Half Sigma: Meghan McCain's photographer sucks: "The first thing that hits me when I look at Meghan McCain’s ‘Blogette’ is that the photography really sucks. Who is taking such bad photos?
Why are the photos so bad? They look like they are taken with a pocket digital camera and not a DSLR. All the photos have a very wide depth of field, which is the telltale sign of a pocket digital camera with a tiny sensor."
MediaStorm: Rape of a Nation by Marcus Bleasdale: "The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is home to the deadliest war in the world today. An estimated 5.4 million people have died since 1998, the largest death toll since the Second World War, according to the International Rescue Committee (IRC).
IRC reports that as many as 45,000 people die each month in the Congo. Most deaths are due to easily preventable and curable conditions, such as malaria, diarrhea, pneumonia, malnutrition, and neonatal problems and are byproducts of a collapsed healthcare system and a devastated economy.
The people living in the mining towns of eastern Congo are among the worst off. Militia groups and government forces battle on a daily basis for control of the mineral-rich areas where they can exploit gold, coltan, cassiterite and diamonds.
After successive waves of fighting and ten years of war, there are no hospitals, few roads and limited NGO and UN presence because it is too dangerous to work in many of these regions. The West's desire for minerals and gems has contributed to a fundamental breakdown in the social structure."
Blueeyes: Portfolio, by Cosmin Bumbut: "Cosmin Bumbut’s work sits on the fence between the old world and the new. As one frame meets the next, the viewer is at once reminded of Josef Koudelka and Luc Delahaye. Villagers wait roadside for nothing to happen; men compete in black and white impromptu bodybuilding competitions. A lone fiery window glares out from a tenement building; a specter appears in front of a crossed doorway as if barred from entry.
Bumbut’s varied and unique work is at times frustrating: his children sleep with one eye open and fall from his viewfinder into the wide, grey sea, his subjects stare at you through glazed windows and pinholes. Like Delahaye’s images, one can sense both the familiarity and the unease the photographer and subject alike have within the moments the images are made."
The Denver Post - House panel chides Bruce over kick: "A six-member Capitol panel voted unanimously today to recommend that the House censure Rep. Douglas Bruce for kicking a news photographer.
The panel of lawmakers took testimony from four people — starting with the Rocky Mountain News photographer who was kicked in the leg for taking Bruce's picture during the morning prayer.
'I didn't expect him to kick me with a Bible in the hand,' photographer Javier Manzano testified."
TheStar.com: "Twenty days. Twenty thousand still images. A single message. Toronto Star photographer Lucas Oleniuk captures the issue of global warming in a video created entirely by using still images.
"
Appleton Post-Crescent - Eye on the Ball Blog: GAME PLAN FOR THE BIG GAME: "Covering the big game requires a different approach than your typical game. A game plan is crucial because you coverage starts well before kickoff and continues well after the final whistle. Sunday's NFC Championship game is a perfect example of how using a team approach paid off in the end. Oh...and you can't forget what it takes to battle the elements...man was it cold! Here's how things went from my perspective...
Because of the national attention this game gets, we arrived at Lambeau Field at about 12:30p.m. to make sure we could get enough workspace in the photography workroom. Boy were we glad we did. I haven't seen this many photographers since I shot Super Bowl XL in Detroit. It was a madhouse."
Color + Design Blog / Interview with Patrick Winfield: Polaroidologist by COLOURlovers: "I love Polaroid, so when the opportunity came along to interview Patrick Winfield, a graphic designer and photographer who frequently uses Polaroid to create dynamic visual stories, I jumped at the chance to speak with him.
Patrick’s work has a healthy following. I’m excited he took time to share his work; his love of Polaroid and playing around."
Be a multimedia McGuyver - 101 DIY tools and techniques for cool, professional photo, audio and video gear on the cheap | Will Sullivan's Journerdism: "Long, long ago in high school and college I used to do a bunch of indy films with friends and classmates for fun (and some school classes). We never had any money so we couldn’t buy expensive gear like steadycams and jigs, but we did have Home Depot, some tools, lots of time and ingenuity so we were able to cobble together makeshift gear to make things work.
