PDNPulse: One Year Later, Iraqi Photojournalist Remains in Military Prison:
Iraqi photojournalist Ibrahim Jassam remains in a military prison in Iraq a year after his September 2, 2008 arrest. U.S. officials insist he remains a security threat, despite an order last year by an Iraqi court order that he be released.
Photographing Gaza – do pictures speak of politics? | David Campbell — Photography, Multimedia, Politics:
It seems AP threatened to withdraw their Palestinian photographers’ work or purse legal action against the exhibition organizers. Outraged by AP’s attitude, Franklin withdrew the essay and left the photographs without accompanying text, while Noorderlicht charged AP was acting contrary to any principle of free speech.
Leave it to big business and old thinking to try and control Social Media. In a report released this week the NFL has revealed their plan for a Social Media Policy. One of the new rules of the policy would prohibit players or anyone representing them from posting to social media networks during a prohibited block of time spanning from 90 minutes prior to kick off to 90 minutes after game time. This new rule applies not only to players but also to coaches, team personnel, and officials. The media has also been put on notice.
Leica’s Flat and Fast Panasonic Pancake Lens | Gadget Lab | Wired.com:
Leica shows just how small a lens can be, if you have a camera with a half-sized sensor and no big mirror-flipping gap between it and the lens itself. This is the new LUMIX G 20mm ƒ1.7 ASPH, and it aptly belongs to the class of lenses called “pancake”.
A Pair of Loners: Photos, Friendship and Figuring It Out in Delhi | Raw File | Wired.com:
The photojournalist has long been known as the lone wolf, traveling solo to the far-flung corners of the world to document experiences few are capable of seeing. By function, it’s often a solitary quest, lonely and alienating; rarely as romantic as the photographs make it appear.
So it’s significant when a couple of fledgling photographers meet at a card table in New Delhi, far from their respective homes, and form a friendship. Even more so when, two years later, those same photographers, Adam Ferguson and Zackary Canepari, score almost simultaneous covers of Time magazine and The New York Times.
Panasonic DMC-GF1 Hands on Preview: Digital Photography Review:
We’ve been playing with the GF1 for a month or so now (and have had a full production sample for a couple of weeks) and I have to say that, even before we start the formal review process, we’re very impressed with it indeed. When we reviewed the Olympus E-P1 we commented that it was a camera you’d buy with your heart; with the GF1 there’s now an option for those who like to buy with their head, too. We’ll be bringing you a full review as soon as we can, but for now here’s a preview and extensive samples gallery to keep you going.
Panasonic Micro Four Thirds ‘Rangefinder’ with Leica Lenses | Gadget Lab | Wired.com:
The main differences between this and the Olympus EP-1 Pen are the looks (plain, black or colored aluminum instead of fancy faux-leather), a pop-up flash (the Olympus has none), size (the Panasonic is “artistically flat”). Other standard features include image stabilization, face detection and HD video recording and ISO of up to 3200.
But the best feature goes almost unmentioned in the press release: The camera can be fitted with Leica lenses out of the box
Must See: A New Kind of News – Lens Blog – NYTimes.com:
A new genre of reporting — the Web documentary report — will be formally recognized this year at the world’s most influential photojournalism show, Visa pour l’Image, in Perpignan, France. An award will be given Wednesday to the best of nine entrants, winnowed from more than 100. It is named for the news channel France 24 and the news radio station RFI. Watch this post for an update.
Meanwhile, I’ve chosen four English-language nominees to highlight.
U.S. Department of Transportation Responds to ACLU by Telling Us What We Already Know, Photographing the Exterior of Federal Buildings is Perfectly Legal | Thomas Hawk Digital Connection:
it’s not illegal to photograph the exterior of their buildings and structure
As part of a back-and-forth regarding the harassment of photographers at U.S. Department of Transportation headquarters in Washington, I’ve gotten my hands on the Homeland Security Department’s official guidelines for photography of federal buildings.
He has slept in churches in Congo for safety while photographing refugees fleeing their own homes. Though he is only 25 years old, Dominic Nahr’s photographs of those refuges and of Congo’s brutal conflict are being exhibited in Perpignan at Visa pour l’Image, the most important international photojournalism festival.
Lance Armstrong in 4 minutes flat | Robert Seale Photography Blog:
Lance was preparing for his Tour de France comeback, so he was only in Austin for one or two days in the time period that would make our deadline, so there was a very narrow window to schedule the shoot.
Balazs Gardi, a Hungarian freelance photographer with VII Network, focuses on everyday life in communities facing humanitarian crises. Although he has won numerous awards for conflict photography, he is on a long-term project to capture water-related social tension and geopolitical disputes.
Philip Blenkinsop of NOOR agency, since settling in Asia in 1989, has pursued forgotten conflicts: in East Timor with Falintil guerrillas; in Borneo among tribal wars and cannibals; deep in Laos where Hmong veterans seek refuge. After picturing China’s Yellow River basin for Paris Match, he shifted to the environment. Critics call him one of the essential photographers of his generation.
Early into Christopher Anderson’s Capitolio we are faced with a horned demon exorcised by a cross held aloft over its head. It is this one image which metaphorically sums up the presidency of Hugo Chavez and the polarized nation of Venezuela. The poor tend to see Chavez as a saint while the wealthy few – the four hundred year old elite – paint him as the anti-Christ.
Klett has tapped into the earlier photographic processes to explore the element of time by extending the duration of his exposures. He effective uses two variations, an extended long exposure to constant capture the light and a series of intermittent exposures over an extended period of time. To me, the process is like creating some mysterious treasures, because you can not always foretell what the final results will appear like. With time and practice, you can kinda guess approximately what the resulting image might look like, but you can never tell with absolute certainty.