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   A twisted tornado of wire whirls just above the cowering head of an old man in a black and white photograph that is one part magic and one part death; It was taken by Roger Ballen in a building called the Shadow Chamber in the far corner of the cement basement halfway around the world.

Ballen, a photographer from Johannesburg, South Africa, creates a fragmented reality in which fact and fiction are equally elusive. His current exhibition, featuring 74 square black-and-white prints, is on view at the George Eastman House in Rochester,  New York through June 6 . The images on display predominately come from Ballen’s most notable monograph, Shadow Chamber (2005) and his newest work, Boarding House (2009).

The Shadow Chamber is a deserted industrial building in South Africa inhabited by transients and local laborers. Within its walls all time and cultural contexts are lost, setting the stage perfectly for Ballen’s dark mischief. Though the level of direction is unclear, there is a playful interaction to the otherwise disturbing imagery that leads one to think; what, exactly, is going on here? Is this a dark social commentary? Are these meticulously placed objects in a thoroughly thought-out tableau? Or, is this real?

In a recent lecture at the George Eastman House, Ballen danced skillfully around all of these questions, and kept the audience rapt in his unique narrative that is comedy and tragedy, and defies common photographic tropes. The story being told is about a singular slice of time, in which all of the connotations of poverty, politics and history in South Africa are momentarily culminated and personified by an odd-looking man blankly staring at two puppies in small cages in a dingy room.

Ballen, who is a trained geologist, is an excellent speaker. His cryptic delivery and concise statements at times sounded absurd, but constantly had the audience on the edge of their seats. He described his process of a growth and discovery as an artist as sort of an uncovering of how he perceived people and places. His travels and experiences in Africa seem to have allowed him to mine his own psyche and “cross the chasm” from documentarian to artist.

The most recent work in the exhibition is from his new monograph, Boarding House (2009). The Boarding House, as Ballen mentioned in his talk, is located almost adjacent to the Shadow Chamber Building.  In this series, we are again taken to a dark corner of his world, only this time the people in the images have faded into, and now blend in with the background. Hands and mouths become texture-elements and creep in from the edges of the square frame with equal visual impact to doll’s heads and mangles of wire.

Roger Ballen spoke at the George Eastman House on Thursday, April 15 in the Dryden Theatre. More information can be found on the Eastman House’s website and Roger Ballen’s website

I was checking my web traffic with data finder/organizer Google Analytics, and saw that my website, somehow, was getting incorrect data driven to it by a fellow photographer’s site, someone I know. I thought maybe he had done me a favor and linked to my site, www.lisakereszi.com, on his page, as some other colleagues have done. What I saw when I went to his site was like a slap in the face.

 It was a mirror image of my own site, with the fonts changed and his own photographs plugged in. I contacted the designer I worked with, Pamela Hovland, and also the site’s builder, James Muspratt, who pointed out that the html was copied, and that the new site's "designer" (initials S.S.) had gone so far as to insert her name into our html in the copyright section, effectively saying that the html was owned by her. Their site went up 7 months after mine, and was not discovered by me until almost 3/4 of a year later. Wow.

I did some research online, as I figured this must happen frequently, but not usually so close to home. I had actually heard of this sort of thing - when I was planning my own site in 2008, someone suggested to me that I could just rip off someone else's html. I had a very specific concept in mind regarding the background and the toolbar and the content, besides the fact that I wouldn't do such a thing. I don't think Picasso's quote, "Good artists borrow, great artists steal," is really relevant here. Good artists work hard, mediocre ones don't know how to come up with their own ideas, so they copy.

Hovland sent me the following rewritten excerpt from the AIGA (the most prominent professional organization for designers) code of ethics:"The bottom line here is that professional designer should not replicate or claim credit for a design which other designers have originated, created and produced. An adherence to principles of integrity demonstrate respect for intellectual property, for the profession, for colleagues and for clients. These standards define the expectations of a professional designer. A professional designer shall communicate the truth in all situations and at all times; his or her work shall not make false claims nor knowingly misinform. A professional designer shall avoid false, misleading and deceptive promotion."

