Intended Consequences

So, I absolutely love MediaStorm. My favorites thus far: Evidence of My Existence, which Mark talked about way back when, and Ivory Wars. Oh, and for the Radiohead fans among us, there's a great video to "Creep."

I was totally blown away by their last post, "Intended Consequences." It's about the women who survived the Rwandan genocide and had children from rape. Sex has been used as a weapon for a long time, but I don't think that I've ever heard a story that captured the emotions so well.

Seriously, watch it. Watch the individual stories. Then, watch the photographer talking about his reactions and the process of getting the interviews.

Torgovnik, the photographer, raises an interesting question. He says that all photographers are activists. They have to be.

What do you think?

Fail Faster

This article on "How to Fail as a Photojournalist" is really interesting for those of you who are looking to succeed in photojournalism. Allen Murabayashi wrote this as how the advice we usually hear can be turned around in order to make money, in his opinion. 

ELECTION WOOHOO

Who are the people of America? What are we thinking? What makes us angry and frustrated? What gives us hope? Are some of us really all blue and some all red? Or are we mostly shades of purple? What is the American Dream today?

From http://insight.magnumphotos.com, an explanation of a project called Insight America. More:

InSight America is an innovative documentary project that aims to explore these questions on the eve of one of the most important elections in American history. Calling on the talents of some of the world’s most respected photojournalists, using the Web to update their observations daily, InSight America is a collage of personal investigations and reflections that attempts to capture the things preoccupying Americans during the weeks leading to Election Day.

In honor of Halloween...

I know it is a week early, but seriously Halloween is my absolute favorite. Check out these clowns.

More costumes..

Happy Halloween. I get a little excited.

081020: day before deadline

"Oh hey what's up. Yeah I'm Glenn, I'm just chillin w my shades. Hey Danielle you're doing Housing Rocks the Vote too? I know, Tate plaza sucks so bad."

"Hello Amanda, come sit on this bench and commiserate with us because nothing is happening. In fact I think they're packing up those tables over there."

"Greetings Beth, I love your shirt but please go away and don't shoot this event because Mark will be pissed when he sees like 7 sets of the same pix!!!!"

Aaaand Frannie!!

Polling Place Photo Project

The NY Times is gettin' on the ball with campaign photo stories... only this one is of a different sort. Here's what the site says of their project:

The Polling Place Photo Project is a nationwide experiment in citizen journalism that encourages voters to capture, post and share photographs of this year’s primaries, caucuses and general election. By documenting local voting experiences, participants can contribute to an archive of photographs that captures the richness and complexity of voting in America.

Check it out, it's pretty interesting! http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Berlin Festival of Lights

I want to travel to Berlin before the Festival of Lights ends! These photos are beautiful and I want to see the city lit up in person!   Does anyone want to join me?

His McCain, Her Obama

I ironically stumbled across this after our brainstorming in class today. It's a video on the StL Dispatch site about a couple: he's for McCain, she's for Obama, and each put out a candidate sign in their yard. It gets a little cheesy, but overall it's interesting how they told the story and just focused strictly on this couple. This is for you Glenn.

Election Memorabilia

I came across these pictures and thought they were kind of funny, and since we are doing some election coverage, it seemed fitting.  No real hard hitting journalistic coverage,  just some "detail" shots.  

Interesting...

I came across this Australian photographer, Magdalena Bors, who creates magical and scenic things in her home with household items and then captures them in photos.  I thought it was cool to see the weird and cooky things people do...and this is definitely one of them!     

Born Into Brothels: Documentary Film

Remember my post about Wendy Ewald and her book, "I Wanna Take Me a Picture"? 

Well,  Zana Briski took the same idea to the brothels of Calcutta India and later made a documentary film, titled "Born Into Brothels," of her experience.  Briski teaches photography classes to the children of prostitutes, gaining unbelievable access into their lives through the photographs they take. The children's photographs illuminate the way they see the world through the stories that they choose to tell with their camera. 

