Moving Day

Since I wanted something a little more creative than just my name in the URL of my blog, I’ve started Mente Nero. It’s the same theme with (hopefully) a better feel.

The title is Italian but the rest is English. It’s taken me this long to master the English language, so I have no intention of trying to master another one.

Maybe.

So Sue Me

When it comes to intellectual property, I’m one of the biggest supporters that you’ll ever meet. My view is that if you invent something or create something, it’s yours. At the same time, I’m also able to recognize that sometimes, with regard to concepts or ideas, it’s hard to not borrow something sometimes and reinterpret them.

As a photographer, for example, I understand that someone else might use a similar background or angle for a photo that I might use. Similarly, I might end up using similar angles and backgrounds that another photographer has used. Neither of us is, most likely, doing it to rip the other off.

But what if we could successfully sue someone who has a similar style or theme in our photographs? I use the term “successfully” because anyone can attempt to sue anyone else but it then becomes an issue for the courts to determine if the lawsuit can proceed.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve come across not one but four stories pertaining to artistic infringement lawsuits and only one of them—to me, anyway—seems to have teeth. Moreover, the other three actually have me wondering if they can set a rather broad precedent if they’re allowed to continue (and one of them has been allowed to proceed by the judge in the matter).

Back in March of this year, ARTINFO’s Andrew M. Goldstein published a story about a lawsuit filed by photographer Gagosian Cariou against Richard Prince, who clearly used Cariou’s images without Cariou’s permission. It appeared to be an open-and-shut case. Over the last few weeks, though, I’ve discovered three lawsuits that have me not only scratching my head, but also wondering if it opens the door for me to sue others who might take photos similar to mine. What’s more, they make me wonder if I could be sued by others who may have similar shots.

A few days ago I saw a story on TV about singer Rihanna and her associates being sued by photographer David LaChapelle because Rihanna’s music video for the song “S&M” used poses, props, and lighting that were quite similar to photographs that LaChapelle took of the singer before the video came out. At first I thought that maybe Rihanna used LaChapelle’s actual photos, but after reading stories about the suit it turned out not to be the case. LaChapelle was suing for similarities of “composition, total concept, feel, tone, mood, theme, colors, props, settings, decors, wardrobe and lighting.”

My questions, and more specifically concerns related to future lawsuits, are related to the idea that Mr. LaChapelle appears to be claiming ownership of visual concepts as opposed to simply direct images. I wasn’t aware that “feel, tone, mood, theme, colors, props, settings, decors, wardrobe and lighting” were things which could be placed under copyright. And given that Mr. LaChapelle didn’t invent the use of ropes, latex, or dog leashes, I’m kind of confused on how the lawsuit has been given the go-ahead by the New York judge who is handling the case. If Mr. LaChapelle wins the suit, does that give him ownership rights of those things from this point forward?

A second lawsuit that I questioned was that of Janine “Jah Jah” Gordon, who sued photographer Ryan McGinley for $30,000, claiming that McGinley “stole her visual style and subject matter.” Some of the images that I’ve seen used for comparison shots are roughly similar, but are also similar to dozens of other photos that I’ve seen on deviantART and Flickr. The “style” in question appears to be use of poses, people jumping, and excessive use of sky in the images. Can these things be “owned” by one photographer and off-limits to the rest of us? Obviously a court will decide, but as Artnet’s Rachel Corbett wrote: “Copyright law does not protect categories like ideas, principles or explanations—only their manifestations.” (As an aside, this case turned a bit ugly when Ms. Gordon reportedly commented on Facebook: “I hope I can [end the suit] legally—because if it comes down to physically stopping him—he is going to get hurt—the gangsters and thugs in many of the photos are my friends. [smiley face]”)

The third lawsuit was also related to “owning” ideas. Back in December, artist Jeff Koons attempted to sue a Canadian company because they were selling bookends that were shaped like balloon dogs (the twisty ones made by clowns at birthday parties). The bookends had the same shape as a metal sculpture that he has on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The company did not use his name anywhere to market their bookends, but Mr. Koons appeared to be claiming ownership of the shape of the balloon dog. Given that balloon dogs have been in existence since before Mr. Koons made his sculpture, a lawsuit seemed odd. (The lawsuit has since been dropped.)