Now-a-days, the magical internet has connected A/V nerds and backyard engineering geeks. Here’s a long list of cool video, photo, audio and multimedia techniques, tools and things to try out:"
CrunchGear » Archive » Canon 5D Mark II, apparently, not being announced: " pma will not bring a new 5d body…..
Says tsiphoto from DP Review Forums. Apparently he has a proven track record on such things and shouldn’t be questioned."
WHNPA Eyes of History 2008: "Photographer of the Year
Jahi Chikwendiu
The Washington Post"
New Statesman - Art attack: "The phone rings; the number is withheld. It's Banksy. He wants to know whether I can go to Bethlehem over Christmas. He is putting on an exhibition, bringing together like-minded artists from all over the world to raise awareness of the situation in Palestine. Like the annual guerrilla art shows that have taken place in London for the past six years, it will be called 'Santa's Ghetto'. Two weeks later, I find myself involved in an experience that transforms my ideas about what artists can do in the face of oppression.
We are living through an exciting time for political art. I have been an artist for 40 years, and my work has always focused on political and social issues. In the 1970s, I started making photo montage work, drawing on imagery from the Vietnam War and the row over nuclear armaments (a retrospective opens at the Pump House Gallery this month). Since the build-up to the Iraq War in 2002, I have been collaborating with a younger artist, Cat Picton Phillipps, developing new techniques and using digital technology to expose the lies that led to the invasion and the subsequent humanitarian disaster.
Over this period, our work has become linked to a group of young artists who work outside the official art world. Most of them started out painting graffiti on walls. The central figure in this group is Banksy, but although he attracts most of the press coverage, he is surrounded by a growing band of talented, politically committed artists. Our associates come from Spain and Italy, the US, Britain and Palestine. Since the era of the Bush/Blair war in Iraq, this movement has become increasingly politicised, just as my generation was politicised by the war in Vietnam. These are artists who want to connect with the real world, rather than work for the market, which has more of a stranglehold on art than ever. They combine creativity with protest, insisting that art should be more than the icing on the cake for the super-rich."
Frontline Blogger Covers War in Iraq With a Soldier’s Eyes - New York Times: "Instead, he has spent most of the last three years in Iraq, writing prolifically and graphically, and racking up more time embedded with combat units than any other journalist, according to the United States military. He has been shot at, buffeted by explosions and seen more people maimed — fighters and civilians, adults and children — than he can count.
‘The easiest thing in the world to write about is combat, because all the drama is there,’ said Mr. Yon, a fit, ruddy-faced 43-year-old who was a Special Forces soldier more than two decades ago. He insists that he still does not really know the rules of journalism, but says he has recently, grudgingly, accepted that he has become a journalist.
His detailed, mostly admiring accounts of front-line soldiers’ daily work have won him a loyal following, especially among service members and journalists and bloggers who follow the war. One of his photographs showing an American soldier cradling an Iraqi girl injured in a car bombing (the girl later died) appeared on Time magazine’s Web site and was later voted one of top images of the year by visitors."
Back To Shooting: I need to write things down: "I neglected to enter POY this year, because I thought I only had a couple images worth entering, both in the pictorial category. I forgot that when I left Lincoln, I thought I might have a good sports portfolio. So for your viewing pleasure, here's what I could have entered, if I had stayed on top of things."
The Video Game May Be Free, but to Be a Winner Can Cost Money - New York Times: "In a major departure from its traditional business model, E.A. plans to announce Monday that it is developing a new installment in its hit Battlefield series that will be distributed on the Internet as a free download. Rather than being sold at retail, the game is meant to generate revenue through advertising and small in-game transactions that allow players to spend a few dollars on new outfits, weapons and other virtual gear.
At a conference in Munich, the company intends to announce that the new game, Battlefield Heroes, will be released for PC this summer. More broadly, E.A. hopes the game can help point the way for Western game publishers looking to diversify beyond appealing to hard-core players with games that can cost $60 or more."
