Associated Press Snubs White House Photo of Dalai Lama Visit

The handout: President Barack Obama meets with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in the Map Room of the White House, Feb. 18, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

The Associated Press chose not to distribute a White House handout photograph of the Dalai Lama’s visit with President Obama yesterday, comparing it to “the visual equivalent of being fed a completed news story by a PR firm or official as opposed to reporting it ourselves.”

AP director of photography Santiago Lyon explained the decision in a post on the AP’s Facebook page. While he acknowledged the White House’s desire to limit coverage of the event because of the Dalai Lama’s strained relationship with the Chinese government, Lyon argued that the AP’s stance was necessary in their “constant striving for media access.”

“We won’t accept or use handout photos if we feel access would have been possible by the media, either as a group or through a pool photo arrangement,” Lyon explained. He also outlined several instances in which the AP “might” accept and distribute handout photographs, including in situations where a non-democratic government that limits press freedom has made photographs available. “Ignoring those handout photos would deprive our readers and viewers of a unique source of information,” Lyon wrote.

“Access to the public activities of the president of the United States, we believe, is a fundamental right of the media,” Lyon concluded. “Government-controlled coverage is not acceptable in societies that promote freedom and democracy. As a result, we don’t distribute official images of events we believe should be open to the press.”

Lyon’s full statement is available here.

Agence France-Presse, Getty Images and Reuters also chose not to distribute the photograph.

Friday Fun: Paparazzo Tries to Tame a Wild Baldwin

While we don't usually go for Celebrity vs. Photographer stories, this one from the New York Daily News caught our eye because of the hilarious expression on the photographer's face in this image as he tries to get out of the way of a charging Alec Baldwin.

Anyone know who the photographer in the photo is and whether he survived his perilous brush with the "30 Rock" star?

(Speaking of celebrity photography, the legendary "King of the Paparazzi" Felice Quinto passed away this week at the age of 80. Quinto was said to have been the inspiration for the character "Paparazzo" in Fellini's 1960 film "La Dolce Vita.")

Shepard Fairey Under Criminal Investigation, AP Reports

The AP is reporting that a federal judge has disclosed for the first time that artist Shepard Fairey, creator of the Obama campaign "Hope" poster, is under criminal investigation because of possible evidence tampering in a civil copyright case over the poster.

Fairey created the poster from an AP photograph without permission. Anticipating a copyright infringement lawsuit from AP, Fairey filed a preemptive claim last year asking a federal court in New York to declare his use of the image legal. AP counter-sued for infringement a short time later.

Last October, Fairey admitted he had made a mistake about which image he had used to create the "Hope" poster, and fabricated evidence to conceal the mistake.

“In an attempt to conceal my mistake I submitted false images and deleted other images. I sincerely apologize for my lapse in judgment and I take full responsibility for my actions which were mine alone,” Fairey wrote in a statement on his Web site.

AP's infringement claim is still pending, and the judge in the case acknowledged the criminal investigation when he declined a request from Fairey's attorney to delay the infringement proceeding until the criminal investigation is resolved, according to yesterday's AP report.

Prestigious Wildlife Photography Competition Sullied By Staged Image

José Luis Rodriguez's image has been dubbed the "Loan Wolf" by The Guardian.

The winner of the British Natural History Museum’s wildlife photographer of the year award was stripped of his £10,000 prize after questions arose about his winning image. According to reports in the British press, José Luis Rodriguez’s photograph of a rare Iberian wolf jumping a wooden gate at night came under question when photographers recognized that Rodriguez’s subject is a tame wolf named Ossian from Madrid’s Cañada Real wildlife park.

"I remember thinking, my God, this really is a wild wolf, what an achievement," Mark Carwardine, chairman of the judging panel told The Guardian. "I don't understand the mentality at all. People feel very disappointed with the photographer."

The contest organizers say Rodriguez continues to claim the image was the result of months of work studying the wolf’s behavior, but nobody is buying it.

Although the photographer has been stripped of his title and prize, books featuring his work alongside that of the other competition entrants have already been published by the BBC, which leaves a lasting reminder of the deceit, another in a growing list of transgressions by photographers which undermine an already shaky public trust of photographs.