For the record, I don’t know any of the artists in question for any of these stories. In fact, after looking at their work, I like much of it—a lot. What has me concerned, however, is the possibility that lawsuits are going to become commonplace in the world of photography if something that would otherwise be commonplace is suddenly claimed as being “owned” by a particular photographer. Can I be sued by Mr. LaChapelle if I photograph a woman lying in a field of tall grass, similar to his shot of Angelina Jolie? Can I be sued by Ms. Gordon if I use too much sky or a person jumping or a person with their arm at a certain angle? I’m not suggesting that they would, but the lawsuits do raise questions about “ownership” of things that are otherwise not possible to “own.”

Image credit: Me. I made it but I promise not to sue anyone if you decide to borrow it.

None of the Above

This morning I was moving a few things around in a drawer when I came across my college transcripts from about eleven years ago. They made me realize that I’ve changed quite a bit as the years have gone by, especially in terms of how I view our culture with respect to politics.

During my undergrad years, I was, without question, a student of political science. Even before college I found myself reading the newspaper on a daily basis, watching C-SPAN, and reading whatever political magazines I could get my hands on. By the time I was in college, I was taking courses on international relations, constitutional law, modern political theory, and American political parties.

While I knew at the time I was taking them because I wanted to learn how our system worked more than I was interested in being some kind of cog that was going to influence the workings of the machine as a whole (the “I’m going to change the world” attitude), I didn’t think that I’d reach a point where I found myself disinterested in being part of the entire thing—you know, the machine.

Over the last few years I’ve been finding myself slowly drifting from the negativity that has come to define political “discussion” in our culture—and I use the term discussion loosely—in an effort to put more energy in things that are much more enjoyable, if not productive, to do—you know, like photography.

The recent bombing in Oslo, Norway, has sort of helped these feelings of outsiderness along, especially when viewing comments from folks the world over with regard to the incident. When it first occurred, everyone with an Internet connection claimed to know the “real” story behind the entire thing without having to leave the comfort of their computer desks or recliners, if they have laptops. Within minutes the theories were flung across the World Wide Web like heaps of digital cattle dung. The cries were similar: “I bet he’s a liberal!”; “No, I bet he’s a conservative!” Then you had people like me thinking, Does it really matter when the end result is as heinous as it was?

Perhaps for many the politicalization of an incident—any incident; not just this one—becomes the most important aspect of the incident. Who can we blame? At whom can we point the finger? Do you disagree with us? Then you must be a supporter of the other side.

Actually, the last sentence in the previous paragraph is the main reason that I’ve begun to feel anti-political over the last few years. Yes, I fully understand that part of me is probably supposed to feel as though I should be a person to lead the charge with battle-cries of “Everyone can make a difference!” and “Always get involved!” Well, to a degree, this is my form of involvement: questioning how and why we’ve become as radical as we have on both sides of the aisle. Moreover, is this going to have a negative impact on what I consider to be the greatest nation on Earth?

Now, I’ll be the first to say that this is probably nothing new. Such radicalization has existed in America before: the start of the American Revolution, the Civil War, the post-World War II communist threat, the Vietnam War. My point is that I’m wondering if we’re moving back toward another cycle of radicalism and considering my hesitation to become part of it. I’m wondering if I’m really an official part of this cultural belief, in which we pick a side and lead the charge for it no matter what, without question, almost like we’re rally around our favorite sports teams. And, after all, if you’re willing to question, then you’re not “for” the movement. You’re either with them or you’re against them.

I’ve seen similar attitudes expressed on C-SPAN when they allow the public to call in on their phone lines during their morning show, Washington Journal. It seems almost routine to hear both Democrats and Republicans complain because the other is allowed to call in. Democrat callers would claim that C-SPAN is “obviously” a right-wing network because they allow Republicans to call in; Republicans counter by claiming that C-SPAN is “obviously” a left-wing network because Democrats are allowed to call in.

