am researching if some of our international markets have policies around photography in stores. Since international laws and regulations vary country by country, this is quite the task I’m also working to see where the confusion is stemming from in some US stores.

Again, stay tuned. I’m working on it! “

2 Months Ago: “@shepherd – no worries, I understand why this would be frustrating from your perspective. I’ll be in touch! “

2 Months Ago: “Pye42 – I deleted your last comment – please respect Flickr’s Community Guidelines when posting to our group. “

2 Months Ago: “Thanks Metrix X! I have been meeting with various teams in the building and learning a lot about the world of policies I hope to have something more concrete to share with you soon – thanks for your patience while I work through the details.”

2 Months Ago: “Jayster – I am getting closer to a final ruling each day. I have a big meeting on Wednesday and after that, I will post here with an update.”

6 Weeks Ago: “Hello everyone, I did have a very productive meeting on Wednesday of last week. We read through each of your comments and now the legal team is reviewing some of your feedback around public and private property. More meetings this week…more to come!”

6 Weeks Ago: “Still here and haven’t forgotten about you. I’m writing a blog this weekend/next week about this discussion and hope to post by the end of the week. I’ll keep you in the know. Have a good weekend!”

5 Weeks Ago: “Just wrote a blog response that my legal team is currently reviewing…once I have final approval I’ll post it and let you know. I know it’s taken a while and I know I’ve said it before but I appreciate your patience. This has been quite an interesting project to work on and has involved many meetings with all sorts of teams throughout the building. SO glad you guys brought this to our attention so that we could sort it out for you!”

3 Weeks Ago: “We want to do this in the best way possible. There are many perspectives to take into consideration as part of this discussion. That means considering our baristas’ daily work and their privacy, our customers’ experience in our stores as well as your photographic expression of that experience. We have a lot of things to consider when making decisions that affect what happens in our stores. It has to be the right thing for our partners (employees) and customers, and it has to work well for stores around the world.

More to come – Anali “

3 Weeks Ago: “SteelToad – I appreciate your comments and I have to add that this group isn’t explicitly here for the purpose of taking pictures inside Starbucks stores. That is one part of the Starbucks Experience but pictures of your experience out-of-store are welcome in this group as well.”

…and now for the past three weeks Starbucks has gone radio silent?

Is Starbuck’s trying to launch a beach-head in social media on a photo sharing site while prohibiting actual photography in their stores just another typical example of a corporate misstep and blunder in social media?

Will Starbucks ever get back to the group with an actual definitive answer of what their photo policy is? Will it be before 2010? Will it be before 2011?

It reminds me of the time that the Whitney Museum in NYC tried to start a group on Flickr only to see it crash and burn when people showed up there objecting to the fact that, well, you can’t take photos in the Whitney (which is stupid given that the much more significant contemporary art museum the NY MOMA in New York allows photgraphy).

I actually like Starbucks a lot, am a frequent customer and especially when travelling and working, sort of think of their stores as almost a home base to recharge, log online, download photos, refuel the caffeine and use the restroom. For what it’s worth though I think that they should allow photography in their stores. Either way though, it makes Starbucks look foolish when they string people along for three months and then abandon the conversation.

Of course Orr is still around, she just posted in the “let´s found a chai latte fan-group:-)” thread 8 days ago.

I’ve had two cameras stolen in the last five years or so. I lost a Canon 10D with a 28-135 lens on it when someone stole it at the San Francisco Zoo and I lost a Canon 5D with a 135 f/2 L series lens on it at the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas a few years back. It really sucks. Even more than losing the gear, there is a sense of personal violation and especially when photography and your equipment is such a big part of your life. I’ve always wondered why they can’t put some sort of GPS chip in a camera to help you locate it if it’s stolen. If they can do that with a $500 iPhone, why can’t they do it with a $3,000 DSLR? I know that’s a feature that I would certainly want to have.

On a personal level if I had to choose between getting my gear back when it’s stolen, or not getting it back but seeing the piece of crap that stole my stuff arrested for it, I’d chose the later. To me the violation is worse even than losing the gear.

So I was very disappointed to read over in DMU this morning that someone stole all my friend Shim’s photo gear yesterday. Shims is a hell of a nice guy and a great photographer and I’m really pissed that something so horrible has happened to him this way. I’m not sure on all the details on how or where Shim’s gear was stolen, he was very upset when he posted about it, but hopefully will be back with more details on the theft. In the meantime, if you are in the San Francisco Bay Area and hear about someone trying to unload any of the following on craigslist or elsewhere, get in touch with Shims. Best I can tell, this is what he lost yesterday:

D700 Camera Body
Nikon 24-70mm Lens f2.8
Nikon 20mm Lens f2.8
Nikon 50mm Lens f1.8
Tamron 70-200mm f2.8 Lens
Sandisc Extreme Memory cards

Update: Shims says that his gear was stolen from the Abri Hotel’s lobby mens room in San Francisco. He said it was a 20-something looking white guy who stole it. The serial number of his D700 camera body is 2071413. If somehow through Google Indexing this serial number shows up, please know that this camera was stolen and help Shims get his gear back and the person who stole it punished.

