In today’s episode, a 1 in 1.7 million shot, a NYC Gallery says they have every right to create an AI version of Iconic Ansel Adams photo, How the famous photo “Lunch on a Beam” was made and more.
Show Notes
Welcome back to the show, Liam here and this is Episode 507 of the Liam Photography Podcast for the week of May 28th, 2026. In today’s episode, a 1 in 1.7 million shot, a NYC Gallery says they have every right to create an AI version of Iconic Ansel Adams photo, How the famous photo “Lunch on a Beam” was made and more.
Astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy had to wait for six days and 1.7 million photos before nailing his latest masterpiece: a Boeing 737 transiting the Sun.
McCarthy says his photo, which he calls The Traveler, highlights the patience required to get results in the field of astrophotography.
“Over the past several years, I’ve captured many planes in front of the Sun by sheer chance,” McCarthy says. “However, none of them were captured with settings optimized for the plane, as my intention was to shoot the sun. Plagued by soft focus, motion blur, awkward composition, and low resolution.”
The photographer set out to change that by optimizing his setup for an airplane. But while some objects in the sky, like the International Space Station (ISS), can be captured crossing the Sun by careful study of its flight path, airplanes cannot be forecasted in the same way. This meant McCarthy had to set up two telescopes, point them at the Sun, and just hope a plane flies through his frame perfectly.
McCarthy set his cameras up to take 10 photos of the Sun per second for six entire days — a staggering 1.7 million photos. “I almost gave up after six days without a good transit,” McCarthy says.
But at last, a United Airlines Boeing 737 flying from Houston to Los Angeles transited the solar disk, and McCarthy caught it on both telescopes. This enabled him to make a high-resolution photo, which the photographer says is “one of the best” of his career. He was also able to show the final image to the actual flight crew who were onboard at the time.
On top of all that, McCarthy captured two floating solar prominences. “These are the fluffy bits floating separately from the Sun,” McCarthy explains. “One was fleeting, as part of a small coronal mass ejection, while the other was lingering all day. It is rare for me to capture these, let alone two, so this was quite the catch.”
Last year, McCarthy broke the internet after capturing a meticulously planned shot of a skydiver falling in front of the Sun.
More of McCarthy’s work can be found on his Instagram, X, Facebook, and website.
The owner of the Danziger Gallery has released a statement defending his actions after putting an AI-generated version of Ansel Adams’ Moonrise on sale at The Photography Show in New York.
PetaPixel reported yesterday that the Ansel Adams Publishing Right Trust put out a statement over the weekend making clear that it “did not authorize, endorse, consent to, or acquiesce in the ‘AI-generated color version’ of Moonrise presented by Danziger Gallery at AIPAD.”
Rather than this being about the AI tools used by Danziger, the Adams Trust says it’s “fundamentally about artists’ rights and moral rights.” Adding that, “no one should trade on another person’s name, reputation, and labor for private commercial benefit without consent and candor.”
But in a statement released last night, James Danziger says he has “every right to create a new and transformative work” since the Adams’ Moonrisephoto, taken on November 1, 1941, has passed into the public domain.
“I had long believed the image was in the public domain but to confirm this beyond doubt, I hired one of the most respected copyright lawyers in the country to insure [sic] this was the case,” Danziger writes defiantly. “It was indeed confirmed to be in the public domain and I was free to create a transformative color rendition of the image and to exhibit and sell the resulting prints.”
Danziger says he generated the AI image out of his “love” of the iconic image, adding he wanted to “create an imagining of what Adams saw in real life as he was driving along U.S. Highway 84 that made him stop his Pontiac station wagon and scramble to set up his bulky 8×10 view cameras as the sun was setting on the adobe church and cemetery crosses while the moon appeared through the clouds.”
Danziger adds that AI served as the starting point but says the image was worked on for “months,” with humans editing, proofing, and refining it. “My goal was to create an image that felt visually convincing and compelling on its own terms while remaining grounded in admiration for the original photograph,” he says. “As far as I was concerned, I would only show or sell the image if I felt it was perfect.”
