Author: Mark E. Johnson

October 25, 2019

What You Photograph Is a Reflection of Who You Are

A sarcastic Tweet reply set off Dan Ginn at The Phoblographer this week. As it should have. I’m forever thankful I work with students who care about their communities and want to use photographic tools to explore and explain issues within those communities. As a general rule, the see photography as a means, not an end – our classes, workshops,...

Categories Ethics & Legal/Photojournalism/Thoughts & Theory

October 23, 2019

One Step Closer to a Small Claims Copyright Court

The House of Representatives passed the CASE act yesterday on a 410-6 vote, which brings the bill one step closer to becoming a law. Why do we care? This bill has been ten-years in the making, supported by the U.S. Copyright Office and trade organizations (including the National Press Photographers Association) and is designed to make sub-$30,000 copyright infringement claims...

Categories Business & Industry/Ethics & Legal/Photojournalism

October 22, 2019

Start Your Holiday Shopping with Photojournalist Barbie

On the one hand, I think the partnership between the Barbie brand and National Geographic is great – giving kids, especially girls, more role models and career views is fantastic. The growth of the Barbie line in my lifetime has been fun to watch (even if our own kid never played with one). That said, the video released as part...

Categories Business & Industry/Photojournalism/Thoughts & Theory

October 21, 2019

The Pelosi-Trump Photo

Good discussion over at the Chatting the Picture podcast about the Nancy Pelosi – Donald Trump image that the White House released last week. A lot of analysis in the first six minutes, but they didn’t go into the sourcing issue which raises all sorts of other ethical questions – do you treat this differently because it’s a hand out...

Categories Craft/Ethics & Legal/Photojournalism

October 19, 2019

Visualizing Change

A good behind the scenes look into how The Guardian is changing the way they use images in stories about climate change. I think this is an incredibly important discussion to have for many of the reasons they denote – we all feel bad about the polar bear, but it doesn’t impact most of our daily lives and so, after...

Categories Advice & Learning/Business & Industry/Photojournalism/Thoughts & Theory

October 7, 2019

NPPF Scholarships

The National Press Photographers Foundation has opened applications for their annual scholarship programs. Deadline is on December 2, but why wait that long?

Categories Competitions/Photojournalism/Thoughts & Theory

October 2, 2019

The Importance of Design in Cameras

The designed Luigi Colani died recently. While that New York Times obit deals with many things, it doesn’t do justice to the work he did with Canon in the 1980s – he is credited with the design of the T90, the first truly modern SLR camera. Look at that camera – introduced in 1986, almost every DSLR of today owes...

Categories Business & Industry/Craft/Photojournalism/Tech Talk

October 1, 2019

Turning Dust Into Stories

I’m going to be ordering another book … photographer Jessica Wynne’s project on the chalkboards of professors was written up in The New York Times and I’m fascinated by this. There’s an evidentiary nature to this work, the residue of work … I just love this and have encouraged The Red & Black to think about this sort of a...

Categories Craft/Good Work/Photojournalism

October 1, 2019

We Can’t Even Trust the Canadians Anymore

The Canadian Green Party has been caught editing a photo of the party’s leader, Elizabeth May – they added in a logo and a reusable straw. All the technology at our disposal and this is what we do with it …

Categories Ethics & Legal/Thoughts & Theory

October 1, 2019

NPPA Student Quarterly Clip Contest

For all the students out there, the National Press Photographers Association Student Quarterly Clip Contest deadline is coming up on October 15. This is for images made in July, August and September.

Categories Competitions/Photojournalism