While trolling the Internet last October, Afghan journalism student Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh came across some articles that questioned the limits of women’s rights under Islam. According to Afghan prosecutors, he downloaded the articles and circulated them on campus.
In the West, it would have been an innocent act. In Afghanistan, it has just earned him a death sentence.
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In addition to his versatile body of work for such magazines as National Geographic, Sports Illustrated, The New York Times Magazine, Time, and Newsweek, photographer Joe McNally is also a sought-after educator, sharing how-to tips and telling anecdotes at workshops and lecture series throughout each calendar year. In McNally’s new book, The Moment It Clicks: Photography Secrets from One of the World’s Top Shooters (New Riders Publishing, $55), he shows off both of these aspects. One one hand, the book is a retrospective of McNally’s editorial, portrait, and commercial photography made over more than three decades. Each spread contains a single image from his portfolio, ranging from serious photojournalistic assignments to lyrical personal projects.
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Here in Chicago, the good folks who organize the annual Versionfest are having their annual auction tonight. With all the good goings and travels as of late I often miss all the local openings. This is another one that will be missed and too bad as there is bound to be a bounty of good art for sale and bargain to find. Check the names:
Cody Hudson, Judy Natal, Greg Stimac, Jason Lazarus, Michael T Rea, Mike Slattery, Seripop, Brian Ulrich, Paper Rad, Aron Gent, Sighn, Ryan Davies, Paul Nudd, Albert Stabler, Cayetano Ferrer, Jackie Kilmer, Rand Sevilla, Logan Bay, Ray Noland, Mike Genovese, Justin B Williams, Jeff Zimmerman, Alvaro Ilizarde, Jeremy Tubbs, Rivkah Young, Lukasz Wyszkowski, Marie Harten, JJ Stratford, Molly Delander, Tertou Uibopuu, Sarah Mckemie, Mimi Ruff, Brian Guido, Caitlin Arnold, Andrew McComb, Claudia Berns, Zack Abubeker, Philip Matesic, Nate Baker, Greg Gent, Anne Lass, Brian Sorg, Joseph Rynkiewicz, Victor Yanez-Lazcano, Michael DiGioia and others
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Rick Selvin arrived at the Daily News in 1980 to apply for a job. When he got to then-managing editor Zack Stalberg’s office, he hesitated at the door.
“I’m really sorry,” Rick said.
“What are you sorry about?” Zack inquired.
“Well, I usually wear a necktie to these interviews,” Rick said, “but my tie was frozen in the trunk of my car when it got wet and when I tried to put it on, it broke.”
Zack, recognizing a guy who would surely become a true Daily News character, hired him on the spot.
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EOS Utility 2.3 for Mac corrects a remote shooting problem that under certain conditions led to photos not being saved to the computer. The update is for Mac only, and the bug affects only Canon’s shipping digital SLR models that have Live View: the EOS 40D, EOS-1D Mark III and EOS-1Ds Mark III
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i am sure that all of you know that the photography licensing business as we know it, is going through dramatic changes…Getty Images, heretofore the largest photo licensing agency in the world, is up for sale..so far, no takers….even though they grossed around 800 million dollars last year, they “lost” 31 million….Corbis is losing money in licensing….so is Magnum (a very small “player” in the mega image sales arena)..so are all photographic agencies…the traditional licensing agencies are now subject to getting slammed by the the biggest “storm” to come out of the skies ….EVER!!
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Albert Maysles as a cinematographer and a photographer has spent his life observing and documenting the paths that his own life has taken for 51 years. A new book from Steidl and the Steven Kasher Gallery called A Maysles Scrapbook takes us through those 51 years of image making in the first comprehensive monograph of both Albert’s personal photography and the wonderful film collaborations he created with his brother.
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Those who followed the story of the 23 Koreans kidnapped in Afghanistan in July last year may remember the name Kim Joo-seon, a Korean freelance reporter who went where no other Korean reporters were allowed to go. Kim scored an exclusive interview with Taliban commanders in the Ghazni region, the base of the Taliban militants, and filed story after story and photo after photo for the Chosun Ilbo, though few people knew who she was.
Now “Kim” has finally revealed her true identity: Jean Chung. “I hid my real name because of my parents,” she said. “I’m the only daughter in my family. My parents would have a heart attack if they knew I was in Afghanistan. They still think that I was in India.”Chung has built a successful career as a photojournalist. After graduating from the department of Oriental Painting at Seoul National University’s College of Arts, she traveled to the U.S. and studied photojournalism at New York University and the University of Missouri.
Check it out here.
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Volume 2, Issue 1 of Adobe Magazine, the company’s quarterly design and technology mag, is available for download. The new issue features Photoshop being used for concept art, architectural illustration, and scientific imaging.
