December 2008 Archives

Karin Rosenthal

In Photography, What Puzzles the Eye May Please the Mind by Ken Johnson

Photographs are shameless.

They'll do anything to get your attention.

They'll show you celebrities in and out of their clothes, exotic creatures and objects, places and events that you would never otherwise see.

Ken Johnson

Mary Ellen Mark

Another Camera on the Set by Kathryn Shattuck

IN 1968, around the time she was focusing her lens on war protesters and transvestites in New York, Mary Ellen Mark took a job as a still photographer on the set of "Alice's Restaurant," directed by Arthur Penn.

The work appealed to the documentarian and portrait artist in her, and it paid the bills.

Kathryn Shattuck

Al Satterwhite

The Prolific Al Satterwhite by Lynne Eodice

Al Satterwhite has been a very successful advertising and editorial photographer throughout the years.

His latest book, "Titans," features rare images of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Muhammad Ali.

Lynne Eodice

Scout

SCOUTING NY

I work as a film location scout in New York City.

My day is basically spent combing the streets for interesting and unique locations for feature films.

In my travels, I often stumble across some pretty incredible sights, most of which are ignored every day by thousands of New Yorkers in too much of a rush to pay attention.

Scout

Nathan Troi Anderson

Decay: An Exploration in Words and Pictures

Decay is just another senseless borderline between the whisper of the ghosts of past days and the roar of painfully recovered memories.

It is the heavy boots of time and the luster in the countless tiny eyes of rats.

Time, rats, time, rats... so goes the unbearably slow pace of decay turning dust into ash and ash into nothing.

But Man, the son of decay (often misspelled as "clay"), has invented a wonderful set of wild lies, including culture, history and the self to rationalize the fear of decay in the vain hope of breaking its logos.

Nathan Troi Anderson & J.K. Putnam

David Rae Morris

a reviewers eye view by Andrew Hetherington

Seeing as we had done a couple of posts a few weeks back on photo reviews consultant Stella Kramer (above) fresh from a trip to PhotoNOLA dropped me a line wondering if she could share some of her experience of the reviews there on WTJ ?

Seeing the opportunity to get some honest info on how it works for the reviewer on the other side of the table we struck up an email exchange.

Andrew Hetherington

Aquifer American Social History Online

Aquifer American Social History OnlineAquifer American Social History Online - Find and use 19th and 20th century primary resources from unique historical digital collections.

Aquifer American Social History Online

Alex MacLean

Alex MacLean - Up in the Air by Paul Gleason

A common way to dramatize climate change is to show before-and-after pictures: now you see the icebergs, now you don't.

"It seemed like there was more to it than that," says Alex MacLean '69, M.Arch. '73.

Paul Gleason

Richard Avedon

Avedon Close Up by Julie Kavanagh

An exceptional photographer lives on in two exhibitions and a new book.

Julie Kavanagh remembers working with him ...

Intelligent Life Magazine

Leo Rubinfien

Leo Rubinfien - Wounded Cities by Adam B. Bell

As a graduate student, I had the great fortune to work with Leo Rubinfien my thesis year.

I was already a huge fan of his woefully under-appreciated book, A Map of the East, and was just discovering his insightful essays on Winogrand, Robert Adams and August Sanders written for Art In America.

Leo has a fantastic new book and traveling exhibition, called Wounded Cities, which combines his talent as a photographer and writer.

Adam B. Bell

Evelyn Hernandez & Martha Martinez

Teens See Themselves in Photos of Immigrants

A group of teens in Los Angeles took cameras to tell stories of immigrants in America.

NPR

Reza Deghati

Reza: Bearing Witness to War and Peace

Reza Deghati is considered among the world's great photojournalists.

He has traveled the globe for nearly 30 years, bearing witness to wars, unrest, great leaders and the courage of ordinary people trapped by history.

NPR

George D. Lepp & Kathryn Vincent Lepp

Sharp Is King

In the quest for high-quality digital capture in the uncontrolled setting of the outdoors, we're always seeking ways to overcome ambient conditions that pose obstacles to our photographic vision.

Chief among these limitations is light—or, more precisely, its insufficiency or absence. Now one of our old allies in overcoming the challenge of low-light natural environments—increased ISO—is taking center stage with the introduction of new digital SLRs offering ISOs as high as 25,600!

George D. Lepp & Kathryn Vincent Lepp

Jonas Bendiksen

Jonas Bendiksen - The Places We Live

In 2008 more people live in cities than in rural areas.

More than a billion people live in slums.

In the exhibition, "The Places We Live", Magnum photographer Jonas Bendiksen presents 20 homes in four different slum areas.

Nobel Peace Center

Berenice Abbott

Also go to Abbott.

Jim

New York Public Library on Flickr: Berenice Abbott - Changing New York, 1935-1938

Marcin Wichary

Top 10 DIY Photography Tools by Kevin Purdy

Whether you're rocking a digital single-lens reflex model or a reliable point-and-shoot, there are a lot of different shots and gear you can experiment with, and important lessons to learn, that cost less than $40, if anything.

Read on for our roundup of ten cheap or free DIY projects and lessons for aspiring photographers.