Despite the criticism made by both the Ansel Adams Trust and the general photo community, Danziger says that “given both the public domain status of Moonrise and the transformative nature of my exercise, it was clear I had the right to create a new work.”
“Public domain works have long served as foundations for reinterpretation, experimentation, and new creative dialogue across generations of artists,” he adds.
Danziger ends his statement by quoting Adams himself, who, in 1983, expressed frustration at film-color limitations. “The scope of control with the electronic image has not been explored, but I feel confident astonishing developments await us in this area,” Adams said.
Adams’ famous photo, Moonrise, taken in Hernandez, New Mexico, in 1941, is available from Wikipedia in high-resolution.
A note states that the photograph was “first published in 1942, when Adams gave a print to the Museum of Modern Art and it was published in U.S. Camera, 1943.” Therefore, the note explains, the copyright would “have to have been renewed in 1968, 1969, or 1970.” No such renewal exists in the Stanford Copyright Renewals Database.
A new book explores the untold and still-mysterious story of the many people behind one of America’s most iconic photographs Lunch on a Beam— and the lingering question of who actually took the famed image.
When Rockefeller Center was built during the Great Depression, the project not only produced Art Deco skyscrapers but also led to one of history’s most widely recognized photographs. The image, known as Lunch on a Beam, also called Lunch Atop a Skyscraper, shows ironworkers eating lunch on a steel beam during the construction of Rockefeller Center’s RCA Building in 1932.
The photograph has become so famous that its composition is instantly recognizable: a row of 11 men seated casually on a narrow beam high above Manhttan, with the dense New York skyline in the background. But despite its fame, many of the details behind the photograph — who exactly took it, who the workers were, and how the moment came together — remained unclear for years.
Lunch on a Beam: The Making of an American Photograph by Rockefeller Center archivist Christine Roussel (published by Brandeis University Press) revisits the image and combines archival research and historical context to shed light on how it was created.
In Lunch on a Beam, Christine Roussel sets out what is known and still uncertain about the famous photograph, particularly the question of who actually took it and how it was produced. She explains that the image was part of a larger coordinated Rockefeller Center publicity effort in the early 1930s, involving multiple press photographers working for agencies that supplied striking images to newspapers and magazines. Original assignment records have not survived, and the image cannot be conclusively attributed to any single photographer. But she notes that three photographers from that day — Charles Ebbets, Thomas Kelley, and William Leftwich — are known to have been present. However, only Ebbets’s family has claimed he took the iconic shot, relying mainly on a handwritten note from his wife as supporting evidence.
Drawing on material from the Rockefeller Center Archives, Lunch on a Beam highlights the complex layers behind a single photograph. It focuses on the workers who built the structure under dangerous conditions and the ways in which the image contributed to a broader public narrative about New York City and its transformation during the period. Roussel brings together art, architectural, and social history surrounding the image, alongside her own experience working closely with those connected to the development of Rockefeller Center.
Lunch on a Beam: The Making of an American Photograph by Christine Roussel can be purchased here.
A photography student sent a 5×4 color negative into space on April 19 and exposed it to cosmic radiation, capturing a beautiful, abstract portrait of space unlike anything done before.
Tom Liggett is a third-year BA (Hons) photography student at the Arts University Bournemouth (AUB) in the U.K. His groundbreaking project, HELIOS, saw him travel to New York state where he sent a series of weather balloons with negatives attached to them to altitudes of over 121,000 feet — about three times higher than commercial aircraft and far above the protective layers of Earth’s atmosphere.
Liggett wanted to see how analog film would capture the invisible energy of the Universe. There was no camera or lens, just a piece of film duct-taped inside a plastic bag.
“Knowing that various kinds of radiation exist in the atmosphere, I wondered if I could send a negative into space to capture cosmic radiation directly onto the surface of the film,” Liggett says.
