Show Notes

Greetings everybody, you’re listening to the Liam Photography Podcast, I’m your host Liam Douglas and this is Episode 415 for Thursday August 8th, 2024. Today I am bringing you some of the latest stories from our friends at PetaPixel for this week.

Wolf Image Causes Outrage

A photographer was left appalled after a hunting company used her image of a famous wolf to advertise its blood sports services.

Cheryl Alexander is internationally recognized as Takaya the wolf’s spokesperson after spending countless hours with the animal on a small archipelago just south of Victoria, British Columbia (B.C.).

Takaya was a Canadian sea wolf that somehow swam two miles to the Discovery and Chatham Islands just off the southeastern tip of Vancouver Island. Alexander documented the wolf with her camera and learned much about his behavior.

Takaya eventually left the islands after eight years of living there by himself before he was shot and killed by a hunter on Vancouver Island in March 2020 — causing much international outrage from Takaya’s followers.

Recently, Alexander was horrified to discover that a company which arranges hunts in B.C. was using her most famous photo of Takaya to advertise its services.

“I was shocked to discover that a trophy hunting guide outfitter is using my iconic photo of Takaya — who was so cruelly killed by a trophy hunter himself — on their website where they encourage people to come to B.C. and pay thousands of dollars to kill a wolf for a trophy,” Alexander writes on her Instagram page.

“Why would this interior B.C. outfitter even use an image of a coastal wolf when the wolves they want to kill are interior grey wolves? Perhaps because Takaya is such a beautiful wolf – and this is what trophy hunters want to kill: large, healthy, gorgeous wolves.”

The hunting company, Terminus, tells The Guardian that it didn’t mean to “offend” anyone with Alexander’s photo and blamed the web design company which made the website.

 

“July 27, I was contacted by a disgruntled person upset about a wolf picture that they recognized as a wolf named Takaya,” says Terminus’ owner.

“I had no idea of the story behind this wolf or even which of the three pictures on my website was of Takaya. I asked my web developer … to simply remove all three of the photos.

“July 29, they were removed. Neither I nor my web developer meant to offend anyone. Unfortunately, because of the media attention, we are now getting emails that are threatening and quite angry when we had nothing to do with the live pictures chosen. We are a legal family-run business.”

The Guardian notes that wolves in B.C. are seen as vermin that must be eradicated. Hunters will take the pelts and discard the remains. Alexander and local conservation groups want a temporary prohibition on wolf hunting in B.C.

“I was angry about the photo, but there’s a silver lining because it actually allows word to get out there about what’s happening in Canada regarding trophy hunting — the whole range of wild animals that are hunted in Canada is quite disgusting,” Alexander tells the British newspaper.

“We’re grappling with loss of biodiversity. That trophy hunters are continuing to hunt them just for fun and for recreation is not acceptable.”

Stunning Video of a Rare Lynx

A rarely-seen Canada Lynx was filmed majestically striking a pose in incredible trail camera footage.

The stunning video was captured by trail cameras set up by the Voyageurs Wolf Project in the woodlands of Kabetogama Peninsula in Voyageurs National Park, northern Minnesota — where Canada lynx roam in small numbers.

The striking footage shows the elusive lynx cooly strolling toward the camera before sitting down in the woods only a few feet away from the lens.

The lynx curiously looks around, scans the area, and rotates its ears.

At one point, the lynx appears to pose and look straight at the camera as if it knows its being filmed. The animal then casually walks out of the shot.

The footage was captured on the morning of April 11 — offering a remarkable glimpse of a rarely-seen animal.

Biologist Tom Gable, lead of the Voyageurs Wolf Project, discovered the extraordinary footage while reviewing thousands of hours of recordings of one of 350 trail cameras that his team sets up.

While the Voyageurs Wolf Project has filmed lynx on its trail cameras before, Gable says that most of the trail cameras that have filmed lynx only catch them at night or at a distance — never in the daylight and never so close.

“A lot of fortuitous things have to happen, not only for the lynx to sit there, but for the lighting to be nice, and for there to be that pretty, North Woods background,’ Gable tells the Star Tribune.

“Those are the things that make it really cool.’

According to the Star Tribune, Canada lynx are characterized by long fur that hangs below their cheeks and black tufts of hair at the tips of their triangular ears.

There were an estimated 100 to 300 lynx in Minnesota as of 2022. The species is considered threatened under the Endangered Species Act, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Sony’s New Stacked Sensor for Smartphones

Sony has released a new video highlighting its novel stacked image sensor technology that the company believes will improve smartphone image quality for mobile photographers.

