Group items tagged

On the eve of the election, a number of Magnum photographers have been venturing into American to capture what they can of this historic moment in time. The project is called InSight America. But rather than publish this work as a book a year after the fact, Magnum is posting the work online and on the fly. I caught up with Alex Webb after his recent journey to Ohio:

For two hectic weeks between the US presidential election and the inauguration, one photographer was invited to make portraits of every member of Obama's new incoming administration. The result is a series of 52 unlikely semi-formal portraits that reveal a refreshingly diverse, young, energetic group of the people who will be key to helping forward Obama's agenda. This series of portraits originally appeared in The New York Times Magazine, in print and online. Now, for the first time anywhere, an exhibition of life-size prints of these images will go on display (not in America) but in Birmingham, UK. UK-based photographer Nadav Kander talks with Jim Casper of Lens Culture about how this daunting project came into being, and provides some very interesting personal observations about his brief encounters with the new power-brokers of America. See some of the images, and listen to the interview, here in Lens Culture.

" It's been very fashionable to focus on the weakness and the banality of America, but what I wanted to say is that it's also a very exciting and fascinating place. - Joel Sternfeld, 1987 Joel Sternfeld's projects can perhaps be divided into two general groups: site-specific landscapes somehow connected to human presence (though people are rarely present in them) and shot during distinct periods of time, and a more ranging, long-term examination of the United States accomplished largely by photographing Americans contextualized by their environments. "

PSA is a worldwide interactive organization for anyone interested in photography, be they casual, serious amateurs or professional photographers. Individual, Camera Club, Chapter and Council members are offered a wide variety of activities: a monthly magazine, photo and digital competitions, study groups via mail and the internet, how-to programs, an annual conference and a raft of other activities and services. The Photographic Society of America was founded in 1934 to "Promote the Arts and Sciences of Photography and to further public education therein". There are members in all 50 states as well as 60 other countries of the world. PSA Headquarters are located in Oklahoma City, OK.

THEORY - "An Interview with Garry Winogrand" From Visions and Images: American Photographers on Photography, Interviews with photographers by Barbara Diamonstein, 1981-1982, Rizoli: New York Garry Winogrand is one of the most important photographers at work in America today. His sophisticated snapshot-aesthetic pictures celebrate ordinary events, and transform them with precise timing and framing into astute visual commentaries on modern life.

Bill Owens: Photographing the Suburban Soul Interview by Robert Hirsch Bill Owens's Suburbia (1972) is a quintessential photographic study of suburban California life and of its rituals. Owens followed with Our Kind of People (1975), which examined political, religious, scholastic, and sports groups and their practices. Then he published Working: I Do It for Money (1977) that looked at people who work from nine to five. In 1976, Owens received a Guggenheim Fellowship and, afterwards, two National Endowment for the Arts awards. Between 1978 to the 1982 he was a freelance photographer and did work for magazines including Life and Newsweek. In 1982 Owens started Buffalo Bill's Brewery and published American Brewer Magazine (1984 - 2001). In 2004 Owens added to his visual anthropology cycle of the American middle class with the publication of Leisure: Americans at Play. Currently, Owens is making mini digital movies about America society. This piece is the result of conversations and emails between Owens and the author from December 2004 through March 2005.

Looking In: Robert Frank's The Americans - Expanded Edition by Sarah Greenough, Robert Frank Steidl First published in France in 1958, then in the United States in 1959, Robert Frank's The Americans< changed the course of twentieth-century photography. In eighty-three photographs, Frank looked beneath the surface of American life to reveal a people plagued by racism, ill-served by their politicians, and rendered numb by a rapidly expanding culture of consumption. Yet he also found novel areas of beauty in simple, overlooked corners of American life. And it was not just his subject matter - cars, jukeboxes, and even the road itself - that redefined the icons of America; it was also his seemingly intuitive, immediate, off-kilter style, as well as his method of brilliantly linking his photographs together thematically, conceptually, formally, and linguistically, that made The Americans so innovative. More of an ode or a poem than a literal document, the book is as powerful and provocative today as it was fifty years ago.

"Truth Value" and Documentary Photography: Reading and Re-reading the FSA Lisa Van Arragon, Professor of Art Minds in the Making Editor's Note: This address was delivered at Calvin College in February 2006. It was sponsored by the Center Art Gallery in conjunction with the exhibition "Picturing Faith: Religious America in Government Photography, 1935-43." Jack Delano, Men outside church before service Image: Jack Delano, Men outside church before service The emphasis of this essay will not be the specific content of the Center Art Gallery exhibition featuring images of religious life made by the Farm Security Administration photographers during the 1930s and 1940s.