Kevin Purdy

Annie Leibovitz

Annie Leibovitz - Picture This by Thomas Mallon

In one of her many meditations on the taking of pictures, Susan Sontag wrote that "all photographs aspire to the condition of being memorable — that is, unforgettable."

Annie Leibovitz, Sontag's lover before her death in 2004, says she doesn't really "have a single favorite photograph" among those she's taken; it's her body of work, its "accumulation," that gives her the most satisfaction.

Thomas Mallon

Robert Frank

Also go to Frank.

Jim

Robert Frank - Snapshots From the American Road by Philip Gefter

WHILE his dark, penetrating eyes still radiate intensity, Robert Frank, at 84, is not as mobile as he used to be, shuffling in slow motion around a modern one-bedroom apartment in a high-rise on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

His wife, the artist June Leaf, explained that they rent the apartment because it is harder for him these days to navigate the nondescript three-story house where they have lived, a few blocks away, since the 1970s.

Philip Gefter

The Beautiful Mind

The Beautiful Mind

Steve Mann

Eye Spy: Filmmaker Plans to Install Camera in His Eye Socket by Priya Ganapati

Rob Spence looks you straight in the eye when he talks.

So it's a little unnerving to imagine that soon one of his hazel-green eyes will have a tiny wireless video camera in it that records your every move.

Priya Ganapati

George Schaub

Website Design; The Web Page Journal; Working With LiveBooks On A Photographic Website by George Schaub

The motivation for creating a web page with your photographs is legion: it can be used to display your work to a worldwide audience; showcase work to potential clients; license images for sale in publications and other sites; sell fine art prints; promote events and clubs; and display work shot at events for additional sales beyond paper proofs (although the paper proof route is almost extinct these days).

For those who simply want to share work there are also community sites that take loads of uploads at once and offer e-mail notifications for sharing or creating public galleries for all to see.

Plus there are traveler sites, weather sites, and even sites for just plain old goofing around.

George Schaub

David B. Brooks

Also go to Color Management.

Jim

Prints Don't Match The Image On Screen; Answers For A Color Managed Printing Workflow by David B. Brooks

Each month through the Digital Help column I receive many e-mail messages on how to get prints that match the on-screen image.

I have included a sampling of some of these queries as well as some solutions to these problems so challenging to many photographers.

David B. Brooks

Sue Chastain

Create a Greeting Card in Photoshop Elements by Sue Chastain

Creating a custom greeting card is just one of the fun things you can do in Photoshop Elements.

But the greeting card project in Photoshop Elements only gets you started on the front card design and doesn't give you a finished printable card.

This tutorial will show you how to do that including adding text and special effects, embellishing the card with additional artwork, all the way through printing the finished card.

Sue Chastain

Damien Haw

Professional Photograph Restoration Workflow by Damien Haw

In this tutorial, we'll take an in-depth look at restoring an old torn photograph.

Restoring old family photos is something that you can do for your relatives and bring tears to their eyes, and yes this is a service you can offer to clients as well.

Let's take a look at a professional workflow for restoring old photographs to their former glory.

Damien Haw

ShutterVoice

ShutterVoice

ShutterVoice gives a photographer freedom like never before.

Through the use of speech recognition technology you can now control your EOS Digital camera by your own voice!

ShutterVoice

Caroline Irby

Caroline Irby - Why are the Masai going hungry?

Global food price rises have hit the formerly self-sufficient Masai hard.

Caroline Irby travelled to Tanzania, where the struggle to earn money for grain and the appropriation of grazing lands for tourism is making life ever harder

Guardian

Laurie Hill

Photograph Of Jesus by Laurie Hill in association with the Getty Images Short & Sweet Film Challenge by Laurie Hill

Stuart Goldenberg

Also go to How to Buy a camera.

Jim

Best Bets in Cameras, Under $300 by David Pogue

The main thing we care about is image quality, not bells and whistles.

We want your best camera with a street price under $300. And may the best cam win!

David Pogue

Danny Lyon

Also go to Lyon.

Jim

Danny Lyon - Like a Thief's Dream by Nicole Pasulka

During the past 40 years, writer and photographer Danny Lyon has recorded the stories of "outlaw bikers" and documented the front lines of the Civil Rights movement, but most of the photos in his book Like a Thief's Dream aren't his own.

Nicole Pasulka

Tim Grey

Also go to Photoshop Elements Tutorials.

Jim

Optimizing Images in Photoshop with Curves and Levels by Tim Grey

Now that Curves includes the ability to adjust the black and white points in my images, is there any reason to use Levels?

Tim Grey

Dennis Dunleavy

Also go to Focal Length / 17.5 - Volume & Background.

Jim

The long and the short of lens choice in photojournalism by Dennis Dunleavy

Photographers use lenses differently to produce images with impact.

Some photographers prefer to get in close with a wide angle so that more information will appear in the frame, while others choose to use longer lenses to isolate subjects and compress foreground/background distances.

Dennis Dunleavy

Michael Williamson

Via APAD

Michael Williamson - The Healing Fields

Hundreds of uninsured and underinsured Americans flock to Wise County, Va., every year to seek treatment at a makeshift field hospital operated by the Remote Area Medical Volunteer Corps.

