Archive for the 'Photography' Category



Two Revamped Mags Promise Photography

So magazines are on their last legs, gasping for life and going belly up in record numbers. But two big magazine  revamps made news this week, and both seem to be paying special attention to photography.

Hugo Lindgren took the reins of the New York Times Magazine last October and promptly started slashing and burning (not sad to see a lot of it go). Among the changes expected to be unveiled this Sunday, March 6 (with a cover story shot by Mary Ellen Mark):

… “What They Were Thinking,” a feature of intriguing photos and a Q. & A. with the photographer; “Look,” a three-page photo essay of events and gatherings around the world — from a reality TV show audition in Los Angeles to a dune race in Dakar …

And then there’s the new Tina Brown-helmed Newsweek. The anemic weekly needs a major shot of something to get it going, but perhaps Brown has the magic formula (she’s done big things before). The Cutline blog says the forthcoming magazine will have “bigger pictures,” and a staffer reports:

“It’s slick, contemporary and feels like something out of the new millennium–sort of New York mag meets GQ, and pretty distinct from Time, with big photo spreads, graphics that pop and draw you into the page, lots of entry points into a story, infographics, sidebars, etc.”

Video Aids In Galliano’s Downfall

Anti-Semitism seems to be all the rage lately, and Christian Dior designer John Galliano is nothing if not on trend as he is the latest to get caught at the cross-section of where ugly behavior meets technology. If you haven’t read about it, Galliano has had three (known) outbursts in the past few months where he ranted along antisemitic and racist themes, but it was only until one was caught on video that people really started to take notice — and this week he lost his job.

The Telegraph asked legendary Italian designer Giorgio Armani for his reaction to the mess, and he said, through a translator, that he was “very sorry for him” and “also very sorry that they videotaped him without him knowing.” Interesting that to him that is the worst part. Apparently Armani doesn’t think it’s inappropriate, or just plain mean, to say things like, “I love Hitler. People like you would be dead. Your mothers, your forefathers, would all be fucking gassed.”

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: If you are a public figure, in any field, you need to get accustomed to the fact that everyone has the ability to record what you do now, and they probably will at some point. So the tragedy is not in being caught, the tragedy is being really, really dumb.

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Photography Link Roundup

•  Panasonic has released a camera in Japan that automatically retouches subjects, including whitening teeth and removing dark circles. This model is expected to be a big hit because according to their research, “around 50 percent of our digital camera clients are not satisfied with the way their faces look in a photograph,” a Panasonic spokeswoman says. [Reuters

•  The Philadelphia area’s Immaculata College is now offering a course on cell phone photos that will highlight quality and ethics issues. Who says Americans aren’t being properly educated for the global economy? [Huffington Post]

•  Former New York Times freelancer Christian Hansen talks about not thinking when shooting and getting inspiration from Bruce Davidson’s “Brooklyn Gang.” [Lens]

•  The Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA, will host  the Press Photographers Association of Greater Los Angeles’ 75th Anniversary Historical Photo Exhibit. The photos, by Nick Ut, David Hume Kennerly and others, will be on display through May 31. [Neon Tommy]

•  Lindsay Lohan and James Franco have reportedly signed on to do Terry Richardson’s nude and raunchy  photography book. Wasn’t that a dumb idea when Madonna did it in 1992? [Mirror]


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Photo by Jean Penders

Wisconsin Revolt

Media producer Finn Ryan and photographer David Nevala collaborated on this video to highlight the stories behind the union protests in Wisconsin.

(via Wonderful Machine)

Shop Walmart at Your Own Risk

People of Walmart is a site that celebrates the clientele of America’s largest retail chain. They feature photos of large and colorful and weird people, and everyone gets a good laugh. Until they spot their own mother on it — and then they go to the local Fox news channel and complain.

Melanie Wheeler, of Ypsilanti, Mich., told My Fox Detroit that her mom was unwittingly snapped and now she’s on the site with the caption “A member of the Canadian division of the trench coat mafia.”

“The thing is if you take a picture of someone in public, they’re in public,” she said. “My argument is you’re in a Walmart. We have no privacy shopping? … So, I could go into any store and take a picture of anybody or their children and put it up on a web page.”

Yep. That’s just the world we live in now. As the Fox legal analyst who weighed in said, it’s  totally legal and, in public, there is “no expectation of privacy.”

Source: My Fox Detroit

Photography Link Roundup

Photo by Alfred Wertheimer

•  Through May 15, the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pa., is featuring two amazing photography exhibitions: “Elvis at 21” by Alfred Wertheimer and “Muhammad Ali: The Making of an Icon” by various photographers. [Michener Museum and The Morning Call]

•  The PR guy behind the Desperately Seeking Susan poster shoot explains how it all happened — and how the now legendary shots of Madonna and Rosanna Arquette, as taken by Herb Ritts, were repurposed for Playboy, Vanity Fair and innumerable other outlets. [My Life as a Blog]

•  A team of students helped design the balloon camera that will capture the space shuttle Discovery launch this afternoon. It will photograph the shuttle from an altitude between 80,000 and 100,000 feet. [Space.com]

•  Mark Laita’s “Created Equal” looks at different subcultures with parallel photographic portraits (i.e., black Baptist minister and KKK members and polygamist and pimp). [Brain Pickings]

•  “Delayed Gratification in the Happiest Place on Earth “: a collection of photos capturing the agonizing waits at Disney World. [Arin Fishkin via Boing Boing]

Seeing Both “Sunshine and Noir”

Photo by Thomas Michael Alleman

Lens recently did a post on Thomas Michael Alleman’s “Sunshine and Noir,” a paean to the urban landscapes of Los Angeles and New York. The series was originally created in the wake of 9/11, and the Holga photos have a melancholy bent.

The series is great and mesmerizing especially since they were shot using a toy camera. If you know Los Angeles — and I mean know it, beyond the glossy veneer of freeways and palm trees — you will really recognize the city’s quirky and incongruous tableaus.


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