Weird news - Selling a potato photo for more than a $ 1 million

There are a large number of people selling photos in different forms; these could be direct photos or creations such as shirts / mugs / framed prints, etc. Typically, if you leave aside the major sellers such as Getty images, most people sell their photos or such prints for not more than a few dollars each, being lucky to get amounts greater than that.
So it can be pretty interesting when photographers get amounts much, much larger than that, and too for simple photos. Imagine a photo of a potato selling for more than a million dollars, and yet it happened. One wonders about how impressed the buyer must have been with the photo to pay that amount for it (link to article)

A celebrity photographer said a photo sold to a European businessman for $1.08 million didn't portray any famous figures -- rather, it depicted a simple potato. Kevin Abosch, 46, an Irish photographer known for his portraits of famous subjects including Malala Yousafzai and Steven Spielberg, said a European businessman spotted "Potato #345" hanging in his Paris apartment last year and purchased the print for $1.08 million -- 1 million euros. Abosch, who normally charges up to $500,000 for a portrait, said the sale was the biggest of his career.

Weird news - Thief sends own photo to police

Vanity gone to a new high, incredible stupidity, or sheer arrogance that nothing could happen. When the police are hunting for a suspect, they look for some means of identification, such as a photo. Now, these photos that the police can get is something that is in most cases not ideal - the police could be old, or taken from a side, or taken with some hat or cap or spectacles on, anything that makes the photo different from a passport type photo.
When the police do get a photo of a person who they are hunting for, they would publicize the photo or push it through channels, so that other police stations could pull in the person if they came across, or members of the public could find and report such a person to the police. The better the photo, the faster it is likely that the outstanding person could be captured. So, when you think that in a weird case, such a fugitive would come across their photo put out by the police, and send a better photo to the police, it would seem like the ultimate ego (link to article):

A wanted man in Ohio wasn't happy with his mugshot — so he offered police a "helpful" hand in the form of a selfie. The Lima Police Department said Donald A. Chip Pugh is wanted for failing to appear in court for a DUI and is also a person of interest in other cases including an arson and vandalism. The 45-year-old, though, obviously did not approve of official mug shots circulated by the department. It said Pugh had sent police a new picture showing him in a suit and glasses while sitting in a car with a sunroof.

Weird news - Man gets kicked off plane for taking photos

Nowadays security on planes is getting very strict. When people make a nuisance of themselves on planes, there have been recent cases where the captain of the plane has deplaned them, and there has never been any action against the crew of such planes, even when there has been a lot of hue and cry about the actions of the crew. This has positively gone up manifold since the events of 9/11, and at this point, with the security situation as it is, you could just make a joke on a plane and if somebody misreads the joke, then you could be pointed out as a security concern, and would be evicted from the flight.
Consider this case, whereby an avid airline blogger and photo enthusiast was taking some photos on a flight. It was standard policy that nobody should take photos on the plane, but this was one of those policies that were there on the list and nobody followed, and in most cases, the crew on the flight would not have insisted. However, in this specific case, when the person was taking a photo, the crew objected and he stopped taking flights. However, later he did point out to the crew member that he was not a terrorist and used to take such photos for the blog earlier; and apparently this was enough for the crew to decide that they did not want him on the flight, and got him evicted (link to article):

I looked at the FA, smiled, but said nothing, putting my iPhone away. To be clear, I did not take any more pictures—not a single one. Meanwhile, another passenger was taking pictures behind the curtain and the FA ran over to him and demanded that he stop as well. This passenger had a lively discussion with the FA, though I did not hear the resolution. Naturally, the FA's warning bothered me and I felt the need to explain myself. I signaled for her to come back and asked her to hang my coat. I then said this verbatim— "I want you to understand why I was taking pictures. I hope you didn't think I was a terrorist. Here is my business card [offering her one]. I write about United Airlines on an almost-daily basis and the folks at United in Chicago are even aware of my blog." She took my jacket but refused to take my business card saying, "No, that's okay," then saying, "I did not know that" after I explained my reason for taking pictures. I again emphasize, I took no more pictures.

Weird news - Bride drowned after her dress became wet

When you look at wedding gowns, they seem so elegant, with the most lavish such gowns being very long and with a lot of cloth in them. These dresses are very heavy, but a lot of people don't realize this, and it can get even more problematic if they get wet. So a recent trend where brides want to shoot more sequences after the wedding, with them wearing their dresses in more non-elegant surroundings has caught on, but can have dangerous and disastrous results as in the following case.
In this case,  a bride wanted to shoot a series of photos in more exciting circumstances, near a river. As a part of the shoot, she decided to step into the river to get a better photo. However, with the water making her dress very heavy and with some unpredictable comments, she suddenly started getting pulled into the water and within a very brief period of time, was pulled into the water and unfortunately died. (link to article):

"I can't anymore, it's too heavy." Those were the chilling last words of a beautiful Canadian bride who drowned in a river during a photo shoot last week after her wedding dress became soaked and dragged her under, a friend told a Canadian news agency. Maria Pantazopoulos, 30, was having a photographer take shots for a "trash the dress" photo series when she waded into a river near Dorwin Falls in Rawdon, Quebec, at around 2 p.m. Friday, authorities said.

