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info@photosource.com
http://www.photosource.com
May
2006
Week One Number
428A
Volume 14
Key words in this issue: The New Yorker |
Arrington Case | Commercial Purposes |
Arrington v. New York Times | Tax Records
| IRS | Federal Tax Law | Deductions | Ex-
emptions | Credits | Exclusions | Statute of
Limitations | Filing Deadline | W-2 Forms |
Taxes | Audit Deadline | False | Fraudulent |
Copies of Returns | Tax Forms | OS 9 | Tro-
jan Horse | Bandwidth | Monitor Keystrokes
| Security | Spyware | Spyware | Trend
Micro | Pest Patrol | Spyware Sweeper |
Cropping | Resizing | Technical Quality
NEWSWORDS: Social Change | Orphan
ASMP | Works | NPPA | Photojournalism |
Exhibit | ID | Jet Planes | Natured Reframed
| Portraits | Robert CAPA
Note: Need the answer to a stock pho-
tography question? At our Web site (www.
photosource.com/board) you’ll find our
Bulletin Board, called “The Kracker Bar-
rel.” Check it out. Our staff answers mar-
keting questions; fellow
photographers offer their
input and experience. The
following is a typical ex-
change:
Q
: I have a pretty
good understanding
of the model/property
release issue with
editorial stock, but
I
do have a question. If a photo is
used for a magazine/book cover,
wouldn’t that be considered promo-
tional and require a model/property
release?
A
: Book and magazine covers
have a way of becoming “quasi ad-
vertisements” when they do double
duty of “hyping” the book or maga-
zine when placed on a newsstand or
in a catalog or even in an ad in, say,
The New Yorker magazine.
The courts, however, have al-
most always considered book and
magazine covers as editorial in
nature, and
therefore
not subject to the usual conditions
of advertising photography. One
of the earliest cases addressing this
was back in the early part of the last
century, when a hod
carrier on the New
York waterfront, sued
a local magazine for
using his picture on
their front cover. The
magazine won the
suit, and the case is
often used as the ex-
ample (precedent) for
similar suits.
The famous Arrington case in
the early ‘80’s is another significant
case concerning this question. It
points up how in some cases the use
of a picture might be editorial in
nature, but might be embarrassing
to the person being photographed.
Mr. Arrington, a black man, sued
the New York Times for publishing
a photograph of him. The Court
judged that the photograph, taken in
a public place, and used to illustrate
an article on the upward mobility
of blacks, was not considered det-
rimental because Arrington’s name
was not used, and the photograph
was published for illustrative, not
commercial purposes. The law sub-
sequently was amended to protect
freelancers supplying photographs
for use as news. (1983) You can
look up this case at: Arrington v.
New York Times, 433 N.Y.S.2d 164
(N.Y. App. Div. 1980), modified, 55
N.Y.2d 433 (1982), cert. denied, 459
U.S. 1146 (1983).
Do they require a release?
B
ook C
overs
When Is It Safe To Deep-Six Those
Income Tax Records?
Y
ou
need no re-
minder to
hold on to your tax records in case
your returns are questioned by the
Internal Revenue Service. But just
how long do you need to save those
old records that clutter up your clos-
ets and desk drawers?
Unfortunately, there is no flat
cutoff. The IRS says the answer
depends on what information the re-
cords contain and the kind of trans-
action involved.
It supplements this vague guide-
line with a cryptic warning: Keep
supporting records for “as long as
they are important for the federal
tax law.” Translated from govern-
mentalese, this means you should
save receipts, canceled checks, and
whatever else might help support
income, deductions, exemptions,
credits, exclusions, deferrals and
other items on your return, at least
until the expiration of the statute of
limitations for an audit or for you to
file a refund claim, should you find
an error after filing. The statute of
limitations is the limited period of
time after which the tax gatherers
are no longer able to come knocking
and you cannot recover an overpay-
ment.
In most cases, the IRS has only
three years from the filing deadline
to take a crack at your return. For
example, the deadline is April of
2009 for the government to start an
examina-
Continued on page 2
Page 2
Digital
Notes
THE CULPRIT: SPYWARE
tion of a return for tax year 2005,
with a filing due date, for most per-
sons, of April of 2006.
As soon as three years elapse,
you could toss out supporting re-
cords for income and expenses.
Candidates for the garbage pail
include W-2 forms, as well as can-
celed checks covering expenses.