The curious student partnered with Filmed in Space, an outfit that specializes in sending objects into the stratosphere for photo and video purposes. He sent the 5×4 film — more typically found in a large-format camera — up into space sealed in a dark bag to ensure that the film emulsion was only exposed to UV-C rays, muons, and high-energy particles.
Liggett says his expectations were low: “All I wanted was a speck of dust or something,” he says. But what he got instead was a colorful kaleidoscope image with ghostly patterns and textures caused by energies from far off in the Universe.
“The duration of the flight is as critical as the altitude itself,” Liggett explains on Instagram. “As the balloon ascended, the film was continuously exposed, not through a lens, but through direct interaction with altitude, radiation, and atmospheric thinning.”
“At just over 100,000 feet, the balloon burst, a rare and unpredictable moment, before the payload began its descent,” he continues. “At this height, the emulsion is subjected to extreme levels of cosmic radiation and high-energy particles, recording not an image, but an accumulation of encounters over time.”
Liggett tells the BBC that he has deduced that a chunk of the image was caused by UVC radiation, which exists above the ozone layer. The rest of it consists of “cosmic radiation and muons from black holes, billions of light-years away”.
“Even if it was a completely blank image with a tiny alteration in the film, I would have been happy,” he adds. “But to get these celestial abstract results, which are forged from black holes and the sun’s radiation… I was very shocked, but really happy. I’ve turned a dream into a reality and it feels surreal!”
The payload with the exposed film landed 50 miles away from the launch site. Not only that, but it landed on someone’s private property in Connecticut, meaning the team had to ask permission from the landowner to search for it. While it landed on the ground, the bag was pierced by a tree on the way down, which caused the “violent yellow bloom” at the top of the frame, but it really does add to the image.
Liggett developed the negative in the AUB lab and tells the BBC, “I actually think it’s a more accurate representation of space than a photograph is… It’s capturing the actual molecular formula of space.”
More of Liggett’s space photographic experiments can be found on his Instagram and website.
The Calibrite Display Plus HL is now approved for use with Apple’s display calibration workflow, making it the first colorimeter to work alongside Apple’s hardware-based monitor calibration.
“Until now, hardware-level calibration for Apple displays required industrial spectroradiometers built for dedicated color facilities,” Calibrite explains. “Instruments that cost thousands. Calibrite Display Plus HL delivers that same hardware-level precision for $339.” Technically, less, as the colorimeter is on sale for $259 until the end of June.
While photographers and video editors have long been able to create color profiles alongside colorimeters for Apple’s Studio Display monitors and built-in MacBook Pro screens, these have historically been just profiles, rather than full-blown hardware-level calibration.
With Apple’s calibration system, Calibrite Display Plus HL owners can now write display adjustments, including for white point, luminance, and color accuracy, directly to Apple displays at a hardware level.
“One calibration updates every reference mode simultaneously,” Calibrite says, promising consistent results for both SDR and HDR modes. The Calibrite Display Plus HL supports up to 2,000 nits of peak brightness on the newest Apple Studio Display XDR.
It’s not just Apple’s latest flagship display that’s supported, of course. Calibrite says the Apple Studio Display (2022 and 2026 models), the Pro Display XDR, and MacBook Pro (M1 Pro/Max and newer) are also supported. Further, the Calibrite Display Plus HL also works with Apple’s newest color technology, including Apple CMF 2026, the company’s next-generation Color Matching Function that goes beyond the CIE 1931 standard.
“Apple Pro Displays ship with incredible built-in color presets. But like any professional tool, they drift over time, and factory settings aren’t always optimized for your room, your lighting, or your creative work,” Calibrite says. “Until now, bringing an Apple display to true reference-grade accuracy required professional spectroradiometers designed for dedicated color facilities, instruments that cost thousands.”