The Photographs Not Taken: "The Photographs Not Taken is a collection of essays by photographers about the times they didn't use their camera. "
The Sun News On-line | Wiveslive: "Ayobamidele Atinuke
I personally don’t support premarital sex. The Bible doesn’t support it but we must be very realistic. Sometimes, the situation might warrant it to happen probably once a week. I must make it very clear that if it must happen at all, then it must be with reasonable protection. However, if those involved are married, they can do it anytime and anywhere, even if she’s cooking in the kitchen."
CONTEXT - This Week in Arts and Ideas from The Moscow Times: "The pictures come from a new coffee-table book, '20th Century Russia in Photographs: 1900 to 1917,' which covers the turbulent period in hundreds of full-page archival images, ranging from high politics to gritty documentary photography to family portraits.
The book is part of an ongoing project by state-owned gallery Moscow House of Photography to collect and catalogue historically interesting photographs taken over the last century. It's planned that another four books will follow, loosely divided into the pre-war period, World War II, the Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras and perestroika to 2000, the gallery's director, Olga Sviblova, said in an interview on Sunday."
Getty Images - News Blog » Blog Archive » The Assassination of Benazir Bhutto: "As the former prime minister’s car surged forward, I pushed out of the way, ahead of her vehicle. I needed to adjust my camera. In the melee, the shutter setting had been bumped down to 1/15th and 1/8th of a second, giving the photos an unintended impressionistic look.
I turned on my flash, but just before resetting the lens, I turned and glanced back at her car.
That’s when I heard three shots. I knew from the sound that they were fired close to her car. I watched her drop down through the sunroof. Instinctively, I raised my camera, my finger pressed down on the shutter, starting to shoot without looking.
Just as the camera came up in front of my face, the bomb went off."
John Nack on Adobe: Casio spitfire cranks out 1,200fps, does DNG: "'Casio will put on sale in March a digital still camera capable of shooting up to 60 full-resolution images in one second, and video at more than 1,000 per second to realize a super slow-motion effect.'"
Jeff Gerstmann is Still Alive » Blog Archive » Rearmed! Get it? ARMED???: "I was already stupid pumped for the full-fledged Bionic Commando sequel, but I think I might be more excited for Rearmed now. The trailer, with its nice remix of the original music, makes me want to go jump up and go jogging. Seriously. Pumped.
Did they go and change the Bionic Commando guy’s name again? It was Rad Spencer before, which is the perfect name for such an extreme dude. Then they backpedaled to Nathan Spencer at some point for the new game, then I started seeing Nathan 'Rad' Spencer. Now the official site says Nathan 'R.A.D.' Spencer. Sure, why not? Making things into acronyms always makes them cooler. But why stop at one D? R.A.D.D. is D times more radical than R.A.D. is."
whats the jackanory ?: London calling: "I did a shoot for Sunday Times on the 3rd Jan. The wold champion female track cyclist. A Brit. Big hopes for the Olympics. Great ! A job immediately after the new year - it gets your confidence up and your new year is out the traps. I got £250 fee. One of my very first commissions ever was for The Sunday Times in 1993. My fee was £250. In 15 years they have held down their costs 100%. What an amazing achievement. The chief picture editor of the whole newspaper - a man I've never even heard of or met - so the boss over and above the PE's in all the sections/magazines - was so impressed with my picture that he got his p.a. to call me and 'ask' me if it was alright if they could hold on to the pictures for a little bit longer as they were so good he felt that they were very syndicatable. How long for? Not long, just a while, well until after the Olympics. Is there going to be a split in it for me? We'd give you 10%. The institutional disrespect for photographers and photography cannot be over emphasised."
Rob Walker - Consumed - Marketing and Advertising - Yo Gabba Gabba - Nickelodeon - Television - New York Times: "With a host in a crazy orange outfit called DJ Lance Rock (‘equal parts Jimmie Walker and Bootsy Collins’ as OC Weekly put it), ‘Yo Gabba Gabba!’ stars five cute creatures and features dancing children, animation and upbeat messages in a somewhat campy and surreal setting. If the title reminds you of, say, ‘Yo! MTV Raps’ and the Ramones’ chant ‘Gabba gabba hey,’ that may not be a coincidence. The show was created by Christian Jacobs and Scott Schultz; each has young children and each is in his mid-30s. ‘They were thinking, What would inspire our generation of dads?’ Rivkin says. The answer included recurring segments in which rapper Biz Markie offers kids a human-beatbox rhythm of the day and Mark Mothersbaugh, a founder of Devo who also composed the music for ‘Rugrats,’ gives drawing lessons. Musical guests have included current indie rock heroes like the Shins and Cornelius."