In my online research I found that, of course, your site's "content" is copyright-protected, whether you register it with the US Copyright Office or not. A "Copyright 2010 ..." on each page should suffice, unless you decide to sue. If you want to go to court, you must register your site officially, either by making a pdf of the entire thing, or taking a screen shot or printing out each page and sending it in via mail or electronically. The tricky word is "content." Content means your author-created pictures, your written words, your artwork. It does not necessarily mean your site's design, layout or interface.

The following comes off of page 3 of Circular 66 from: http://www.copyright.gov/circs/ :"Describe the original authorship being registered. Use terms that clearly refer to copyrightable authorship. Examples are “text,” “compilation,” “music,” “artwork,” “photography,” “motion picture/audiovisual” (includingsounds), or “sound recording” (when the sounds do not accompany a series of images). Do not use terms that refer to elements that are not protected by copyright or may be ambiguous, for example, “website,” “interface,” “format,” “layout,” “design,” “look of website,” “lettering,” “game,” or “concept.”

Wow, again. I do not know what I would do if I had chosen to be a graphic designer. I would not have been able to sleep at night. Sure, concept and design sounds ambiguous, and maybe it can be, to a certain degree, but I find that to be sort of terrifying. All the hard work you do, and all the ideas that go into something that come out of your very core cannot be 100% legally protected. You have to rely on others adhering to the designers' sort of Hippocratic oath.

However, there is some legal precedent if the design is "original" enough, and not a common way to express or show some information. An example is described here, in the case of Lotus 1-2-3 and Paperback  Software International's Excel program:http://www.activeonline.ie/web-design-copyright-article.shtmlThat article says, "Copyright protects the appearance of screen  displays. "Hmmm, that's not really what Circ 66 said. It seems to be a gray area that would have to be decided in court, on a case-by-case basis. The article's author goes on to say: "avoid having your site look like your competitor's because that can infringe on the competitor's 'trade  dress'--the look and feel of  the company's product or its  packaging. The laws protecting trade dress, a subset of trademark law, are designed to avoid any consumer confusion that can allow one company to ride on the coattails of another."

How many ways are there to do a pull-down menu? How many ways are there to display photographs in terms of projects? There is a fine line here, but if you are staring a mirror image in the face, same sizing, same links, with html coding and traces of their test site process left online to prove your eyes are not deceiving you, there is no denying right and wrong.

We are both artist/photographers; does that make us competitors, and make "trade dress" apply? Our work is very different, and it's not a commercial business site where one company is trying to confuse the customer, is it? It all sounds very ugly, and I hate having been put in this position. So what do you do? You can make your site so original that it would be terribly obvious to anyone looking at a copycat site what has happened. Your designer can make it very hard to duplicate, though I am not sure exactly how to do that. You can keep abreast on what your site is linked to and where your traffic data is coming from with Google Analytics. You can keep an eye on your peers. "Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer," right? (Sun-tzu, credit where credit is due.)

You can't sue with a definite expectation to win, but you can ask the people involved to now do the right thing and take the site down, or at least change it so much that they get an honest week’s work in. If the offending parties refuse to fix it, and you feel like you have a rock-solid case, then you register your site and prepare to go to court. Take screen shots of the offending site, and get their html by going up to View – Page Source in your browser. Website design and concept seems like a big gray area, but right is right, and wrong is wrong. What made this so much worse was that the photographer is someone I know. It's close to home, and that much more disturbing. Those facts, however, ended up being a good thing, in that I was able to have a civil discussion with the photographer about it, and he agreed to take the site down and get a new one. It sounded like the “designer” duped her client. Since he was amenable, I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. It’s funny/ironic that the magazine that the “designer” art directs debuted with a cover that read, “100% Unique.” Their 5th issue’s cover was a bit more accurate: “Magical Metamorphosis, Tricks Illusions.” Nice.

