Category: Blog News

From the comments in the newly helmed Magnum blog:

“When the photographers ask you why they should participate in such a thing, what’s the answer?”

What a great question Mike. Here is my thinking in a nutshell:

If Magnum is still around in ten years, I think it will be because Magnum has learned how to become its own producer. Rather than waiting for some new online magazine to rise from the ashes of print media, Magnum has the opportunity to become its own content-provider. But to do this, Magnum needs to learn how to work in quick-moving media like this blog. I see the Magnum Blog as a kind of training camp for things to come. (Such as InSight, but more on this later).

Comment posted by Alec Soth on October 20, 2008

Bloomsbury Auctions has all the photographs they’re selling tomorrow up on Ebay Live Auctions. Kinda fun to browse and look at the prices and information about the edition/condition (here).

“McCain’s proposal: complaints about videos uploaded by a political campaign would be manually reviewed by a human YouTube employee before any possible removal of the remix. The process for complaints against videos uploaded by millions of other Americans would stay the same: instant removal by a computer program, and then possible reinstatement a week or two later after the video sharing site has received and manually processed a formal counter-notice.”

Story on CNET (here). What’s interesting is that the writer thinks McCain and other politicians might try and revamp copyright law if they are forced to suffer through DMCA takedown notices like the rest of us. Google is taking a hard stand on this because they would like nothing better.

Thanks Ziv.

The week of November 15-22, 2008 will mark the launch of FotoWeek DC, the first annual gathering of a diverse and wide-ranging photography community in the nation’s capital. http://www.fotoweekdc.org/

Abbey Ryan paints a small oil painting a day, posts them on her blog (here), then sells them on ebay. She’s been doing it for over a year. Genius. Any photographers doing this yet?

Via, Boing Boing.

Very intriguing documentary on women artists found over on Amy Stein’s blog (here).

A sign of the times?

From the story in AdAge (here):
“It continues to send reporters to overseas bureaus. It covers seething conflicts in places like Russia and Georgia before they become hot wars. It follows the trends that increasingly shape life in the U.S. before Americans declare them important.”

Artist talk at The Art Institute of Chicago (here).

Via, Shane Lavalette.

Kathy Fuld, the art-collecting wife of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. Chief Executive Officer Richard Fuld, is selling a $20 million set of rare Abstract Expressionist drawings at a November auction, according to two art dealers.

Via, MAO.

Photographer Jim Goldstein has a discussion about Orphan Works with fellow photographers Chase Jarvis, Dan Heller and John Harrington (here).

Press Release: “LIFE.com will offer access to thousands of new photographs from Getty Images’ award-winning photographers, including today’s news, entertainment, sports, celebrities, travel, animals and many others. Consumers will also have access to millions of images from LIFE magazine, many of which have never been seen by the public.”

“When the site launches in early 2009, consumers will be able to interact intimately with imagery, including printing select photos, sharing photos with friends and family, playing the popular LIFE Picture Puzzle, creating collections of photos around special interests and purchasing photo albums of user-made collections. Through the site, consumers can view the photos the world is talking about by searching for recently added photos or viewing photos by topic. Searching for and viewing images on the site will be absolutely free.”

Thanks Allison.

Mark Porter creative director of The Guardian, has a blog on editorial design (here) with interesting commentary on the The Independent and wsj.com redesigns. He claims in his bio that, “the 2005 redesign which I was responsible for is widely acknowledged as the most important newspaper design project of the last 20 years.” I was unaware.

Via, MagCulture.

The Reaper over at “Magazine Death Pool” has good analysis over which magazines we might find at the end of the year headed “for that great big recycling center in the sky” (here).

“Back in class, Quigley tells us we have to remember to bring in the hard copy of the New York Times every week. I take a deep sigh. Every single journalism class at NYU has required me to bring the bulky newspaper. I don’t understand why they don’t let us access the online version, get our current events news from other outlets, or even use our NYTimes app on the iPhone. Bringing the New York Times pains me because I refuse to believe that it’s the only source for credible news or Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism and it’s a big waste of trees.”

Via, Mediashift and thanks to Steve Gomes.

A device made by Plastic Logic is twice the size of the Kindle at the same weight (here).
Thanks Damon.

Solid coverage of the socializing at Perpignan (here). Thanks Davin.

Paul Melcher had this to say:

“The best and most incredible event of this year VISA was probably the projections open to everyone, on a giant screen, in the Place de La Republique. The attendance was spectacular. It seemed that the whole city of Perpignan was there, forgetting the comfort of their homes and TV, to sit and watch great images. At a time when everyone screams the death of photojournalism, this was a nightly slap in their mouth. And it should make us wonder. If people are so hungry to see great photography, who is really killing photojournalism ? The public enjoys it, photographers are producing it, agencies are making it available, so why this slow disappearance?”
[…]
“Some agencies have seen their best year ever in 2008 and are very optimistic about the future.”

Read it (here).

Wired continues to amaze me with their behind the scenes blog on the making of a magazine story. If you’ve never seen the edit on the first draft of a story go have a look (here).