Briski later established a non-profit called Kids with Cameras that has spread this teaching method across the world. 

My favorite quote from the Kids with Cameras website: "We believe that photography is an effective tool in igniting children's imagination and building self esteem." Not the definition of photography from a journalist's perspective, I know, but, the documentary is a very effective journalistic tool to tell the story of these children in the red-light district of  Calcutta. 

I really recommend this documentary if you have not seen it already. I know Vision Video has it for rent.

Joe McNally

I remember Mark talking on Tuesday about working with Joe McNally on a diner shoot (almost positive we're both talking about the same guy, but someone please correct me if I'm wrong), and I got a little curious.

Well, I found his blog. It's not strictly business, but I loved reading the stories behind the photos. That, and you get a really good sense of McNally as a person. The first post is actually a farewell to Joe from one of his assistants. It's so cool to read about his experiences working with McNally. Read it! It could be one of us one day.

This is probably one of my favorite photos:


I love the light, love the motion. Plus, one of the photos after it shows where McNally was (in the water). Cool!

P.S. If you make it to the end of the first page of the blog, there's a pretty funny story about airplane sabotage.

"If your photographs aren't good enough, you're not close enough."

Sometimes when I'm bored I like to go to the magnum photos site and pick a photographer and fiddle through his/her portfolio. Magnum was created in part by Robert Capa in the 40s. Along with the portfolios you can check out some of the photo essays compiled on the site. They also post blogs from some of the photographers talking about some of the pictures they've made, their history, some of the intimate details and tidbits from certain assignments. It's pretty cool and interesting to hear what was going on in some of their heads while making certain pictures.

Gainesville Sun Phlog

Photographers for the Gainesville Sun have a photo blog where they post pics and slideshows of things they shoot for the paper. It's nice because sometimes they'll add a little backstory blurb about the idea/technique behind the photo, besides just the caption. Also they run the pics sort of huge like the Boston Globe's blog, which I like. They haven't updated since August which makes me sad, but I guess that means they're nice and busy. I like the black-and-white slideshow about Hurricane Fay in the most recent entry.

--edit
So after looking through all the archives, I realized that all the posts that made me say Wow in my head (like "Wow," in my head, not "Wow in my head." That would be silly) were made by staff photog Brandon Kruse. So I found his photo blog. It's rad, you should go see. Also is updated more frequently.

---edit edit
Ok so for the past two weeks I've totally slacked on the blog posts but tonight for some reason I'm on fire. Getty just decided to give 4 grants of $5,000 each for editorial photography to students currently enrolled in photojournalism courses. Info and application here. You have to have a story proposal of up to 500 words (hey maybe you could just tinker with your Alexia one!) and upload a portfolio of 20-25 images onto their ftp thinger. Submission guidelines are very specific, make sure you follow. Deadline November 15.

AND one more thing. A Photo A Day.

Politics

Political Coverage....
I just think this is funny. It deviates from the normal pictures.

http://www.time.com/time/picturesoftheweek

The other pictures are interesting too. Especially the stock market one.

More Racing... But, Motorcycles This Time.

Maybe everyone is a little tired of vehicles moving really fast and maybe even more so of me posting links to the Boston Globe Big Picture blog... but, I can't help myself! These were too awesome! The Boston Globe is in Australia at the 2008 Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix. 

Yes, that's right. There is a seagull in front of these motorcycles! Take a look at the rest. 

Photo Contest!!!

Hiya!

Got an email about an International Photo Contest (read: International Photo. Contest.) hosted by the study abroad office. If you have pics you have taken abroad and would like to share, do it!

There is usually a dinner and slideshow for all the entrants--don't quote me on that though--and the winner(s) get...a really warm feeling inside and ego padding. Click here for more info.

P.S. Thanks to the wonder of drag-and-drop, I have pilfered one of the examples for you to see that if THIS is advertisement, chances are, anything any of you throw in will WIN. Lol. No offense to the photographer.

