Author Topic: When "Arab" stock photos go terribly wrong. (Read 28005 times)

S. · « **on:** August 28, 2013, 03:36 »

http://libyaliberty.tumblr.com/
is this a proof of how western culture perceives arab culture?
so sad
and somo photos are f___ing horrible!

Beppe Grillo · « **Reply #1 on:** August 28, 2013, 04:13 »

Yes, a part of western world see the rest of the world through a PRISM…

ShadySue · « **Reply #2 on:** August 28, 2013, 04:38 »

Excellent captioning skills.
At least one of these photos is so offensive (IMO), I'm horrified that the agency accepted it. You'd have to be pretty creative to use it in a way that doesn't violate the "uses that are defamatory" clause, unless you were running an editorial to show offensive stock images.

mtkang · « **Reply #3 on:** August 28, 2013, 04:56 »

i think it just shows some photographers are really ..

Sean Locke Photography · « **Reply #4 on:** August 28, 2013, 05:08 »

Well, I think some of these are using real Arabs, but they're shot by beginning Arab photographers (or others) who just don't know how to create a successful image. Also, I don't think having some kind of head garb necessarily means they're making a statement about an Arab persona. Anyone in the dessert or a hot climate might wrap cloth around their head.

However, some of them are really funny/bad.

cobalt · « **Reply #5 on:** August 28, 2013, 05:13 »

The captions are too funny. Like Sean said, some of them are real Arabs, but the photographer is probably new to stock. But of course many others clearly are not...but how many times do we try create "American" images here in Europe and how many times do we get it wrong?

Ron · « **Reply #6 on:** August 28, 2013, 05:14 »

All the images are stolen. All of them have watermarks, thats not even allowed. He is a thief, so that makes the blog owner a hypocrite.

Sean Locke Photography · « **Reply #7 on:** August 28, 2013, 05:47 »

Quote from: Ron on August 28, 2013, 05:14

All the images are stolen. All of them have watermarks, thats not even allowed. He is a thief, so that makes the blog owner a hypocrite.

Yeah, it's the old "parody/editorial fair use" discussion...

Ron · « **Reply #8 on:** August 28, 2013, 06:00 »

Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on August 28, 2013, 05:47

Quote from: Ron on August 28, 2013, 05:14
All the images are stolen. All of them have watermarks, thats not even allowed. He is a thief, so that makes the blog owner a hypocrite.

Yeah, it's the old "parody/editorial fair use" discussion...

I was thinking about that. He doesnt really seem to make money off that blog, but still, what a cheapskate

ShadySue · « **Reply #9 on:** August 28, 2013, 06:48 »

Quote from: Ron on August 28, 2013, 05:14

All the images are stolen. All of them have watermarks, thats not even allowed. He is a thief, so that makes the blog owner a hypocrite.

Parody; no problem.

XPTO · « **Reply #10 on:** August 28, 2013, 07:03 »

Quote from: Stepunk on August 28, 2013, 03:36

http://libyaliberty.tumblr.com/
is this a proof of how western culture perceives arab culture?
so sad
and somo photos are f___ing horrible!

They are actually much nicer and flattering than the way Arab culture perceives European/Western culture.

Unless portraying a woman and her husband pointing in public is as serious as considering all the western women whores, that can only claim to be raped if they have at least 6 testimonies. Otherwise you'll be accused and sentenced to 18 months in jail for having sex outside marriage...

As for the quality they are actually very bad.

XPTO · « **Reply #11 on:** August 28, 2013, 07:05 »

duplicate

ShadySue · « **Reply #12 on:** August 28, 2013, 07:50 »

Quote from: Ron on August 28, 2013, 05:14

All the images are stolen. All of them have watermarks, thats not even allowed. He is a thief, so that makes the blog owner a hypocrite.

Where would the hypocrisy come in?

EmberMike · « **Reply #13 on:** August 28, 2013, 10:08 »

Quote from: Stepunk on August 28, 2013, 03:36

is this a proof of how western culture perceives arab culture?

Yes, let's judge an entire culture based on a handful of stock photos.

Oh, and by the way, if you took the time to look, you'd have seen that many of these photos didn't originate in the western world.

