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The photo editors from Wired Magazine have chosen their favorite photos of 2007. They made sure to be clear that these are their favorite photos not necessarily the "best" photos (whatever that means). I'll be honest, I only really like, either from an artistic or a technical standpoint, 3 out of their 10.
It is with great pleasure and greater pride that we present the winning entries of our second annual American Photo Images of the Year Competition. Many photography contests are held around the world each year, but the Images of the Year Competition is unique in the breadth of photography it showcases, from photojournalism to fine art, from advertising work to student work, from nature photography to wedding photography. The competition represents in the strongest terms American Photo's commitment to finding and publishing the best photography in the world, from professional photographers and amateurs alike.
Winners include Annie Leibovitz in the Commercial Work category, Martin Schoeller in the Portraits/Wedding category and Michael Kamber in Photojournalism.
I won't argue at all with the portrait or commercial winners. That Sopranos image? Classic. Clooney? Same thing. Is it wrong to admit that that is the kind of photography that appeals to me most right now? Naturally the photojournalism winner is stunning but I find I don't have the internal fortitude to experience much work like that these days.
The Los Angeles Times has a moving story about the impact a single photograph on both the subject and the photographer and the connection it forged between them.
Times photographer Luis Sinco made James Blake Miller an emblem of the war. The image would change both of their lives and connect them in ways neither imagined.
CNET has a very interesting interview with Neal Krawetz, founder of computer security firm Hacker Factor. Of late Krawetz has turned his attention to digital images and the truths and lies they tell. This is particularly interesting to me in a journalism context.
Take USA Today. Every now and again, they put up pictures of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. And they will modify the pictures. I'm not sure who's modifying the pictures--whether it's the photographer submitting it or the intern who's putting them together or someone else at USA Today--but they'll modify it to increase the brightness, for example, on Hillary.When you increase brightness on a picture, you bring out all the things like wrinkles that really aren't attractive. And they'll soften the picture on Barack Obama to make it look better.
And on helping publications avoid "modified" images.
In my talk, I actually give some pointers for the mass media like Reuters. If they really want to publish pictures that have been unmodified, here's how you can tell. One way is to use quantization table fingerprinting.If the picture claims to be from a digital camera, and the quantization tables, which are used for compressing the image, don't match the camera, then you know that it's been manipulated. If Reuters had done that, it would have caught the fake photos.
Of course virtually every digital image, just like every darkroom developed image, is going to have some level of modification and manipulation. Burning, dodging, contrast, etc.. The question for me in terms of photojournalism is does it alter the fundamental truth and story of the photo. Photoshopping out a power line crosses that line between truth and fiction for me whereas upping the contrast a bit doesn't. I don't envy the photo editors that have to draw that line between truth and fiction but the lines do have to be drawn. As we've discussed before there are just too many instances of photographers in photojournalism situations taking huge leaps over that truth/fiction line to ignore the problem.
A brief apology for the radio silence. I was moving across state lines and getting settled in my new house. Onward.
The NY Times Circuits section is all about digital photography today and includes some really interesting stuff. Particularly interesting articles are It Isn't That Images Fade, It's That They Can Vanish about image loss with inkjet prints, When Are Photos Like Penny Stocks? When They Sell about microstock photography and Sharing a Hobby, Online and in Person.
After the NY Times article discussion last week it seems kind of appropriate to take about an article that's actually focused on baby photography. A pretty good article in the Kansas City Star looks at how baby photography has evolved of late and some of the more popular trends in it.
BABY PHOTO TRENDS
- Black and white with little background. Parents wear black form-fitting shirts.
- Dads — often with tattoos — holding their babies.
- Outdoor settings, especially on antique furniture.
- Overlaying digital photos with graphic design elements such as script and scrolls.
- Modern pops of color, especially pink, grass green, aqua blue or yellow.
- Documentary photo shoots at home.
Oh, Baby: Infant photographers are focusing more on the child these days
National Press Photographers Association has an interesting article about Alan Kim, the photographer for The Roanoke Times whose photographs from Virginia Tech have become, I think, the most used and seen photographs from Monday's events.
via Rob Galbraith
OK that title is a little disingenuous but the article in question is more than a little condescending and deserving of mocking. In Sunday's business section the New York Times published Baby on Board, and a Photography Business, Too about women who come to photography as a business after photographing their own children, expanding to their friends and then beyond. For women that approach photography as a business this is actually not a bad business model to follow. They find out they love something, they do it first only out of love and then gradually expand their pursuit into a money making venture. As the article pointed out many of these women do have other jobs that pay their bills so they can start small, with just a few clients and low rates, and still turn a profit. If they are serious about photography as a business and have talent and determination their potential for growth and success is pretty limitless.
That's not really the article's point though. Actually I don't think the article has much of a point but I'll share the impression that I got from the article "oh look isn't it cute how women can now be photographers, well photographers of children, because cheap, easy to use digital cameras make it so simple for them. It's so cute as long as it doesn't hurt, you know "real" photographers too much."
"Lots of mom-with-a-camera businesses fail because they try to do it around the edges," said Mrs. Brophy, who has a preschool-age daughter and two teenagers and works as director of external relations at the Warner School of the University of Rochester in addition to running her weekend photography business. "Plus, women face a business dilemma when they have to ask their husbands if they can buy a new camera."Emphasis mine.
A more interesting article would have been about new photographers in general who have come to photography because cheaper equipment and digital technologies have removed some of the previous barriers to photography both as an art and a business. This article also could have focused on how many of these new photographers are establishing portrait businesses because it's a more direct route to actually making money than say advertising photography, the pennies for picture microstock business model, or the decidedly small travel and landscape market. If you had to have the "Moms with a camera angle" the article could have focused on women who use the profits from their portrait businesses to give them the time and equipment to pursue other artistic photography pursuits, or used the profits to decrease their "normal" working hours and have more time with their kids and families. But no, pitting "Mom's with cameras" against "real professional" photographers is so much easier and much more fun and turning up your nose at digital photography for the supposed glory days of film is much better as well.
< / sarcasm>
"A man only comes to my studio when a woman decides that she wants a picture of him. So if moms are driving all the photo sales, then it makes sense that all these new photographers armed with digital cameras are moms." - Kirk Voclain
Tags: photography, mwac, portrait photography
Thomas Hawk has written a nice tutorial on shooting concerts. Well not so much on shooting concerts as how to be allowed to shoot concerts. He's got information about getting photo passes, being a polite concert photographer and lots of other things related to shooting a concert for non-commercial purposes.
So You Want to Shoot a Rock and Roll Star
Commenter Daniel Boud left a link to a more technical article he recently wrote about concert photography:
Concert Photography Masterclass
Concert Photography Masterclass Part 2
Boud is an incredible photographer of bands and live music. If this is an area of interest for you you'd do well to read his article and study his work and his blog. It's really excellent stuff.
PopPhoto's State of the Art blog has a really interesting entry about the Israeli Security Wall, how photojournalists are drawn to it and specifically Kai Wiedenhöefer's new book about it title simple The Wall.