Money Talks: Getty Salutes NBA Order to Take Down Photo

In the not-so-distant past, wire services acted in the interest of newspapers and their readers, not the subjects of the photos and stories they distributed. Then along came Getty, which signed deals with sports leagues, including the NBA, for special access and exclusive distribution rights. That means Getty has to pull its punches when it has images that might cast a professional sports league in a bad light. And sure enough, Getty obliged the NBA yesterday when the league ordered it to take down a photograph of Washington Wizards star Gilbert Arenas, according to this Washington Post story. The reason was because the image showed Arenas at a game, pretending to shoot some teammates. They were laughing. But now that Arenas has been suspended indefinitely for allegedly pulling out a real gun during a locker room dispute, the image presents a publicity problem for the NBA.

It's worth noting that Getty didn't produce the image; it was shot by an NBA photographer and Getty was acting only as the distributor in this case. And to its credit, Getty prevailed upon the NBA to reconsider its decision and let Getty re-post the image. But not so long ago, any wire service would have told the NBA to take a hike in the first place.

Bridget Russel, Senior Director of Corporate Communications at Getty, responds: "Getty Images honors copyright. Distribution partners, such as the NBAE, Time & LIFE, CBS, and many others, hold the copyright to their images and if they decide to remove an image from our site, it is their right." She also says, "We do not seek special treatment due to our commercial deals. Our relationship with the sports leagues in no way influences our access. In fact, our contracts clearly stipulate that we are not given special access from the sports leagues...Our photographers stand in line with all of the other photographers to get access."

Final Photo From Mt. Wilson Webcam Shows Thick Smoke

A huge wildfire has knocked out a popular webcam at the historic Mt. Wilson Observatory above Los Angeles. Here is the last image transmitted by the Mt. Wilson Observatory Towercam before operators lost contact with the camera yesterday afternoon:

Another Big Get For Demotix: Henry Louis Gates Arrest Photo

London-based user-generated-content site Demotix Images just scored a very important photograph. A neighbor of Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Harvard scholar who was arrested at his own home last Thursday in an incident widely labeled as racial profiling, submitted what seems to be the only photo of the arrest.

The Associated Press, which has picked up Demotix pictures before, is distributing the photo with a Demotix credit.

The Story Behind The NYTimes' Texting-While-Driving Photo

A startling photograph ran on the front page of The New York Times today. Note the speedometer:

The photograph is by St. Louis freelance photographer Dan Gill and it ran with a story about the dangers of using cell phones while driving. Times readers are already asking some obvious questions about this photo.

• Was it set up?
• If it wasn't set up, how did the photographer get the picture?
• And should the photographer have told the teenage driver and passenger to cool it with the phone and drive safely?

We asked Gill to explain, and he got back to us quickly by e-mail and with a follow-up phone call. Here's how he got the picture.

Obama Steals a Glance in Reuters Photograph

Reuters photographer Jason Reed shot a picture that's is getting a lot of attention on Internet news sites:

First published yesterday afternoon, Reed's photo soon appeared at the top of the Drudge Report. This morning, it's the most-emailed photo on Yahoo! News.

Reed has about six years of experience shooting U.S. political photography for Reuters, and he's carrying on a long tradition of White House photographers who shoot funny pictures of presidents. So why did this picture make us feel queasy?

Photo of Protester Giving Ahmadinejad the Finger Almost Certainly Fake

The photo at left, which shows a protester giving the middle finger to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has been kicking around Twitter since about Friday. It's a popular image among opposition supporters; some people are calling the woman in the picture brave.

It's maddeningly difficult to check the validity of pictures people link to on Twitter. But in this case, we're reasonably sure this one has been faked. We found a similar copy of the same photo floating around that shows a woman gesturing, but not flipping the bird (at right). The version of the picture with the finger has been cropped slightly at the bottom to eliminate a credit to FARS, the state-backed Iranian news agency. We don't know when the original was published or anything else about it.

Also, the middle finger is a rude gesture use mainly in Western cultures (based on an article we just read on Wikipedia) so it probably doesn't make any sense in Iran.