On July 2, 2002, Jean and Harlow Cagwin watched as their home — the last remnant of their 118-acre cattle farm in Lockport, Illinois — was torn down clearing the way for a new housing development. Several years later, Ed and Amanda Grabenhofer and their four children moved into the new Willow Walk subdivision, their house just yards from where the Cagwin’s home once stood.
Common Ground introduces us to the lives touched by this land, as photographer Scott Strazzante takes us on a visual journey exploring the differences and similarities of these two families while simultaneously asking us to look at what is common among us all.
The Associated Press reports that journalists covering the Beijing Olympics have access only to a censored version of the Internet. According to the AP: “On Tuesday, sites such as Amnesty International or any search for a site with Tibet in the address could not be opened at the Main Press Center, which will house about 5,000 print journalists when the games open Aug. 8.”
Adobe’s Lightroom 2.0, which launched today represents a major breakthrough in the field of digital photo processing. I’ve only just begun to play with the software today, but it is clear that Lightroom 2.0 will be my new imaging software of choice. Prior to using Lightroom 2.0 I did my photo processing using Adobe’s Bridge and Photoshop. Lightroom represents a significant leap forward in the power of processing digital photographs. I thought I’d write up a post documenting my 10 new favorite processing tools that Lightroom 2.0 brings to the table.
I received an introductory email from Dan Saelinger the other day (that’s him, above). Turns out he shot the cover of July’s Self-Promotion themed PDN, and was using some newly-inspired guerilla tactics to get himself out there; he sent me some promos and said some humorous things. And you know what– it worked! Saelinger turns out to be an incredibly affable guy, and was kind enough to share some knowledge about his journey through the wilds of this industry we call photo.
Till now both Camera Raw and Lightroom have provided a means for calibrating ones own camera, or for creating a custom look, but this has always been a tedious processes (aided by scripts, such as those by Thomas Fors), and so not many people bothered. Therefore, whereas some people choose their raw processing program for reasons of workflow, convenience, or features, others choose a particular program because they believed that the colour rendition that it produced was superior, or at least more to their liking.
But – as they saying goes, that was then, and this is now.
This page contains tutorials and documentation to help photographers get started with using the DNG Profile Editor.
The DNG Profile Editor is a software program designed and implemented by Adobe. Its purpose is to enable photographers to edit camera profiles and it is being offered as a free download to the photographic community. Please note that while we welcome all photographers to try the DNG Profile Editor, this tool is intended for advanced users.
Lightroom 2 is now available on Adobe.com. We’ve been very pleased with all of the feedback during the public beta and we’re happy to provide the finished version.
Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced the immediate availability of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 software, the photographer’s essential toolbox for managing, adjusting and presenting large volumes of digital photographs. With new enhancements such as dual-monitor support, radical advances in non-destructive localized image correction, and streamlined search capabilities, Lightroom 2 is a compelling upgrade that simplifies photography from shoot to finish. As Adobe’s first application to support 64-bit for Mac OS X 10.5 Macintosh computers with Intel processors and Microsoft Windows Vista 64-bit operating systems, Lightroom 2 also provides improved memory performance for dealing with large scale images.
This post has been slow in coming, because I don’t know what to say.
Sarah Becking, one of the nicest people I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with, died on July 7th. She was a photographer in Columbia, and was working for the Sports Info department
If the conflict in Vietnam was notable for open access given to journalists — too much, many critics said, as the war played out nightly in bloody newscasts — the Iraq war may mark an opposite extreme: after five years and more than 4,000 American combat deaths, searches and interviews turned up fewer than a half-dozen graphic photographs of dead American soldiers.
It is a complex issue, with competing claims often difficult to weigh in an age of instant communication around the globe via the Internet, in which such images can add to the immediate grief of families and the anger of comrades still in the field.
liveBooks has an interesting series of interviews called Photographers in Focus on their site. The photographers chosen span a wide range of photography- from fashion to cars to journalism. The most recent is an interview with renowned photojournalist Colin Finlay.
The excerpt we are world-premiering on BBtv today is an animated portion of the show’s first episode, and includes angry mushrooms, vengeful unicorn princesses, and a subterranean paradise with lakes of hot pink lava. The AQUABATS! SUPERSHOW! also includes live performance and real-world hijinks. We think it’s pretty awesome.
Freelance photographer Luc Goursolas said he broke a guard’s finger and bit another until he bled, and that they hit him with a walkie-talkie, punched and kicked him, leaving a head wound that required three stitches.
“I was pouring blood. I threw myself at them, put blood all over them, and told them that I had HIV so they would stop hitting me,” Goursolas told The Associated Press on Friday.
First came the Chechens, then ethnic Georgians, and then maverick journalists. But now Russia’s cracking down on a different social group, a demographic they see threatening the very future of their country. These rebels have pierced lips, ridiculous haircuts and too much eyeshadow. They’re barbarians in bowler hats, leather jackets and torn-up tights. Yes, emo has come to Russia – and its leaders want no part of it.
Last month the State Duma held a hearing on “Government Strategy in the Sphere of Spiritual and Ethical Education”, a piece of legislation aimed at curbing “dangerous teen trends”. There, without a clue in the world, social conservatives lumped “emos” together with skinheads, pushing for heavy regulation of emo websites and the banning of emo and goth fashion from schools and government buildings.
Over the next two years I would discover how deeply the Afghan government was involved in protecting the opium trade — by shielding it from American-designed policies. While it is true that Karzai’s Taliban enemies finance themselves from the drug trade, so do many of his supporters. At the same time, some of our NATO allies have resisted the anti-opium offensive, as has our own Defense Department, which tends to see counternarcotics as other people’s business to be settled once the war-fighting is over. The trouble is that the fighting is unlikely to end as long as the Taliban can finance themselves through drugs — and as long as the Kabul government is dependent on opium to sustain its own hold on power.
In the can’t-make-this-up department, we came across a news story about Betty Robinson (left), an 82-year-old amateur photographer who was officially flagged down for shooting pictures of a British wading pool because she might be a pedophile. The pool was empty.
I had an adorable wife, gorgeous little children, brothers, sisters, parents, load’s of extended family, almost innumerable amount of friends, a cozy home, and a job I loved. But in a matter of ten seconds, I lost them all. All of them. Everything. With the calmest and quietest of voices, a great man said to me “You have no Priesthood authority”; which I already knew. To describe the experience closest is to calmly walk up, have a cannon pointed at your chest, and fired. My ability to walk, and speak, stayed with me long enough to load some of my belongings in my little van, and drive away, barely.
Am I a victim? Of a crime? Only if you call justice a crime; only if you call all choices that are painful, bad ones. I don’t, because I deserved it. I earned it. The loss that I feel, the absolute death of soul that I felt, the pain that hurt me the very most, is the loss of the confidence of my best friend, Warren Steed Jeffs.
What does a war crimes indictee on the lam do in his spare time? Well if your name is Radovan Karadzic, you grow your beard, wear your hair bundled in a ponytail atop your head and become a doctor specialising in alternative medicine. And along the way he found – according to Serbian media – the love of his life, a mysterious dark-haired woman.
That’s quite a life journey for one man, to go from destroyer of a country, cities and entire ethnic groups, to bio-energy healer and lover. Evidently, Karadzic wasn’t bad at his new job – testimonials from some former patients claim he healed them.
Under the name of Dr Dragan David Dabic, Karadzic worked at a private clinic in Belgrade’s city centre. He openly lectured throughout Serbia – in Novi Sad, Smederevo, Kikinda and Sombor – and contributed to the magazine Zdrav Zivot (Healthy Life).
