Canadian photographer Hera Bell......

[k_kakkinen]

<p>....seems to be a picture thief......I found this on DPReview</p>

<p>http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/post/50436326</p>

[michael_elenko]

<p>That's making its way through all the photo sites right now, which is good because it will boost the Google page rankings and educate more viewers about the perpetrator.<br>

A very bizarre story that gets me feeling both angry and sad at the same time. </p>

<p>ME</p>

[peter_russell4]

<p>Amazing the power of human denial.</p>

<p>Pete</p>

[h._p.]

<p>I don't know about the law elsewhere but it is inadvisable to make claims like this in a public forum, if they are visible in the UK. Our libel laws are such that the allegations can be entirely true, yet the person who made them could still find themselves in a lot of trouble. This is because the basic test applied is whether the statement would "cause a reasonable person to shun or avoid" the individual about whom the allegation is made</p>

<p>Not that most citizens of the UK agree with the law as it stands. The problem is that the laws exist and several people who do not live in the UK have successfully sued others, who do not live in the UK, either. All that matters is that the libel was "published" in the UK.</p>

<p>It's mad, I agree, but there it is.</p>

[daverhaas]

<p>I glanced through the thread and came up with the following:</p>

<p>We have one of three things going on:<br>

1) She did in fact take the images in question and it is her who has been hacked / had images lifted.<br>

2) She did not take the images, but claim them as hers...<br>

3) Neither her nor the other photographer took the images and they both lifted them.</p>

<p>Sad that the internet makes copying someone else's work so easy, but that is one of the prices we pay for having the ability to share / show our work.</p>

<p>What I find interesting (at least on the image I looked at) she even had a backstory for the image (how it was made, when, who she was with, etc... seems like a lot of work to claim something is yours when it may not be. </p>

<p>Seems that the simple way to resolve some of this is for her (or the accuser) to provide the original 35mm slides of the images in question (or in the case of digital images) the original files with eXif data intact and un-altered.</p>

<p>Her reputation is damaged - no matter what the outcome.</p>

[MattB.Net]

<p>She looks pretty guilty. Some of the back stories are obviously fabricated like the water droplets that she took with "natural light, single strobe, and slow shutter speed." The photo with that story was obviously not (and couldn't have been) taken with a slow shutter speed.<br>

It's too bad the Internet facilitates this kind of infringement but the Internet also lets us out the perps more easily too. </p>

[jonathan_rush]

<p>In addition to being a skunky human being, she is a crappy photoshopper.<br>

http://whotookthisphoto.blogspot.ca/</p>

[hagar]

That last link was certainly worth looking at :)

[ariel_s1]

<p>Utterly horrendous act. If she spent half as much time and effort going out and taking photos instead of practicing how to be a thief and cover her tracks, she could have created photographs herself. She flipped many of the photos 180 degrees, and much of her crappy photoshopping is to fool Tineye and google image search, so that some non-English-speaking photographer would have to stumble across her photos to find out. Luckily, they did, and the wrath of the internet is upon her, which is nice old vigilante justice, needed because it's unrealistic for various international photographers to individually take her to court. Good riddance. Here is an update from a Finland photographer, where it began:<br>

http://swampandcity.blogspot.ca/<br>

The one website that I saw her truly active was mu-43, and I doubt that she'll be showing her face there anytime soon. I hope that this negative publicity hits her where it hurts, in the wallet, and costs her ten times as much business as her showboating gained. It's people like her that are the reason that most of my photos stay off the web: for myself, friends, family, and when I was doing so, clients only.</p>

[keith reeder]

<blockquote>

<p>Our libel laws are such that the allegations can be entirely true, yet the person who made them could still find themselves in a lot of trouble.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>HP, it's a robust defence in UK law that the alleged libel is "fair (now "honest") comment".</p>

<p>Seems to me that's what these comments are - "honestly held opinion based on provable facts".</p>

[brunogallant]

<p>I actually rented her studio twice in the past, in 2006 and 2008. I was flabbergasted when I started hearing about these events, as I never had any hint about the possibility of these actions. Her studio was well equipped, with all kinds of beautiful furniture, that I used in my own photographs, and that I could see in her own pictures. She was courteous and helping, but not trying to control my shoot. I was awed to be in the studio of a world-class photographer.<br>

At first I thought, this is b**s**t, but I saw the evidence. As I said, I met her just a few hours. You can't know a person in such a short time.<br>

I don't understand what happened.</p>