Category Archives: Photography

© DCW
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American startup Lunchbox has created the AI Food Generator, capable of generating ridiculously realistic images of food that you’d never suspect were actually created using AI software – and they look mouth-wateringly delicious. So delicious, in fact, that it could misrepresent the food that’s ultimately brought to you by your server.

To create the image, you’ll need to follow the AI template and input the food type that you would like to generate, plus the background color, and style (such as painted, cartoon or realistic) and the AI will create four viable images of a food product. 

• Forget AI – these are the best lenses for food photography

The AI Food Generator is built on the DALL•E 2 technology by OpenAI, and produces food ‘photography’ that’s incredibly impressive – but potentially problematic. We recently reported how AI forensic police sketches were the latest problematic branch of AI image generation, and this new application might be just as harmful in other ways.

What happens when a restaurant advertises a five-star cheeseburger dripping in delicacy and oozing fancy cheeses, but they can’t deliver this product when someone orders it? False advertising is one problem, but forcing usually minimum wage or lower-paid food servers to bare the brunt of angry customers is another. 

Consumers already have high expectations when it comes to food so throwing AI into the mix can only really end badly for the small restaurant chains that this new AI program is pitching to help. “Food items that add an image see 70% more orders and 65% higher sales compared to restaurants that do not,” states the Lunchbox website. 

While this might be true, it could undoubtedly land restaurants and even local kebab shops in trouble if they’re advertising something they can’t deliver – or using an image that might be similar to one from an already existing pool of professional food photography with the risk of facing copyright infringement or a lawsuit from Getty. 

Lunchbox’s software is totally free for public use – and as we’ve been saying time and time again, AI imagery is a disaster for photographers attempting to make a living. Now food photographers especially will suffer as a result of this new AI. Realistically, why would a business pay for food photography when there’s a website that will generate it for free?

In speaking with Business Insider, Lunchbox CEO Nabeel Alamgir said that “Lunchbox pays OpenAI a ‘small fee’ per query”, and that since its launch in January 2023 the platform has generated 175 million AI photos. Alamgir also noted that the company has no way of tracking which brands or restaurants are making use of the tool for businesses. 

“We understand maintaining menu integrity is important,” he added. “The reason we launched the food image generator is because it can get profoundly close to the real visual of your more simple dishes, but it carries out the marketing component that many new and small restaurants cannot afford.”

Some food for thought: do restaurants really need an image for every single menu item? There’s no way that even smaller cafes could physically display all these images on a single menu board. 

So surely the only benefit of this would be for restaurants and takeaway chains that use ordering apps such as Uber Eats, where the customer can see unlimited images when browsing through a menu.

Lunchbox itself is also first and foremost a restaurant management technology platform that enables diners to place orders with participating restaurants, just like Postmates or Door Dash. And being a startup company working with only 200 brands, it has the freedom to experiment with how it operates. 

What’s clear is that the reach of AI-generated images is growing almost daily – and with it, so are the repercussions. 

• You may also be interested in the best camera for food photography, as well as these 10 tasty food photography tips, plus the best books on food photography to help you up your game in preparation for the Pink lady food photographer of the Year 2023. 

© William L. Clements Library
Jubilee singers at Fisk University, in Nashville, Tennessee, pose for promotional photograph, circa 1871.

Frederick Douglass is perhaps best known as an abolitionist and intellectual. But he was also the most photographed American of the 19th century. And he encouraged the use of photography to promote social change for Black equality.

In that spirit, this article – using images from the David V. Tinder Collection of Michigan Photography at the William L. Clements Library at the University of Michigan – examines different ways Black Americans from the 19th century used photography as a tool for self-empowerment and social change.

Black studio portraits

© William L. Clements Library
Cabinet card portraits of African Americans from the David V. Tinder Collection of Michigan Photography. Left: Man with Pipe, circa 1887. Right: Woman in Silk Dress, circa 1888.

Speaking about how accessible photography had become during his time, Douglass once stated: “What was once the special and exclusive luxury of the rich and great is now the privilege of all. The humblest servant girl may now possess a picture of herself such as the wealth of kings could not purchase fifty years ago.”

To pose for a photograph became an empowering act for African Americans. It served as a way to counteract racist caricatures that distort facial features and mocked Black society. African Americans in urban and rural settings participated in photography to demonstrate dignity in the Black experience.

The first successful form of photography was the daguerreotype, an image printed on polished silver-plated copper. The invention of carte de visite photographs, followed by cabinet cards, changed the culture of photography because the process allowed photographers to print images on paper. Cartes de visite are portraits the size of a business card with several copies printed on a single sheet. The change from printing images on metal to printing on paper made them more affordable to produce, and anyone could commission a portrait.

Collecting kinship: Arabella Chapman albums

© William L. Clements Library
Arabella Chapman poses for a portrait from her public carte de visite album, circa 1878 – 1880s.

