Photographer Robert Whitaker, who is widely known for the controversial "butcher cover" of the Beatles album Yesterday And Tomorrow, has died. He was 71. more ›

Chris Hondros, a photographer for Getty Images, died yesterday from wounds suffered in a mortar attack in Misrata, Libya which also claimed the life of photojournalist Tim Hetherington and wounded two other photographers. Hondros, 41, had suffered a fatal brain injury and Getty issued a statement, "Chris never shied away from the front line, having covered the world’s major conflicts throughout his distinguished career and his work in Libya was no exception. We are working to support his family and his fiancée as they receive this difficult news, and are preparing to bring Chris back to his family and friends in the United States. He will be sorely missed." more ›

Queen Silvia of Sweden was reportedly injured earlier this week (BBC says Monday, the Post says Tuesday) while trying to run away from a Swedish photographer following her in New York. "It's not a question of her simply wanting to avoid being photographed. It's more akin to stalking," a royal spokesman said. To which some of us else replied, "Wait, Sweden still has a Queen?" more ›

A Manhattan photographer is claiming that he was "assaulted, battered, beat and threatened" by Kanye West and his security crew...almost three years ago. The incident allegedly happened when West performed at Guastavino's on the East Side, for a party to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Casio's G-Shock watch; photographer Michael Vazquez was invited to the event, and says that over the course of the night he was accosted and intimidated by West, "his agents, servants and/or employees," and ended up with a dislocated shoulder and cuts to his face. more ›

Photographer Garry Gross has died at the age of 73 in his home in Manhattan... and perhaps one of Brooke Shields's greatest embarrassments will be buried with him. Gross took a series of rather disturbing nude photographs (SFW) of Shields when she was just 10-years-old, something her mother got $450 for; later in life Shields tried to get out of the contract saying the photos were "an invasion of her privacy and caused her embarrassment," according to the NY Times. She lost her legal battle, and one of the images even hung in the Guggenheim in 2007. more ›

Stalkers: They're not just for famous people anymore! A Daily News photographer gave the tabloid a scoop on her three-year long battle with Allen Novell, who she says has been creepily stalking her. She has filed numerous police reports, but was told that her chances of getting an order of protection were slim to none, since Novell has never harmed her and lives in her neighborhood. One detective left her with this bit of advice: "Keep your head up." more ›

Photographers' rights have been misunderstood by many, including the NYPD—who have arrested and ticketed folks for snapping shots in various public locations around the city. However, the NY Times reports on some progress being made: the right of photographers to photograph federal buildings from a public space has been upheld, following a lawsuit filed by 29-year-old Antonio Musumeci. more ›

Are there enough clues in the skyline to guess which year this photograph was taken? Put your best guess in the comments and we'll update later with the correct answers and more details about the image. more ›

The non-profit African Services Committee, based in Harlem, provides a variety of assistance to immigrants and refugees who arrive in NYC from countries throughout Africa. It was founded by Ethiopian refugees in 1981, and the organization also works in three clinics in Ethiopia providing HIV prevention, testing and care to some of the poorest people on Earth. The country has an estimated 2 million people living with HIV and the third highest number of infections in Africa. more ›

29-year-old Antonio Musumeci isn't the only one who's been hassled by The Man for photographing near a federal building in New York, but he is behind the latest lawsuit being filed by the New York Civil Liberties Union. The organization says citizens should not be prohibited to photograph while standing in public spaces near such buildings. The Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Protective Service, an unnamed federal officer, and Inspector Clifford Barnes of the Federal Protective Service are all named in the suit, which was filed in Manhattan yesterday. more ›

Todd Selby is a photographer who takes pictures of people inside their homes. He's just published a book of his work. We asked him a few questions about his life. more ›

Anthony Hamboussi just put out a book of pictures of Newtown Creek, the industrial waterway between Brooklyn and Queens. We asked him a few questions about the creek, his experience getting arrested while photographing there, and about his approach to picture-taking. more ›

Last night Rachel Maddow interviewed the NYPD detective and photographer whose stunning photos of the 9/11 attack on the WTC were recently released. Asked about his feelings on the images being made public after all these years, retired Detective Gregory Semendinger told Maddow, "I think they should have been out a long time ago... We were the only ones there, and I was fortunate to be there and take photographs... Something like this is monumental. If we can record it and get it on film, then it's a true record of what happened... It gives us a historical time timeline of the events that occurred, and it's something we should never forget." more ›

