Link: La Lettre de la Photographie
The 360-degree panoramas of Evgueniy Ivanov tell the private life of the Great Patrioic War at the beginning of this century. These tracking shots of life depict a nation and its heroes.
Bharat Choudary’s Photos of Young Muslims
Bharat Choudhary has seen the power of religious hatred up close. After the 2002 sectarian riots in Gujarat, Mr. Choudhary counseled victims who had been paralyzed or raped during the violence.
His clients were Muslims. Mr. Choudhary is Hindu.
New Postcards From America Limited Edition Photography Book
The Postcards from America box book, in a signed edition of 500, is available exclusively at www.postcards.magnumphotos.com
January 24, 2012
5
A lot of talk this week about copyright and piracy. The tech people that I normally enjoy listening to are driving me crazy.
I was listening to Gweek today and they were saying that piracy was actually a good thing for content makers. Not even neutral, now piracy is good. (Okay, there might be a positive aspect in having your product shared and passed around in the world, but does it outweigh the part where you didn’t get paid, you got ripped off?)
One interesting point they made was that piracy was bad only for the old media-style distribution systems, not the artists. I see that. The distribution systems have been sucking blood from artists in all mediums for a long time, and that could be ending here.
Tech people keep saying that artists can make it without the distribution systems, and they all trot out Jonathan Coulton as the example of someone who has made it on his own (by the way, he’s amazing). He offers his music for free, or you can buy it, and he does great. Hooray, there’s one guy making it. One guy.
Okay, you can add Radiohead and Louis CK, but both made their reputations over years in the old media system and only now have the power to make independent new media work. That’s three, so I’m still seeing a lot of artists left out in the cold.
Here’s a question to think about as a new artist-friendly distribution model evolves…
The employees of the old media distribution system did a lot of work, like promotion, financing, and obviously distribution. Who is going to do that in the new model? The artists? Does my favorite author now have to spend a couple hours a day on Facebook? Because I really want my favorite author working on the next book, not tweeting or other garbage that could be handled by someone else.
The problem with the old model was that the distribution system forgot who they worked for and started to think they were the important part. The new system will turn it around and put the creatives in charge. Maybe the band of the future will sign a record company to a deal instead of the other way around.
Then when you pirate you’ll be stealing directly from your idols, not from some faceless corporation who has them under contract.
JEFF BROUWS: “It Don’t Exist – The Impact of Sprawl and Suburban Build-out on Inner City America” (2009)
I’ve been photographing the American cultural landscape for the past twenty years. Utilizing different series that I’ve done involving the everyday urban and suburban places we encounter, I’ll strive to make visual and verbal connections between these overlapping territories of American life while sticking to our theme of how sprawl has affected inner city environments.
Assignment #18 – Sundance Premiere – This Must Be the Place
I was telling a photographer I had just met how the whole “red carpet” photography thing seemed pretty superficial to me. I just don’t get it. While the people are famous, the photographs are generally awful. I said something about it being a shame that you could make more money doing celebrities on the red carpet than you could doing real work that meant something, like reportage or concerned photojournalism.
By his reaction I knew I had said something wrong and then he told me he did red carpet celebrity photography for a living.
Ouch. Sorry.
My second premiere of the day started out with about twenty of us journalists being kept in a pen, outside in the cold, for about twenty minutes. No lie. Then we were taken into the tent where the press line would be and we waited.
There were six still photographers and about ten video crews for the red carpet. A snow storm was snarling traffic all through Park City, delaying the stars of the film. Cast member Eve Hewson came through the line. Then the director, Paolo Sorrentino, came out for a quick photo. Here’s an outtake:
I know, we’ve been rocking these Mark II’s for so long that they’re about to become cool again in a retro photography way. But I’m sure Adobe is right now developing software to sharpen lost frames like that one. In a few years I’ll be able to post a software fixed, in-focus version of that shot. Check back here in 2015 to see it.
After that we waited. It was only after two hours of waiting that a publicist came in and announced that Sean Penn would make a quick appearance for still photos, but there would be no video or interviews. Glad I wasn’t them.
Before Penn arrived a publicist came out and said since there were only six photographers there’d be no need or us to yell out his name and she said, “Everything will be beautiful!”
He comes out, stands in front of the red background for a full 21 seconds, taking turns looking at each of our cameras. Our six flashes fired about a billion times.
I got 34 frames off. Once again my favorite shot is one where another photographer’s blasting flash blasted my shot. And for the record, I threw about a hundred Lightroom pre-sets onto it before it looked like this:
21 seconds and he walked off.
I might be reflecting my feelings about the situation when I say that Sean Penn appeared amused at how ridiculous the situation was— him walking out for 21 seconds and all of us taking the same bad photograph with direct flash of him in front of a corporate banner.
As I walked out of the place I saw Penn standing off in the dark and thought about making a joke with him about how silly all of this celebrity photography stuff is. But I didn’t. Who am I kidding? I had no right to joke. I was playing the game just like the rest of them.
Success Stories: Cole Thompson
for the last several years I have practiced what I call “Photographic Celibacy.” My photo magazines are donated, my books gather dust on the shelf and I do not seek out new work on the internet. Not studying other photographers work has been very helpful and I give this technique much of the credit in helping me unearth my vision and to become more creative.
