April 2009 Archives

Talia Chetrit

Women in Photography

Danny Lyon

Also go to Danny Lyon.

Jim

Danny Lyon - Stubbornly Practicing His Principles of Photography by Randy Kennedy

Like Mr. Clark, who blurred the line between observer and participant and wanted to confront middle-class viewers with the American underclass, Mr. Lyon has made a peripatetic attempt to photograph people who are generally unseen or unwanted, even hated, and he has never been able to approach it with a journalist's distance.

When he began his motorcycle work in the mid-1960s while at the University of Chicago, he writes in the new book, "I was a bike rider, a photographer and a history student, probably in that order."

Randy Kennedy

Jake Garn

Also go to The Frame.

Jim

The Lazy Rule of Thirds

To find the real story behind the "rule of thirds" we need to go back in time, not to the renaissance, not to the Greeks, and not even to Adam nor Eve... even further.

We need to go to the creation of the universe, why is that?

Jake Garn

Martin Schoeller

Martin Schoeller by Charlie Fish

I spent an afternoon with photographer Martin Schoeller--known for his 'Close Up' series and his portraits of female bodybuilders.

The resulting piece delves into Martin's detail-minded approach to photography as well as his genuine approach to interacting with subjects.

Charlie Fish

Kajik

Professional Tips for Improving Photoshop's Performance by Kajik

In this tutorial, we'll take a look at the Photoshop Preferences to increase our Performance.

Kajik

Steven Meisel

Steven Meisel - the godfatherby Jonathan Van Meter

Before I worked with Steven, I just showed up in the clothes I was wearing, stood in front of the lights, and got my picture taken.

With Steven, a team of people descended on me, started to undress me.

Someone grabbed my hair, another grabbed my face, another started helping me try on various bits of clothes, and they all seemed to be speaking a language I didn't understand—the language of Steven Meisel.

Madonna

Laurie Simmons

Also go to The Pictures Generation, 1974-1984.

Jim

At the Met, Baby Boomers Leap Onstage by Holland Cotter

As for the art itself — painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, video, installation, prints and books by 30 artists, most of them still active and caught young here — it looks terrific.

Some of it has become famous.

But a lot of it hasn't been seen since it was made in the post-Vietnam 1970s.

Holland Cotter

Simple DoF Calculator

iPhone Apps for Photographers by Jennifer Wills

Most photographers love gadgets, which is why most camera bags have more than just cameras in them.

Now you can add the iPhone to your bag.

Jennifer Wills

SanDisk

Also go to Rob Galbraith's CF/SD Performance Database.

Jim

High-speed memory cards for cameras by QKim Komando

Counterfeiting is huge.

Maybe you picked up some counterfeit cards.

They would certainly be slower than the speed cited on the package. Also, the memory is probably low quality.

This can lead to corrupt data.

Kim Komando

Cecil Beaton

Also go to the exhibit at Chris Beetles.

Jim

Cecil Beaton - The Randy Dandy of Photography & Fashion

When obsessive vanity, insecurity and posturing are the guiding forces that propel you forward, it can be anything but attractive.

The Selvedge Yard

Steve Laskevitch

Also go to Printing.

Jim

Printing with Photoshop: Best Practices by Steve Laskevitch

The real challenge in printing is to accurately match your printer colors to the image colors. A print image may not accurately match the color of the image as displayed on your monitor, but it may if you follow the three key steps of Color Management . . .

Steve Laskevitch

Richard A. Dewater photographed by Tyler Hicks

Tyler Hicks & C.J. Chivers - An Ambush and a Comrade Lost

Possibly NSFW (Emotional Impact)

Bob Krist

Bob Krist - A Focus on Storytelling by Molly Baker

In any photograph, we look for three elements — good light, good composition and a sense of moment.

That's easy to say in one sentence, but you try getting those three elements in one photo, and it's really hard.

We work toward those three goals from a technical end in any class or workshop we do, and then you work on trying to make people more sensitive travelers from a cultural end.

Bob Krist

Karlheinz Jardner

Karlheinz Jardner - East Germany, Up Close and Personal

West German photographer Karlheinz Jardner took fascinating photos during a trip through East Germany in the spring of 1990, capturing a world that would soon disappear forever.

