Photojournalists Sign Open Letter Urging Meta Not to Use Their Photos for AI Training

 Via Medium

June 12, 2024

Sign here (individuals)!

Sign here (institutions)!

For more than a decade, Instagram has been a crucial tool for photojournalists distributing their work. They have reached millions from some of the most dangerous places in the world. Many have paid with their lives. They have also been crucial in the initial growth of the platform.

We are deeply troubled by Meta Platforms, Inc.’s plan to train their artificial intelligence (AI) models on photojournalistic content. In times of disinformation and misinformation, in a time where democracy is in decline and the common denominator of what is true and what is fake is eroding, it is more important than ever to have trustworthy sources. Meta’s announced AI policy further undermines that.

We ask Meta to reverse course on their plan to train their AI on Instagram without the option to opt out for most users. We further ask Meta to not use any journalistic or documentary photography and videography in their AI. It is not only a threat to our profession, but to democracy itself.

Sign here (individuals)!

Sign here (institutions)!

Signed,

FREELENS e.V.

Ed Kashi: ‘This image was a breakthrough. I began to see the world anew’

 Via The Guardian

By Grace Holliday

Sat 13 November,  2021 

Sky high: Ed Kashi’s best phone picture

‘This image was a breakthrough. I began to see the world anew’

Santa Cruz boardwalk, 2013, shot on iPhone 5. Photograph: Ed Kashi

Ed Kashi regards his shot of a California aerial tram ride as a personal turning point. For three decades, on assignment in countries including Nigeria, Iraq and Pakistan, he had taken countless images of civil discord and extreme suffering. “I had absorbed that trauma – many photojournalists do. Often our singular goal is to get as close as possible to the most horrible things on Earth and document them,” Kashi says. “I needed to rehabilitate myself, to make a photo that was soft, beautiful and candy-coloured – to expand my emotional range. This image was a breakthrough. I began to see the world anew.”

Kashi describes this period as the “Plasticine era of Instagram”, a time when the smartphone was transitioning from “a fun, novelty toy to a viable tool for an image maker”.

The shot was taken at an amusement park in the US city of Santa Cruz on a day trip with college students, during the afternoon session of a photography workshop Kashi was conducting. “When I’m ‘on’ as a photojournalist, I’m always looking for and responding to visual clues, whether it’s the horizon or the light,” he says.

Spontaneously boarding the aerial tram, he reached for his iPhone 5 instead of his usual 35mm camera. Even in an amusement park dedicated to pleasure and fun, he saw darker undercurrents (not least the plastic figure taking a ride). “The people in the shot aren’t beaming,” he says. “Their facial expressions suggest that perhaps they’re hungry, or tired, or just had a fight. That’s just being human.” And, as the cabin rose, a thought he’d had in far more serious contexts urged him on: “The photo gods have bestowed this upon me – don’t screw it up.”

View more of Ed Kashi's photography here

One-year anniversary photography exhibit on Hurricane Sandy at the Museum of the City of New York

Stephen Wilkes

Strong winds and waves unmoored this home from its foundation in the Oakwood neighborhood of Staten Island. 2012.

 

 

Via The New York Times Lens Blog

 

 

Full post here

 

 

 

Related: Rising Waters: Photographs of Sandy

 

  Jet Star Roller Coaster, Iconic symbol of Hurricane Sandy devastation, demolished

 

   Stephen Wilkes' Sandy Photographs Among TIME's Best Photojournalism of 2012