Founded in 2003, Daylight Magazine is the biannual printed publication of Daylight Community Arts Foundation (DCAF), a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the use of photography as a tool for effecting social change. By reimagining the documentary mode through collaboration with established and emerging artists, scholars and journalists, Daylight Magazine has become one of the premier showcases for contemporary photography. Recently DCAF launched Fundacion Imaginer (www.fundacionimaginer.org) based in Panama City, Panama which is dedicated to promoting contemporary art and photography from Latin America.

Here's a nice service for anyone who wants to learn more about copyright law and how it applies to images. The Picture Archive Council of America has posted a free online video seminar by attorney Nancy Wolff. Watch it here. PACA is also making this presentation available on DVD. It is available by contacting the PACA Executive Director at 23046 Avenida de la Carlota, Suite 600, Laguna Hills, CA 92653, or by email: execdirector@pacaoffice.org. The video is part of the Jane Kinne Copyright Education Program, named in memory of the stock agency pioneer who died last year.

Photographer and MacArthur fellow Susan Meiselas is best known for her work covering political upheavals in Central America in the 1970s and 80s. The International Center of Photography (ICP) is hosting the first U.S. overview of her work, "Susan Meiselas: In History." It's on display through January 4, 2009.

History of Photography is an international quarterly devoted to the history, practice and theory of photography. It intends to address all aspects of the medium, treating the processes, circulation, functions, and reception of photography in all its aspects, including documentary, popular and polemical work as well as fine art photography. The goal of the journal is to be inclusive and interdisciplinary in nature, welcoming all scholarly approaches, whether archival, historical, art historical, anthropological, sociological or theoretical. It is intended also to embrace world photography, ranging from Europe and the Americas to the Far East. The journal aims to provide a significant resource to diverse communities, including, but not limited to, academics, curators, independent scholars, undergraduate and postgraduate students - indeed, anyone with a serious interest in the history and practice of the medium. The journal encourages submissions from young scholars, while also seeking to publish work by established authorities in the discipline. Over the past three decades History of Photography has become an indispensable source of documentary texts, new and original scholarly articles, novel interpretations, and original thinking in this field. History of Photography is a peer reviewed journal overseen by the Editor and supported by a board of scholars of international standing.

An Interview with Garry Winogrand from Visions and Images: American Photographers on Photography, Interviews with photographers by Barbara Diamonstein, 1981-1982, Rizoli: New York Garry Winogrand is one of the most important photographers at work in America today. His sophisticated snapshot-aesthetic pictures celebrate ordinary events, and transform them with precise timing and framing into astute visual commentaries on modern life.

"In Response to Place" in association with the Nature Conservancy is narrated by Joanne Woodward and takes a look at some of the most beautiful places on earth through the eyes and lenses of the world's greatest nature photographers. Having recently switched from picturing her children as subjects to landscape, Sally Mann chose to travel to the Yucatan and use color film in her antique, large format camera for the first time. The Calakmul Reserve is the northern end of the largest remaining forest in Mexico and Central America\n\n

A New Website for a Changing World SocialDocumentary.net is a new website that features documentary photography from around the world-images and words that explore the human condition. Easily Create Documentary Websites About Critical Issues Facing Our World Today Professional and amateur photographers, journalists, NGOs, students-anyone with a story to tell and a collection of good photographs-can easily and affordably begin creating websites on SocialDocumentary.net. Global warming, international justice, post-conflict reconstruction, HIV/AIDS, or life in Afghanistan or suburban America are just a few of the themes that you can find on SocialDocumentary.net. The goal of this website is to make our lives richer and more informed about issues affecting us and our world today. Powerful photographs can also lead to meaningful change in the lives of ordinary people. SocialDocumentary. net provides tools for photographer to inform viewers how to take action-either by supporting NGOs doing work on the issues, or by engaging in direct political action. Not all documentary photographers are concerned with action. Many photographers featured on SocialDocumentary.net are concerned with subtleties of the human experience and exploring personal themes. Photographs on SocialDocumentary.net-whether of struggling farmers in Africa or of suburban teenagers in Philadelphia-offer a fresh way to look at the world and a greater understanding of humanity. The secondary goal is to create an online image bank of quality photographs documenting all aspects of the world created by an international collection of photographers. This will enable students, college professors, journalists, and anyone else to easily see any part of the world in quality digital imagery and gain valuable information about the subjects they are viewing. We encourage all photographers, everywhere, to use this site as a tool in their own image-making and documentary exploration. We also encourage n