Spiegel

James T. Johnathan

James T. Johnathan - A Long-Ago Bay Shore, and the Man Who Captured It by Robin Finn

The trove of photographs taken by Mr. Johnathan from 1916, when he moved east to Bay Shore from Harlem with his wife, Lucy, until his death here in 1966 explored the essence of an internally diverse and outwardly serene hamlet in the early 20th century.

His eye was generous and rarely judgmental.

Robin Finn

Todd Heisler

Jim Romano - The Tabloid Photographer by J. David Goodman

Shruti Goradia

The Growing Belly by Shruti Goradia

One of the most memorable things I did while I was pregnant was to capture the growing belly in pictures.

Shruti Goradia

Barbara Bordnick

"If you sell yourself cheap, you will never get out of that hole." - Barbara Bordnick

Good negotiating skills are critical to the success of any independent photographer, yet this talent is frequently not what comes naturally to us.

Listen to some tips and insights on this difficult issue.

ASMP

Smithsonian Photography Initiative

Smithsonian Photography Initiative - click! Photography Changes Everything

click! photography changes everything is a collection of essays and stories by invited contributors and visitors like you discussing how photography shapes our culture and our lives.

Smithsonian Photography Initiative

Éric Tourneret

Éric Tourneret - The Bee Photographer

Andrew Bush

Andrew Bush - Driving While Standing Still by Rosecrans Baldwin

Begun in 1989, Andrew Bush's "Vector Portraits" combine performance with portraiture and a disconcerting measure of intimacy in a series where the artist took portraits of other drivers—often at 70 miles per hour—with a medium-format camera attached to the passenger side of his car.

Rosecrans Baldwin

Nina Barry & Josh Shayne

Nina Barry & Josh Shayne - Minty Forest Photo Project

Josh and Nina are two friends.

Every day, they each take a photo.

Operating under a pact of absolute secrecy, neither knows what the other is working on.

Each morning, they post their photos on Minty Forest side by side.

The results are often surprising — not least to the photographers themselves.

Minty Forest Photo Project

Paul Graham

Paul Graham - Quiet Ripples by Morgan Meis

But photography plays the other side of the field as well.

That's because photography is in league with the ephemeral.

Photography loves the mundane, the seemingly inconsequential.

Especially as the technology got simpler to use, photography became the great art of the passing moment.

The snapshot is the friend of the Becoming people.

Morgan Meis

Joe Farace

Monochrome Plug-Ins; From Color To Black & White In A Few Steps by Joe Farace

One of the reasons photographic purists usually refer to black and white prints as "monochrome" is that it's a more precise descriptive term that also covers images produced in sepia and other tones.

There is much more to black and white photography than simply an absence of color.

Joe Farace

Jon Sienkiewicz

Do You Know Your SBA?; The "Shake Begins At" Level And Image Quality BY Jon Sienkiewicz

Do you know your SBA?

You should.

SBA means "Shake Begins At"—the level at which camera movement makes your images lose the sharpness battle.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that you're shake-proof just because your camera or lens has built-in Image Stabilization (IS).

Jon Sienkiewicz

Hiroshi Sugimoto

Also go to Hiroshi Sugimoto.

Jim

Hiroshi Sugimoto - Lightning Fields BY Christopher Turner

Talbot's images were often tinted lavender, lemon yellow, fire orange, and purplish brown by the chemicals with which he experimented.

Sugimoto has been trying to mimic the methods Talbot used and many of his prints, or "retracings" as Talbot referred to them, are also toned with these rich hues.

Christopher Turner

Milton Rogovin

Also go to Milton Rogovin.

Jim

Review: Milton Rogovin: The Making of a Social Documentary Photographer vy Jörg Colberg

Milton Rogovin is one of those underappreciated photographers.

His work could maybe be termed the photographic equivalent of Studs Terkel's radio shows: Rogovin took photos of people who worked hard for their money and who often were very poor.

Jörg Colberg

Hungry: Living with Prader-Willi Syndrome

10 Tips for Dramatically Improving Your Videojournalism Stories by Ken Kobré & Jerry Lazar

The problem with many videojournalism stories is that they are neither good video, good journalism, nor good stories.

Based on common flaws we continually bemoan, we offer these 10 simple pointers for videojournalists who want to dramatically improve their work in all these arenas.

Ken Kobré & Jerry Lazar

One Man Band

Q & A: Lucy Nicholson by KobreGuide

I learned to not record video and audio indiscriminately, to think about specific shots needed for an edit and deliberately plan how best to get them.