Calibrite is correct that Apple’s displays are famously accurate straight out of the box. Many users may even lack any desire to ever calibrite their panels. However, displays do not maintain their performance indefinitely, and color accuracy can shift over time. This is where calibration is most useful, ensuring that a display remains consistent in a color-critical workflow, even when the monitor looks “right” to the user. Changes are often subtle and slow, making them hard to notice until there’s an issue, like prints that don’t match the photo on a screen or video edits that look wrong on other devices.
The Calibrite Display Plus HL is available now for $259, down $80 from its typical retail price of $339. Hardware calibration on compatible Apple displays requires macOS Tahoe 26.4 and newer.
Many photographers will remember the massive controversy Adobe found itself embroiled in nearly two years ago when photographers noticed just how invasive and overreaching the company’s updated Terms of Use were. The company quickly reacted. VSCO is now finding itself in a similar position, as users are taking notice of some concerning language in the platform’s Terms of Use.
Photographer Simon Migaj was reading VSCO’s Terms of Use over the weekend, and observed that users grant VSCO the right to use the “name, image, voice, or likeness of any individual in your Content, in whole or in part, and in any form, media, or technology, whether now known or developed in the future.”
Further, the license also includes “the right” for VSCO to “use certain Content for Creator Promotion and to develop, train, and improve AI or machine learning models as further described in our Creator Content Standards.”
It is worth noting here that VSCO has already published new Terms of Use that will be going into effect on June 22, 2026, but these are not materially different in the relevant “License You Grant to Us” section. In fact, the language Migaj noticed isn’t new at all.
For those who actually read Terms of Use for software will know all too well that the agreements always look onerous. For example, consider the very beginning of the “License You Grant to Us” section in VSCO’s Terms of Use, either current or upcoming.
“By using our Services, you grant us a royalty-free, sublicensable, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide license to use, reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, and make derivative works of your Creator Content and AI Content (collectively, “Content”)… ”
This is common language. That doesn’t necessarily make it any less scary, but it does allow VSCO to actually do anything with the content its users upload to the platform. Even displaying an image in an app requires a license, especially when it may be shown as a thumbnail, sent to servers, displayed in connected apps, etc.
As Adobe explained following its Terms of Use fallout in June 2024, software companies require a license to user content to provide essential services and software functions. It also needs to be sublicensable so that companies can utilize technologies and services developed by third parties, even if it’s backend software architecture.
The issue is that companies, by and large, neglect to include plain-language explanations of their Terms of Use, especially the sections that sound bad. What photographer would immediately feel comfortable handing over an irrevocable, lifetime royalty-free license to their content without understanding what that actually means? No photographer, that’s who.
“On the “royalty-free, sublicensable, perpetual” language: this is functionally required for any platform that displays user-uploaded content,” VSCO’s CEO Eric Wittman tells PetaPixel. “Without it, we couldn’t legally render your photos on different devices, let you share your profile publicly, or build the discovery features photographers rely on. This language protects our ability to operate, not to exploit.”
However, the larger concern is that VSCO’s Terms of Use go beyond just the standard licensing question. While the company, and any company, should explain Terms of Use in a way that makes sense to the average user who surely isn’t a lawyer or technology expert, there is more concerning language in VSCO’s Terms of Use than the general license language above.
VSCO’s Terms of Use grant the company the right to use, reproduce, distribute, and make derivative works of more than just an uploaded photo. The company also claims the right to the “name, image, voice, or likeness of any individual included in your Content, in whole or in part, and in any form, media, or technology, whether now known or developed in the future.”
“This language provides a fairly standard license related to the right of publicity. Your ‘right of publicity’ provides you control over how your name, face, or voice is used,” Sara Lee, VSCO General Counsel tells PetaPixel.
“We ask for permission to use these aspects of creators’ content so we can display and feature content and improve our platform, including in search, feeds, featured content, and in future new ways to provide a rich experience on VSCO. To be clear, this doesn’t mean VSCO owns your work or publicity rights or can do anything we want with them. The content posted by you as a creator still belongs to you.
