dear lily,

i didn't think that you would be speaking from an artistic perspective. i merely wanted to point out that it is still customary that people privilege photographs as works of art while other forms of graphical representation are not treated that way. 

i have been dealing with medical photographers who would not think of ever expecting to be given credit for the photographs they were asked to take to document a medical problem. nor is any patient inclined to claim ownership of the photographs taken for the purpose of treatment. 

i suppose designers, seeing their profession closer to art than medical doctors, are more inclined to see photography as something special rather than a mere documentation.  

klaus 

-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Diaz-Kommonen Lily
Sent: Sunday, July 07, 2013 2:34 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Credit for photographic materials in research publications

Dear Klaus, Ken and Gunnar,

I was not speaking from an artistic perspective at all.  In this situation I am more interested in the work done to accurately document, visually, design processes such as user studies, usability tests, scenario-design valuation sessions, etc. When properly done, this type of photography is more akin to visual anthropology than art.

This type of documentation work is common in interaction and interface design. The photographs are usually done by someone in the team who not only has the skill but also the proclivity to get involved with this type of documentation.

BR. Lily


On 7.7.2013, at 19.48, Klaus Krippendorff <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:

Hi, ken, gunnar, and lily,
In my experiences, most research requires the cooperation of many people: assistants, librarians, interviewees, subjects, editors, graphic artists, IT personnel, and perhaps also photographers.

To me, credit is due only to people who contributed intellectually to the publication, including sources of one's ideas, reviewers, even journal editors, provided they helped shape the result.

Re. photography, there is the false contention of original art. Graphical illustrations may well involve more aesthetic decisions than pushing the button of a camera when one has a good image in the viewer of one's camera.

Although my inclination is to always be generous giving credit to contributors, I prefer not to be distracted by outmoded conventions of art - legal requirements notwithstanding.

Klaus

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 7, 2013, at 1:40 AM, "Ken Friedman" <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:

Hi, Lily,

While I generally concur with Klaus's views, I'd like to add a couple of nuances.

Nothing in the APA Manual, the MLA Manual, or the Chicago Manual of Style seems to address the specific issue you raise, which is how to credit and identify photographs by an author of the article.

This questions entails three issues that overlap yet differ, and a fourth issue, credit during the review process. The first issue is authorship. The second is credit. The third is copyright. The fourth issue, what to do during review, stands apart from these.

With respect to authorship, there are slightly different issues in the case of a single-author piece or a piece with more than one author. For a single-author piece, the sole author should receive photo credit to distinguish an author's photos from those of other sources. In an article with more than one author, the question of photo authorship is slightly trickier. In my view, the issue of a documentary photograph taken for illustration purposes is, in some sense, a team effort, like the text, and all authors should share credit. But there may be cases in which specific photos taken in field work or other contexts by a single author among two or more should have sole photographer credit. This, as with authorship, is an issue to work out in advance, though there may sometimes be a situation that requires renegotiation.

Every photo requires a photo credit. This differs to the caption line. A photo credit attributes authorship of a photo to the creator or creators of that photo on the photo itself, as distinct from the author credit of the article. Every photograph, illustration, diagram, or figure in an article should carry a credit in addition to the caption. While this is often assumed, I think that no assumptions should be made in an era where images and text can travel easy between and among articles, sources, and systems, sometimes separate to the author's by-line on an article.

Copyright is slightly different. If authors transfer all rights in an article to a publisher, they also transfer copyright to images except where they use images have been published or copyrighted elsewhere. This applies even when authors use their own images published and copyright by another publisher. All images that are not included in the rights transfer and copyrighted by the publisher should carry a copyright mark and copyright information on the image. Copyright information often appears as a small line running up the side of the image, in distinction to the caption and credit lines beneath the image. Photo credits sometimes appear on the same line with copyright in the case of a professional photographer.

The review issue is relatively simple. The full authorship of the article is rendered anonymous for double-blind peer-review. In some journals, prior cited publications by the author or authors of the article are also rendered anonymous. So, too, photographs should be rendered anonymous. The caption is not changed, but the credit line can be rendered anonymous with a phrase such as, "Photograph by author." The same hold true for the copyright. This is a specific way of managing information during the review process. Following acceptance, the authors should attend to the first three issues, authorship, attribution, and copyright information.

Warm wishes,

Ken

Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished Professor | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]><mailto:[log in to unmask]> | Mobile +61 404 830 462 | Home Page http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design/people/Professor-Ken-Friedman-ID22.html<http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design>    Academia Page http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman About Me Page http://about.me/ken_friedman

Guest Professor | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China

--snip--

If the photographer is already also one of the authors of the article, is there a problem in crediting him or her also as the author of some of the visual documentation used?

Will the reviewers of the article consider this a strange practice?

Are there any general (better) practices regarding these matters?

--snip--

Klaus Krippendorff wrote:

--snip--

if you hire a photographer, you are not required to name him or her.

if the photographer is a coauthor of the publication featuring his or her photographs, you don't need to give special credit for them -- except if you use the work of other photographers as well you probably want to distinguish which photos come from the coauthor and which come from other sources.

different countries have different norms. i don't think there are universal standards. generally, it is a friendly gesture to acknowledge all special contributions to the report of research. but then, there rarely are credits given to the composer of diagrams contained in scientific publications. at the same time, i once wanted to use the diagram from a scholarly publication and gave appropriate credit to the author and where it was published. my editor reminded me that i had to get copyrights from the publisher of that diagram. that publisher wanted $100 for permission to use it in my paper. i redrew it with context specific improvements after which it was an "original." i gave the author credit but didn't have to pay the publisher.

when rules are unclear the best heuristic is to ask the author/publisher as to what they expect and would be happy with.

--snip--



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Prof. Lily Diaz-Kommonen
Head of Research
Media Lab Helsinki
Department of Media
Aalto University, School of Arts, Design and Architecture <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
<http://sysrep.uiah.fi>






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