Hello, I Have A New Post

For those of you who read this blog on rss or get an email with the post in it you may be reading this now simply because I’ve never written a headline like that or because you have enough trust built over time that there’s usually something worth checking out. But, what if you didn’t know me. What if this was the first time you’ve ever heard of this blog. Would you still have a look?

I doubt it. And, yet I get emails from photographers all the time that simply say “Check out my new photos” or “New website up check it out” and I can’t figure out why you wouldn’t throw in a line or two explaining exactly what’s in there that’s worth checking out. Certainly, if I know you and like your work and I’ve been waiting 5 years for you to update your site then yes I’m headed there immediately but otherwise it just depends on what’s going on the day and the week the email arrives. I’m pretty sure people do it this way just in case I’m not interested in whatever you just took a picture of, so I will click anyway and discover what an awesome photographer you are. But, I know it would be way more effective if you simply said you updated your athlete portraits with a new group of hockey players shot in a portable studio (hey, I need someone who shoots athletes with a portable studio).

If we’re not there already, eventually it will get to the point where it’s just not possible to click on all the emails. I can’t imagine what the volume of marketing email is like now for photo editors and then art buyers get 10 times that, so do us all a favor, tell us about the pictures.

Rodale Publishes Nearly Up To Date Back Issues on Google

Looks like Rodale has some sort of partnership going with google or maybe they’re just giving in to the inevitable and allowing the scanning of all but the latest issues of the magazine. I found all these titles with the last 3 years of back issues available up to the November or December 2008 issue: Best Life, Men’s Health, Women’s Health, Bicycling, Prevention, Organic Gardening, Mountain Bike Magazine, Running Times and Runners World.

It’s somewhat ironic that a company with a stable of magazines that rely on dispensing the same advice year after year (how to get 6 pack abs!) would be the first to enter that information into a permanent database where anyone can look up content.

I’m not sure how the rights are going to be handled with this if at all. Publishers are already barred from selling the content to online databases (according to this) without renegotiation of the rights so I guess giving it away is the only way it can be done without paying extra. So, why is Rodale doing this? My only guess would be, to snag potential readers who might stumble on the content and discover they like it, but would rather have it delivered in the usual format.

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best-life

The Girl Project

The Girl Project explores the lives of American teenage girls by putting them behind the camera to document themselves. Using disposable cameras, girls 13-18 photograph their lives as only they know and understand it.

LOOK3 Festival Announces Lineup

LOOK3 will be held June 11-13 in Charlottesville, VA. The 3 featured artists for the 2009 festival are: Gilles Peress, Martin Parr, and Sylvia Plachy. Other photographers scheduled for participation are: Simon Bruty, Platon, Paolo Pellegrin, Tom Mangelsen, David Alan Harvey, James Nachtwey, Nina Berman, Larry Fink, Eugene Richards, Maggie Steber and Scott Thode.

More info at http://www.look3.org.

Mark Seliger Rip Off

It appears that Mexico has its very own Mark Seliger… well, they have a photographer who bought Mark’s Physiognomy book and tried to knock-off many of the setups for Mexican television company Televisa’s book featuring their on-air talent. The photos were taken by Gabriel Saavedra.

This blogger (here) broke the story several months ago.

Obviously simply copying an idea and setup doesn’t come close to making a picture work but it’s interesting to see how difficult it is in the comparison. The rigid attention to detail in Mark’s work really comes out here.

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Discovered it on You Thought We Wouldn’t Notice.

Time Lapse Everywhere

With the ease of assembling time lapse stop-motion videos on your computer from the bazillion still photos you can now effortlessly take, I predict we will all be sick of this by the end of the year. I’m still entertained:

Made by Tel Aviv photographer Eyal Landesman.

Found it on Bohemian and he’s got another cool video there too only this time with tilt-shift (here).

Portfolio Reviews

Over on Conscientious, Joerg delves into the world of portfolio reviews (here) which I mentioned in my post on perceived scams in the photography industry but didn’t really get into because of my limited experience with them. Overall there’s some great advice for potential reviewers and reviewees and I plan to report my own experiences with the process when I attend the Photo Lucida in April as a reviewer (I still need to write about the critical mass photographers I liked that didn’t make the cut).

