Category: Photojournalism

November 5, 2015

We Are Not the Enemy

Reading through Niko Koppel’s New York Times piece on the conviction of New York City police officer Michael Ackermann is both discouraging and encouraging. Discouraging in that photographer Robert Stolarik was arrested and charged in 2012 for doing a legally permitted thing, encouraging that Ackermann may now spend time in jail for his unlawful actions and lying in court. But...

Categories Business & Industry/Ethics & Legal/Photojournalism/Thoughts & Theory

November 3, 2015

Seeing Beyond Your Vision

Peripheral vision plays a big role in photojournalism. The ability to look at one thing and see what’s happening all around it allows us to build better stories, to see what others might not. The New York Times’ Angel Franco took a Widely camera to Cuba 20 years ago and the way he used it is fairly unique. For another...

Categories Craft/Journalism/Photojournalism/Tech Talk

November 3, 2015

Layoffs at National Geographic

Not a good day as 21st Century Fox takes over National Geographic.

Categories At Work/Business & Industry/Photojournalism

November 2, 2015

Jump Starting Your Portraits

Nice piece by Rena Silverman at The New York Times’ Lens blog about Philippe Halsman’s habit of asking people to jump at the end of their portrait settings. I’d seen several of them, but not all of them. What sort of theme can you bring to your portraits?

Categories Good Work/Photojournalism/Thoughts & Theory

November 2, 2015

The Aesthetics of Death

Over at Salon.com, Scott Timberg talks with David Shields about his new book, War is Beautiful. Shields has gone through nearly 20 years of front pages from The New York Times and pulled images of conflict that he feels are, well, beautiful and raises the question of whether modern conflict photographers are still reporting on the horrors of war.

Categories Business & Industry/Ethics & Legal/Journalism/Photojournalism

November 2, 2015

There is a Time …

… and it was yesterday that you needed to check the time settings on your cameras. Dig into those menus and set your clock back an hour. This is also a good time to check the minutes setting, too, as many modern cameras have a tendency to drift. At least until the Swiss start making cameras, checking the time stamp...

Categories Business & Industry/Photojournalism/Tech Talk

October 30, 2015

Stop the Stock

Here we go again … this time, it’s the International Business Times using a stock photo of, ahem, three Russian bombers (referred to as “jets” in an earlier headline) on a story about TWO planes flying close to the USS Ronald Reagan in international waters. Yes, it’s the right type of plane. But we can count … worrisome that a...

Categories Ethics & Legal/Photojournalism/Thoughts & Theory

October 27, 2015

Forcing Visual Variety

If this ever goes into production, I may require it of my kids so I never have to see another photo of Tate Plaza or the Arch. Camera Restricta from Philipp Schmitt on Vimeo. On my additional feature request list would be facial recognition so we can limit the number of selfies you take.

Categories Photojournalism/Tech Talk/Thoughts & Theory

October 26, 2015

Are We Ready for DRM on Photos?

That’s a good question to start pondering, because according to Rob Price at Business Insider, the Joint Photographics Expert Group (look at their acronym to determine if they’re important) is looking at incorporating digital rights management technology into web-accessible images. Will this change everything for the better, allowing us to protect our work and receive the compensation we need to...

Categories Business & Industry/Ethics & Legal/Photojournalism/Tech Talk/Thoughts & Theory

October 26, 2015

ViewFind Grants

I’ve posted this before, but a reminder that ViewFind is offering a $5,000 grant to support stories about race AND the’ve added a separate $5,000 grant just for students. Application deadline is November 30 now – get to work.

Categories Competitions/Multimedia/Photojournalism