He was taken to the hospital yesterday after his daughter Ireland called 911. It's now being reported that he wasn't found "unresponsive," but they had been arguing over the phone when he threatened to kill himself by taking pills. She told the dispatcher that he said to her: "I'm tired of this. I'm going to take some pills. I'm going to end this." However, when cops arrived he told them he took an Ambien and had no intentions of committing suicide. He says that his ex, Kim Basinger put their daughter up to calling 911. more ›

This short video of James Gandolfini menacing a Guest of a Guest photographer who was videotaping him in the West Village is funny, but also kind of sad, for a couple reasons. First, Gandolfini's worked hard to find roles that take his career past the Tony Soprano archetype, and now here he is acting just like Tony about to thrash the Bada Bing bartender for not being sufficiently anxious about Al Qaeda. more ›

If you've ever seen Warhol's Factory, it was likely in part through the lens of Nat Finkelstein, who documented much of that era and the characters who created it. The photographer died of pneumonia and emphysema on October 2nd at the age of 76, while at his home in Shandaken, New York. The NY Times notes that he was the house photographer at the Factory from 1964 to 1967, and "created spontaneous portraits not only of Factory regulars like Sedgwick and Gerard Malanga but also of the artists and celebrities who drifted in and out of the Warhol orbit." more ›

Celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz, who had been facing a lawsuit because she failed to pay back a $24 million loan, worked out a deal with her creditor, which will allow her to buy back control of her photographs and pay back the money under new terms. Originally, Leibovitz had signed over the rights to all her photographs (past and future), as well as her three West Village townhomes and Rhinebeck estate, as collateral for the loan, which was supposed to have been paid back on Tuesday. It's unclear when the loan will be repaid at this time, but Art Capital is now letting "Ms. Leibovitz...retain control of those assets within the context of the loan agreement which shall prevail until satisfied." In a statement, the photographer said, “In these challenging times I am appreciative to Art Capital for all they have done to resolve this matter and for their cooperation and continued support. I also want to thank my family, friends, and colleagues for being there for me and look forward to concentrating on my work"—and maybe selling off some of that real estate. more ›

Just when it looked like The Man was standing up for photographer's rights, or at least understanding the law, things have gone sour again. Carlos Miller reports that 43-year-old professional photographer Randall Thomas "was jailed for six hours—and had his camera and memory card confiscated by a judge—after filming an FBI building from across the street in New York City Monday." more ›

The State Senate has agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by their former official photographer, who says Governor Paterson fired him because of his race, back when Paterson was Senate Minority Leader in 2003. In his civil rights lawsuit, Joseph Maioriello of Schenectady said John McPadden, then Paterson's chief of staff, explained he was being fired because some senators wanted to replace him with "a minority photographer, a black photographer." Maioriello, who had been a Senate employee for 26 years before he was fired, said McPadden also told him, "You got to remember who Sen. Paterson is. Sen. Paterson is black." In a sworn deposition, Paterson denied the allegations, claiming he didn't see well enough to have fired Maioriello because of his race. Paterson would have been required to testify had the case finally gone to trial, and one source "close to the lawsuit" tells the Post that the size of the settlement—$300,000—suggests "that the state wouldn't have made out very well if it had gone to trial. If nothing wrong happened, why is the state paying out this kind of money?" Shhh... It's late Friday afternoon—by Monday it'll be like this never happened. more ›

Last night at her home in Manhattan, the Brooklyn-born and celebrated NYC street photographer Helen Levitt died at the age of 95. The NY Times remembers Levitt, saying she "captured instances of a cinematic and delightfully guileless form of street choreography that held at its heart, as William Butler Yeats put it, 'the ceremony of innocence'.” In the 1930s and 40s, the photographer focused on "the city’s poorer neighborhoods, like Spanish Harlem and the Lower East Side, where people treated their streets as their living rooms and where she showed an unerring instinct for a street drama’s perfect pitch." By 1943 she had her first solo show at MoMA, and starting in 1949 (for a period lasting around ten years) Levitt was a full-time film editor and director. She went back to still photography, this time in color, in 1959 upon receiving two Guggenheim Foundation grants. more ›

Photographer Bruce Barone has a treasure trove of old photographs he snapped in the late 1970s and early 1980s, while working at Hearst Magazines. He tells us he is now self-publishing a book featuring some hand-selected images, which should be ready by the end of February. For now, here's a look back through his lens at an older New York. more ›

Dith Pran, the New York Times photographer whose survival of Cambodia's "killing fields" was turned into a movie, died at age 65 in NJ. Dith had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in recent years. more ›