As spotted by Newsshooter, Sony has a new video about its “2-Layer Transistor Pixel” sensors, which was the world’s first stacked CMOS sensor that separates photodiodes and pixel transistors to alternate substrate layers when Sony first unveiled the technology in late 2021. Configuring the sensor this way expands the capacity of the photodiode and increases the size of the transistor.

According to Sony, this should increase saturation, widen the dynamic range, and reduce noise over conventional stacked sensor structures where the photodiodes and transistors are on the same layer.

However, going from a development announcement to commercial availability requires significant time and development, especially with third-party smartphones. Sony itself only brought the sensor into the real world last May with its Xperia 1 V smartphone.

Moving from Sony only to other smartphone makers would put the image sensor tech into many more mobile photographer’s hands, and the results of this new technology should be exciting for smartphone shooters. Thanks to improved dynamic range, Sony suggests users can capture images closer to how the naked eye sees in environments with both bright and dim illumination.

“The new structure has improved the capacity of the photodiode while approximately doubling the saturation signal level relative to conventional image sensors,” Sony states on its website. “In turn, this will widen dynamic range.”

Additionally, users should see a reduction in noise levels during low-light situations.

Sony claims that “by increasing the size of the amp transistors, the 2-Layer Transistor Pixel technology has succeeded in substantially reducing noise, which can affect images taken in dark settings.”

Historically, smartphone image sensors have often struggled with dynamic range and low light performance due to the relatively small size of the sensors and photodiodes, which cannot absorb as much light as larger mirrorless and DSLR sensors at similar megapixel counts. Sony promises that its 2-Layer Transistor Pixel sensor produces images with reduced overexposure and underexposure without increasing the sensor’s overall size.

Sony has been making moves to position themselves as a significant player in the image sensor market, and as PetaPixel previously reported, expects to have a 60% share of the sensor market by 2025. Sony believes that smartphone image sensors will increase in size in the coming years as well — a forecast driven by the growing demands for high-quality mobile photos and videos. Since Sony is pushing new content concerning this image sensor, it stands to reason that the novel sensor tech may arrive for more devices soon.

It will be interesting to see how its 2-Layer Transistor Pixel technology affects the timeline of that forecast. While physical limitations due to size will always be a factor for smartphone camera manufacturers, this new sensor design could close the gap in the short-term between performance and the growing expectations of daily smartphone camera users.

$26 Million Dollar Warhol Image

In 1985, Commodore announced the Amiga 1000 computer and, at a public launch event, brought Andy Warhol in to create a digital portrait of Blondie’s Debbie Harry. That image was believed lost but has been in the possession of an original Commodore digital technician who is now making it available to purchase for $26 million.

Harry tells Artlyst that she believed only two copies of the digital portrait existed, one of which she owned. The other has now been revealed to have been in the possession of Jeff Bruette, a Commodore digital tech who assisted Warhol during the creation of the digital portrait for the promotional event.

“I was there to help Andy with the technical aspect of things during that interview,” Bruette tells Artnet. “A number of images were created. Some appeared in the magazine at the time and one was used for the cover. I don’t have the cover images; I have the raw images and colorization that Andy did when trying to design what might be on the cover.”

The portrait is based on a photo and was altered using the Commodore Amiga 1000, as shown in some of archival footage of the shoot that will be included in the sale and was seen by PetaPixel.

After seeing the rise of digital art in recent years, decided it was time “for the world to experience it as it was meant to be.” That rise in popularity is a reference to NFTs which boomed a few years ago — Artlyst notes five NFTs created from restored Amiga images brought in $3.38 million at a Christie’s auction in 2021. Bruette likely hopes the combination digital art with Warhol’s name will tap into an even wider market.

Warhol signed the diskette that contains the artwork at Bruette’s request and while he offered it to Warhol, the artist told Bruette to keep it for himself. He later obtained a physical print of the portrait in the early 1990s as Commodore was in the midst of financial collapse, taking it from an executive who was cleaning out her office and who offered it to Bruette.

Bruette is selling the portrait on the original Amiga disk privately. The disk not only contains the portrait of Debbie Harry but also other images created during an interview with Amiga World magazine as well as another from the MTV show “Andy Warhol’s Fifteen Minutes,” adding more context to the $26 million asking price.

