national geographic

2012 National Geographic Photo Contest: Cynical?

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Photo awards have proved many times that they are questionable in their motives and results and the just announced winner of the “nature” section of the National Geographic 2012 Photo Contest is only another example how cynical awards have become.

The winning photo is a photo of a tiger, taken in a zoo. One can just imagine what kind of wildlife photography that is in the comfortable security of a zoo with an ice-cream stall conveniently at hand. Not a photographer out in the bush where it has 40 degrees Celsius, covered in dust and sweat, facing possible danger behind every corner and trying to be patient to get that one special shot. No, conveniently with a trolley for the equipment and a foldable chair and umbrella to wait if necessary comfortably for a while, probably being very annoyed by other visitors flocking around the same cage or enclosure.

Is this the new
photo safari wildlife photography experience honored by the leading wildlife photography magazine of the world?

I hope not. There is nothing like the real thing and a photo shows that.

Read more on the subject from PetaPixel
here.


Ute Sonnenberg for
www.rohoyachui.com

The Downside of Photo Apps: Instagram

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It was so much fun, snapping away with Instagram, having fun choosing a fancy filter and sharing it right away with your social network. That was almost a year ago and many has change since then.

It started with the photo app getting slower with every update. Somehow they managed to make the app more complicated with the same features. Just so many steps have to be completed and decisions to be made before being able to shoot the next photo.

Then Facebook bought Instagram for an astronomic amount of money and the updates felt more and more like Facebook strategy of tightening up the service for total control and merger with the social network. Now the next step was taken with the new user terms and conditions with as a result a huge outcry of the Instagram users from photo journalists to
National Geographic and everyday snappers. Instagram can sell your images without telling you for advertising, and you won’t see any payment, you won’t even know.

It is a very confusing and disturbing matter. National Geographic as paused their Instagram account and might erase it, if the terms are indeed of that meaning. People went onto the streets to protest against it and a whole wave of blog posts is trying to explain what’s going on.

Most worrying is also the mention that the Instagram terms are pretty much the same now as the Facebook terms, which would mean that Facebook can sell you photos without telling you and mostly using them as they wish.

Where is this going? It is like anything people like, enjoy and love is kidnapped, held hostage and abused by greedy powers or going more the psychological path, narcissistic powers?

Read more about it in the listed blog posts below:

Instagram changes terms of service, but will pro photographers flee anyway?

Insta-gone?

No, Instagram can't sell your photos: what the new terms of service really mean

Why I Quit Instagram

Instagram Clearly Hates You, So Quit

New Terms of Use for Instagram: Selling Your Photos Against Your Will 

Why Instagram is Great for Photographers, and Why You Shouldn’t Use It

Facebook Poisons Instagram For Its Most Valuable Users: Real Photographers



Ute Sonnenberg for
www.rohoyachui.com