Images With Value

Mar 19, ’20 11:25 AM

What is the purpose of a photograph? In our field, we have several standard answers – to tell a story, to inform our community, to evoke a response.

To me, I use a camera not to make pictures but to share ideas, to raise questions and, hopefully, to answer some. I make pictures of things I don’t understand or haven’t seen before. I try not to make photos of things that others have photographed often, but that doesn’t mean I don’t photograph what is around everyone – as a trained observer of the human condition, I try to photograph things that are present but not necessarily known.

Over at The Online Photographer, Mike Johnston writes about the types of images he wants to look at – which is sometimes different than the types of images he makes.

I suppose the most telling question I would ask of a photograph is, why should I look at this? Why should this picture interest me? Or, to put it the correct way ’round: why should anyone else look at this? Why should this picture interest someone else?

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The Court House Press Corps

Feb 25, ’20 2:01 PM

Ever wonder who is covering a major news event? The Associated Press’ Mary Altaffer turned her cameras on her colleagues who have been working inside the Manhattan court house where Harvey Weinstein was tried.

It not very glamorous but it is very important.

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Looking Back at Joe Rosenthal’s Iwo Jima Photo

Feb 23, ’20 7:56 AM

Seventy five years ago today, Joe Rosenthal made made, perhaps, the most iconic photograph – the flag raising over Iwo Jima.

There have been many stories written and told about what happened that day, from how he heard about the planned flag raising to whether he posed the photo (he didn’t, let’s be clear). I’ve talked about this photo almost every semester that I’ve been teaching (and, having worked from various readings and talks I attended, got a few elements wrong), but the Associated Press has put together an extraordinary package about the making of the photo, its impact and the man behind it.

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Dorothea Lange and Her Role Developing Modern Photojournalism

Feb 16, ’20 12:27 PM

Well worth reading: Alice Gregory at The New York Times’ Style Magazine takes a look at the role of Dorothea Lange in the growth of photojournalism as the Museum of Modern Art opens their second retrospective on her.

Sigh … I may have to go to New York again …

Her contemporary Ansel Adams called her pictures “both records of actuality and exquisitely sensitive emotional documents.” She was an artist under the guise of a journalist and an activist under the guise of a dispassionate civil servant, and it would be impossible to think of any of these roles today without her influence.

And this section, written about her final months:

Lange was only eating soft foods by this point and rarely ventured outside. She kept a camera around her neck, though, “for health,” and continued to take photographs — of her house, of her family.

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Stocking Canadians

Jan 28, ’20 10:15 PM

There are days I am so proud of my Canadian heritage. (Even if it’s phenomenally flimsy heritage.)

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A Sense of Interiority

Jan 15, ’20 7:27 PM

There are many great quotes in this interview with Dawoud Bey, but this resonated deeply with me:

African-Americans in photographs have very often been viewed through a lens of social pathology. So, I wanted to respond to that kind of representation by making photographs that conveyed a deep, complex humanity.

I want there to be real sense of interiority, to go beneath the surface.

We talk about making images with intentionality quite a bit, now I’ll add interiority to the conversation.

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Eyes of History Student Competition

Jan 13, ’20 11:01 AM

Entries are open for the White House News Photographers Association’s Eyes of History competition – a great chance to get your work in front of DC folks.

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“That’s My Profession, To Look”

Jan 2, ’20 8:04 AM

Robert Frank died in September of 2019 and he made The New York Times Magazine’s end of year retrospective, The Lives They Lived.

This is an interesting look at his work, moving well past his seminal book, The Americans, and into some of the other work that helped pay the bills inlcuding promotional work for the Times.

All these pictures had such loose, grainy softness that the lack of concern for formal composition suggested Frank was after something else: essential human feeling extracted from the blur of life. “I saw a lot of things other people didn’t see,” Frank said. “The eyes were always fine and could always find a place of interest and zoom. That’s my profession, to look.”

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Transmitting History

Jan 1, ’20 6:52 PM

We think it so common now – make a photo, two or three clicks later it’s shared around the world. There’s an entire generation who doesn’t even understand the idea of having to wait to see your own photos, let alone having to wait to see news photos from around the world.

But 85 years ago today, the Associated Press changed the world – the first Wirephoto made its way around the country and visual storytelling became an integral part of our news consumption.

Sixty years later, I was racing around New England with a trunk full of chemicals, stainless steel tanks, film reels and a … $35,000? … Leafax IIId digital transmitter, still needing a place to process film and tap into a phone line.

We’ve come a long way and it has been a very good journey.

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The Best of Season Begins

Dec 5, ’19 10:16 AM

Over the next few weeks, most publications and agencies will start pushing out their annual best photos of the year galleries.

National Geographic’s stood out to me because of the bylines – if you scroll through their 100 best images, 37% were made by women.

The Washington Post’s gallery includes some propaganda/hand-out photos, about 19% of them were made by women.

If you’re curious, my Advanced Photojournalism class this semester was 89% women. My section of the introductory class was 83% women.

Keep that in mind as you look at bylines through the season.

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