From NYTimes.com:
Mr. Zubaydah started to cooperate after being waterboarded for “probably 30, 35 seconds,” Mr. Kiriakou told the ABC reporter Brian Ross. “From that day on he answered every question.”
His claims — unverified at the time, but repeated by dozens of broadcasts, blogs and newspapers — have been sharply contradicted by a newly declassified Justice Department memo that said waterboarding had been used on Mr. Zubaydah “at least 83 times.”
From shooting from the hip:
I have been and will always be an optimist.
I don’t stress about things and have tried to roll with the punches but this past week the punches have seemed to come in bunches.
From Level & Tap:
Level & Tap is a site dedicated to selling curated photography prints. The work is selected by a small group of editors, including me, Tom Watson. I love photography, especially printed, and want to provide a place for people to find and buy great quality work on the Internet.
From NPAC – News Photographers Association of Canada:
News Photographers Association of Canadaʼs Award Recipients Canadian photojournalist Louie Palu received the highest honour, fittingly atop of the highest building in the country, during the 2008 News Photographerʼs Association of Canada Photo of the Year awards ceremony. Palu, was named Photographer of the Year by the association for his work in Afghanistan and Cuba for Zuma Press.
From Josh Spear, Trendspotting:
Do you find that tune from Tetris twisting and turning in your brain all day? Does the music of Metroid make you want to move your feet? Sure you’re probably a video game addict, but there’s nothing wrong with getting those sweet sounds of Super Street Fighter stuck in your head. The only issue you face is trying to find a place that will let you relive the soundtrack of your gaming life. Luckily, there’s now 8bitFM, an internet radio station dedicated to devotees of Double Dragon ditties and Super Mario melodies.
From COMRADE Magazine:
I had always wanted to be an illustrator until the day my idol, Joe Sorren, was a guest speaker in my illustration class. He stuck around for our class critiques and when he got to my painting, he said, I shit you not this is exactly what he said: “I’m personally offended to have to talk about this piece, it’s THAT BAD.” I went home practically in tears, didn’t leave my room for a week, and almost dropped out of school. But I realized at that point I was a better designer than illustrator, so I stuck with graphic design.
From A Photo Editor:
Sports Illustrated has a new book out on May 5th called Slide Show that examines the actual physical slides from the images that made it into the magazine.
From Photocrati:
Photocrati is a photography blog, gear review site, and community. Our mission is to foster discussion between photographers working in diverse fields and to share resources that encourage technical, artistic, and professional growth for pros and enthusiasts alike. We offer photo news, industry commentary, gear reviews, business advice, and tips and techniques on everything from travel to weddings to corporate to nature photography. We also sponsor the Photocrati Fund, a nonprofit that provides grants to photographers working on important environmental and humanitarian projects.
From burn magazine:
32 years later, I return to the Crest. Still entranced but for different reasons. The place has changed, the city has changed, and the country has changed. I’ve changed.
The Crest hotel therefore is my personal attempt to join dots, and answer pertinent questions to my own sense of failed idealism and dislocation. Projected through the presence of others, the Crest after all is where my journey to South Africa began. For many presented here today though, this is where their journey will end, or has ended already. It’s where their relationship with South Africa is coming to an end too, but certainly did not begin.
From Wooster Collective:
Jordan Seiler and Eastern District Gallery’s incredible ambitious “New York Street Advertising Takeover” became a reality yesterday, with over 120 illegal billboards throughout the city white washed by dozens of volunteers.
From NYTimes.com:
At a time when picture magazines were still a holy grail for young photographers, Danny Lyon, self-taught, began his career as the first staff photographer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. A week after hitchhiking south in 1962 at the age of 20 he was in jail with other protesters in Albany, Ga., next to the cell of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And Mr. Lyon’s first book, the classic “Bikeriders,” made after spending more than two years as a member of the Outlaws motorcycle gang, was not just a pioneering example of New Journalism but, as he later described it, an attempt “to destroy Life magazine” and what he saw as its anodyne vision of American life.
From dispatches:
Video and multimedia’s meteoric rise is getting the attention of the pro photographic community. ASMP Seattle today hosted Paula Lerner and Gail Mooney to talk about the transition.
From dvafoto:
Another long wrap-up post of random bits that I’ve been reading or looking at over the last few days. I planned to post this on Thursday, but the list has been growing. So much so that I’ve split this up into two posts. Welcome to part one of Matt’s crazy reading list.
First, I just this update from photographer Ikuru Kuwajima who is living in Ukraine.
From 5B4:
In the center of the Sacramento Valley two rivers, the Feather and Sacramento, flank several wetlands and marshes called the Sutter and Colusa Sinks. Much of this land has been drained and become some of the richest agricultural land for fruit orchards and various grains and rice. The photographer Lukas Felzmann has been drawn to these marshlands and especially the role water has taken to shape and transform the landscape. His new book from Lars Muller, Waters In Between is an empirical archive or as he describes the collection, “a sort of poetry of ruins.”
From The 37th Frame:
NPR sent photojournalist Justin Maxon to L.A.’s Skid Row for two days to produce this project to accompany an on-air series on Skid Row. There is a excellent slideshow of the images on NPR’s The Picture Show blog.