To always use a tripod for video (where possible) and headphones for audio.

Lucy Nicholson

Vadim Isako

Vadim Isako - Visual storytelling tips by Mindy McAdams

The presentation comes from Vadim Isako, who teaches journalism at Ithaca College in New York.,/p>

Mindy McAdams

Danny Outlaw

50 Totally Free Lessons in Graphic Design Theory by Danny Outlaw

While many of us can create something that looks good in Photoshop or attractive when spliced into CSS, but do we actually understand the design theory behind what we create?

Theory is the missing link for many un-trained but otherwise talented designers.

Here are 50 excellent graphic design theory lessons to help you understand the 'Whys', not just the 'Hows'.

Danny Outlaw

Adam Bartos

Yard Sale Photographs by Adam Bartos by Mr. Whiskets

My boredom that day vanished when I discovered a man selling dozens of issues of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine off the back of a pickup truck.

I cherished those magazines so greatly that the second issue I owned was gotten by way of a lapse in ethics when I stole it literally out of the hands of a mildly retarded kid at my school named David.

Mr. Whiskets

Francisco Mata

Francisco Mata

Francisco Mata

Mark Brautigam

The 50 States Project

Each photographer lives in one of the 50 States and during the year long project each photographer will represent the State where they live.

Every two months each photographer will be sent an assignment by e-mail, they then have two months to produce one image in response.

The images must represent both their style and the State in which they live.

50 States Project

Ansel Adams

Dave Brubeck: Composing Ansel Adams by Paul Conley

Now another American icon has taken Adams' photographs and set them to music.

Pianist and jazz legend Dave Brubeck has co-written a new orchestral work with his son, Chris, titled "Ansel Adams: America."

Paul Conley

Alain Briot

Finding Inspiration by Alain Briot

How do you find inspiration?

This question, which may seem benign at first, is important because inspiration is at the origin of any work of art.

As we will see in this essay, and later in the following 3 essays, inspiration is the spark that motivates an artist to create new work.

It is the spark that, in turn, will lead this artist to formulate a vision for his work, a vision that will eventually define his personal style.

Alain Briot

Hardie Truesdale

Hardie Truesdale: A Hudson River Journey and Beyond by Peter Skinner (PDF)

Brian Synder

On Audio Slide Shows... by Mark Johnson

It's time we stop playing with audio slide shows and start telling stories with them.

Mark Johnson

Stanley Leary

Still Images Plus Audio Can Be More Effective Than Online Video by Stanley Leary

In this post, I will make the argument that multimedia slideshows can be a more effective way of communicating than online video.

Stanley Leary

Collection of Rodger Kingston

Democratic Vistas: Vernacular Photography and the Common Man by Rodger Kingston

This was no accident; Newhall's vision was to make photography acceptable to the art world, to present photographs as art to an audience—and primarily a museum audience—that was not inclined to think of it that way.

That his history emphasizes those photographic genres that support the argument for photography as art, and plays down or ignores those that don't, should therefore surprise no one.

Rodger Kingston

Jim Hoerricks

Forensic Photoshop by Jim Hoerricks

An on-going discussion of the forensic uses of Adobe's Photoshop.

Forensic Photoshop includes tips, how-tos, step-by-steps, and advanced techniques for using Photoshop in a forensic workflow.

Questioned Document Examiners, Forensic Video Analysts, Latent Print Examiners, and Image Analysts can all find something here.

Jim Hoerricks

Mark H. Dunkelman Collection

Also go to Amos Humiston: Union Soldier Who Died at the Battle of Gettysburg, Gettysburg's Unknown Soldier: The Life, Death, and Celebrity of Amos Humiston, & This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War.

Jim

Whose Father Was He? (Part One) by Errol Morris

The soldier's body was found near the center of Gettysburg with no identification — no regimental numbers on his cap, no corps badge on his jacket, no letters, no diary.

Nothing save for an ambrotype (an early type of photograph popular in the late 1850s and 1860s) of three small children clutched in his hand.

Errol Morris

David White

Robert Howlett and the Power of Photography

This is the seldom told story of Robert Howlett, the photographic pioneer with the modern eye who in his short life came to understand what a powerful effect the still image can have on the public imagination.

Photo Histories