redlights and redeyes: portland or bust: "Portland has always been one of those cities which I knew I'd love the second I set foot in. I got an invite from Sol Neelman to join him for a little shindig with some of The Oregonian crew and a few who made the trip from the newspaper-lands. While I didn't get to wander as much as I wanted to for photos, this trip was more about seeing old friends and meeting some new ones. One of those friends, the infamous Scott Strazzante, got hitched while I was there. It was a disgustingly cute ceremony in a small courthouse in Hillsboro, Oregon, witnessed by only a few photographers who only saw the ceremony through a darkened rectangle in the viewfinder with vows recited through a chorus of shutters."
Navel gazing - Reuters Photographers: "At various times some of our photographers and picture editors have talked about how the eyes, hands and even feet can be used as the subject of pictures. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I give you the ‘middle way’ - the human belly as a means of self expression."
China: "citizen journalist" beaten to death - Boing Boing: "Wei Wenhua was beaten to death after he snapped photos of a confrontation on the street between village residents and authorities. His death has sparked controversy in Chinese media, and the blogosphere:
Wei Wenhua was a model communist and is now a bloggers' hero -- a 'citizen journalist' turned martyr. The construction company manager was driving his car when he witnessed an ugly scene: a team of about 50 city inspectors beating villagers who tried to block trucks from unloading trash near their homes.
Wei took out his cell phone and began taking pictures. The city inspectors saw Wei and then attacked him in a beating that lasted five minutes. By the time it was over, the 41-year-old Wei was slumped unconscious. He was rushed to the hospital but was dead on arrival."
SUPERFICIALsnapshots: ye olde' yashica: "I have been scanning some photos from the past..1999-2001. mmmm..The days of trying to focus my Yashica A ( I still can't remember who I loaned it to.)"
larrylivermore.com: At Gilman Street: "The MTX song pokes gentle fun at the Gilman purists, of whom I was undeniably one. 'And if you've got nothing better to do, there's a meeting every Sunday afternoon, you can talk about skinheads at the show, you can vote on whether you're gonna vote, and you can make a speech, you can rant, you can rave, you can preach...' Anyone who ever sat through one of those seemingly interminable meetings - sometimes they'd have to postpone the show for an hour because we were still voting on whether we were gonna vote' - will recognize that picture.
"
The Year in Pictures: Stormy Weather: "Extreme weather is a category of photography we don't think much about here in New York City, but it has its fans, publishers, and practitioners just like any other genre. Top amongst these is probably Jim Reed, a 56 year old former writer and film-maker who moved from Los Angeles to Wichita, Kansas 16 years ago in order to be
near the strongest hurricanes and tornadoes in the country."
Gang Leader for a Day - Sudhir Venkatesh - Book Review - New York Times: "On a hot summer day in 1989, Sudhir Venkatesh, a callow sociology student with a ponytail and tie-dyed T-shirt, walked into one of Chicago’s toughest housing projects, clipboard in hand, ready to ask residents about their lives. Sample question: ‘How does it feel to be black and poor?’ Suggested answers: ‘very bad, somewhat bad, neither bad nor good, somewhat good, very good.’ Actual answers: unprintable.
Mr. Venkatesh got rid of the clipboard and the questionnaire, but not his fascination with life in the Chicago housing projects. He stuck around, befriended a gang leader and for the next decade lived a curious insider-outsider life at the notorious Robert Taylor Homes on the city’s South Side, an eye-opening experience he documents in the high-octane ‘Gang Leader for a Day.’
In a bit of bravado Mr. Venkatesh, who now teaches at Columbia, styles himself a ‘rogue sociologist.’ Dissatisfied with opinion surveys and statistical analysis as ways to describe the life of the poor, he reverted to the methods of his predecessors at the University of Chicago, who took an ethnographic approach to the study of hobos, hustlers and politicians. Much like a journalist, he observed, asked questions and drew conclusions as he accumulated raw data."