Update #2: Shims got his gear back! Amazing story. Read about it here.

The SF Chronicle reported yesterday that wireless service is apparently available in the Transbay Tube now between Oakland and San Francisco. From the Chronicle:

“(12-21) 21:51 PST — The latest wireless hot spot? Under the bay between San Francisco and Oakland.

Wireless service on BART has been gradually expanding since 2004.”

So I was looking forward to checking out this new service this a.m., but of course as expected crappy AT&T and their horrible network wasn’t able to get a signal in the tube on my iPhone once.

If all goes well, I suspect I *might* be able to get an Edge signal on my 3G iPhone if I’m lucky for about 20% of the ride by 2015.

Thanks for nothing AT&T!

Update: I tried the service again this morning in the Tube and it worked pretty well. I lost my AT&T 3G signal for the last 2 minutes or so of the Tube, but most of the time I was able to use the internet pretty well in the Tube. Thank you AT&T and BART! An update from the SF Chronicle on the service here.

“I don’t know if all the women in the photographs are beautiful, but I do know that the women are beautiful in the photographs.”

– Garry Winogrand

Garry Winogrand’s one of my biggest personal heroes. The ultimate street photographer, Garry was a non-stop photographic machine. His were the pre-digital days. He devoured film with an appetite previously unmatched. He shot film like many photographers shoot digital today. Frenetic, non-stop, with only an occasional break to reload. He shot almost every day and while he crisscrossed the country shooting the best of America, he always remained a quintessential New Yorker at heart.

When Garry died at an early age of 56 he left John Szarkowski, then director of the NY MOMA, with the task of editing what he left behind, 6,500 rolls of unprinted and 2,500 rolls of undeveloped 35mm negatives (about 300,000 frames).

Last week I was talking with photographer Bill Storage about Winogrand over a few beers. Bill suggested that Winogrand may have been living in the golden age of photography, a time when access to people on the street was easier and simpler. Back before people with cameras felt as threatening in a way. Bill suggested that this sort of camera acceptance and access that Winogrand had for himself in the 60s, 70s and 80s may have been at least part of what made him so successful in his street photography. Bill suggested that things have now changed though, chronicling a few of his own personal run ins while out on the street shooting.

“I fear that since the time when Garry Winogrand captured an entire generation on film, changing attitudes toward property and privacy, combined with a lot of jerks with cameras, have spoiled my chances of doing the same (“photographers held for questioning on role in death of Princess Diana…”). It’s not that I have a goal of chronicling life in this era, but if I did, I fear that I’d face frustrations Winogrand never dreamed of.”

As a photographer who shoots out on the street almost every day, I feel a bit of what Bill is talking about. Security guards and other authority figures are part of the problem sometimes, but I think another big part of it is just that the general public in general are more hostile towards photographers. Maybe it’s how easy we can publish to the web today and fear that something incriminating or damaging may be published. Or maybe it’s the fear of the public pervert. The guy who’s out there snapping picks for his upskirt website or just to get off on.

Even today on Flickr many users have had their accounts or groups deleted when Flickr’s felt that they’ve focused too much on “voyeuristic” photography. I wonder if Flickr would have deleted Garry’s account if he were around today?

Garry Winogrand loved shooting woman. He published a book of photographs of women. Initially he wanted to call the book Confessions of a Male Chauvinist Pig, but his publisher wouldn’t allow it and instead made him change the title to the less controversial “Women Are Beautiful.”

I published a thread in DMU on Flickr earlier tonight starting a conversation about Winogrand’s photographs of women, encouraging people to post their own street photographs of the anonymous woman. I shoot a lot of women (and men too) out on the street frequently. Sometimes you get away with it. Other times there is tension and even small altercations. Mostly you learn how to quickly disengage if necessary. Shoot and scram to liberally paraphrase Cartier-Bresson.

I was also thinking earlier tonight about the controversial shooting style of Bruce Gilden. Gilden, a well respected professional photographer and Magnum member, is in some aspects a more modern, albeit far less prolific, version of Winogrand. Like Winogrand, Gilden shoots street, but certainly with a brazen in your face style of shooting that many might find offensive. Do today’s times require Gilden’s in your face approach, to truly get the successful street shot? Is personal confrontation now part of the game?

I wonder how much confrontation was a part of Winogrand’s game. Was shooting street a lot easier in the 60s and 70s? Winogrand always struck me more as an aw shucks sort of guy who could talk his way out of confrontations with a wink and a smile and a few well place charming words rather than Gilden’s approach today. But has the landscape changed that the most successful street artists are either shooting like Gilden or with a 300mm lens?

Who are your street photography heroes? Who is out there doing it right today do you think and who is doing it wrong and why?

Over at the Getty Images Contributor Group on Flickr (it’s private and you have to be an accepted Flickr/Getty photographer in order to see it) there have been a number of threads started over the past few months where Getty/Flickr contributors have posted and shared basic information about how their sales are going through the Flickr/Getty partnership thus far. While it is probably far too early to accurately ascertain a lot of the statistics on how things are truly going, I thought I’d compile some of this information as anecdotal.

