Author: Trent

  • The Wild Weird World of Sports: The Olympic (Bien) Venue

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    After shooting for over an hour, some of the volunteer security started to get very nervous and tried to get us further away from the scene. They first created a Human Great Wall. Didn’t bother me because I’m way taller than them, simply shot over their heads.

    That frustrated them, so they created another human fence 3 meters further back and had their tallest kid, 5’10”, stand right in front of me. Still, no affect. Just made me laugh.

    Bring it on, Shorty!

    Check it out here.

  • The Peddecord Show: How to Rate Your Photos

    Sometimes it seems like a long amount of time goes without any appreciable work between fits of genius. Which brings a lot of boredom. And a lot of riding my Bianchi. And this new system to help score your photographs as being either brilliant or rubbish.

    Check it out here.

  • Poynter Online – Looking Through the "Girl in the Window"

    A 7-year-old girl, unable to speak or feed herself, discovered in a filthy, roach-infested room, her diaper overflowing and her body covered with bites. How do you tell a story like this? Poynter’s St. Petersburg Times responded by clearing its Sunday features section and devoting six ad-free pages to a 6,500-word narrative and haunting photographs of the girl and her adoptive family.
     
    The project was the result of months of reporting and photographing by two gifted journalists, as well as a behind-the-scenes team. The story is worth a reader’s time. And for journalists, it’s worth analyzing for lessons learned, including this: A few months into the project, reporter Lane DeGregory and photographer Melissa Lyttle found themselves without compelling content for the Web and had to retrace their steps in reporting this story.

    Check it out here.

  • Making Time to Make: Bad Correspondence | 43 Folders

    Over the years, novelist Neal Stephenson (wiki), has had at least a couple different pages where he’s explained why he’s chosen to limit the access he provides via email, interviews, and phone calls. It appears to be something he’s given a lot of thought to.

    Check it out here.

  • Iraq Banks Billions in Surpluses, GAO Says – washingtonpost.com

    Iraq’s oil income will more than double this year, even as Baghdad continues to spend only a small percentage of its own money on reconstruction and services while it banks billions in surplus funds, according to projections by U.S. government auditors.

    Between 2005 and 2007, only 10 percent of Iraq’s expenditures went toward reconstruction, with just 1 percent spent on maintaining U.S. and Iraqi-funded investments in roads, water, electricity and weapons, according to a report released yesterday by the Government Accountability Office. Even when Baghdad has allocated larger sums, the report said, it has spent only a small portion of the budgeted money.

    Check it out here.

  • My Waking Life: In Transit

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    photos by DAVID WALTER BANKS

    Traveling and meeting new folks in this photographic community never ceases to give me the jump-start I need. Here’s some images from the excursion.

    Check it out here.

  • New Fears Arise on Olympic Press Freedoms

    The beating of two Japanese journalists by police in western China drew an official apology Tuesday, but Beijing also set new obstacles for news outlets wanting to report from Tiananmen Square in the latest sign of trouble for reporters covering the Olympics.

    Check it out here.

  • the life of m: The Girl in the Window

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    She was found curled up in a filthy room, unable to speak or make eye contact.

    They called her a feral child.

    Could nurturing make up for a lifetime of neglect?

    The girl in the window is a story about a 9-year-old girl named Dani. Ultimately it’s a story about hope.

    Check it out here.

  • Little People – a tiny street art project: Antscape Painting

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    The book is out on the 5th of September but we are having a book launch event on Sunday 31st August in London – The Little People Treasure hunt! I will be placing four installations at various locations around London and it is up to YOU to track them down and find them.

    Check it out here.

  • Wooster Collective: A Must See: Beautiful Losers (The Movie) Opening This Friday in New York

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    This coming Friday night in New York at the IFC Center marks the US theatrical debut of Beautiful Losers, the movie. Like the exhibition and book that proceeded it, Beautiful Losers is a true labor of love that makes you want to go out and create something. It’s wonderfully shot and includes a ton of terrific interviews with a fantastic group of artists. The film is the perfect companion to the exhibition and book.