Mary Virgina Swanson thinks the portfolio reviews are a better way to go than the contests (here):

“I become increasingly frustrated and in fact pessimistic about the value of entering many exhibition and/or publication competitions. The reproduction rights demanded from the winners, and more often now from those who simply apply, are frustrating, unnecessary and unfair. The physical space and the circumstances at the actual judging of the work can vary, within a physically environment that may not lend itself to optimum viewing of your work, or judges working remotely without a dialogue, or so few examples of your work presented that we can barely get to know your work.”

Post-Punk’s Visual Chronicler: Laura Levine

I probably could have made a nice living taking variations on the same photos over and over, but truthfully that wasn’t very interesting or challenging to me, from a creative point of view. At the same time, the industry was changing. I felt the focus was becoming more on style over substance – image, fashion, high-concept shoots. Celebrity culture. The makeup and clothing were the stars, not the artists. Some of my photo sessions evolved into huge productions, involving a dozen people on a sound stage. Once the novelty wore off, this didn’t interest me. In fact, towards the end I refused to shoot anyone unless it was just one-on-one – just me and them and maybe one assistant – preferably in natural light, as intimately as possible.

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From a 3 part interview with Laura Levine over on Rock Critics (here).

The Obama Hope Poster, Shepard Fairey and photographer Mannie Garcia

Now that the photographer of the image in the Obama poster has been found (here) fair-use debate can begin in earnest.

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Photographer Mannie Garcia had this to say over on Tom Gralish’s Philadelphia Inquirer photographer blog:

“Of the iconic poster he said, ‘I’ve been on the campaign for twenty something months, so I would see the artwork, I would photograph it, and think what is with this image? But it didn’t snap. It never occurred to me it was my picture. I thought, ‘that’s familiar.’ I would see it and say that’s cool, but it did keep sticking in my head.’ He was quick to add he is not mad at Fairey, and he’s not looking at any lawsuits. ‘I know artists like to look at things; they see things and they make stuff. It’s a really cool piece of work. I wouldn’t mind getting a signed litho or something from the artist to put up on my wall.'”

“I talked with him again this morning, and he is still proud his photo is the basis of the painting that now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, a part of the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, DC – the first portrait of the new president to enter the national collection.”

I followed a post by Carolyn E. Wright of the photo attorney blog where she brings up “thin copyright- where there is not much original copyrightable expression in a particular work” (here) to a discussion on Madisonian.net (here) where a commenter (Bruce Boyden) has this to say:
“The third and most difficult question is whether the copyrightable elements in the photo have been infringed by the poster.”

“To figure out the answer to that, you have to do more than just hold the images side by side. That’s because there’s a lot about the photo that is not the creative work of the photographer and therefore not copyrightable — and copying that stuff is not infringement. E.g., Obama’s face. Drawing Obama’s face does not infringe on this photo.”

“Once you’ve figured out the creative bits that the photographer contributed to the photo, the next step is to figure out if *those bits* have been substantially copied by the poster. ”

and Carolyn had a comment earlier in the thread where she says:

“It’s a common excuse for copyright infringement – the photo wasn’t anything special and anyone could have shot it. That begs the question – then why didn’t they?”

The Art Law blog has more (here) including this tidbit:

“”This would be a tough fair use argument to win because the ‘transformation’ is purely in the look of the work, not the purpose… campaign posters are certainly a reasonable and traditional market for licensed uses of photos, so there’d be a strong argument for market harm”

which leads to this from Time magazine (here):

“I would think Fairey would not have much trouble proving that it was his pulsing three-color reinterpretation of the Obama photo that elevated it from press conference news photo to icon.”

and finally a bunch of law professors get in on the debate (here):

“changes in color and style have been held not fair use before, see Rogers v. Koons”

I am of course fascinated by the debate… you may not be.

Chris Buck’s New Website

Chris has a new website and agent (here).