I think it's just as offensive as some of these photos that you'd assume that anything that poorly depicts arab people must have come from the west.

Ron · « **Reply #14 on:** August 28, 2013, 10:18 »

For the people sticking minuses on my comments

http://apps.americanbar.org/litigation/committees/intellectual/roundtables/0506_outline.pdf

Parody is not just stealing images and display them in their original state. The image needs to be a parody of the original.

Displaying an image and mocking it, is not parody of the image. Thats satire.

Quote

if the new work “has no critical bearing on the substance or style of the original composition, which the alleged infringer merely uses to get attention or to avoid the drudgery in working up something fresh,” the work is less transformative, and other fair use factors, such as whether the new work was sold commercially, loom larger. Id. at 580. The Court explained further that while a parody targets and mimics the original work to make its point, a satire uses the work to criticize something else, and therefore requires justification for the very act of borrowing.
See id. at 581. As a result, the Court appears to favor parody under the fair use doctrine, while devaluing satire

Quote

According to the Court, a parody is the “use of some elements of a prior author’s composition to create a new one that, at least in part, comments on that author’s works.”

gostwyck · « **Reply #15 on:** August 28, 2013, 10:23 »

I'm quite happy to know little about Arab 'culture' to be honest.

bunhill · « **Reply #16 on:** August 28, 2013, 11:51 »

Quote from: gostwyck on August 28, 2013, 10:23

I'm quite happy to know little about Arab 'culture' to be honest.

Fair enough, but you must be missing out by shutting yourself off to new influences. What about the fantastic food for example? North African for example. Even much of the amazing modern Israeli cooking is very much Arab influenced. Paris has many fantastic and cheap North African restaurants but the best falafels IMO are kosher.

You can definitely tell a lot about the richness of a culture by the attitutude which normal people have towards food and the care which they take over it.

marthamarks · « **Reply #17 on:** August 28, 2013, 12:22 »

Quote from: bhr on August 28, 2013, 11:51

You can definitely tell a lot about the richness of a culture by the attitutude which normal people have towards food and the care which they take over it.

To be honest, I'm much more interested in the attitude which normal people in a given culture have towards women than towards food.

Show me how well they treat their women. Then maybe we can talk about the "richness" of their culture.

bunhill · « **Reply #18 on:** August 28, 2013, 12:43 »

Quote from: marthamarks on August 28, 2013, 12:22

Show me how well they treat their women. Then maybe we can talk about the "richness" of their culture.

They ? Like they are all the same ?

It's useless lumping people together as if you can tell what they are individually like or what their attitudes are based on where they are from. As if all people in a particular place act and think the same.

America and Europe often treat people (including women) incredibly badly and yet we all know that the US and Europe have rich and layered cultures.

This stereotyping of people is silly and ignorant.

lisafx · « **Reply #19 on:** August 28, 2013, 12:56 »

Quote from: bhr on August 28, 2013, 12:43

Quote from: marthamarks on August 28, 2013, 12:22
Show me how well they treat their women. Then maybe we can talk about the "richness" of their culture.

They ? Like they are all the same ?

It's useless lumping people together as if you can tell what they are individually like or what their attitudes are based on where they are from. As if all people in a particular place act and think the same.

America and Europe often treat people (including women) incredibly badly and yet we all know that the US and Europe have rich and layered cultures.

This stereotyping of people is silly and ignorant.

First off, let me weigh in that IMO most of the pictures referenced were bad and some downright offensive.

While I do not agree with stereotyping any culture, I think it is fair to judge a culture based on the LAWS it enacts.

While there are undoubtedly Westerners who treat women badly, and Middle-easterners who treat them well, the differing laws and customs toward women in these two cultures are not easily dismissed.

cobalt · « **Reply #20 on:** August 28, 2013, 13:13 »

I am half Arabic and have spent considerable time in the Middle East. There is no question that women are severly disadvantaged, also legally. However, most of these countries aren´t democracies anyway so people cannot really enact "their own" laws. They live under either family or some "upper class" dictatorships. Men are also discriminated, or even persecuted, if they belong to the wrong "group" wether you are just poor or from the wrong village...most of these countries have corruption everywhere including the legal system. Want to get away with murder? Just be the son of the ruling elite and you are untouchable...