During Victorian times, it was fashionable for people to exchange cartes de visite with loved ones and collect them from visitors.

Arabella Chapman, an African American music teacher from Albany, New York, assembled two cartes de visite photo albums. The first was a private album of family pictures, while the other featured friends and political figures for public viewing. The creation of each book allowed Chapman to store and share her photographs as intimate keepsakes.

Innovative entrepreneurs: The Goodridge Brothers

© William L. Clements Library
Children stare at the burned remains from the Washington Street fire, circa 1870s. David V. Tinder Collection of Michigan Photography.

When photography became a viable business, African Americans started their own photography studios in different locations across the country. The Goodridge Brothers established one of the earliest Black photography studios in 1847. The business, opened first in York, Pennsylvania, moved to Saginaw, Michigan in 1863.

The brothers – Glenalvin, Wallace and William – were known for producing studio portraits using a variety of photographic techniques. They also produced documentary photography printed on stereo cards to create 3D images.

Saginaw, Michigan, was an expanding settlement, and the brothers photographed new buildings in the town. They also documented natural disasters in the area. Photographers would capture 3D images of fires, floods and other destructive occurrences to record the impact of the event before the town rebuilt the area.

Documenting communities: Harvey C. Jackson

© William L. Clements Library
Burning the Mortgage of the Phyllis Wheatley Home in Detroit, Michigan, on Jan. 4, 1915. By Harvey C. Jackson. David V. Tinder Collection of Michigan Photography.

The development of Black photography studios allowed communities greater control to style images that authentically reflected Black life. Harvey C. Jackson established Detroit’s first Black-owned photography studio in 1915. He collaborated with communities to create cinematic scenes of important events. In one photo, Jackson documents a mortgage-burning celebration at the Phyllis Wheatley Home, established in 1897. Its mission was to improve the status of Black women and the elderly by providing lodging and services.

Mortgage-burning ceremonies are a tradition churches observe to commemorate their last mortgage payment. Harvey Jackson documented this occasion with each person holding a string attached to the mortgage to connect each person in burning the document.

African Americans’ engagement with photography in the 19th century began a tradition for Black photographers’ use of photography today to promote social change. African Americans, whether they are in front or behind the camera, create empowering images that define the beauty and resilience contained within the Black experience.

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Samantha Hill is affiliated with the Society of American Archivists

© Provided by ArtNews
Thomas H. Lee with Ilana D. Weinstein at Lincoln Center’s Alternative Investment Industry Gala in November 2022.

Thomas H. Lee, an iconic figure in private equity and a major art collector and patron, died at 78 on Thursday, a family spokesperson said. A cause of death was not given.

“The family is extremely saddened by Tom’s death,” Michael Sitrick, the spokesperson, said in a statement. “While the world knew him as one of the pioneers in the private equity business and a successful businessman, we knew him as a devoted husband, father, grandfather, sibling, friend and philanthropist who always put others’ needs before his own. Our hearts are broken. We ask that our privacy be respected and that we be allowed to grieve.”

Lee was best known for one deal: acquiring Snapple for $135 million in 1992, taking it public only months later, and then selling it, a mere two years later, to Quaker Oats for $1.7 billion. One of countless deals made over his career, this one was controversial at the time, not just because that $1.7 billion amounted to about $14 a share (or just below half its high a few months before), but because it brought Snapple under the same company that owned Gatorade. It effectively launched what the New York Times once called the “juice wars.”

About a decade into his career, Lee founded his Boston-based firm, Thomas H. Lee Partners, in 1974 with $150,000 (part inheritance, part family loan). Another highly publicized deal later in his career came in the form of a $2.6 billion buyout of Warner Music in 2004. In 2006 Lee resigned from the firm, in a separation he said was “completely amicable” and “planned for years.” He soon formed a new company, now called Lee Equity.

In addition to his business endeavors, Lee was also a major art collector. He first appeared on the ARTnews Top 200 Collectors list in 1995 and then, beginning in 1996, alongside his second wife, Ann G. Tenenbaum, until 2013.

His collecting bug was no doubt spurred by his parents, Mildred and Herbert Lee, who sold seven works from their collection at Sotheby’s in 1998, including pieces by Picasso, Jasper Johns, and Robert Rauschenberg. After donating a large sum to the Whitney in 1997, he asked that the museum rename its second-floor galleries after his parents.

From 1968 to 1995, Lee was married to Barbara Fish Lee, who built her own collection focused on art by women artists. In 1996 he married Tenenbaum, with whom he built one of the most important collections of photography in the country.

