I am teaching a workshop in L.A. in a couple of weeks and for lack of a better title, I called it “Developing Skills as a Magazine Photographer.” My heart was honestly engaged in finding a proper title but somehow that is where I ended up. Even as I write, I think about what it means, and what this world of “magazine photography” is all about, and what it has become. Maybe those skills are as much about survival as they are about photographic esthetics. Of course, there are myriad stories these days about the death of journalism (in general) and the death of photojournalism (in particular) and I must say that having lived through a couple of those death periods already, I’m not quite sure just where this one fits in.
Revisiting the Death of Photojournalism, Part II: THE WIRES – The Digital Journalist:
The precipitous decline in budgets at magazines and newspapers is now threatening the ability of the wires to continue to service these members and clients. For photojournalists, these developments are genuinely alarming, since the wires collectively represent their biggest single employer in the industry. For society, the effects of pressures on the wires, in their unique role as the provider of first resort for our news, could be devastating.
Camera Corner: Olympus E-P1 Review – The Digital Journalist:
The Austin, Texas, Bergstrom Airport TSA officer walked toward me with focused intent in his eyes and I wondered about possible laws I may have unknowingly broken. His first spoken words were exact. “Sir, what kind of camera is that? I don’t believe that I’ve seen that one before!” We talked for a while. And so it goes. That happens a lot with an Olympus E-P1 hanging around my neck.
AMERICANSUBURB X: THEORY: “Mary Ellen Mark – 25 Years (1990)”:
Mary Ellen Mark is a photographer who believes that her strongest essay will be her next one. In a sense, all her work is one journey to that “best” story, which she may never reach or let herself acknowledge. She works with an edge, a haunting dissatisfaction: Could the pictures be better? What is important? Does she have it? Has she gotten to the core? Modest by nature, she uses the word perhaps a lot and the phrase “I was lucky” a great deal. But the success of her career is the result of more than luck – rather, it’s a knowing rush toward the unknown.
Lament for a Dying Field – Photojournalism – NYTimes.com:
When photojournalists and their admirers gather in southern France at the end of August for Visa pour l’Image, the annual celebration of their craft, many practitioners may well be wondering how much longer they can scrape by.
The suspect , who later spoke with Daily Sun said: “I have regretted my action because I now know that the devil does not give good ideas. See the disgrace that I am now subjected to.” Explaing how he super-imposed his photographs in the pictures of the stars, he said, “it is very simple, I did the photo trick in Oluwole area of Lagos. I just told them to super-impose me with the photographs of the celebrities.”
Dangerous Minds | To My Great Chagrin: Brother Theodore Documentary Screening in Los Angeles August 11th:
To My Great Chagrin reconciles the cryptic, oddly comic fury of Brother Theodore’s on-stage persona with the stranger-than-fiction chronology of his life. Directed by Jeff Sumerel.
Bill Jay | Photographer and writer | The Guardian:
Bill Jay, who has died aged 68, started out as a photographer but made his reputation as a writer on and advocate of photography. He was the first editor, in 1968, of the immensely influential magazine Creative Camera and then founder, in 1970, of Album photo-magazine (which ran for all of 12 issues). He went on to stimulate interest and debate through his work as a curator, magazine and picture editor, lecturer and mentor and, above all, through writing on photography.
Sony Camera Robot: You’ll Always Find Him On The Table at Parties | Gadget Lab | Wired.com:
Put your Sony camera onto the Party Shot and it will, Sony says, “act as your personal photographer.” The little mount is controlled by the camera and will tilt and zoom, seeking out any people in the room using the face detection in the camera.
Panasonic Pen-Style Camera Pictures Leaked | Gadget Lab | Wired.com:
This rumor is brought to you by Xitek, a Chinese photography forum. It shows a Pen-style interchangeable lens camera from Panasonic, apparently called the GF-1.
Shoptalk: With Todd Heisler – Lens Blog – NYTimes.com:
Todd Heisler received so many good questions in response to “Showcase: A Subtle Palette for Portraits,” and had so much to say in response that we felt the exchange merited a post of its own
The Prague Post – Vojtěch Sláma chronicles the poetry of ordinary moments:
At a time when even traditionally minded photographers have moved to digital equipment for much of their work, Vojtěch Sláma remains resolutely committed to analog technology – in particular, using old-fashioned equipment like the 6×6 cm twin-lens reflex camera, and continuing to make his own black-and-white, square-format enlargements in the time-honored way.
Gardens of Eden – Christian Cravo – The Black Snapper:
As a photographer, I seek to understand people through the images that arise in the course of my journey. I make my eye an instrument that tells a story that is, above all, “human.” The aim is to represent humankind through an iconographic structure based on specific themes.
In this regard, I see Haiti as the supreme expression of the human essence. This is a society with very unique characteristics – intensely spiritual, replete with symbolism, in which people show their lack of prudishness through the purest of elements.
The government information agency, RVD, told the paper that the photos constitute a violation of the so-called “media code,” an arrangement observed by the Dutch media that the royal family can only be photographed at official functions. RVD said they would drop the lawsuit if the AP removed the pictures from its database.
On Assignment: The Afghan Election – Lens Blog – NYTimes.com:
Lynsey Addario, a freelance photographer who has been taking pictures in Afghanistan since 2000, returned recently to shoot photos of the campaign leading up the presidential election on Aug. 20. Ms. Addario says she has never seen Afghans as excited about an election. “People are talking about change, people are talking about who might win,” says Ms. Addario, who is represented by VII photo agency and whose work appears regularly in The Times.
AMERICANSUBURB X: THEORY: “The End of the Age of Photography by Danny Lyon (2007)”:
Many years ago I was being driven along central park west in a NYC Taxi and talking with Robert Frank whom I sat beside. When I spoke of using words with photography, texts, as part of what were then called “photography books”, Robert said, “well, then that’s the end of it.” . The year was 1969, and it was “not the end of it.” As a young photographer, deep into a career of making picture books, with texts, I couldn’t help but feel that Frank’s comment smacked a bit of kicking out the ladder. After all, the work of Frank that had stunned the world was a virtually wordless portrait of America, done with a Leica and a couple lenses.1
Thirty six years have passed since that conversation in a taxi cab, and as I sit here
at the east end of Long Island, watching my fishing boat “the Nanook” bob and dip at its moorings, pounded by strong southwest winds, I wonder if I am recreating Frank’s error with what I am now writing.
