Taylor Swift’s father, Scott Swift, will not face charges for allegedly punching a photographer in Australia, New South Wales Police Force confirmed to CBS News.

The incident occurred in February when Swift was in Melbourne for her Eras Tour. The pop star and her father, then 71, were coming off a yacht at the Neutral Bay Wharf, where veteran paparazzi photographer Ben McDonald was taking photos of them, the Associated Press reported at the time. 

In a statement to CBS News at the time, a representative for Taylor Swift told CBS News that “two individuals were aggressively pushing their way towards Taylor, grabbing at her security personnel, and threatening to throw a female staff member into the water.” 

McDonald told police Swift assaulted him. “There were about four or five security there and at one point, one of the American security started shoving his umbrella into me and my camera and then Taylor got in her car,” McDonald then told the AP.

“Someone else came running at me and punched me in the left side of my face. Initially, I thought it was an Australian security that was trying to be the hero of the moment in front of the Americans, but as it turned out it was her father,” McDonald added.

McDonald reported the alleged incident to police but was not seriously injured, AFP reports.

The New South Wales Police Force did not release the names of the parties involved but confirmed they were investigating a 71-year-old man who allegedly assaulted a 51-year-old man at 2:30 a.m.

McDonald later identified Scott Swift from an online picture. “In 23 years, I haven’t been assaulted and punched in the chops, particularly by the talent’s dad,” he told the AP. 

Scott Swift soon left Australia, police said. Taylor Swift also left via private jet after seven sold-out stadium concerts in the country. 

Fans, who dubbed the star’s dad “Papa Swift,” defended Scott in social media posts.

The police told CBS News that after investigating the incident, they decided they “will take no further action in relation to the matter.”

Caitlin O’Kane

Caitlin O’Kane is a New York City journalist who works on the CBS News social media team as a senior manager of content and production. She writes about a variety of topics and produces “The Uplift,” CBS News’ streaming show that focuses on good news.

A photographer unexpectedly captured the first-of-a-kind image of a seal spitting a jet of water at a sea eagle — a defensive behavior that was not previously known about.

Photographer and bird-watcher Clare Jacobs was delighted when she spotted a rare white-tailed eagle on the Isle of Wight in the U.K. on January 3, 2022.

Clare had trained her Nikon DSLR camera and 600mm telephoto lens on the eagle when she noticed a grey seal moving in the water underneath.

The large mammal emerged out of the waves, barked at the bird, before opening its mouth and and spitting a jet of water at the sea eagle above it.

As she took the photograph, Clare did not realize that she had just captured something that has never been reported happening from a seal to an eagle. In fact, interactions between top-level predators are basically non-existent.

An Unprecedented Defensive Tactic Captured on Camera

Clare sent the photos to her daughter Megan Jacobs who is a paleontologist from the University of Portsmouth’s School of the Environment, Geography, and Geosciences and fellow paleontologist David Martill.

Captured on camera, the encounter showed the grey seal initially emitting barks of warning, but then resorting to an unprecedented defensive tactic: spitting a stream of water directly at the eagle.

From the photos, Megan and David realized that the seal might have spat at the eagle in an attempt to drive the bird away as a way of defending the prey that they’re both after: the fish in the water.

In a paper published last month, David and Megan reveal how Clare’s extraordinary photos shed new light on the dynamics between these two apex predators.

“Sightings of grey seals and white-tailed eagles are frequent events now on the Isle of Wight, but interactions between these two species have so far not been reported,” Megan says in a statement to University of Portsmouth News.

“This is the first record of an interaction between these two top predators and the first report of grey seals using spitting as a means of defense or deterrence against an aerial foe.

“The spitting may be a strategy to exclude white-tailed eagles from competing for prey as they’re in direct competition for fish resources.”

Clare adds: “I’m always thrilled to catch photos of the eagles. But catching such a rare and never-before-seen interaction made my year!”

According to The New York Times, the photographs makes grey seals one of the few species known to spit — joining cobras, which can shoot venom from their fangs into the eyes of would-be predators, with impressive accuracy.

 
Image credits: All photos by Clare Jacobs.

There’s a ton of buzz out there when it comes to AI infiltrating the photography industry. Some photographers are adamantly against using AI in their work, calling it fake or cheating. But the truth is, this disruptor is here to stay, and while it might feel nice at the moment to side with the ‘never-AI-ers,’ you’ll end up regretting your resistance to it in the long run. AI editing hacks can save you hours in your workflow.