Their holdings in the medium were the subject of a 2020 exhibition, titled “Photography’s Last Century: The Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee Collection,” that was held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to celebrate the couple’s promised gift of the collection to the museum on the occasion of its 150th anniversary. (Tenenbaum was a Met trustee at the time.) The show featured nearly 100 works, including ones by Paul Strand, Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, Walker Evans, László Moholy-Nagy, Man Ray, Cindy Sherman, Lee Friedlander, Nan Goldin, Zanele Muholi, Laurie Simmons, Mickalene Thomas, and Lyle Ashton Harris.

In a statement at the time of the couple’s Met donation, museum director Max Hollein said, “From works by celebrated masters to lesser-known artists, this collection encourages a deeper understanding of the formative years of photography, and significantly enhances our holdings of key works by women, broadening the stories we can tell in our galleries and allowing us to celebrate a whole range of crucial artists at The Met.”

In addition to the photographic holdings, Lee and Tenenbaum also owned works by major artists working in other mediums like Francis Bacon, Jean-Michel Basquiat, John Chamberlain, Dan Flavin, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Jeff Koons, Piet Mondrian, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, and Andy Warhol. The couple’s Kelly work, a 1964 painting titled Red Blue (EK 335), is a promised gift to the Whitney and was included in a 2003 survey at the museum on Kelly.

Lee was also a regular at the auction houses, spending top dollar for coveted works. The year he bought Snapple, he paid $1.7 million for a 1949 drip painting by Pollock, titled No. 22, at Christie’s May 1994 contemporary art sales; that price was just below its $2 million to $3 million estimate. In November 1995, Lee bought what was then the most expensive work ever sold at a Sotheby’s evening sale, a 1944 abstraction by Arshile Gorky. The Gorky was sold for $4 million, setting a record for the artist at the time. In May 1997, he paid $4.1 million at Christie’s for a 1929 Mondrian from the collection of Jacques Koerfer. Then in May 2000, he beat out another collector to purchase Sigmar Polke’s 1968 dot painting Two Women, for $1.6 million, which also set a record for the artist.

An honorary trustee of the Whitney Museum, Lee was also a supporter of the Museum of Modern Art, Lincoln Center, and Harvard University, as well as a major donor to James Turrell’s Roden Crater project.

In a statement to ARTnews, Whitney director Adam D. Weinberg said, “I am heartbroken over the loss of Tom Lee, a beloved Honorary Trustee and resolute, generous supporter of the Whitney Museum. A Trustee for nearly three decades, Tom embodied the passion, dedication, and vision that drives our mission forward. His courage, tenacity, generosity, and sense of humor endeared him to us all. He leaves behind an indelible mark on the Whitney and on our hearts. He was a dear, dear friend, and I will miss him terribly.”

Angelica Villa contributed research.

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Photographers often consider copyright protections the only way of protecting their work from copycats. However, replication of your work is not the only way other entities can illegally ride on your hard work.

They could also use your name and brand identifiers to market their work, impacting your brand’s reputation and profits. The best way of protecting your work from this kind of infringement is through trademarking your work.

This guide focuses on the different types of trademark symbols you can use on your marks to help minimize the chances of trademark infringement.

What Are Trademarks

A trademark is a brand’s markers and identifiers that help a consumer pick out a product or service from its competition. They can be symbols, words, phrases, sounds, names, or a combination of these elements.

Trademarks can be unregistered or registered, and the status of your trademarks determines the symbols you can use alongside them. These symbols include:

TM (Unregistered Trademark)

When used alongside a brand’s markers such as brand names, logos, blog names, etc., TM informs others that the identifier used is used as a trademark under common law. Common law trademark rights apply on a first-to-use basis, meaning you can claim ownership of a trademark on the premise of being the first to use it to identify your products or services.

But the level of protection for your photography business may not be as pronounced as when you would have your marks registered for trademark protections. Also, enforcing your TM rights can mean incurring high costs. You may not recover damages for infringement unless you own other rights, such as copyrights for the images used.

SM Service Mark

The service mark SM is similar to the TM, only that the SM indicates unregistered markers used in marketing services.

Photography and other forms of creative arts can be viewed as services, so you can use an SM symbol instead of the TM symbol to indicate your unregistered symbols or symbols in the registration process.

® Registered Trademark

The ® symbol is common on products and indicates that the product identifiers are registered trademarks. The right to use the ® on a mark, symbol, or name is granted upon successful trademark registration. In most countries, including Canada, using the ® sign on not duly registered markers is illegal.

Having the symbol on your brand identifiers means that you have an exclusive right to your identifiers and can sue for infringement, including recovering compensation for damages caused.

This guide on trademark symbols explained at Heer Law can help you understand the best options for protecting your business. Informative as it is, it does not eliminate the need to see a lawyer for further guidance.

Trademark Registration

Countries have different processes for trademark registration. In Canada, trademark registration applications are made through the Canadian intellectual property office (CIPO). CIPO offers three options for registration; online, in-person, and via mail.