“We always respect creators’ privacy settings and also give attribution (typically by referencing creator usernames) where applicable.”
As photographers have painfully learned firsthand, it is nearly impossible to predict what a company might do with images it has the license to use, especially when considering technology that doesn’t yet exist. VSCO is covering its bases here, keeping things extremely open-ended in a way that rightly concerns some photographers. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything nefarious is happening, of course, but it’s important for people to keep an eye on how companies say they may use their content and data.
VSCO has historically been transparent about its relationship with AI, including a new campaign dedicated to empowering real, human creativity.
The company’s relationship to AI and transparency has not changed. The language in VSCO’s Terms of Use that outlines how the company can use user content to “develop, train, and improve AI or machine learning models… ” has a fairly significant caveat worth considering.
“VSCO does not use content from paying subscribers for AI training, nor is their content licensed to third parties. Full stop,” Wittman tells PetaPixel. It is worth noting here that, as VSCO has said before, the company does train AI using content uploaded by non-paying VSCO subscribers.
“For non-paying members whose content is publicly posted, we may use that content to develop and improve AI-powered features on the platform. This is consistent with how most creative platforms operate, and it’s the reason the license language exists. We want to be honest about that rather than obscure about it.”
Wittman says that while much of the language in VSCO’s Terms of Use is purposefully broad, it is designed to cover the company’s bases for rather standard functionality.
“The legal framing is broad by necessity, but what it actually covers is operating the platform, enabling discovery, personalizing experiences, and improving AI features,” Wittman explains. “It does not mean VSCO owns your photos or can sell them.”
Wittman offers a practical example. When a photographer looks at a photo on VSCO, the app displays a set of visually similar images as recommendations. This recommendation engine is powered by machine learning, which requires licensed images to develop, including those uploaded to VSCO by free members.
Wittman knows not every photographer is okay with any level of AI training done with their content.
“We respect that perspective,” Wittman says. “What we can commit to is transparency about what we’re actually doing, rather than hiding behind vague policy language.”
If VSCO users don’t want their content used for AI training, they must either be a paying member or, if they are a free user, not upload content publicly. Those are their only options as of now.
Legalese rarely reads well. It almost always sounds terrifying, like the user is signing their life away to a company to use an app or website. It’s certainly true that people are signing away significant rights whenever they use a platform. A photography platform cannot exist without licensing rights to display people’s images.
With the specific exception of marketing materials, which VSCO explains here, the company is not displaying photos that users have uploaded in any unusual way. VSCO is not selling users’ photos to the highest bidder or preventing photographers from going about their business as usual with any images uploaded to VSCO.
However, companies should still consider ways they can directly engage with the community, including explaining Terms of Use in plain language that outlines exactly what they mean. Photographers care deeply about their work, as they should, so they must know what a company commits to doing, or more importantly, not doing, with their photos. This is an area where VSCO’s current and upcoming Terms of Use come up short.
The company has done plenty of things right in recent years and worked hard to deliver useful tools and services to photographers, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement.
At the risk of sounding glib, photographers who do not wish to transfer any rights or license to their photos cannot use social media or most photo editing apps. VSCO’s Terms of Use are not unique, not by a long shot. Those who read the Terms of Use on platforms like Instagram or Reddit will find considerable overlap, for example. The same is true nearly universally.
That said, it remains important to understand what companies may do with photos, especially as nearly every company pursues some form of AI development. It’s also essential that people know what companies do with their data. It’s also important for people to decide to what extent they trust a company. That is a significant component when dealing with any company.
Photographers should read Terms of Use, research companies, and determine what they are willing to give up to use the platforms and services they like. It’s a perfectly reasonable response to dislike a company’s approach to licensing or data and stop using their products and services. There is nothing wrong with that.
However, it’s important too for photographers to realize what any line in the sand they draw may mean for how they can actually share their work online.
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