I, too, was cautious in the beginning since I’m primarily a headshot photographer, and no photographer can compete with an AI generated corporate headshot for $30 bucks. So I definitely understand both sides. But in this article, I’m going to highlight some of the amazing ways photographers can use this new tech to their advantage in their portrait sessions. 

Adobe has officially released their AI image generating engine (Adobe Firefly) into Photoshop. In my other business, I teach Photoshop. This allows me to beta test for the company, so I’ve been exploring this new tech for a few months now. And… it’s amazing. Tasks that used to take me half an hour to complete now take a few seconds.  

[Read: AI Imaging and Professional Photography]

Tip 1: The Dreaded Fly-Away Hair Clean Up

Gone are the days when I used to have to spend hours painstakingly retouching out each individual stray hair from a portrait. Now, I let Photoshop’s AI do that grunt work. I start by making a selection around the edge of the hair, and then use the prompt area in the Contextual task bar to input a phrase like “remove fly away hairs, clean polished hairline.”

The generative fill then gives me three variations to choose from (within the Properties window), and all I have to do is simply pick the one I like best. Here’s what selecting looks like and the before and after of the one I chose as the final.

And the magic doesn’t stop there. I wanted to see if AI could reduce cross hairs which make hair look frizzy in some instances. So I tried it and to my astonishment it worked. I circled the affected area, imputed the prompt “remove frizz,” pressed the generate button and was astonished by the results. 

This type of work used to consume my time worse than mistakenly stepping through the Narnia wardrobe portal. And now it can be done within seconds. These are the types of tasks you can easily use AI editing hacks for when you’re a portrait photographer. 

Tip 2: Reconstructing Parts of Your Subject 

Often, in an effort to make my subject feel closer to the viewer, I’ll slightly crop off the top of their heads in the images. This gives the viewer the feeling that the subject is closer to them than if their head were intact. It’s a tried and true method many headshot photographers have used over the years. But every so often I get a reply from a client asking me to put the top of their head back in. In the past this would have required me to go back to the files in my archives, find the certain look/outfit the client was wearing in the chosen frame, find a nearby shot that had the top of their head in the photo and then manually try to align both images and blend them. 

Now, thanks to AI, it’s as easy as using Generative expand. 

All you need to do is activate your crop tool, then make sure your Fill option in the top settings bar is set to “Generative Expand,” drag the canvas out, hit the crop check mark, and viola! The top of the head has been constructed for me within seconds. Another instance where AI has saved me 20 minutes of work.  

This also works for arms and shoulders that may have been inadvertently cropped out of the shot during a headshot session. Reconstructing these parts of a body is easy-peasy for Photoshop’s Adobe Firefly. 

Tip 3: Easily Remove Glare from Glasses

This is something I’ve learned how to avoid over years of trial and error in camera. But trust me, when I tell you these techniques were not learned overnight. Thankfully, generative AI can help with this, too, and with a much faster learning curve. 

Make a selection around each set of reflections, and simply click generate. The AI will do it’s best at matching the color, contrast, lighting and surroundings of your image while generating your fix. 

For this, you can either choose to leave the prompt field blank, or input what would be generated behind the reflection. 

I find that doing this in chunks gives you a better result. So, do one section of the reflection, then repeat the same steps until all the reflections are gone. 

Remember that you have three options to choose from each time so make sure you choose the best result for each area. Here are the results after I completed three generative fills to remove all the reflections: 

WARNING: Make a note NOT to select the subject’s iris in your selection. If you do so, you’ll generate a new iris which will not represent the person you’re photographing and will make the portrait inauthentic. 

In closing, AI doesn’t have to be scary… at least not yet. So why not use it to make your life easier as a photographer. Using these AI editing hacks while you retouch your portraits can save you tons of time and increase your productivity tremendously. 

Kristina Sherk is a retoucher and Photoshop educator who loves “translating Photoshop” for photographers. She has spoken at CreativeLive, Photoshop World, KelbyOne, Adobe, Canon, LinkedIn Learning, ImagingUSA, and WPPI. Learn more from her about Photoshop on YouTube and Instagram.

[Read: Turn a Pool into an Epic Underwater Shoot with Kristina Sherk]

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