A few years ago I saw an interview with Metallica’s drummer Lars Ulrich, who was asked about his take on American politics. Given that he’s originally from Denmark but spent many years in the U.S., he had the chance to grow up in one culture and become a part of another. He pointed out that he found it hard to grasp the idea that everyone and everything in the U.S.—including political ideas—is supposed to be completely concrete, black-and-white, and either-or. There’s no room for intellectual movement or analysis; there’s no tolerance for philosophical examination. In short, there’s no patience for scrutiny.

I wonder how safe such a situation is, given the importance of the political system. Even if people have no interest in it, it still controls us—all of us—through our laws. Even if we’re more interested in paying attention to MTV instead of C-SPAN, the folks watching MTV are still governed by the legislation passed by the folks being interviewed on C-SPAN. You can’t turn politics off.

But what if it turns you off? Rather, what happens when you start wondering if the extreme views become the majority while the minority is asking, “Shouldn’t we discuss this?” This then goes back to why I said that I’d use the term discussion loosely, with respect to American politics.

It’s becoming more and more difficult to stay interested in such an important institution when the majority of viewpoints are not yours, whether they’re on the far-right or the far-left. And, furthermore, if you don’t adopt the radical views of either extreme, to those folks you suddenly become the enemy—the other side. You’re either with us or you’re against us.

Or are they just the most vocal? Are non-radical viewpoints actually more widespread and simply not being heard? Or are the non-vocal folks the ones who have already grown disinterested in the entire thing and moved on to other things?

I don’t know and I don’t claim to know to definitive answer—yes, even though I can easily call myself an expert simply because I have an opinion and an Internet connection, similar to many others.

What I do know, however, is that we must have skipped this part of the lesson in my college courses.

Vintage

Even though I enjoy using new cameras and lenses, I love looking at old photos. They have more character than new ones do. While a new photo that is made to look old might not have the same amount of character as an original, it’s still fun to try.

Black & White and Read All Over

Someone once said, “A color photograph shows you how something looks but a black-and-white photograph shows you what something means.” I’m not sure who first said it, but I have to agree.

Demons in the City of Angels: An L.A. Noire Review

It was an era of big band music, a baby boom, and a communist threat. The Cold War was just beginning; Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall were America’s sweethearts. In Los Angeles, California, the murder of Elizabeth Short left citizens disturbed and on edge.

It’s this environment that gives home to Team Bondi’s title L.A. Noire, which is published by Rockstar Games. Set in 1947 L.A., you play the role of a police detective and later an insurance investigator to get to the bottom of different cases. You investigate murders, arsons, and drug dealers while building up to an even bigger shock by the end of the story. Interspersed with the story cases are smaller street crimes, with perpetrators like bank robbers, domestic abusers, and people fleeing hit-and-run incidents.

When the name Rockstar Games pops up, one immediately thinks of the Grand Theft Auto series, which have become household names with both video games in general and, in particular, sandbox-style games in which open-ended gameplay is a mainstay. In the GTA series, you’re able to complete predetermined missions as well as go anywhere you want to go on the map, interacting with anyone, crashing any vehicle you wish to crash, and destroying…well…pretty much everything.

This is where L.A. Noire differs. While the game is still sandbox-style in nature—you can drive wherever you wish to drive and walk wherever you wish to walk—there are significant differences with respect to how much damage you can inflict upon the innocent citizens of The City of Angels. You are, after all, playing the role of good guys, who have taken an oath to serve and protect the city’s inhabitants as opposed to removing them from the next U.S. census count.

While it is possible to kill those who aren’t related to any crime on which you’re working, it’s simply more difficult than the GTA series. And in fairness to this game, L.A. Noire was never said to be a clone of the GTA games. L.A. Noire is designed to be a story-heavy game while GTA is more a series of do-what-you-want and action-above-all-else approaches to gameplay. So keeping that in mind, let’s take a look at the good and bad of L.A. Noire if you haven’t purchased it yet and are thinking about it.

