Advice & Learning – Visual Journalism

June 16, 2023

Natural Intelligence

Nikon Peru has come up with a creative campaign to push back at AI generated imagery, according to Michael Zhang at PetaPixel. There are several initiatives in progress regarding imagery created with artificial intelligence algorithms. Adobe has its Content Authenticity Initiative, which is working on technical solutions to image verification and there are a couple different groups who are working...

Advice & Learning/At Work/Business & Industry/Ethics & Legal/Photojournalism/Thoughts & Theory

May 23, 2023

Why Photographers Charge

I was scrolling through Facebook over lunch when I saw someone had reposted the above. I could not disagree more with this logic. If businesses were to base what they charge on equipment costs, than McDonald’s ice cream would be outrageous. The machine they use, made by Taylor Company, costs $18,000 (even if it breaks down on a regular basis)....

Advice & Learning/Business & Industry/Photojournalism

April 8, 2023

The Perils of a Focus on Realism

Kenneth Jarecke takes on, indirectly, both the advanced of photographic technology and the challenges of AI generated images. At a certain point, photographic technology got good enough, but instead of engaging our brains to make what we do better, we focused on making it easier. For a group that needed to think more, we decided to think less. I’ve referred...

Advice & Learning/Craft/Photojournalism/Tech Talk/Thoughts & Theory

April 4, 2021

On Getting the Shot

Two quotes in this interview with Getty Images’ Elsa Garrison by Hannah Foslien that stood out to me: For me, the way I look at it is, if I didn’t get it, then I wasn’t meant to get it. You can’t let that frustration of a missed picture carry over into your next assignment, because then you’re self-sabotaging. And this:...

Advice & Learning/At Work/Business & Industry/Good Work/Journalism/Photojournalism

February 18, 2021

The Royal Photographic Society Journal Now Online

This is very, very cool – the Royal Photographic Society has made nearly 160 years worth of their Journal available online, every issue from 1853 through to 2018. As a way to look back at great work and how great work was discussed, this is a tremendous resource.

Advice & Learning/Craft/Tech Talk/Thoughts & Theory

February 17, 2021

Why I Love Photography

Nice piece where Terry Fouche explains why he loves photography. This line resonated with me: A day will come when maybe I can’t pick up a camera anymore and when that day comes and people look at what I left behind, I want them to say this person loved people, this person honored people and we can see it in...

Advice & Learning/Craft/Photojournalism

February 17, 2021

On Gordon Parks

We can never learn enough about Gordon Parks. R.C> Baker at The Village Voice wrote up a brief on an exhibit of his work and included this, in talking about one of Parks’ iconic images: “That’s the photograph I made of her, in the government building, in front of the American flag, with a broom in her hand and a...

Advice & Learning/Good Work/Photojournalism

January 2, 2021

Two Hundred Fifty Things a Photojournalist Should Know

In 2018, architectural critic and designer Michael Sorkin published a list of Two Hundred Fifty Things an Architect Should Know. Sorkin, who wrote for the Village Voice for many years, was an early victim of the pandemic. I heard excerpts of his list on a podcast one evening in the spring and it got me to noodling. Every few mornings,...

Advice & Learning/Business & Industry/Craft/Journalism/Photojournalism/Thoughts & Theory

November 23, 2020

Making the Invisible Visible

This NPR piece by Richard L. Harris, ostensibly a review of a new monograph of Mary Ellen Mark’s lifetime of work, may have given me a theme for my spring Documentary Photojournalism course. As journalists, we are charged with shining light into the dark corners of our world – to make the invisible visible. Given how dark our world has...