So far the Flickr/Getty deal has been running about 8 months now. Initially Getty editors scoured Flickr finding images and photographers to invite. More recently Getty has created a “Call for Artists” group where Flickr users can apply for participation directly in this program. Also Getty has broadened the submission process now allowing photographers to submit 25 images per week for Getty to consider for the Flickr collection (for a while it was 50 per week but they just cut it back to 25). Getty/Flickr photographers submit these images to the “Getty Images Artists Picks” group for consideration.

1. One of the threads in the Contributor Group asked the simple question of members how many images each member currently had on sale at Getty. So far 25 photographers have responded in that thread with an answer. The largest answer was 566 photographs. The smallest answer was 3 photographs. The average of the photographers who answered was 133.4 images each.

2. Another thread in the group asked a more complicated question, what each photographer’s Return Per Image per year was (RPI). In order to get this photographers took their total earnings, divided it by number of months images had sold and the multiplied that number by 12 to get an annual number. The idea here is that photographers might see how much each image accepted by Getty might be worth to them on an annual basis. 22 photographers answered this thread. The highest RPI came in at $119.16 per image. The lowest was $0 (by two photographers who had yet to sell images). The average was $31.03 per image.

3. The most participated in question had to do with Getty’s acceptance rate for images submitted. During the months of August, September, and October, Getty allowed Getty/Flickr photographers to submit photographs in sets to be considered by Getty editors for sale. 39 photographers responded to this question. Acceptance rates varied from 100% of images submitted accepted to a low of 5%. The average acceptance rate for images submitted to Getty through this program was 48.25%.

4. Finally, one photographer asked Flickr/Getty photographers to post the highest right’s managed (RM) sale that they’d made to date. Right’s managed images sold by Getty generally sell for higher amounts than the royalty free (RF) images that they also offer. Many photographers only have royalty free offerings up right now, so much fewer photographers responded to this question. A total of five photographers responded to this question. The most expensive RM image in the program thus far was reported to have sold for $1,439. The low number for highest sold RM photo was $741. The average high value sale was $1,057.75.

It should be noted that several Flickr/Getty photographers have posted that there seems to be a lag from the time that their images are being accepted by Getty and keyworded for accurate search on the site, so this may also be a factor to consider.

In general Getty Images pays out 20% for RF images and 30% for RM images to photographers.

At present there are 13,094 Flickr members in the Getty Contributors group. Getty had previously reported having over 60,000 images now in the Flickr/Getty collection. A current search of the entire Flickr/Getty library pulls up 74,313 images. These numbers would suggest that the average number of photos per Flickr/Getty photographer on sale is much lower than the self reported number above. This would make sense though as it’s probably mostly the most active Flickr/Getty photographers who are actively participating in the Getty Images Contributor group on Flickr. I suspect that the vast majority of photographers in the program probably have less than 10 images for sale each at present.

A blank search for all creative images for sale at Getty at present would suggest that the current Creative collection at Getty (vs. editorial) has about 2,781,826 images in it. This would mean that Flickr would likely represent about 2.6% of the entire Getty creative catalog at present. A number which I suspect will likely be increasing in the future assuming the Getty/Flickr deal stays in place as is.

You can follow information on the Getty/Flickr partnership on Twitter here. Getty’s main account on Twitter is here. Getty Images is on Friendfeed here and Facebook here.

If you’d like to nominate a Flickr photographer to be invited by Getty you can email a link to their flickrstream to flickr@gettyimages.com.

From Crunchgear:

I don’t think anyone is too hot on the idea of testing this question, but one skydiving photographer added a data point unwittingly when his Rebel XT popped off his head at the beginning of a jump. I would have pulled some True Lies-style freefall gymnastics to get it back, but not everybody’s as cool as me and Arnie.

Looks to me like it landed in a bog, or peat or something. That probably helped. Whatever the case, let’s hear it for this heroic little camera.

Of course my own experience with Canon products has been the exact opposite and I find that especially their lenses hold up horribly. I’ve had to send my $950 L Series 135 f/2 lens into Canon now *FOUR* times for the exact same autofocus problem. The last two times I’ve sent it in they’ve claimed “impact damage” even though I’ve never dropped the lens in my life. At first they sent me an email saying that because it had been my fourth time having it repaired that they were going to repair it for free. But then 2 days latter they called a psyche on me and took back their offer to repair it for free and decided to charge me $315.14 instead.

So how is it that a Rebel with a crappy kit lens can fall 3,000 feet and survive but I’ve never dropped my 135 f/2 lens once in my life and have had to have the lens repaired 4x for the exact same problem.

I’ve had autofocus problems with my 50 f/1.2 L series lens (it has a really hard time autofocusing on things within 10 feet) since the day that I’ve bought it but don’t dare send it in to Canon because I’m sure they’d want to ream me again for their shoddy L series products.

Thanks, Clearlight!