    Check it out here.

  • Olympics bans ‘professional’ cameras news – Amateur Photographer – news, camera reviews, lens reviews, camera equipment guides, photography courses, competitions, photography forums

    Spectators watching the Beijing Olympics Games will not be allowed to carry ‘professional’ camera gear into the stadium with them, according to strict rules laid down by organisers.

    Such cameras are banned alongside guns, grenades, gunpowder and explosives.

    Check it out here.

  • TECH TIP III « Vincent Laforet’s Blog

    Need to resize images for your Blog every day?   Need to send 10,000 images out to a client at a certain size – and then a second batch in a different size and format?   If you’re like me – you hate doing repetitive tasks on a computer – after all that’s why you bought the darn thing thing for in the first place! (Oh – and did I mention you didn’t need to buy anything to get this done…)

    Check it out here.

  • A Conversation with Peter Granser (Conscientious)

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    When I received a review copy of Peter Granser’s Signs in the mail, I had quite a few questions about the work. And since I had always admired his earlier work about Alzheimer patients, I asked Peter whether he would be up for a conversation.

    Check it out here.

  • WPPh –> ENTER (World Press Photo)

    Two of our galleries in edition ten deal with oppression – one in a country currently much in the headlines, Burma otherwise known as Myanmar, the other in the Czech Republic where minority Romany people are, according to our photographer, the victims of racism and discrimination.

    Check it out here.

  • The Public Editor – The Painful Images of War – Op-Ed – NYTimes.com

    TWO hundred twenty-one American soldiers and Marines have been killed in Iraq this year, but until eight days ago, The Times had not published a photo of one of their bodies.

    The picture The Times did publish on July 26, of a room full of death after a suicide bombing in June, with a marine in the foreground, his face covered and his uniform riddled with tiny shrapnel holes, accompanied a front-page article about how few such images there are.

    Check it out here.

  • The DNG Profile Editor: What's it all about?

    When we look back at how things changed with the arrival of Lightroom 2, I think the new DNG Profile Editor (presently kind of a sleeper technology) will stand out as transformative.  The technology was largely developed by Eric Chan, a bright young guy on the Camera Raw team (and aspiring photographer).  I’ve always found his explanations lucid and highly readable, so I’m delighted that he’s written a guest blog post on the subject.

    Check it out here.

  • In Khartoum, a Surreally Mundane Experience – washingtonpost.com

    KHARTOUM, Sudan — Sometimes, the things reporters do here in Africa can seem harrowing from afar. But up close, the experiences tend to be more Seinfeld than 24, more surreally mundane than high adventure. My recent eight-hour non-detention detention by Sudanese intelligence agents in Khartoum was a long, sleepy day of waiting and more waiting with no definitive beginning or end.

    Check it out here.

  • Vincent Laforet’s Blog

    Tomorrow is the big day.  I fly off to Beijing (w/ an overnight layover for some kimchee in Korea) and am very much looking forward to setting foot in China for the second time.   I went to Shanghai and Beijing in early 2001 with one of my best friends Harry How (who will also be covering the games for Getty Images.)  A lot has changed since then – 9/11 happened a few months after our return and clearly the world has changed quite a bit since then.  But mostly – I’m looking to see how China has evolved since my first visit.

    Check it out here.

  • A Photo Editor – Simon Barnett, DOP at Newsweek Prepares for the Olympics

    With the Olympics just around the corner I thought I’d check in with Simon Barnett of Newsweek, because he’s hired his very own dream team of photographers (Laforet, Miralle and Powell) to provide coverage of the event.

    Check it out here.

  • Author Alexander Solzhenitsyn Dies at 89 – NYTimes.com

    Solzhenitsyn’s unflinching accounts of torment and survival in the Soviet Union’s slave labor camps riveted his countrymen, whose secret history he exposed. They earned him 20 years of bitter exile, but international renown.

    And they inspired millions, perhaps, with the knowledge that one person’s courage and integrity could, in the end, defeat the totalitarian machinery of an empire.

    Check it out here.