from the Playa
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Why Photography Still Matters
VII Photo Panel: Why Photography Still Matters
Long, long ago, when picture magazines arrived in millions of homes once a week, and people still read newspapers, a news photo could have an immediate impact on public opinion.
Images of fire hoses turned on men and women wanting to exercise their right to vote mobilized thousands of voter registration volunteers. An image of a naked girl running down a road to flee a napalm bombing curdled public opinion about an already unpopular war.
But in today’s fractured media, with so few publications showing serious photography, can a photo really make a difference?
The answer, according to participants in the panel discussion held last night at the VII Photo agency office, is yes. Each panelist—a Congressional aide, a human rights activist and a photojournalist—gave examples of the surprising and sometimes unexpected ways that photos of human rights issues have moved individuals to take action.
Source: PDN Pulse, by Holly Hughes, Oct 14, 2009
Full Story: http://www.pdnpulse.com/2009/10/vii-photo-panel-why-photography-still-matters.html
Long, long ago, when picture magazines arrived in millions of homes once a week, and people still read newspapers, a news photo could have an immediate impact on public opinion.
Images of fire hoses turned on men and women wanting to exercise their right to vote mobilized thousands of voter registration volunteers. An image of a naked girl running down a road to flee a napalm bombing curdled public opinion about an already unpopular war.
But in today’s fractured media, with so few publications showing serious photography, can a photo really make a difference?
The answer, according to participants in the panel discussion held last night at the VII Photo agency office, is yes. Each panelist—a Congressional aide, a human rights activist and a photojournalist—gave examples of the surprising and sometimes unexpected ways that photos of human rights issues have moved individuals to take action.
Source: PDN Pulse, by Holly Hughes, Oct 14, 2009
Full Story: http://www.pdnpulse.com/2009/10/vii-photo-panel-why-photography-still-matters.html
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Pride and Prejudice
A selection of '70s ads depicting African-Americans. "Unbranded" is a series of images taken from magazine advertisements targeting a black audience or featuring black subjects, which Hank Willis Thomas digitally manipulated and appropriated.
Source: Mother Jones, by Hank Willis Thomas , Sept/Oct 2009
Photo Essay at: http://www.motherjones.com/photoessays/2009/08/pride-and-prejudice
Source: Mother Jones, by Hank Willis Thomas , Sept/Oct 2009
Photo Essay at: http://www.motherjones.com/photoessays/2009/08/pride-and-prejudice
Special Issues a Bright Spot
In this dreary advertising climate, when ESPN The Magazine wanted to draw some attention to itself, it chose a tactic favored by the Lindsay Lohans of the world: flash a little skin.
ESPN created its Body Issue, on newsstands now, not only to make waves.
ESPN created its Body Issue, on newsstands now, not only to make waves.
The topic meant ESPN could call it a special issue, which got advertisers’ attention and money.
Print advertising is in miserable straits right now, but special issues seem to be the one thing attracting ad dollars. At ESPN, for instance, ad pages were down about 24 percent in the first six months of this year from the same period a year earlier, according to Publishers Information Bureau. But the Body Issue is the biggest October issue, in terms of revenue, that ESPN has ever had.
Print advertising is in miserable straits right now, but special issues seem to be the one thing attracting ad dollars. At ESPN, for instance, ad pages were down about 24 percent in the first six months of this year from the same period a year earlier, according to Publishers Information Bureau. But the Body Issue is the biggest October issue, in terms of revenue, that ESPN has ever had.
Source: The New York Times, By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD, Oct 11, 2009
Capturing a Nation’s Thirst for Energy
Photographer Mitch Epstein, thin and professorial with gray hair and glasses, does not exactly cut a menacing figure.
When he ducks beneath the dark cloth of his 8-by-10 view camera, the words that come most readily to mind are late Victorian, not potentially violent. But one afternoon several years ago in the tiny Ohio River Valley town of Poca, W. Va., he found himself and his assistant surrounded by police cruisers, watching as sheriffs searched their rental car and came up with a stack of Polaroids of power plants much like the coal-fired one that towered across the river.
Photo by: Chang W. Lee/
The New York Times
This discovery led to the summoning of an F.B.I. agent, who concluded after much deliberation that Mr. Epstein had broken no laws by taking pictures near the plant, but told him, as he later recalled, “If you were Muslim, you’d be cuffed and taken in for questioning.”
Source: New York Times. ART & DESIGN, By RANDY KENNEDY, Oct 9, 2009
Full Story:
How to Avoid a Dirty DSLR Image Sensor
If you’ve got a DSLR you’ve probably had the experience of uploading your photos onto your computer after a long day of photography - only to find that there are dark ’spots’ and ‘blotches’ on your pictures.
These spots and blotches appear on all your shots in exactly the same position. They might be less noticeable on backgrounds with lots of detail (and more noticeable on plain backgrounds (like blue skies - especially when you have a small aperture) - but they’re there in all your shots (the picture to the left is one of the worst examples I’ve seen - and was the result of poor image sensor cleaning technique).
The reason for these marks is that you’ve almost certainly got dust on your camera’s image sensor.
Source: Digital Photography School, by Darren Rowse
Full Story: http://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-avoid-a-dirty-dslr-image-sensor
These spots and blotches appear on all your shots in exactly the same position. They might be less noticeable on backgrounds with lots of detail (and more noticeable on plain backgrounds (like blue skies - especially when you have a small aperture) - but they’re there in all your shots (the picture to the left is one of the worst examples I’ve seen - and was the result of poor image sensor cleaning technique).
The reason for these marks is that you’ve almost certainly got dust on your camera’s image sensor.
Source: Digital Photography School, by Darren Rowse
Full Story: http://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-avoid-a-dirty-dslr-image-sensor
Does social class determine online social network?
Like a lot of people, Anna Owens began using MySpace more than four years ago to keep in touch with friends who weren't in college.
Our real-world friendships are often a reflection of who... we connect with online, experts say. But soon she felt too old for the social-networking site, and the customizable pages with music that were fun at first began to annoy her.
By the time she graduated from the University of Puget Sound, Owens' classmates weren't on MySpace -- they were on Facebook.
Throughout graduate school and beyond, as her network began to expand, Owens ceased using MySpace altogether. Facebook had come to represent the whole of her social and professional universe.
Source: CNN.com, By Breeanna Hare, Oct 14, 2009
Full Story: http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/10/13/social.networking.class/index.html?iref=mpstoryview
Our real-world friendships are often a reflection of who... we connect with online, experts say. But soon she felt too old for the social-networking site, and the customizable pages with music that were fun at first began to annoy her.
By the time she graduated from the University of Puget Sound, Owens' classmates weren't on MySpace -- they were on Facebook.
Throughout graduate school and beyond, as her network began to expand, Owens ceased using MySpace altogether. Facebook had come to represent the whole of her social and professional universe.
Source: CNN.com, By Breeanna Hare, Oct 14, 2009
Full Story: http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/10/13/social.networking.class/index.html?iref=mpstoryview
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