Here is a helpful link to more info from another copied site owner, though it's not by a photographer: http://astuteo.com/blog/article/stolen_website_design  It's just one of many I found. Also, here are some very unhappy Flickr photogs who even have a stolen website thread: http://www.flickr.com/groups/stolenwebsites/ .

Ricardo Barros, Martha Posner

Fabricating Truths, Shaping Stories

April 30 – June 6, 2010

Dalet Gallery

141 North 2^nd Street

Philadelphia, PA

Opening Reception: Friday, May 7, 5 – 9 p.m.

Gallery Talk: Saturday May 15, 3:00 p.m.

Photographer Ricardo Barros and sculptor Martha Posner display the unusual pairing of their work together at Philadelphia’s Dalet Gallery. Barros is a veteran Philadelphia area commercial photographer who also has art world credentials: photographs in numerous museum collections and a monograph, Facing Sculpture: A Portfolio of Portraits, Sculpture, and Related Ideas.

On exhibit by Barros is series of contrived studio images of nudes he has “directed.” His statement below explains his intentions.

To read more about Martha Posner, please visit my site, Photocommentary. I admire Posner’s work because it is both of this world and of some other world I’m still trying to define.

Bill Lowenburg

Ricardo Barros on his Fabricated Truths photographs

“What if photographs do lie? Even photographs in which the content is conspicuously manipulated can have something meaningful to say. Every one of these photographs has been staged. Every one targets a different idea. The baldness with which each composition is arranged makes it possible to move beyond the limitations of fact and reconsider what we already know but from a different perspective.

Each of these photographs includes a naked woman. Traditional Art Nudes soften the viewer's gaze with a poetic environment or distancing, visual patina. I prefer to lace up voyeurism like a bow tie.

My photographs are made in a “scientific” setting. Objective observers are supposed to look closely. With these photographs, viewers willingly stare. Upon detecting a visual narrative, their minds set off on an interpretive errand. They engage in a series of measured calculations and draw social inferences to explain what they are seeing. There is something meaningful to be found.

Through this exercise I give viewers permission to be voyeurs. I hope they find it pleasurable.

Quietly, I am also pilfering something – call it lust - that many men bring to these pictures. When viewers are so intently engaged in an abstract idea, few seem to notice the absence of a prurient reward for their expectations.

Even photographs that do lie can still comment truthfully.”

The inaugural GuatePhoto (July 6 – 31, 2010) will celebrate both contemporary photography and a panoramic overview of photography in the Guatemalan scene. The goal is to document contemporary photography, to promote local talent and deliver the international community with an opportunity to exchange ideas and new trends in photography.

The concept of GuatePhoto originated as a response to the festivals and discussions on photography being developed in the present time on an international level. Although many activities focused on photography are being held in Guatemala, it is through GuatePhoto that this country has the opportunity to create an international Festival dedicated to Photography.

GuatePhoto will take place in the Museum of Modern Art Carlos Merida of Guatemala City, a building located in Salón No. 6, Finca Nacional La Aurora. Built in 1964 to host an annual ball to commemorate November festivities in honor of the General Jorge Ubico, The Museum has beautiful wooden ceilings that date back to the 1930´s. In 1975, the government decided to transform the space into what is now the Museum of Modern Art. Today it is a landmark that is surrounded by the Museum of Natural History, many Government buildings and the recently renewed Aurora International Airport.

This year's Photo Review International Photography Competition will be juried by Brian Paul Clamp, Diretor of CLAMPART, one of New York’s leading contemporary photography galleries. The Photo Review's is "a competition with a difference" that enables thousands of people across the country to see the accepted work in the 2010 competition issue of The Photo Review and on Photo Review's website. Also, the prize-winning photographers will be chosen for an exhibition at the photography gallery of The University of the Arts, Philadelphia.

An entry fee of $30 for up to three prints or slides, and $5 each for up to two additional prints or slides, entitles all entrants to a copy of the catalogue. In addition, all entrants may subscribe to The Photo Review for $36, a 20% discount.

All entries must be received by mail between May 1 and May 15, 2010.