WHEN IT
COMES TO TAXES
But wait! Predictably enough,
nothing is absolutely straightfor-
ward when it comes to taxes. There
are two exceptions to the three-year
test, though they do not apply to
most people. Those exceptions
aside, there are other situations in
which it is advisable to keep docu-
mentation for far longer than three
years -- proof of when you bought
and sold investments, to cite a com-
mon example. More on that in a
moment.
The first exception authorizes
the IRS to double the audit deadline
from three to six years if the amount
of income you fail to report on your
return is more than 25 percent of the
amount you show on it. To illustrate,
the six-year deadline expires in
April 2007 for returns for tax year
2000 that were submitted in 2001.
The second exception provides
that there is no time limit on when
the IRS can come after you if you
fail to file a return or file one that is
deemed false or fraudulent. The au-
dit, admonishes the IRS, can begin
“at any time.”
Copies of returns should be
retained indefinitely. They take up
little space and are always helpful as
guides for future returns or amend-
ing previously filed returns. Also,
copies of tax forms may prove help-
ful in case the IRS claims you failed
to file them.
Besides copies of returns, there
are other tax-related documents
that must be kept until they can no
longer affect future returns, which
can prove to be much longer than
three years. For example, you need
to retain records of residential costs,
as well as payments for stocks and
other investments. Those records
are vital, not only because you may
need them for an IRS audit, but be-
cause you need them to figure your
profits or losses on sales that may
not take place until many years later.
Julian Block, attorney and syndicated col-
umnist, teaches a continuing ed course called
“Tax Tips For Freelance Writers, Photographers
And Artists.” The New School in New York City
and several colleges in neighboring Westchester
County will offer the one-session course in April
and May. For more information, contact Julian at
Q
: My computer is running
slowly. How do I speed it up?
Part 2
In my last column, I mentioned
the first-aid you can
apply to a slow run-
ning computer: check
the number of pro-
grams that load at the
startup of your com-
puter. If you’re running
Windows, check the
msconfig from the Start
Menu.
If you’re running a
Mac with OS 9 or ear-
lier, your programs use
extensions upon start-
ing the computer. Hav-
ing too many of those running will
bog down your system resources.
The way to deal with that is to cre-
ate different startup options so that
only the programs you will need will
have the relevant extensions loaded.
That will improve your system per-
formance. However, OS 10 and later
performs differently, so it’s unlikely
that you’ll have problems there.
SPYWARE
Assuming you follow the steps
outlined above and in my last col-
umn, and your computer is still
running slowly, then your problem
might be spyware.
For those of you
who don’t know what
spyware is, it’s soft-
ware that covertly
gathers user informa-
tion through the user’s
Internet connection
without his or her
knowledge, usually for
advertising purposes.
It resembles a Tro-
jan horse (a virus) in
some ways as users
unwittingly download
the software. Among other things,
spyware steals resources from your
computer and also eats up band-
width. The results can be a slow run-
ning computer, system instability,
and crashes.
Some spyware has the ability
to monitor keystrokes, scan your
hard drive, snoop your applications,
hijack your web browser, and much
more. Hence, the need to eliminate.
Preventing future incursions on your
machine is also very important, not
just for performance, but your per-
sonal security.
A SOLUTION
Here’s one fast way that you can
find out if you have spyware on your
computer.
Visit the Trend Micro Web site
at:
and run a scan.
The results may surprise you. On
an ongoing basis, I recommend that
you purchase two anti-spyware pro-
grams for your computer :
Pest Patrol
Spy Sweeper
Pest Patrol works fairly quickly
and takes a snapshot of your hard
drive. It’s good for many spyware
issues, but if you have a persistent
problem, I recommend Spyware
Sweeper for an intensive system
scan.
I don’t recommend using Spy-
ware Sweeper on Startup, as it slows
Income Tax Records
Continued from page 1
Page 3
Watch for developments in the field of stock photography in
PhotoS-
tockNotes
PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE NEWS
You’ll be the first to know…
Note: If the URL is long, it may extend to two lines. In that case -
clicking
on it won’t work. Instead, “copy and paste” the
URL.
Focusing on SOCIAL CHANGE Photography Exhibition aims to spark a
de-
bate about the role of documentary photography in effecting social
change.
I
n the early days of digital cam-
eras, I used to recommend to people
who were interested in licensing
their images to purchase a Digi-
tal SLR (DSLR) with six or more
megapixels. These days I also rec-
ommend that they first look at sen-
sor size. This is because now there
are cameras on the market that are
technically dSLRs, but
don’t have a sensor
size that is required to
produce professional
results.
