The Photo Feed 02.07.08

Getty Museum Acquires Irving Penn Collection (New York Times)
Visitors to Getty Museum will soon be in for a treat. Yesterday, the Los Angeles museum announced the acquisition of Irving Penn’s “The Small Trades” portrait series, which is comprised of 252 full-length portraits of blue-collar workers. Penn began the project while shooting Parisian workers for Vogue. “This is a set of images that the Getty has been thinking about and wanting to get for several years,” said Getty associate photography curator Virginia Heckert, who negotiated the years-in-the-making deal with Penn. The 90-year-old photog sold some of the pix and donated others to the museum.

Bad News For Bauer Tabs (Mediaweek / AP / PopSugar)
Many celebrity tabloids are raking in the cash, thanks to Britney Spears. But at least a couple of Bauer titles seem to be missing out on the fun. Yesterday, the magazine publisher announced that it is cutting Life & Style’s rate base by 21 percent. The magazine’s publisher has also announced that he is leaving Life & Style to work for Maxim instead. Adding insult to injury, Bauer slashed In Touch’s rate base by 17 percent. (Peculiarly, the AP had recently reported that In Touch was benefiting from the cult of Britney, but the base cut suggests otherwise.)

Life Photog Allan Grant Dies (PDN)
Allan Grant shot some of the biggest stories of the 1940s, 50s and 60s for Life and photographed the likes of Howard Hughes, Grace Kelly and Richard Nixon. His work appeared on 28 Life covers. Grant died on February 1 from Parkinson’s Disease at the age of 88.

MORE BELOW: Organic Style to relaunch online ... Dreamstime launches new editorial license ... NYT discovers that other newspapers are flailing ... Flickr fans rally against possible Microsoft takeover ... Does Vanity Fair have another JFK conspiracy on its hands? ... Two people's take on one photo shoot ... SlideShowPro gets an update ... UK newspaper editors get some Vanity ...

Organic Is Back In Style On The Web (Mediaweek)
Two years ago, Rodale folded its ailing monthly, Organic Style. Now that the mag has a new owner, it is getting a new lease on life—on the Internet. The digital magazine will make its home at OrganicStyleMag.com and will feature articles (and accompanying images, of course) about eco-living, fashion, travel and gardening. Organic Style’s new incarnation will also include videos and audio features, along with a catalogue choc full of luxury environmentally friendly goods. The magazine will be updated quarterly and will be free to users, at least initially. By the second issue, parent company Organic Bouquet seeks to fund the magazine through ad sales.

Dreamstime Launches New Editorial License (Dreamstime)
Dreamstime is looking to make life easier for photogs. So it has announced a new editorial license that allows photogs the shoot “newsworthy” events “without being concerned about getting model releases,” according to a press release from the stock company. “Images used to illustrate truthful articles do not require model releases as do images used for promotional or advertising uses,” the company adds. With the new license, Dreamstime expects to offer a broader range of pix to publications and editorial Web pages. To learn more about the editorial license, click here.

NYT Discovers That Other Newspapers Are Flailing (New York Times)
In case you’ve been living under a rock, here’s an important newsflash: the newspaper industry is declining in ways far more serious than before. One of the best indicators of this is the fact that stories of layoffs and newspaper sales hardly qualify as news anymore.

A Flickr Of Angst? (Wired / PDNPulse)
The prospect of Microsoft buying Flickr parent Yahoo has some users of the photo-sharing site up in arms. Not only are satirical mashed-up Micro-hoo icons popping up in photostreams; several groups have formed to express solidarity against a possible takeover. One such group, “Microsoft: Keep Your Evil Grubby Hands Off Our Flickr,” now has 2,400 members and about 250 photos.

Another JFK Conspiracy? (Page Six)
Leave it to the Kennedys to be the subject of conspiracy theories. After Vanity Fair sent photog Harry Benson to Vancouver to photograph a man who claims that John F. Kennedy was his father, editors purportedly killed the story the pix were supposed to illustrate. A friend of the Vancouver man alleges that Ted Kennedy “strong-armed [Vanity Fair editor] Graydon Carter.” In reality, say sources at Vanity Fair, the story is just being held until there is proof that the Vancouver man—named Jack—is in fact the former President’s son.

One Photo, Two Perspectives (Guardian)
The Guardian’s Leo Benedictus wondered what it was like to shoot someone famous—and to be a famous person posing for a photograph. So he picked three noteworthy pix and asked the photog and the subject to each share their stories about the shoot. In many cases, the photogs and subjects had different feelings about their shoots.

SlideShowPro Gets An Update (John Nack on Adobe)
Good news for Lightroom and Photoshop SlideShowPro users: You can now get a update that features a new “header” area, a new “Wet Floor” effect, four template groups that offer a total of 32 options, the ability to directly assign an audio file and caption and a new Director formatting panel. You can download the free update here.

UK Newspaper Editors Get Some Vanity (Guardian)
Newspaper editors haven’t been know for their glamour—until now. Vanity Fair recently commissioned photog Lord Snowdon to shoot a portrait of 12 of the UK’s most prominent newspaper editors. The image will appear in the magazine’s March issue and will be displayed at the UK's National Portrait Gallery as part of the Vanity Fair Portraits: Photographs 1913-2008 exhibit, which opens next week.