Fill and Diffuse

A short video that talks about using reflectors and diffusers. If you're heading into a world of more portraits, good to pay attention.

Photographers in Focus

In the spirit of "A Day in the Life," I came across a website called liveBooks.com. The series is called "Photographers in Focus," and they interview photographers from all over the spectrum: from art photography to serious photojournalism.

My favorite quote is from the newest interview with Colin Finlay. He's a photojournalist. I really like this (except for the sort of cheesy music in the beginning).

He talks about how people ask if it's hard for him to do what he does, to photograph people in abject poverty and suffering. It isn't hard, according to Finlay. He simply said: "It's not about me anymore. It's about the people I'm photographing."

Political Project

Some inspiration for the ensuing project..maybe this will help with ideas for more pics...

Best of Multimedia Site

Ken Kobre, who also happens to be the author of our text book, has started a new site, which he calls "'an online guide to the Web's best video and multimedia journalism – or, as we call it, the Web's most moving stories.'" He adds that it "will focus on 'handpicked, high-quality documentary-style journalism' that is being produced primarily by major media outlets 'and is frustratingly difficult for consumers to find.'"Anyway, it's definitely worth checking out when scouring the web for cool, interesting multimedia stories!

different take on photos

just a little different look at photography after our long weekend at the track! yesterday was great, team! can't wait to see everyone's pictures from the race!


http://view.break.com/534274 - Watch more free videos

Morgan posted a photo story from this blog earlier, but I wanted to draw everyone's attention back to this site. The Boston Globe features a blog called The Big Picture that posts new photo stories almost every day. They are always really good. 

Take a look at this story of sapphire mining in Madagascar- it is beautifully shot. The humanity of the miners is really captured in these shots, as well as the conditions of their workplace. 

totally journalism

Hey yall before I pass out and sleep until Tuesday I just wanted to direct your attention to this cool multimedia piece I found about the coming of autumn and autumn-related autumnal activities people do.

ps. if I stay up like 4 more hours I'll have been awake for 24 hours!

Ghost Town

So I know there are no people in these photographs, but the name of the essay is called Ghost Town...quite appropriate I think. The pictures are still good without people, plus it gets the photographer's point across.

Look for Ghost Town...but the other ones are cool too.

http://www.nppa.org/competitions/monthly_news_clip_contest/view_winners.php?c=10&d=Jun&t=FMP&r=5&p=3rd&i=76255

Documentary Photography

I was perusing a slideshow that the NPPA did on photojournalism websites and noticed that most of the photos in the slideshow that caught my eye were from blueeyesmagazine.com. This is a website that was created by a group of Missouri Journalism graduates in 2003. They dedicate the site to independent (mainly still) documentary work. The stories cover a range of social, political, intl., and environmental issues and (most importantly) welcome and encourage submissions from young photojournalists. It's a good way to check out what other new photogs are capturing.

Time Lapse Love

We're on a common racing theme nowdays. :)

So, while wasting time online I came across a site called vimeo.com. It's like an upscale youtube, with full quality and some high definition stuff too. What's really interesting about the site is that it seems like most of the contributors are serious photographers and videographers.

Some of the things I liked:


Twin Peaks San Francisco Sunrise (HDR time-lapse) from Chad Richard on Vimeo.

And more time lapse:

Enjoy!

Motor Racing Photography Tips

I don't know about you guys... but I'm just a little worried about making good photos at the race on Saturday. So I searched around the net and found a few good sites with tips on how to better prepare for what we'll encounter on the track.

• WikiHow offers a good general "how to" along with tips and warnings.
• Emotive Images provides a couple different articles with things to think about.
• The New York Institute of Photography has an in-depth article about how professional race photographer, Bruce Miller, goes about it.

Take a look. Hopefully some of these will help us mentally prepare ourselves, but I've got this feeling that we'll just have to figure it out as we go. Should be a good time!