CLAM$ CA$INO: I'm loaded, don't know where to point this thing.: "from pr to bk Clam$ CaSino brings the fishiest flicks
from the first half of the first month of oh eight. ah ite?"
dustin franz photography: leisa.: "leisa came to visit me this week. it was very exciting and i wish she didnt have to leave."
(Via A Visual Journey.)
The Passion of Steve Jobs - Bits - Technology - New York Times Blog: "Even more than when he’s performing on stage, Steven P. Jobs’s passion for personal computing comes through when he talks about the years he spent cajoling his designers to build what he presented today as the world’s ‘thinnest’ computer.
Along with David Pogue, the Times technology columnist, I spent a half-hour with Mr. Jobs after he introduced the MacBook Air this morning at the Macworld Expo. And as is frequently the case with Apple products, he pronounced the three-pound aluminum-clad portable to be one of the best things his company has ever designed.
‘I’m going to be the first one in line to buy one of these,’ he said. ‘I’ve been lusting after this.’"
Smithsonian Magazine | Arts & Culture | Danger Zones: "David Maisel doesn't consider himself an environmental activist. Yet his large-scale aerial photographs of strip mines, a bone-dry lake bed and man-made evaporation ponds can be viewed as indictments of our indifference to the planet that sustains us. Once you figure them out, that is. The photographs call to mind everything from blood vessels to stained-glass windows. 'They might be mirrors into who we are as a society and who we are in our psyches,' Maisel says."
(Via Boing Boing.)
Pacifica Tribune Online - Through the lens of the camera: "'First time I went out, I took pictures at the beach and came back with really good pictures. I hit it off from the very first time. I never pictured myself as a photographer until I got my camera and people told me I was good. It went from there,' he said,
Now Hudson, 15, a sophomore at Terra Nova High School, plans to pursue a career in photojournalism."
State of the Art: Marilyn Wars: The Empire Strikes Back: "The law firm of Loeb & Loeb didn’t waste any time in striking back at the heirs of photographers who once photographed Marilyn Monroe.
Loeb & Loeb represents the company called Marilyn Monroe LLC, which over the past couple of decades has claimed ownership of the late actress’s ‘rights of publicity.’"
Apple Unveils Movie Rentals and Thin Notebook - New York Times: "Mr. Jobs also announced a new version of Apple TV that does not require a cable for users to play movies from iTunes directly on the television."
RRD Photo: Photoshop "Revisit and Retouch" Challenge #1: "Ryan Goodman took this photograph a few years ago in Grand Cayman and produced a nice image (after some editing) which you can see on his site.
Interested to see what other folks would do to this in the digital darkroom, he's inviting those interested to download the RAW files and give it their best shot.
In this post...
In this post I'll give a detailed look at my steps for completing this retouch and at the end I'll link to some books and podcasts that will help teach you these techniques in more detail."
House kicks up an investigation : Updates : The Rocky Mountain News: "By resolution, the House said: ‘The special committee will investigate the circumstances surrounding the incident that occurred between Rep. Douglas Bruce and a member of the press on the floor of the House of Representatives on Jan. 14, 2008.’
House Republicans on Monday had condemned Bruce for kicking the photographer and promised a tight rein on their new colleague to ensure such an outburst 'never happens again.'"
From the first day to now, a Sense of Community - Sense of Community - Flint Journal: "Steve Jessmore,48, has created the Sense of Community photo column since April 2004. After more than 170 columns, today marks its end. Jessmore is leaving The Flint Journal to become photo editor at The Sun News in Myrtle Beach, S.C. "
(Via APAD.)