A Gear Guide For Going Freelance By David McIntyredavid-mcintyrecloseAuthor: David McIntyre See Author's Posts (2) Recent Posts * Nine Essentials (Besides a Camera) You'll Need as a Freelance Photographer * A Gear Guide For Going Freelance David McIntyre is a photographer for Black Star based in China and Hong Kong since 1995. Prior to becoming a freelance photographer, he was a staff photographer for The Phoenix Gazette. He has also worked for UPI, the Associated Press, EPA, Asiaweek Magazine, the Far Eastern Economic Review, Baseball America, and the minor league baseball teams in Denver and Phoenix before they had Major League teams. Visit David's Web site. in Business of Photography on March 13th, 2009 I've read the articles and postings about newspaper layoffs, and I've gotten my share of e-mails from former staff photographers asking for guidance. As someone who's been freelancing for most of my career, what's the first advice I would give to those of you striking out on your own? Get the right equipment. A lot of corporate and editorial assignments require portrait work, for example - which requires lighting gear. But most new freelancers don't realize they will need more than their one shoe mount strobe. Others may have more or less gear than what I find works best. But here are my recommendations for the equipment you'll need to fulfill the majority of requests from potential clients.

Death as Contributing Background By Dennis DunleavydennisdunleavycloseAuthor: Dennis Dunleavy See Author's Posts (20) Recent Posts * The Intelligent Machine: The Camera in the 21st Century * What Should Power Look Like? * Photojournalism in an Age of Contrivance * Rush of Innovation in Photographic Technology Shows No Sign of Slowing Down * Do Embedded Photojournalists Actually Work for the Pentagon? Dennis Dunleavy teaches and writes about visual culture, digital photography and ethics, new technologies, and society. For more than 20 years, he worked as a correspondent and photojournalist across the U.S., Central America, and Mexico. Today, he is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at Southern Oregon University. He is the author of The Big Picture blog. in Photojournalism on May 27th, 2008 The body is lifeless - embedded into the concrete and dust that once was a school. Framing the faceless gray form, a handful of Chinese soldiers in green camouflage gently sweep the ground around her. There are five soldiers, two with shovels, one pointing at an object inches away from a limp hand. The viewer is forced to look down upon shadows and rubble. We do not know this person. She is one of thousands of victims from the earthquake that shook China to its core two weeks ago.

My work on foreclosed homes in Detroit has actually been a continuation of a project that started in Fort Myers, Florida in September 2008. For me the major concentration of the work is on the houses or what's left of the houses. I chose to photograph them mostly straight on like my street work in a very blunt fashion. To let the houses speak for themselves. After going to Florida and continuing in Detroit I realized that foreclosure is one part of a circle. There is homelessness, job loss, economic difficulties, etc, etc, etc. In Detroit the problem is not only a subprime problem it's a problem of people who lost their jobs. And this has been going on for many years. So it's a much more serious situation. When I went to Detroit - even though I had known that the city was pretty desolate - I was amazed that a major city in America in 2009 can look like this.

"On the Internet, everybody is a millenarian. Internet journalism, according to those who produce manifestos on its behalf, represents a world-historical development-not so much because of the expressive power of the new medium as because of its accessibility to producers and consumers. That permits it to break the long-standing choke hold on public information and discussion that the traditional media-usually known, when this argument is made, as "gatekeepers" or "the priesthood"-have supposedly been able to maintain up to now. "Millions of Americans who were once in awe of the punditocracy now realize that anyone can do this stuff-and that many unknowns can do it better than the lords of the profession," Glenn Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor who operates one of the leading blogs, Instapundit, writes, typically, in his new book, "An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government and Other Goliaths." The rhetoric about Internet journalism produced by Reynolds and many others is plausible only because it conflates several distinct categories of material that are widely available online and didn't use to be. One is pure opinion, especially political opinion, which the Internet has made infinitely easy to purvey. Another is information originally published in other media-everything from Chilean newspaper stories and entries in German encyclopedias to papers presented at Micronesian conferences on accounting methods-which one can find instantly on search and aggregation sites. Lately, grand journalistic claims have been made on behalf of material produced specifically for Web sites by people who don't have jobs with news organizations. According to a study published last month by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, there are twelve million bloggers in the United States, and thirty-four per cent of them consider blogging to be a form of journalism. That would add

What I guess goes through my mind when I'm taking a picture is I'm thinking wordlessly about how all these elements relate to each other and I'm thinking again wordlessly about finding a balance that I look for a point that seems central to the picture and when I find that point that tells me where to stand and where exactly to aim the camera. - Stephen Shore