• Alec Soth:

    The show in California, “More American Photographs,”  is being organized by the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts. The idea was to commission a number of photographers to produce new work about America in the spirit of the Farm Security Administration photography of the ’30s and ’40s. I decided to use the most famous F.S.A. picture as my reference point: Dorothea Lange’s “Migrant Mother (1936).” I’m fascinated by the whole notion of iconic pictures. Of the 80,000 F.S.A. pictures, why is this one so memorable? This is a particularly interesting question for a photographer working in the age of Flickr. So just as a painter might go to a museum and sketch from one of the masters, I attempted to make my own migrant mother picture. It was a fascinating exercise.

    in

  • This Week In Photography Books – A Photo Editor

    by Jonathan Blaustein I live an hour plus North of Santa Fe, so I visit often. As such, I spend quite a bit of time at photo-eye, which has one of the world’s best inventories of photo books and ‘zines. We’re kicking off a new feature where I’ll be doing

    via A Photo Editor: http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2011/09/23/this-week-in-photography-books/

    I live an hour plus North of Santa Fe, so I visit often. As such, I spend quite a bit of time at photo-eye, which has one of the world’s best inventories of photo books and ‘zines. We’re kicking off a new feature where I’ll be doing quick reviews of new releases, to give you a sense of what’s new and interesting on the market.

    in

  • adobe:

    This paper provides guidance on best practices to optimize Photoshop CS5 performance with a combination of careful hardware selection and informed program setup.

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  • bjp:

    The Harry Ransom Center, part of the University of Texas at Austin, has acquired Elliott Erwitt’s archives of more than 50,000 prints

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  • leica:

    I do like the 50mm lens because it allows me to focus on more of the subject than a wide-angle 28mm, but I also like the 35mm because it gives me more information than the 50mm. It all depends what I am photographing. When I worked for the New York Times, I used the 35mm more and the 50mm for a closer cropped image. I also used the 28mm then. I used to crop my images, and now, I try to do this in the camera so that when I am developing or downloading the images I do not have to make these adjustments in Photoshop or in the darkroom.

    in

  • bjp:

    Ten years after its creation, VII Photo is going through a period of transition as its members are set to announce who will remain with the redefined agency. Over the next few days, BJP will provide full coverage

    in

  • Saturday Nights on St. Mary Street

    As Maciej Dakowicz sees it, his photographs of nightlife on one Cardiff street are simply amusing scenes of a night on the town. Some viewers beg to differ.

    via Lens Blog: http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/st-mary-street/

    Maciej Dakowicz, 34, was surprised on Thursday to see the damning headlines about  his photographs in Britain’s Daily Mail.

    “Captured on our streets by a foreign lens,” the newspaper blared, “shaming images that turned Britain into a laughingstock.”

    in

  • Nikon Sweden executive: no new full frame cameras in October – Nikon Rumors

    Swedish Nikon executive Lasse Pettersson answered this question during a live Q&A interview yesterday about the new Nikon mirrorless cameras (about 22:45 minutes into this clip): Reporter: “The question everybody asks; when will the D4 or D800 be released

    via Nikon Rumors: http://nikonrumors.com/2011/09/23/nikon-sweden-executive-no-new-full-frame-cameras-in-october.aspx/

    Six grants of $4,000 each, called the NPPF-NPPA Career Expansion Scholarships, will be awarded this year.

    in

  • nppa:

    Six grants of $4,000 each, called the NPPF-NPPA Career Expansion Scholarships, will be awarded this year.

    in

  • photoshelter:

    The Committee to Protect Journalists recently published its 2011 Impunity Index, which ranks the perceived danger of the world’s nations based on the number of unsolved journalist murders. After the report came out, we were not surprised to find many that PhotoShelter members had photographed in these places. And we wanted to know, did they risk their lives to be there? Surprisingly, not everyone said ‘yes’, and many were quick to draw attention to the more severe danger faced by local journalists. Read below to see our photographers’ stories firsthand, in order of “most dangerous” to “least dangerous” countries.

    in


  • laughing squid:

    Record dramatic images of war, save them in-game, then edit the results into a compelling frontline TV news story. Beam the results to global audiences on the web. No two WARCO stories will ever be alike. It’s an edge-of-seat gaming experience – and a powerful entry-level training tool for future combat reporters. WARCO is perfectly timed to take advantage of the convergence of games and movies, journalism and online communities, in a world undergoing massive social, geo-political and technological change.

    in

  • Magnum: Advice for young photographers – part 2 – A Photo Editor

    You must have something to say. You must be brutally honest with yourself about this. Think about history, politics, science, literature, music, film, and anthropology. What effect does one discipline have over another? What makes “man” tick? Today, with

    via A Photo Editor: http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2011/09/22/magnum-advice-for-young-photographers-–-part-2/

    You must have something to say

    in

  • luminous landscape:

    until last week I was always asking myself where the quality level would be if compared to a drum scanned 8×10 inch film. So finally I decided doing a comparison test

    in

  • The Surreal Ruins of Qaddafi’s Never-Never Land

    Among the dead and the smoldering earth, Libyans struggle to escape their country’s twisted history.

    Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/magazine/the-surreal-ruins-of-qaddafis-never-never-land.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

    On the evening of Aug. 23, during the final hours of the battle for Tripoli, a 26-year-old lawyer named Mustafa Abdullah Atiri was lying, exhausted, against the back wall of a filthy tin-roofed warehouse crammed with 150 prisoners. He had been beaten and tortured every day since Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s soldiers arrested him four days earlier. It was just after the muezzin’s first call to evening prayer — about 10 minutes before 8 — when a pair of guards walked to the door, raised their AK-47 rifles and began spraying the men with bullets. Another guard threw a grenade into the densely packed crowd. Bodies fell on top of Atiri with the first fusillade, protecting him from the blast. Then the guards opened fire again. Blood began seeping down from the bodies above, soaking his jeans. As the officers walked back across the yard to reload, a guard named Abdel Razaq, who had shown the men some small mercies over the previous days, went to the door and shouted at the survivors: “Run! Run!”

    in ,

  • med_dyt12573053_1-jpg.jpg

    La Lettre:

    « I began photographing in 1964, after finishing a degree in anthropology and art history at the University of Missouri. My goal from the first was to become a world-class photojournalist. My heroes were Henri Cartier Bresson, Robert Frank, Gene Smith, and the Magnum photographers.

    in

  • med_sabdulai-yahaya-agbogbloshie-market-accra-ghana-2010-12-jpg.jpg

    la lettre:

    Pieter Hugo’s new series, Permanent Error, depicts Agbogbloshie, a massive dump site for technological waste on the outskirts of Ghana’s capital city, and the locals who burn down the components to extract bits of copper, brass, aluminum and zinc for resale

    in

  • Magnum: Advice for young photographers – A Photo Editor

    Forget about the profession of being a photographer. First be a photographer and maybe the profession will come after. Don’t be in a rush to pay your rent with your camera. Jimi Hendrix didn’t decide on the career of professional musician before he learne

    via A Photo Editor: http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2011/09/21/magnum-advice-for-young-photographers/

    Forget about the profession of being a photographer. First be a photographer and maybe the profession will come after. Don’t be in a rush to pay your rent with your camera.

    in


  • boing boing:

    The autopsy results from the death of Kelly Thomas, a schizophrenic drifter who was allegedly beaten to death by Fullerton, California police will be announced today by Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas.

    in ,

  • conscientious:

    Dylan Vitone’s panoramas are assembled from individual photographs, but they’re not digitally stitched.

    in

  • LightBox | Time

    Read the latest stories about LightBox on Time

    via Time: http://lightbox.time.com/2011/09/21/snapshots-of-transnistria-an-unrecognized-state-caught-between-past-and-present/#1

    Located between the Dniester River and the eastern border of Ukraine, Transnistria is an unrecognized state of approximately a half million people. Though it asserts itself as a sovereign nation, it is claimed by Moldova and has no diplomatic relations with any United Nations member state.

    Visiting the small zone in January of 2011, photographer Kosuke Okahara wanted to see what “it feels like to live in a country that doesn’t exist, if the people are still very attached to the place where they live.” The winner of a 2010 W. Eugene Smith fellowship, Okahara has worked in places as diverse as Colombia, Egypt, Sudan and his native Japan (where he is currently based).

    in