...fredman eyes the visions...: Tefillin: "I finally edited this project, which I shot when I was interning at the Star-Ledger, I hoped to finish it while working there, but things ended and I didn't have a chance to edit it during my final week. I learned a few important lessons — don't gather too much audio and start editing audio quickly as you gather it, otherwise it becomes harder and harder to get around to it and finish the job. "
A Photo Editor - Photography Agent Websites: "My new favorite agent website belongs to Deborah Schwartz (here)–actually I should credit Bill Charles for being an early adopter of the idea . The first page lists the names of the people they represent and when you roll over the name a photo that represents that photographers work appears. Brilliant. Simple. Most of the time, when I’m out trolling agent websites, it’s because I ran out of ideas or I kinda remember a photographer but have no idea what their name is so, being able to flash through a bunch of photographers quickly is awesome."
In Persian Gulf Incident, Some Suspect Hecklers - washingtonpost.com: "The Navy has a monkey on its back.
Since at least 1982, U.S. Navy ships plying the Persian Gulf have been taunted by mysterious radio transmissions that are alternately obscene, nonsensical, racist, infantile, misogynistic and menacing. Sometimes they threatened U.S. ships; at other times they simply babbled away, all night, in falsettos."
Drobo Creators Launch DroboShare: "With DroboShare, users can now access the information stored on the award-winning Drobo from any client on the network, including Windows, Apple or Linux computers, as well as other networked devices like Home Media Centers. And unlike other NAS desktop storage devices the Drobo and DroboShare solution embraces ease of use and flexibility by being the first NAS solution that supports all major file systems (NTFS, HFS+, EXT3, FAT32). Additionally, Drobo has the flexibility to be easily disconnected from DroboShare and then connected directly to a host computer as required."
Gray Matters: Don't burn your bridges.: "One of my more gregarious coworkers started what can only be characterized as a rant. He talked about his belief that newspapers are a vital part of our democracy. He talked about how we have strayed from our mission, chasing after every shiny object that comes our way. He talked about how it seemed the industry was afraid to stay the course. He talked about how we need to find out how to monetize our product on the Internet. He talked about how newspaper people were different. We have a mission he said. We love what we do. We would do it for less if we thought it would help. We would stand in the rain, snow, sleet or heat if we thought it would help the story. "
Best Seat in the House | The Seattle Times, Rod Mar: "I had such a blast at what ended up as the final Seahawks game of the season.
Snow, the playoffs, a natural grass field, and Green Bay's legendary Lambeau Field all made for an incredible environment in which to shoot photos.
As many of you know, Seattle got run over by the Green Bay Packers, 42-20.
And as the old cliche' goes, 'the game wasn't as close as the score indicated'."
family/friends: bosses: "i do not have a boss anymore....i never did like having a boss, but i pretty much always got along with them anyway....respect...authority....needed a job.....
you are looking at my first two bosses...in reverse order....Robert E. Gilka, left, former Director of Photography at National Geographic Magazine and Rich Clarkson, former Director of Photography at the Topeka (Kansas) Capitol-Journal...Clarkson hired me for the newspaper right out of the University of Missouri graduate school and Gilka hired me 7 long long long years later at National Geographic...."
The F STOP » Professional Photographers Discuss Their Craft » Article Archive » Jono Rotman: "The ad agency, Clemenger BBDO, hired photographer Jono Rotman to help them promote New Zealand’s policy of providing free, universal healthcare. Their concept was quite simple—an image of nude bodies arranged to form the shape of the island nation."
Punknews.org | H2O signs to Bridge 9: I always have to link to posts about the hardcore band H2O, because the reader comments under the article are always so vicious.
I-Mockery.com | The 50 Greatest Arcade Cabinets In Video Game History!: "Seeing classic arcade game machines lined up next to each other is an easy way to have a wave of nostalgia smack you in the face harder than a hurled barrel compliments of Donkey Kong himself. It brings you back to a time when games were simple, fun, and fairly cheap to play for the most part. Whether it was laughing at how all the enemies bullets traveled 75% slower than your own or enjoying the cheesy digitized voices, there's no denying the classic games had something special.
But there is something about arcade games that we don't think gets enough credit. While everybody has their picks for the best games, most people don't give too much thought about the artistry that was put into the cabinets which held these games. It is with that in mind that I-Mockery is paying tribute to what we consider to be the The 50 Greatest Arcade Cabinets In Video Game History!"
(Via DIGG.)