What is the sensor
in your camera, and
why is size important?
As you know, a
sensor is a device,
such as a photoelec-
tric cell, that receives
and responds to an energy signal or
stimulus, such as motion, heat, light
(in the case of digital cameras, basi-
cally color and light). The sensor
then produces another type of sig-
nal, usually electrical. These signals
are converted (usually indirectly
through an analog to digital convert-
er, e.g. a computer and a display) so
that the value sensed is translated for
human understanding.
In digital cameras the sensor can
be small (economical), mid-size,
(expensive) and large (very expen-
sive). The capacity of your camera’s
sensor will indicate its ability to cap-
ture more information, and therefore
higher resolution for your images.
A small sensor
, like in
point-and-shoot digital cameras,
doesn’t give professional results no
matter the number of megapixels.
The sensor in cameras such as the
Canon 20D and
the Nikon D70 are
roughly the size of an
APS-C negative, or
23.7mm by 15.7mm.
A 35mm film frame
is 36mm by 24mm. A
camera like the Nikon
Coolpix 8800 has 8
megapixels but a sen-
sor size of only 8.8mm
by 6.6mm, clearly
much smaller than the sensor in the
20D and the D70 and a lot smaller
than full frame.
NEGATIVE SIZE
It gets really technical, and to
make it easier for myself I look at it
as if the sensor size were my nega-
tive. All of a sudden it becomes ob-
vious that the larger the “negative”,
the better technical quality of the
image. Just like comparing medium
format slides to 35mm slides.
So why does sensor size matter?
Well, just like with a film nega-
tive, the larger the negative, or in
this case, sensor size, the more
options you’ll have for cropping,
resizing etc. Also, the larger the sen-
sor, the higher the technical quality
of the picture. This makes for a big
difference in many procedures, such
as enlarging, enhancing and other
manipulations.
I always recommend that the
minimum sensor size that an edito-
rial stock photographer should pur-
chase is the one roughly equivalent
of the APS-C negative (23.7mm by
15.7mm).
If you are purchasing a digital
camera, yes, ask about megapixels,
but your first question should be
about sensor size.
Photojournalist Mikael Karlsson has 18
years’ experience of working for magazines and
newspapers in more than 30 countries. He moved
to the United States in 1998 from his native
Swe-
den. He lives in Nebraska and is currently US
correspondent for 11 Swedish magazines and a
regular contributor to a wide variety of U.S.
publi-
YOUR DIGITAL
CAMERA’S SENSOR SIZE
The featured Photographer next
week on the PhotoSourceFolio is
Shannon Nolte
down your system. Pest Patrol is a
better option.
Nathan Segal is an Artist and Writer who
has been writing for computer and photographic
magazines for 8+ years. His specialty is taking
complex technical subjects and explaining them
in clear, easy-to-understand terms. To learn more
about his work and background,
http://www.
photo-shop-tutorials.com
.
The Culprit: Spyware
Continued from page 2
Page 4
A weekly newsletter, published by Rohn Engh, Director,
Pho-
toSource International. Subscription fee: (4 weekly issues)
$14.99 per year. Reproducing or copying PhotoStockNotes is
not permitted without written consent of the publisher, except for
review purposes where source credit is given. On-Line Editor: Bill
Hopkins; Reviews Editor: Mikael Karlsson. Contributing Editor: David
Arnold. Chief Editor: Angela Dober. Copy Editor: Lela La
Bree. ISSN#1073-0710. Publication number: 419-450 Fax: 1 715 248-7394
Phone: 1 715 248-3800. E-mail: info@photosource.com
Web:
. Address: 1910 35th Rd, Osceola, WI 54020.
U.S.A.
PhotoStockNotes
Focus On Key Issues For Editorial Stock
Photographers
ASMP Seeks Dynamic Solutions to ORPHAN WORKS Dilemma.
NPPA Celebrates 60th Anniversary In June At PHOTOJOURNALISM Summit In
Tampa Bay.
DIR Collaborates on Photo EXHIBIT, ‘’Keeping Young Workers Safe on
the Job’’.
Voting Rights Advocates Challenge Georgia Photo ID Law in Federal
Court.
George Hall - pioneering photographer of JET PLANES.
NATURE REFRAMED: Photographer captures beauty in unexpected places.
PORTRAITS of Serenity: debuts to Set a New Standard for Animal
Photography.
Chris Hondros Wins OPC’s ROBERT CAPA Gold Medal
Award
