David Shankbone is traumatizing notable authors 

David Shankbone's attitude toward authors who don't like the photos he's taken of them is bossy and bullying.  He takes disastrous photos of authors.  Taking more unflattering photos could hardly be possible (See Edmund White, A.M. Homes, Francine Prose, Kathryn Harrison, Mary Gaitskill).  It's gotten to the point that authors he hasn't assaulted yet with his camera are afraid to go to readings for fear he'll be there, waiting for them.   I don't spend much time on Wikipedia, but when I come upon an author's page with a terrible photo, I now know it's been taken by David Shankbone.  I became curious about how these authors felt about the photos he'd taken of them, so I went and looked back in the history of a couple of them.  First I checked in the history of A.M. Homes, and sure enough, someone tried to take down the Shankbone photo (possibly even A.M. Homes herself or someone close to her), saying it was not a good photo, and he repeatedly put it back.  I also looked in the history of Sharyn November, and she herself had an exchange with him on one of their talk pages saying she preferred another photo of herself instead, but he would not let her have her way, and I don't remember the details, but his attitude was unpleasant and bossy.  She quickly backed down sweetly. 

A few days ago I came upon yet another disastrous author photo by David Shankbone and decided to Google his name, because I've been thinking that sooner or later an article will inevitably come out in the print media about authors' frustrations with this offensive photographer.  I wanted to see if any articles had been published yet about it.  I didn't dig very deeply but did find that on February 18th, 2008, lots of Wikipedia editors wrote about their frustrations with David Shankbone (in a section called: Does Wikipedia want David Shankbone or should we just tell him to leave?), to the point that he promised he'd leave Wikipedia (he shouldn't make promises he won't keep-he didn't even leave for one day, as far as I can see from his list of contributions).   All those posts from upset people have been deleted from Wikipedia, but I was able to find them by going into the history of the page: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents.  

Authors are not the only celebrities Shankbone has upset.  I came upon discussions (on Wikipedia) about the actor Mike Farrell, who was upset by the photo Shankbone took of him, but Shankbone insisted his photo stay up on Farrell's page (it has now been replaced by a much better photo taken by someone else).  And I'm sure it's happened to countless other “notables”.  Many notable authors who are distressed by their photo will just remain quiet and try not to look at their Wikipedia pages, either because they don't know how to take down photos and post messages on Wikipedia, or because they fear that fighting David Shankbone will be futile and will  only increase their distress.  
Authors are often shy and insecure about their physical appearance.  Why make it worse?  And why be stubborn and nasty about it to the few authors who do muster up the courage to request that an unflattering photo be taken down? 

As with any contributor to Wikipedia, David Shankbone should have no right to assert that his photos take precedence over the photos of others, especially when more appropriate pictures are available and copyright free.  He claims that he has allowed better pictures to take the place of his, but this is clearly not true in many instances, given the way he fights to retain his pictures even in instances when any reasonable third party observer would agree that another picture is either better or more appropriate for the article.  

David Shankbone might be using Wikipedia to try and make a career for himself, and maybe that's okay, but he's hurting a lot of people along the way.  

I am an author, with a few published books, and there is a page on me on Wikipedia.  That's why I care about this issue.   I'm appalled at what David Shankbone is doing to authors.  

As I don't know the best place to post this message, I'm posting it in three places: David Shankbone's talk page, Jimbo Wales' talk page, and Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents.