Link: The Reporter’s Account: 4 Days With the Taliban – At War Blog – NYTimes.com:
Stephen Farrell, a reporter for The New York Times, and Sultan M. Munadi, an Afghan journalist working with him, were kidnapped by the Taliban in northern Afghanistan on Saturday. In a British raid to free them early Wednesday, Mr. Munadi was killed. This is Mr. Farrell’s account of their four-day ordeal.
Link: In pictures: Ciwem environmental photographer of the year 2009 | guardian.co.uk:
The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (Ciwem) international environmental photographer of the year competition recognises photographers who use their talent to raise awareness of environmental and social issues – from places and people to vulnerable ecosystems and communities that are struggling with a changing climate.
There are five categories and an overall winner. All winning and highly commended entries will go on display in London from 7 October then tour around the UK
Link: John Burns Discusses Sultan Munadi – At War Blog – NYTimes.com:
Sultan Munadi is dead, and a British paratrooper whose name we may never know. There may also have been Afghan casualties, perhaps Taliban, perhaps not; that we also don’t know yet, for sure. But from where I am writing this, on a sunny autumn afternoon in rural England, the deaths of Sultan and the British commando seem like a grim black cloud darkening the landscape – a harbinger, perhaps, for the increasingly grim news that seems to await us all from a war that seems to be worsening by the day, and heading for worse yet unless our political and military leaders can find a way to turn the situation around.
Photography’s debt to Annie Leibovitz | Art and design | guardian.co.uk:
As celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz’s financial woes threaten to eclipse her career, it’s important to remember how much we owe to her pioneering work
Seized Times Reporter Is Freed in Afghan Raid That Kills Aide – NYTimes.com:
Armed gunmen seized Stephen Farrell and his interpreter, Sultan Munadi, four days ago while they were working in a village south of Kunduz.
Nirrimi Hakanson, Melbourne – Feature Shoot:
Nirrimi Hakanson is a sixteen-year-old aspiring fashion photographer aching to take the world by hurricane, thunder and rainstorm. Of her work she says, ‘Photography took my hands and led me to a personal paradise at age thirteen, and I’ve been self-taught and seeing life through a lens since. My aspirations are heaven high and my potential and dedication higher still. I have a peculiar vision of beauty- I see beautiful where others don’t think to look and I capture it all so they do. I want to be shooting for Vogue before I’ve even reached adulthood. Can you imagine? I am really just an artist who spends more time dreaming than living and wants to finally live!’
Behind the Scenes: Silence at a Festival – Lens Blog – NYTimes.com:
Most shows were the result of the dedication of individual photographers to the telling of a single story. Several of the most talked-about exhibits were by photographers whose projects were driven solely by passion, often with no assignments to sustain them.
Among the highlights were Eugene Richards’s powerful photographs of the effect of the Iraq war on Americans, Brenda Ann Kenneally’s exceptional images of upstate girls in her hometown of Troy, N.Y., and revealing photographs of the Afghan people by Zalmaï Ahad, known professionally as Zalmaï.
Link: Leica X1 First Impressions – Luminous Landscape:
Firstly, the X1 was and is a surprise. We had gone to Solms expecting the S2 and M9, but on our second day, with devilish grins on their faces, Leica’s executives showed us several prototype X1s. We all laughed with pleasure at seeing them, because the previous day we had been commenting on how what the world needed was a smaller and less expensive M, or maybe a larger sensored pocket camera. It appears that Leica themselves have been thinking along these lines because the X1 is intended to be a response to both requests.
Link: Leica M9 Hands-on Preview: Digital Photography Review:
And now comes the M9, ‘the world’s smallest full frame camera’, which on paper at least looks to be the ultimate digital M; an 18 megapixel full-frame (36 x 24 mm) sensor, still with no low-pass filter but now with a new UV/IR cover-glass filter which means no need for lens filters. Here are some salient image quality related points which came out of an interview we conducted with Leica in Solms
Link: Leica Factory Tour 2009: 1. Introduction: Digital Photography Review:
Two weeks ago we visited the Leica Factory in Solms, Germany, for an introduction to the M9 and X1 cameras, and the S2 medium format DSLR system. As well as discussing these new products, we were given a guided tour of the production and assembly areas for the M series rangefinders (including the M9), the M lenses and the S2. Click through for an insight into the painstaking process by which Leica puts together its cameras and lenses.
Chase Jarvis Blog: Behind The Curtain: The Guts Of A Commercial Shoot:
Whew. If you’ve tuned in at all in the past few days, you’re aware of what I’ve got cooking. To my knowledge this is one of the first (perhaps THE first?) global, multi-week-long, play-by-play commercial shoot to have its behind-the-scenes life chronicled and broadcast almost in real time via blog, Facebook, and Twitter. This will be the deepest look into the black box of photography that I’ve been able to share to date. By a country mile.
Razon:
Razon is an international collective of visual storytellers pursuing stories independently, but sharing, inspiring, and motivating each other to seek and convey truths and reasons behind every story to be told.
via APhotoADay
PDNPulse: A Closer Look at the Annie Leibovitz Lavazza Case:
How similar are Pizzetti’s location shots to Leibovitz’s final images? We have some animated GIFs below comparing the photographs.
Leica M9 Camera – A Closer Look | Hypebeast:
It looks like all the hype surrounding Leica’s M9 will steadily continue as a PDF for the highly anticipated camera has been leaked.
Intimate Photo Gathering Slated for Geekfest 2009:
At GeekFest 2008, also in St. Petersburg, a young man with a Mohawk chatted with a woman in a green wig. More than a few sported tattoos and piercings. One photographer introduced herself and said shyly, “I cross stitch dirty words.”
Leica M9 Brochure Leaked: 18 Megapixel Full-Frame Sensor | Gadget Lab | Wired.com:
See what a little corporate secrecy can do? It drives the public, and the reporters, nuts, kicking up a whole lot of sparkly publicity-dust along the way. And doesn’t hurt that the brand in question is the cult camera-maker, Leica.
Nayan Sthankiya | 100 Eyes Photo Magazine:
I decided to tackle my introduction to North Korea at face value and present what I saw how I saw it, without embellishment leaving it up to the viewer to draw their own conclusions.
The Black Snapper:
Far from a simple recording, Stratos Kalafatis seems to be using photography to highlight moments of an experiential relationship with the world around him, idiosyncratic splinters of colour composing a fragmented diary of his life on the island of Skopelos or his short residence in Japan.