GAMEPLAY
Overall
Simply put: The plot is more important than the action. There are many more cutscenes (in which you’re watching the action as opposed to partaking in it) to help develop the characters. This is done to give the player a sense of why each person is doing what they’re doing. It’s also a big help when it comes to your objective, which is solving each crime.

After collecting as many clues as possible at each crime scene, your job as detective Cole Phelps is to question the suspects and decide—yes, you actually have to think in this game—if the suspect is telling the truth or hiding something. If you know that they’re flat-out lying, you can call them on it. If you call them a liar, however, be ready to use a specific piece of evidence against them. Sometimes this situation is easy, sometimes more challenging. I found the most challenging aspect of the evidence use was that a few times I read into the evidence more than what the writers had in mind. Really, you have to keep it simple.

One thing that makes the interviews easy—sometimes to a fault—is that the game uses extensive video capture to actually film the game’s actors. This allows the player to watch what kind of face the suspect makes through the interrogation. They can then decide if the suspect is or isn’t telling the truth.

Driving
Similar to the GTA games, driving to a destination or just around the city is a big part of the game. The biggest difference with L.A. Noire if you’re coming from the GTA school is that steering responsiveness is much more sensitive. When I first got the game, I was expecting the turning to be much more difficult because the cars are all from the 1930s and 1940s (think no power steering). It was the exact opposite; the steering response is so sensitive that you just have to simply touch the controller to turn the wheels. Even after completing the game, I’m still finding myself overcorrecting at intersections.

On Foot
Don’t try to jump because you can’t. Well, that’s not completely true, but don’t think that you can force a jump by pressing a controller button, as you can in the GTA games. In L.A. Noire, your character will automatically jump when necessary as long as you’re running quickly. I’m sort of torn on this feature because on one hand, this feature means that you don’t have to worry about timing jumps. On the other hand, I do like having as much control of my character as possible.

Other than that, it’s very similar to the GTA games. One difference is that the character movements in L.A. Noire are much more flowing than in GTA. The fluidity of each person reminded me of the movements from the players in the MLB: The Show series of baseball games. Nothing is choppy.

CASES
Story Cases
The basic game comes with 21 and more are available online for download. Each case is broken down into parts, meaning that you have a lot of evidence to collect and a lot of suspects to interview. You start as a basic traffic cop and you eventually work your way through other desks at the LAPD like homicide, vice, and arson. You also play an insurance investigator for a bit, which is done for a reason, but I won’t give anything away because the twists and turns in the storyline are worth going through on your own.

Street Crimes
In between your destinations for the story cases, if you feel like driving the car instead of having your partner do it, you can respond to street crimes. Each desk has a different set of crimes but for the life of me I have yet to do all of them. For whatever reason, three of the crimes won’t “take place” (they happen randomly) for me. I’ve read that it’s happened to other users, too, so I’m not sure if it’s a glitch or what.

Street crimes can be things like domestic assaults, bank robberies, and other assorted incidents. The easiest one is talking a jumper down from a building. You can try to make up any missed street crimes after you’ve completed your set of story crimes from each police desk by choosing the free-roam feature at the menu screen. So yes, for the record there really is free roam play on this game. I’ve read a rumor going around the Internet that free-roam didn’t exist in L.A. Noire, but it does. You just have to find it inside the case folders from the main menu. But even if you’re doing the story crimes, you can still drive around and take the long way to your next destination.

There are other little things throughout the game like finding hidden film reels and “unlocking” cars along the way, but you can do those on your own in the game.

GRAPHICS/VISUALS
The graphics in L.A. Noire are nothing short of amazing. There were moments when I really did feel as though I were in Los Angeles in 1947. The radio station, the fictional KTI, plays music from the era as well as news bites and make-believe advertisements. The clothing is period, the facial expressions are taken from actual filming, and the buildings are like looking at a photograph (in color, of course).