The first step before applying for registration is establishing that your trademarks are original in Canada and abroad. So you must start by conducting a Canadian and global trademark search on all trademark databases and online.

After establishing that your trademarks are original, the next step is filing for registration and paying applicable fees. If successful, your trademarks will be duly registered to give you exclusive rights to them.

Scope of Protections

Trademark rights are limited to the years from the date of registration, but you can extend your protections beyond ten years by paying service fees every ten years for as long as you want to maintain those rights.

Also, trademark rights are limited to geographical boundaries. For example, a trademark registered in Canada can only be enforceable in Canada. But you could extend your trademark rights protections globally by registering them with a global trademark body.

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© Julie D’Amour-Léger
Julie D’Amour-Léger takes a selfie on a crab boat. Her love for photography started at the age of 12 when she got her first 35-mm camera.

Three years, 10,000 photos and a deep respect for the fish on her dinner plate: That’s what Julie D’Amour-Léger, a photographer from northeastern New Brunswick, walked away with after exploring a major economic sector in her region — the fishing industry.

D’Amour-Léger is in Fredericton until Saturday working as an artist-in-residence at the Beaverbrook Art Gallery developing her experiences into a book. And unlike during her research, this residency is on land.

During her time on the water, D’Amour-Léger, who is from Caraquet, would often tell the fishermen that she was an artist-in-residence on their boats.

She got started on the project by contacting fishermen, asking if she could join them on their boats. While most were happy to have her come along, she said there was a lot of waiting for good conditions over the years.

She began by shadowing smelt fishers in 2020 as they hauled their nets through a hole in the ice.

After the first year of braving the elements on land, at sea and on ice, she was hooked. She wanted to explore the different fisheries and photograph each one, even if it meant overcoming her usual sea seasickness. 

But it was all worth it.

“I wanted to take pictures of people who are just doing what they’re doing, you know, as themselves,” said D’Amour-Léger. “The environment, the colours of their suits, all the equipment — it’s unbelievable. They’re all different.”

She has captured crab, lobster, tuna, smelt, scallop, herring, halibut, eel, shrimp and mackerel fishing — each with its own specific schedule and requirements. She also photographed oyster farming and clam digging on or near the shore. 

When she went shrimp fishing, she spent seven days on a boat as the crew embarked on a 35-hour run from Caraquet to Louisbourg, N.S.

Once they arrived, she said the crew lifted the trawling nets, bagged the shrimp and took them to a freezer below deck working five hours at a time. They would sleep a couple of hours and then get up to work for another five.

“They never sleep more than two hours at a time,” recalled D’Amour-Léger.

But she said every journey was different. Out on a crab boat on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, she said the crew worked all day long from sunrise to sunset and slept at night.

D’Amour-Léger’s love for photography started at the age of 12 when she got her first 35-mm camera. She had two friends with dark rooms at their homes, so she had the opportunity to start developing her own photos at an early age. That led her to study visual arts at the University of Moncton and then Concordia University in Montreal. 

She made the switch to digital photography 20 years ago, she said, which allowed her to return to New Brunswick in 2007.

“A big city has a lot of resources but when I moved to Caraquet, I just needed my camera and my computer to be able to work,” she said.

One of D’Amour-Léger’s biggest takeaways from her adventures is the dedication of people in the fishing industry, working long hours, doing hard labour.

Since returning, she’s narrowed down her favourite photos from 10,000 to around 120 in preparation for an exhibition at the Galerie d’art Bernard-Jean in Caraquet in November.

“I think the strength of this project is that I have my own photographer’s eye on many kinds of fishing,” said D’Amour-Léger.

“It’s a way of living and I wanted to see all of that…. They were so natural, not looking at me, they were just doing what they’re doing, and it was beautiful to see.”

Sigma is developing lenses for the Nikon Z mount, beginning with a trio of f/1.4 primes, the company has announced.

Sigma’s first three Nikon Z mount lenses will be the 16mm F1.4 DC DN | Contemporary, 30mm F1.4 DC DN Contemporary and the 56mm F1.4 DC DN | Contemporary. These lenses are currently already available in Sony E mount, Fujifilm X mount, Micro Four Thirds, Canon EF-M mount L mount.

The new Sigma Nikon Z mount lenses will be designed as crop-sensor lenses but can also be used on full-frame Z mount bodies in crop mode. Sigma says each lens will also have specially developed control algorithms for Z mount, including AF drive and communication speed.

Each lens will boast a nine-blade aperture, while the 16mm will comprise 16 elements in 13 groups, the 30mm 9 elements in 7 groups and the 56mm 10 elements in 6 groups. The 16mm lens will weigh 420g, the 30mm 285g and the 56mm 295g.

Price and release date information will be announced at a later date, Sigma says.