In total, the sale will include four photographs from the Amiga event, a second 3.5-inch diskette containing an additional eight digital image files created by Warhol during the Amiga World interview session, a digital image file created as a test for Warhol’s MTV series, a copy of the digital image file of the Debbie Harry portrait, a USB drive with backup copies of all digital image files, an Amiga 1000 computer that lets the buyer view the images on the diskette, and a host of press materials associated with the launch event.

Woman Rescued After Selfie

Footage has surfaced of a woman being dramatically rescued after falling down a 100-foot-deep gorge while taking a selfie this weekend.

29-year-old Nasreen Amir Kureshi plunged into a deep gorge in Borane Ghat in Maharashtra, India as she took a photo with friends on Saturday.

According to the Times of India, Nasreen and seven of her friends initially planned to visit the nearby Thoseghar waterfall but found the popular tourist spot closed.

The local administration had banned visits to Thoseghar waterfall, which is one of the popular tourist spots in the state, due to challenging weather conditions and heavy rainfall.

So Nasreen and her friends took a detour to the mountain pass and the group stopped to take a selfie together around 10:30 on Saturday.

However, while taking a photo, Nasreen slipped off the edge and fell into a 100-foot-deep gorge.

Nasreen’s friends immediately called the police who initiated a rescue operation with the Home Guard and local volunteers to recover her from the crevice.

In footage, that is being widely circulated online, a distraught and disorientated Nasreen is seen being brought up from the gorge by a home guard personnel with the help of a rope.

In the video, Nasreen screams in distress as she is hoisted back up to safety by a large group of volunteers.

According to the Times of India, Nasreen was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment for her injuries and is stable now.

A study by the iO Foundation found 379 people were killed while taking selfies around the world between January 2008 and July 2021.

India ranked at the top of the list with 100 deaths while the U.S. came second with 39 deaths.

The incident comes after a recent study suggested that taking selfies may pose a “public health problem” amid the near ubiquitous use of smartphones and social media apps.

Last week, PetaPixel reported on a teen influencer died while taking a selfie at the top of a waterfall to share with her 150,000 followers on social media.

Check out the awesome products that TrueSonic Inc. offer.

https://shareasale.com/r.cfm?b=2145237&u=3952045&m=130968&urllink=&afftrack=

Check out all the awesome stuff at Moment for your photography/videography needs!

https://partner.shopmoment.com/4PDeVG

Save on your orders for SmallRig gear

https://smallrig.com/r/TP7FQU

If you'd like to pick up your own HOVERAIR XR Drone use the following link

https://thehover.com/products/hoverair-x1-self-flying-camera-combo

and code XMHOVER to save $20

Get your own discount on VITURE XR One glasses, Neckband, Switch Dock and more!

https://shop.viture.com/?ref=LiamPhoto

Check out the latest deals at OWC (Other World Computing) for all your Apple/Mac needs.

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/specials/?utm_source=affiliate&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cj

Get low cost SSLs for your sites here.

https://ssls.sjv.io/eKgZQr 

Sign up for VidIQ using the following link:

https://vidiq.com/liamphotoatl

Check out my ThinkTank Affiliate link. When you buy using this link you help the channel, pay nothing extra and can even get a free item!

https://bit.ly/3ZmKqju

I now have my own discount code for my Subscribers and Podcast audience at http://www.platypod.com use my code WD20 to get 20% off on any Platypod branded items, excluding bundles which are already discounted by 20% or more. One user per customer.

I also have an affiliate code for Dehancer Film profiles at http://www.dehancer.com and use code LDPHOTO

Check out the awesome gear Ulanzi has for photographers and Content Creators!

https://www.ulanzi.com?aff=1002

You can buy me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/liamphotoaf

 

 

Also be sure to join the Liam Photography Podcast Facebook Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/liamphotographypodcast/ You can reach the show by call or text @ 470-294-8191 to leave a comment or request a topic or guest for the show. Additionally you can email the show @ liam@liamphotographypodcast.com and find the show notes at http://www.liamphotographypodcast.com.

You can find my work @ https://www.liamphotography.net and follow me on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter @liamphotoatl. If you like abandoned buildings and history, you can find my project @ http://www.forgottenpiecesofgeorgia.com. and http://www.forgottenpiecesofpennsylvania.com.

Please also stop by my Youtube channels Liam Photography

Forgotten Pieces of Georgia Project

Forgotten Pieces of Pennsylvania Project

 

 

Comments & Upvotes

Listen On

Also Listen