Vehicles
You can drive 95 different types of vehicles, and each time you drive one, it “unlocks” that model for your game. The only vehicles that cannot be driven/flown are the planes, bulldozers, locomotives, cable cars, and buses. I’m kind of upset by this because it would have been fun to see how much could be done with the Cessna or bulldozer. But again, this isn’t GTA and really isn’t supposed to be similar.

People
As stated earlier, the folks behind making the game, Team Bondi, actually filmed actors to make the characters look as real as possible. In the end, they succeeded with this goal.

NEGATIVES
As with anything, L.A. Noire isn’t perfect. There are a few things that could have been tweaked because they were kind of annoying throughout the gameplay. It’ll be easier to just list them with bullets.

• Resilient citizens - While I wasn’t looking to kill anyone other than criminals in the game, there were quite a few times that non-combatants survived rather violent contact with police vehicles. You can run people over and they survive. Given that everything else in the game is very realistic, this part sort of stuck out like a sore thumb.

• Unknown ammo amount - Along with not being able to draw your firearm at any given moment, you also don’t know how much ammo you have. While it seems as though your service piece has an unlimited amount of ammunition, the other guns that you can use—Tommy guns, M-1s, BARs, etc.—are a guessing game; you really have no idea about the amount of ammo that you have until your character says, “Out of ammo!” and drops the gun.

• Limited vehicles - I say “limited” in the sense that you can see certain vehicles like the buses, planes, and trains, but you can’t drive them. This is just a minor thing, but it would have been fun to drive them.

• “Stuck” partners - Be careful, because sometimes your partners get stuck in places and don’t feel like moving. My homicide desk partner stood outside a gas station during one case and for some reason didn’t feel like getting back in the car with me. I then drove to the next destination without him but upon arriving, the next cutscene included him.

• Inconsistent cars - It might be intentional, since you’re “supposed to” drive a police vehicle, but I noticed that if I commandeered a civilian vehicle for a case, during my next cutscene I magically had my previous police vehicle.

Overall I have to give L.A. Noire 9 stars out of 10. It resurrected an interest in 1940s stuff that I hadn’t had since I was younger and I found myself breaking out old Benny Goodman CDs as well as buying books like Red Harvest and Double Indemnity. Most of the negative reviews for this game seem to be by those who want plotless, shoot-everything gameplay. If, however, you’re looking for a game in which you really do need to accomplish tasks while being surrounded by three-piece suits, fedoras, and big-band jazz, L.A. Noire is probably a perfect fit.

All images on this post are from Rockstar Games.

Distorting the Truth

One thing that I’ve learned over the last year is that photography and music might very well go together more than any other two forms of creativity and art.

When I was younger and first began listening to bands like Metallica, Anthrax, and Slayer, I would routinely check out the metal magazines whenever I was near a bookstore or any other store that happened to have a magazine rack. Sure, I was drawn to the music first, but after that aspect of it I was also interested in getting my hands on as many images as I could of the groups (and keep in mind that this was a few years before the Internet became mainstream).

On stage, backstage, on the street, promotional shots…I really didn’t care what they were or where they were; if it was a photo of the band, I bought it.

Somewhere around 1993 or 1994 I discovered the maniacal genius of Ministry, and in particular its ringleader Al Jourgensen, who had absolutely no qualms about hooking up a guitar distortion pedal to his microphone even thought the guy can sing well without it, as evidenced in this cover version of the Greatful Dead’s “Friend of the Devil.” They performed the song during a 1994 benefit concert for the Bridge School, which helps kids with severe speech and physical impairments.

The reason I mention such a band is because they’re a good example of why I have no problem taking photo processing to the extreme, even if the original image is quite good on its own. The final product should be the most important aspect of whatever it is that you’re creating, and if that means that it’s something almost inaccessible, then so be it.

Because photography shouldn’t be some kind of competition—that’s what sports are for—we can simply look for whatever we happen to like, whether that means something really trippy or something more traditional like a basic black-and-white image.