a film addicted photographer who doesn’t hate digital folk
via PhotoDino: http://photodino.wordpress.com/
I get asked all the time, during workshops, in e-mails, in private messages, what words of wisdom I would give to a new and aspiring photographer. Here’s my answer.
In the fifth installment on Depression-era photography and photo-fakery, the focus is on Walker Evans.
via Opinionator: http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/the-case-of-the-inappropriate-alarm-clock-part-5/
In your review of “Mind’s Eye, Mind’s Truth” you write, “Curtis thinks all manipulation is the same.” That he wants to lump all the F.S.A. photographers into one big pile and, in particular, he wants to prove that Walker Evans is guilty of manipulation.
Link: Showcase: Stirring Images, No Names – Lens Blog – NYTimes.com:
“Beware the Cost of War,” a show opening Friday at the Blackall Studios in London, will be conspicuous for many reasons — one of them being what it lacks: captions and credits next to the images, which were taken both by Israeli and Palestinian photographers.
Maziar Bahari’s ordeal inside Tehran’s Evin Prison.
via Newsweek: http://www.newsweek.com/id/219034
For day after day, month after month, following his imprisonment in Iran on June 21, documentary filmmaker and NEWSWEEK correspondent Maziar Bahari did not see the face of his interrogator. Bahari, 42, was blindfolded or faced a wall as the accusations and questions—often it was hard to tell the difference—kept coming at him. And always the interrogator told him the same thing: “No one on the outside cares about you. Everyone has forgotten you.” Nothing could have been further from the truth.
Link: PDNPulse: How News Works Today: VII Seminar at PPE:
This morning at Photo Plus, VII Photo director Stephen Mayes hosted “The New News: Redefining the News Agenda in the 21st Century,” a seminar that illuminated some of the new ways photojournalists are working to reach audiences who get their news not from print but through online channels.
Years ago, Joseph Rodriguez bought a used camera and a roll of Tri-X, Sandra C. Roa reports, and began documenting marginalized families. He’s still at it.
via Lens Blog: http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/showcase-67/
Joseph Rodriguez, 58, is what you might call an old-school cat, a straight talker who is a bit rough around the edges. As a photojournalist, his past is his starting point and his palette.
Lensbaby has announced the addition of Fisheye and Soft Focus lenses to its Optic Swap system, offering focal lengths of 12mm and 50mm respectively. Both are compatible with Lensbaby’s Composer and Muse body units, and Soft Focus can also be used with t
via DPReview: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0910/09102201lensbabynewoptics.asp
Adobe’s release of Lightroom 3 as a public beta is not the first time that the company has used this technique, nor is it likely to be the last. It has turned out to be a very canny marketing strategy as well as a means of getting wide-ranging user input into a new product’s features and robustness.
A Taliban spokesperson issued a warning to journalists “not to become a part of the government propaganda.”
via At War Blog: http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/information-black-hole/
Before the Pakistani military launched its offensive against Taliban militants in the rugged tribal region of South Waziristan, Gen. Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani, the powerful Pakistani army chief, called the region an “intelligence black hole.” For journalists — from both the print and electronic media — the region is also close to an “information black hole.”
Taking a cue from the recent announcements of see-in-the-dark cameras from Nikon and Canon, Adobe’s newly announced Lightroom 3 beta photo-editing software will clean up the leftover noise from these night-vision pictures. The beta, which is free to downl
via WIRED: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/10/lightroom-3-beta-adds-grain-and-light-leaks-to-your-photos/
This morning at Photo Plus, VII Photo director Stephen Mayes hosted “The New News: Redefining the News Agenda in the 21st Century,” a seminar that illuminated some of the new ways photojournalists are working to reach audiences who get their news not from print but through online channels.
[slidepress gallery=’carlbower-chicabarbie’] Hover over the image for navigation and full screen controls Carl Bower Chica Barbie play this essay The pageants of Colombia are a p…
via burn magazine: http://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2009/10/carl-bower-chica-barbie/
The pageants of Colombia are a petri dish for examining the nature of beauty and how we cope with adversity. Set against a backdrop of poverty, crime, and the hemisphere’s longest running civil war, nowhere are the contests more ubiquitous and revered than in Colombia. In these carefully scripted shows of fantasy, beauty as a concept, commodity and singular goal is stripped to its raw elements. There is no ambiguity or pretense that anything else matters.
NSFW: Some images in this gallery contain explicit content. Michael Jang’s portfolio is an eclectic mixture of gripping moments, shot with skill and attitude. Luminaries such as David Bowie, Johnny Rotten and Richard Pryor are caught with their guard down
via WIRED: http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2009/10/michael-jang/
Michael Jang’s portfolio is an eclectic mixture of gripping moments, shot with skill and attitude. Luminaries such as David Bowie, Johnny Rotten and Richard Pryor are caught with their guard down. Frenetic explosions are fixed in time: Penelope Houston of the Avengers whipping her hair; Fritz Fox of The Mutants collapsed on stage (above); the body of San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk being wheeled out of City Hall.