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A couple pictures I assigned made the cut which is always a thrill. You’d be surprised how often–over the years looking at websites and portfolios–pictures I assign don’t make the cut. This is actually a good thing. Anyway. I wanted to hook him up since he really let it all out with that interview a little while back.

Esquire Sells An Ad On The Cover

Not all that surprising given the state of media that Esquire decided to put an advertisement on the cover.
esquire-cover
I’m not so sure it’s a big deal, 99% or covers are crap designed to sell on the newsstand anyway.

Story over on Mixed Media (here).

New Newspaper Made Up of Blog Posts

This has to be the worst idea ever:

“The Printed Blog, a Chicago start-up, plans to reprint blog posts on regular paper, surrounded by local ads, and distribute the publications free in big cities.”
Story on the NYTimes (here).

The work prepares you for that moment

“When I’m asked about my work, I try to explain that there is no mystery involved. It is work. But things happen all the time that are unexpected, uncontrolled, unexplainable, even magical. The work prepares you for that moment.”
— Annie Leibovitz

Via, The Year In Pictures.

Obama Refuses To Give Journalists First White House Image

As a new President enters the White House, a new photo policy seem to emerge. Obama, or his administration, has broken tradition by making the first images of him in the Oval Office a handout.
Over on Bohemian (here). I think it’s a very important point he’s making.

The Biggest Scam In Photography

What’s the biggest scam in photography? Judging purely on angry comments I get and see (here’s some on PDN Pulse) when the topic is raised, it’s photo contests with portfolio reviews running a close second. Of course the first time I even mentioned contests on the blog I was caught a little off guard because I thought the system worked pretty well. Sure, I’ve been completely skunked before when I sent in what I thought was our best work (I’m talking photo editing here not pictures I’ve taken) but eventually we started winning and the awards paragraph on my resume began to fill up.

The two big contests in my opinion are American Photography (the book) and the PDN photography annual (World Press Photo is of course highly respected but there was never any reference to pull off the shelf when looking for photographers). Both have parties for the winners and the judges are always people you want to get your work in front of. I know that commercial photography has a couple that are highly respected as well (CA and Kelly Awards I think).

The reasons for entering a respected contest are clear. Getting your work in front judges, getting your work published if it wins, using the recognition as part of your marketing effort and attending a party to celebrate great photography. I can assure you that any photographers receiving recognition in the contests I mentioned got extra consideration for assignments. It’s simple reinforcement that the photographers work is good. They’re also used as a handy reference to pair the name of the photographer with the work you remember from the past year.

Recently a photographer brought the Billboard Photography Contest to my attention (here) because the deadline to announce winners had passed and he couldn’t find out who won. I made several inquiries myself and eventually got to John Gimenez of PDN Custom Media and Events who answered my emails but never got us closer to finding the results. Eventually they issued a new call for entries a put a link up to the past winners which only said coming soon. When I checked this morning it was finally working (here).

Upon, closer inspection of the new contest leads me to believe this one is purely for profit. I can’t figure out what the prizes are, who the judges are and paying extra for a deadline extension on digital entries is complete horseshit.

I think there’s room for improvement in photography contests or at least room for something completely different and innovative, but there are a couple hurdles to get over first.

1. There needs to be a barrier to entry. You can read what it’s like to plow through the 81,000 entries to World Press Photo (here). Usually the entry fee serves this purpose. If it’s high enough people limit the work they submit but this also limits the potential field.

2. You need to attract qualified judges. If you’ve ever sat in a room or at a computer screen and plowed through entries it doesn’t take long for the fatigue to creep in. This is work people. Getting busy photo editors to volunteer for this means the stuff they’re looking at needs to be of high quality.

3. The final product needs to be published in a way that’s useful to the community. From my own experience running a free promo contest on this blog, this is not easy. Getting busy creatives to look at hundreds of finalists from a contest they’ve never heard of is nearly impossible (a few people did land jobs because of it so it was ultimately successful).

Since 2009 will be the year when the media industry begins to remake itself you have to believe there are better ways to do everything. Photography contests seem like a good place to start.