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I shot this tonight after work near where I’m staying at my dad’s place in Happ
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The New York Times has the full run of Daniel Clowes’ (Ghost World, David Boring) “Mister Wonderful” online for free in PDF format
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In our media-saturated culture, everyone is a picture-taker and image-maker, adding a new wrinkle to the work of those who practice the time-honored tradition of street photography.
“It’s harder and harder to take a picture without somebody in the picture who’s also taking a picture,” the Brooklyn-based photographer Gus Powell said on Tuesday evening, explaining that the mere act of taking a photo hardly makes him stand out in a crowd. “We all take pictures — that’s what we do. It’s more that your camera doesn’t look like a phone — that’s the bigger issue.”
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Hasselblad announces the ten winners of its Hasselblad Master Award for 2008. Whereas in previous years Hasselblad has awarded 12 separate Master Awards for overall photographic ability, the 2008 Hasselblad Master Awards are presented across ten separate categories of photography and the winners are as follows: Benjamin Antony Monn, Louis Palu, Andrej Kopac, Julia Fullerton-Batten, Bronek Kozka, Hans Strand, August Bradley, Morfi Jimenez Mercado, Gregor Halenda, Kevin Then
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New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is miffed that the New Orleans Times-Picayune published a photo of him and the police superintendent clowning around with a couple of assault rifles at a press conference Tuesday.
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Digitally layering photos of the same subject has been explored by Idris Khan or Jason Salavon, but when looking at those images – as cool as they might look at first glance – I often ask myself: And now? Having seen all the Becher water towers or Playboy centerfolds in one image, what am I to take away from it? Pep Ventosa’s The Collective Snapshot is another such set of montages
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I constantly receive emails from photographers commenting on the photographs on my member page and those that run with my column. Some try to give me tips on how to improve my photos. Some tell me my snaps suck. The most recent email suggested I give up working in black & white. The writer said it was a cop out. He suggested I challenge myself more so my work has room to progress.
Now… I am not some kind of prima donna who thinks his sheeot does not stink. I am also not above taking constructive criticism about my photography. And I might be a full-time photo editor because I am not good enough to be a full-time photographer. But even so, some of us ol’ timers are getting a little pissed off about the total lack of respect the Internet affords you punk kids.
Several photographers I’ve talked to commented on the Internet and how it opened the gateway for photographers with little or no experience to become experts on everything from lighting techniques and lens selection to business practices and copyright law. If you have ever heard the expression “the long arm of the law,” I want you to know the new version of that saying could be “the long arm of the Internet.”
Check it out here.
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I got out of the office to clear my head and shoot another small town feature. When I find myself getting frustrated with work, and the photography stops being fun, I just wonder out and shoot something completely useless. And somehow after this type of exercise everything seems new, and holding a camera is fun again.
Check it out here.
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Scott Schuman, who otherwise goes by the name The Sartorialist, is something of a fashion phenomenon. Schumann is a 15-year-old veteran of the fashion industry with a background in sales and marketing in high-end women’s clothing. After closing his own showroom shortly after 9/11, he began to focus more on photography. As he writes in his blog, sartorialist.com, “I didn’t want to become a ‘fashion photographer’ but I knew somehow that my loves of fashion and photography would eventually merge. I just never guessed that it would be in the form of a blog.”
He started his blog in 2005 and in that short period of time since then, it has attracted a loyal and absolutely fabulous fan base.
Check it out here.
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It can’t be easy to have a play written about you.
Then again, photographer Sally Mann has been through a few firestorms in her career – most notably the uproar around “Immediate Family,” her book of nude photos of her young children, published in 1992, which was met with cries of “Pornography!” and made her one of the top selling fine-art photographers of her time.
That controversy, and all the still-raw feelings around it, are at the heart of “Some Things Are Private,” the new play at Trinity Repertory Company created by Deborah Salem Smith and Laura Kepley, who developed Trinity’s acclaimed 2006 theatrical war docudrama, “Boots on the Ground.”
Mann faced outrage head on when “Immediate Family” was published. The book features photographs – some spontaneous and some staged, some disturbing and all haunting – of her children. They grew up in the secluded patch of Virginia forest and farmland where Mann herself had come of age. Just as their mother had skinny-dipped when she was a kid, Emmett, Jessie, and Virginia Mann hung out, quite comfortably, in the nude. In the Mann household, taking pictures was a family activity; the kids often collaborated with their mom to devise beautiful or interesting photographs.
In “Some Things Are Private,” playwright Smith and director Kepley explore how Mann’s photos continue to unsettle viewers, and how when viewers are uncomfortable, they may search for answers from the artist.
Check it out here.
Digital photography experts Rob Sheppard and Tim Grey have created a wide range of Lightroom tutorials for the Adobe Design Center.
Check it out here.