If Walker Evans moved furniture around to stage photos for “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men,” did that constitute photo-fakery?
via Opinionator: http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/the-case-of-the-inappropriate-alarm-clock-part-3/
JAMES CURTIS: My favorite example is Walker Evans moving furniture around inside the sharecroppers’ cabins in Hale County, Alabama. I was talking to Alan Trachtenberg [a professor of American history at Yale]. And Alan said, “Well, when your article on Evans came out, I was mad as hell.” And I said, “Well, what were you mad about?” And he said, “Well, what difference does it make if he moved furniture around inside the sharecroppers’ cabins?” And I said, “Because Evans has been regarded as the high apostle of documentary honesty, and he said he never did things like that.” And afterwards, Trachtenberg replied, “Oh hell, we all know he was a liar.”
A HUGE flood of email is currently taking down our corporate network here at Canon USA as people write in to complain about why we told Vincent Laforet, eternal peace and blessings be upon him, to …
via Fake Chuck Westfall: http://fakechuckwestfall.wordpress.com/2009/10/21/on-canon-taking-down-nocturne/
Really, how stupid do you have to be NOT to want to take advantage of this kind of free viral marketing?
Link: Canon has requested… « Vincent Laforet’s Blog:
Canon has requested that we take down “Nocturne.”
Link: Why Vincent Laforet’s “Paradigm Shift” Isn’t One – A Picture’s Worth:
But let’s be clear, the paradigm shift was niche. A hardware paradigm had shifted — not so much a creative one. Yes, the ante has been upped for professional D-SLRs to include video capture capabilities. But has it really resulted in either a 1) creative paradigm shift or a 2) commerce paradigm shift? In my opinion, no.
Source Why? There have been two prevailing attitudes toward the proposed conference/symposium dealing with issues of race and diversity in photography: a) That it is absolutely necessary & b) I…
via Prison Photography: http://prisonphotography.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/race-diversity-photography-online-symposium/
There have been two prevailing attitudes toward the proposed conference/symposium dealing with issues of race and diversity in photography:
a) That it is absolutely necessary & b) It is a terrifying prospect.
Link: Update, Notes, and answers to technical questions: « Vincent Laforet’s Blog:
I haven’t done scientific testing. But basically I’d wager that you can expect a 2 stop improvement in terms of low light performance/image quality with the 1D MKIV relative to the 5D MKII.
The Taliban fighters who kidnapped David Rohde, a Times reporter, and two Afghans were guided by a strident belief that the United States was waging a war against Islam. The third installment in Mr. Rohde’s account of his captivity.
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/world/asia/20hostage.html?_r=2&ref=world&pagewanted=all
Obeying the guard, I covered my face. The soldier was in the lead vehicle of a Pakistani Army supply convoy in North Waziristan. After surveying the road, the soldier got back in his truck, and the convoy rumbled forward.
I hoped that the Pakistanis might somehow rescue us. Instead, I watched in dismay as Badruddin got out of the truck and calmly stood on the side of the road. As trucks full of heavily armed government soldiers rolled by, he smiled and waved at them
Link: lens culture: Prix Pictet 2009 shortlist:
Prix Pictet is a yearly £60,000 ($97,000) photography prize awarded for a body of work that focuses on environmental sustainability.This year the theme is ‘earth’. A Mexican garbage dump where people forage to sustain a pitiful existence; the changing landscape and displaced communities of China’s Yangtze River; the devastating impact of oil production in the Niger Delta; and the annual pilgrimage to the desert fronts of the Iran-Iraq war are among the subjects that feature in the work of this year’s shortlisted artists.
Lens Culture is pleased to provide previews of all twelve outstanding international photographers who are finalists.
So this is one of those topics Joe and I are asked about on a very regular basis. We usually just answer these questions one-by-one, but got an interesting email from one of our readers,
via Joe McNally’s Blog: http://www.joemcnally.com/blog/2009/10/20/the-mcnally-workflow/
As a disclaimer, and to cover my ass, I’ll be the first to admit that we as a studio don’t necessarily do things the “right” way. Are we entirely satisfied with our post-production/archiving process? Not exactly. The thing is, any busy photo studio is constantly producing massive amounts of imagery, and keeping up with it all isn’t always a walk in the park. On top of that, technology is one of those amazing things that we all are challenged to stay on the cutting edge of. Computer software, hardware, camera gear- it’s all evolving so quickly, that even if you know your best option today, in another week there’s something else out there that’s potentially better.