Weird news - Camera captures murderer just at the time of the murder

How likely is that a camera will capture the scene of a murder just before the actual murder happens ? And that too, when the person who is being killed is actually taking the photo. Imagine the shock, you take a photo, really don't notice that somebody is pointing a gun at you, and then just after the photo is taken, you get shot and eventually die ? The family of the murdered person however saw this photo, and sent this photo to the police; based on this photo, the police found the killer along with the accomplice. However, such a scenario happening is very unlikely, and the murdered must be ruing his luck (link to article):

A murdered Philippine politician caught his killer on camera just moments before he was shot dead, with the photograph leading to the arrest of the suspected gunman, police said today. The photograph, taken by district councillor Reynaldo Dagsa and distributed by his family to media, shows his relatives posing outside their home while a gunman in the background appears to aim a pistol at the victim.
The family gave the photograph to the police, leading to the arrest on Monday of the gunman as well as a suspected accomplice, he said. The alleged killer is shown in the photograph wearing a reversed baseball cap just behind Dagsa's daughter, wife and mother-in-law, who were apparently unaware of the alleged assailant's presence.

A banker caught on tape watching semi-nude photos

In trading rooms and banking rooms, the presence of a camera and live reporting is pretty common. However, what becomes fascinating is when the person who is speaking on camera does not become popular, instead the person not facing the camera, or in any way connected to the event happening on the news becomes more popular. And what is that ? Well, it became quite clear during the interview that a certain banker in the background was viewing semi-nude photos of a model Miranda Kerr.
This clip became very popular on Facebook and led to popularity that the banker would certainly not have wanted. Even the bank, Maquarie, was embarrassed and sent the banker home for the day; however, an internet campaign has started to prevent the banker from being affected (link to article):

That colleague, David Kiely, was caught on camera opening up an email and linking to photos of a semi-nude model, Miranda Kerr, in her recent spread for GQ magazine. It's hard to notice what Kiely is up to at first until he magnifies the image on his computer screen around the 1:30 mark of this 1:52 minute video (see below -- he's sitting with his back to the camera, slightly to the left of Lakos's head). Emails like this are standard trading room fodder, but usually the recipients aren't caught on tape.

Father criticized as being a pervert for photographing his own children on a slide

Sometimes paranoia can take a form that baffles people. Consider the normal scenario where a family goes out for a fun filled day where a loving father takes photographs of his children on a slide - 2 fun boys who are 5 and 7 years old. And when people see him taking these photos, they object, with some claiming that he is a pervert who is taking photos for selling on the internet, with the unstated claim being that he was involved in child pornography. Other parents objected, the person running the slide objected; this made the person so angry that he found policeman to back him on his right to take these photos - but this effectively ruined his day (link to article):

Yesterday he said: ‘What is the world coming to when anybody seen with a camera is assumed to be doing things that they should not? ‘This parental paranoia is getting completely out of hand. I was so shocked. One of the police officers told me that it was just the way society is these days. He agreed with me that it was madness.’
He said: ‘The children wanted to go on an inflatable slide and I started taking photos of them having a good time. Moments later the woman running the slide told me to stop.
‘When I asked why, she told me I could not take pictures of other people’s children. I explained I was only interested in taking photos of my own children and pointed out that this was taking place in a public park.

Man using camera for obscene work arrested in Rome

One of the problems with modern technology is that it can increasingly be used for wrong work; the problems of hidden cameras, miniature cameras, etc can be a serious one. There are actually sites dedicated to displaying upskirt photos where people post their photos related to taking photos under the skirts of women (although people caught taking such photos are prosecuted, the genre seems to be proliferating because it appeals to the baser instincts). Here is the case of one such person caught doing the same in Rome:

Italian police have arrested a man in Venice who was allegedly wandering around St Mark's Square and other city landmarks while secretly filming thousands of women's bottoms, officials said on Tuesday.
"He was very well dressed," paramilitary police Capt Mario Marino said. "He followed her and when she bent over to pick up something he tried to place the tip of the bag under her skirt." Upon inspection, the bag revealed a sophisticated camera which the man had used to film some 3,000 women in the area over more than three years, Marino said. The bag also contained DVDs with the material filmed by the man, he said.

This is a practice that needs to severely discouraged, through strict prosecution if necessary. Women should not worry about having such secretly taken photographs being taken or displayed (especially since this seems to be a pervert).