Ok, it's not really television. But if you are a photographer this is must-see television on the Internet. David Snider's The Photography Channel is truly amazing. The quality of the videos and slide shows are stunning. Our ability to listen to photographers talk about their work make it an inspiring experience.

If I had to be critical it's that right now there are 31 photographers profiled. What is obviously missing is, of course, any representation from the majority world (to borrow a phrase from Shahidul Alam).

I also wish Snider offered a RSS feed or some other option to update us when new photographers are added to the site.

Spokane's The Spokesman-Review is what I call a photo-friendly newspaper. The editors there, those in management and the trenches, get it about using photography and telling community stories effectively.

Colin Mulvany who used his still camera at that paper for a number of years has now shifted to using his video camera to create Video Journal, a terrific video blog or vlog.

The stories are almost always community oriented. They are edited with great precision and carried me from one video post to another because the narrative is so compelling in each of them. I recommend a broad-band connection, though a lo-bandwidth version is also conveniently available.

According to Melissa Lyttle, “Finding The Frame” is a series of posts on the Video Journal site “where a Spokesman-Review photojournalist gets to talk about how a picture came together, and the audio gives you some insight into what they were thinking when they shot it.”

12×12: Pixel Press showcases 12 photographers over the course of 12 months.

ASMP, Editorial Photographers, National Press Photographers Association and other photographer friendly organizations are mounting a spirited campaign against proposed amendments to the current Copyright laws in the US.

“The U.S. Copyright Office issued its report on Orphan Works only a couple of weeks ago. The end of that report contained proposed language for an amendment to the Copyright Act. That proposal is now being fast-tracked in Washington with a good chance of passage before the end of this Session. In my opinion, if that language is enacted in its current form, it will be the worst thing that has happened to independent photographers and other independent visual artists since Work Made for Hire contracts.”

Orphan Works are those copyrighted material (images for instance) whose owners may not be easily located. According to this report, if the owner of the copyright isn't located within a reasonable amount of time and effort, the previously copyrighted objects is “released” to whoever has possession of the said object(s) for their use without fair compensation to the creator of the artwork.

What, is that right? Yep, that's what the amendment is proposing. And it is being fast-tracked through Congress RIGHT NOW.

The ASMP site puts this more succinctly by saying this:

“Orphan works are basically works whose copyright owners cannot be located. The term ”Orphan Works“ is really a dangerously misleading phrase. It makes it sound as if it includes only a few works that are not valued enough by their creators to warrant taking care of them. That may be true for owners of many kinds of copyrights. However, the reality is that for independent photographers and illustrators, the majority of your published photographs may well become Orphan Works. The reason for that is that, unlike just about every other category of copyrighted works, photographs and illustrations are typically published without any copyright notice or credit to the photographer or illustrator. The one exception to that has traditionally been editorial uses, but even there the trend seems to be away from providing credit lines. As more and more photographs are published on the Internet, credits become even rarer. Worse, even if you registered your photographs at the Copyright Office, there is no mechanism for identifying you or your photograph or for locating you through those records, if the user does not know your name.”

Here is what you can do – 1) write to your representatives (the ASMP site has a boiler plate letter that you can massage with your own words), 2) when you create a work of art (whatever it may be) submit a copy of it to the U.S. Copyright office, 3) if you are working with publications insist that your name appear in the credit line (make this part of your contract with them, 4) be vigilant about your images and where and how they are used (I had one Indian magazine use one of my images without my knowledge and then confessed to doing so after I pointed it out to them), 5) if you find transgressors, don't sit around waiting for them to come to you, send them a letter with an invoice attached and 6) barring all of the above hire an attorney who will work with you.

If you won't fight for your rights, no one else will either. Step up folks!

This might be old news to some of you, but I just read in Boing Boing that the Pakistani government has blocked the ubiquitous Blogspot.com domain for hundreds of bloggers in Pakistan.

As Danial Ahmad suggests this action by the Pakistani government may be in retaliation of some bloggers posting (or reposting) the defamatory cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad which first appeared in a Danish newspaper.

In any case, please support Pakistani bloggers and get your very own Don't Block The Blog decal for your site here.

Isn't it a tad bit ironic, though, that this ban went into effect after President George W. Bush left Pakistan after his hand-shake visit with Gen. Pervez Musharaf? Did the Pakistani government wait till the leader of the free world had departed their country before curbing people's rights? Imagine the PR romp if the censorship had occurred before W's visit. Yikes!