But over the last 40 years I have also seen drastic improvements in the way everyone is being treated, not just women. We may not see it in our media, but there is a growing Middle Class, more and more people can read and write, in some countries now the majority is literate.

They still have a long, long way to go, but the people I know are extremly hard working and many are fighting more politically as well. But if you are following the news in Egypt, you see how incredibly hard the nation building process is.

And when it comes to laws - how many western countries accept gay people as full legal citizens? Can they marry, adopt children and raise their families in peace? Obviously most people are comfortable with gay people having normal legal rights, but there is an amazing number of people who think they are some kind of human underclass and are very vocal about it.

In time the attitude will change and gay people will have equality. But the fight is far from over.

Arabic and many other countries (india?) in the world are still in the stage where women have to fight for their rights, the way women did here 100 years ago. But they will get them.

I think all we can do is encourage those who are fighting for freedom and also to point out,complain and shame publicly whenever we see injustice. But this should include our own backyards.

XPTO · « **Reply #21 on:** August 28, 2013, 15:10 »

Quote from: bhr on August 28, 2013, 12:43

America and Europe often treat people (including women) incredibly badly and yet we all know that the US and Europe have rich and layered cultures.

Are you actually trying to compare the rights and liberties women have in the western based cultures with what happens in most of the other parts of the world?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, women in the western cultures still need to fight to be able to use some rights. But nevertheless those rights are already recognized in the law.

Yes, they still are victims of harassment but that harassment is punished by law, and here it's the rapists that are imprisoned not the women victims of rape for "having sex outside marriage"!!!!!!!! This happened recently with a Norwegian woman in Qatar.

Women may still be discriminated in power jobs but they are conquering those places, contrary to countries like Afghanistan where fundamentalists even deny medical assistance to women!!!! Imagine how much education they are allowed to have...

It's absolutely insulting for you to say that US and Europe treat people incredibly bad when we're a 1000 years ahead of most of the world on those matters.

Do we commit errors? Yes we do and many. But our errors are in the vast majority of cases about things that most countries can still only dream of. Compare the still shameful discrimination of women on power jobs with the total absence of access to education in many countries for women.

The condemnation of the rapists against the condemnation of the raped.

The prohibition of women walking on the streets without a man of the family and the risk of being publicly whipped against the total freedom of movements of western women.

The differences are so huge, but so huge that's almost impossible to compare. The general access to education, health and justice are incomparable.

So, if we are not perfect, if a ranking of individual liberties and justice was to be made, the cultures you say treat people incredibly bad would be miles ahead the vast majority of other peoples and countries. Only some tribal cultures would rival in equality between man and women to the western cultures.

roede-orm · « **Reply #22 on:** August 28, 2013, 15:36 »

Well written, I completely agree!

Tryingmybest · « **Reply #23 on:** August 28, 2013, 16:41 »

Wow! Thanks for sharing. I've been really trying to images of Muslims of various ethnic groups to counter stuff like this. Looks like I need to do more.

Quote from: Stepunk on August 28, 2013, 03:36

http://libyaliberty.tumblr.com/
is this a proof of how western culture perceives arab culture?
so sad
and somo photos are f___ing horrible!

Tryingmybest · « **Reply #24 on:** August 28, 2013, 16:47 »

Quote from: gostwyck on August 28, 2013, 10:23

I'm quite happy to know little about Arab 'culture' to be honest.

That's unfortunate. The basis of most algebra, our number system and countless other aspects of modern "western" civilization comes directly from Arab culture. I recommend that you and others who do not like Arabs sincerely try to make friends with an Arab neighbor or co-worker before making such judgements.

I am not Arab. However I am a Muslim with many Arab associates and have studied the language. Learning about Arabs and the Arab language has enlightened me to many positive things.

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Author Topic: When "Arab" stock photos go terribly wrong. (Read 28005 times)

S.

Beppe Grillo

ShadySue

mtkang

Sean Locke Photography

cobalt

Ron

Sean Locke Photography

Ron

ShadySue

XPTO

XPTO

ShadySue

EmberMike

Ron

gostwyck

bunhill

marthamarks

bunhill

lisafx

cobalt

XPTO

roede-orm

Tryingmybest

Tryingmybest

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