For three days in this isolated corner of Appalachia, a small army of health-care professionals offers medical attention to patients who are not likely to see another doctor or dentist all year.

The annual clinic saves lives and alleviates suffering, but in the face of a growing national health-care crisis, it may not be enough.

Washington Post

John Harrington

Professional Photographers vs. "Hobby" Status (i.e. Working for Free) by John Harrington

I spent some time Friday night yelling.

First, I went outside, with my bullhorn, and facing east, started yelling at the top of my lungs.

Then, I turned Northwest, and I continued to yell.

You don't want to know what I was yelling, but I was yelling at London, and I was yelling at Seattle, because that was where David Hobby and Chase Jarvis were at the time, and I was yelling at them for their posts about working for free.

John Harrington

Bruce Weber & Lusha Nelson

Vanity Fair. The Portraits: A Century Of Iconic Images by Caroline Weber

Culled from the pages of Vanity Fair magazine by its editor, Graydon Carter, and his staff, and shot by many of the greatest photographers in the history of the medium, these pictures are engrossing less because of the people they portray than because of the breathtaking ingenuity with which each subject is captured and "complicated."

Caroline Weber

Velibor Bozovic

Aleksandar Hemon - The Lazarus Project

Here, you are invited to explore a version of The Lazarus Project presented online in words and photographs.

All of the words are from the novel.

The contemporary photos are by Velibor Bozovic, a Sarajevo-born photographer who traveled through Eastern Europe with Hemon during the research for the novel.

The archival photos are from the Chicago Historical Society.

Aleksandar Hemon

Alien Skin

It works with Photoshop Elements, too.

Jim

Alien Skin's Bokeh

Finally, you can manipulate focus just like fast expensive lenses with Bokeh, Alien Skin's lens simulator Photoshop plug-in.

Bokeh can draw attention to your subject by manipulating focus and depth of field after the shot has been taken.

From changing the depth of field to placing a radial sweet spot and adding a vignette, Bokeh provides many techniques for realistic blurring and altering the mood of a scene.

Alien Skin

Also go to PATH: Ways-of-working in Photography.

Jim

Photography, and the Tolerance for Courageous Sucking by Merlin Mann

As I've started shooting photos more often, I've picked up on some interesting patterns: habits, if you like.

And, as I struggle to absorb the insane physics of capturing light with some glass and a black box, I accept upfront that the improvements to my actual photos will be slow, incremental, and, largely undetectable to anybody but me — a fact that's never more painfully clear than when I swoon over the work of the more talented friends who inspire me (Heather, Ryan and Chris each come to mind here).

Merlin Mann

How to make a contest submission

The work was strong but there's an aspect to entering a contest or review that seems to be overlooked and this is the actual submission process so I thought I'd share with you a few tips on how to make a submission.

Heidi Volpe

Ray Mortenso

Crumbling South Bronx as a Muse by Randy Kennedy

When Ray Mortenson first started taking his cameras through the most wasted of the wastelands that made up parts of the South Bronx in the early 1980s, he devised a helpful subway mantra: Take the 5, stay alive. Take the 4, dead for sure.

Randy Kennedy

Slate

Also go to Backup Your Computer.

Jim

The best ways to back up your data by Farhad Manjoo

Alternatively, you can rent space remotely.

Several companies will let you park all your data on their servers for about $50 a year.

If your computer gets wiped out, you can just download all your saved files over the Internet.

Farhad Manjoo

Joseph Cornell

Image in the Box: From Cornell to Contemporary

Since the first-quarter of the twentieth-century, box construction has become a unique expressive device for many artists, as exemplified by the varied approaches of Joseph Cornell, Pierre Roy, Leo Rabkin, Lucas Samaras, Maureen McCabe, Elspeth Halvorsen, and Ted Victoria, seven artists featured in this exhibition.

Hollis Taggart Galleries

Martin Schoeller

Martin Schoeller - Close Up

A magnetic succession of stripped-down faces, straightforward portraits of the very famous and absolutely unknown, Close Up allows for a hypnotic exploration of the human face.

Martin Schoeller's portraits offer a study of characters rather than personalities while seeking to answer the basic question, what can you read in someone's face?

MediaStorm

Peter Watkins

Also go to Painting with Light.

Jim

Peter Watkins - Untitled [Trees]

Samantha Chrysanthou

Also go to Painting with Light.

Jim

Light Painting For Beginners: No Calculations Required by Samantha Chrysanthou

Back in the good 'ole film days, getting around the reciprocity problem (the degradation of the film's sensitivity with loss of light during exposure) required more advanced knowledge of exposure calculation.

With today's digital cameras, you can "guesstimate" your exposure and adjust as needed without having to expertly calculate exposure.

Although knowing more about exposure will always make you a better photographer, here is your cheat sheet for light painting made easy.

Samantha Chrysanthou

Ana Tokutake

the photographic dictionary

Joergen Geerds

Also go to Panoramic.

Jim

Joergen Geerds - New York Panorama