Visual Journalism – Page 172 – Notes from aside the camera

July 24, 2011

Top Signs of a Bad Photographer

Damien Franco has a great, Twitter-sourced, list of signs you’re looking at a really bad photographer over at Pixiq.com. Good for a Sunday morning chuckle. To his list I’d add anyone who takes themselves seriously but spent more on buying Photoshop than on their camera … except, they probably have a pirated version of Photoshop, anyway …

Craft/Thoughts & Theory

July 23, 2011

Digital Literacy

I have been hanging out down at the Poynter Institute for their Teachapalooza conference. Just finished up a talk about the Digital Literacy videos I created for our students last year … and I suspect a lot of folks are now trying to remember where they are … so, you can click here or hit the Resources tab up at...

Advice & Learning/Good Work/Tech Talk/Video

July 23, 2011

Objectifying Your Web Site

It’s likely that if you’re reading this, you have a web site. Whether it’s your personal site or your business’s store front, ask yourself this: How’s it working? D. Bnonn Tennant has a post up over at Freelance Switch titled 10 Simple Website Changes to Increase Your Freelance Sales that you should take a look at. Many of these things...

Business & Industry/Graphic Design/Photojournalism

July 22, 2011

Heroes and Mentors

Photo District News has a great series they call Heroes and Mentors and one of the newest ones is Eugene Richards interviewing one of his heroes, Don McCullin. Well worth a read. McCullin on his work in Biafra: When I walked into those camps in Biafra, those children looked at me like I was there salvation. But all I brought...

At Work/Business & Industry/Craft/Photojournalism

July 22, 2011

Genuinely Good Souls

As a follow-up to the earlier post about professionalism trumping talent, Ladies Home Journal photo editor Claire Lissaman explains why she continues to hire (my hero) David Burnett in a short piece over on .

Business & Industry/Craft

July 22, 2011

Professionalism Trumps Talent – Every Time

David Saxe, writing over at Black Star Rising, recounts the tale of a copywriter who showed up seven hours late for an interview. And didn’t apologize. He goes on to list six tips for success in the photo business, all of which are right on the money. Any good HR person will tell you that you always hire the best...

Business & Industry

July 22, 2011

Scanning Negatives on a Flatbed

Many of us still have negatives around the office. Lots and lots of negatives. Wired.com has a post up about an idea that Andrew Lewis came up with to help scan those negatives on the nearly-ubiquitous flatbed scanners. Not sure on the image quality here, but it’s a neat idea. Some flatbed scanners do have the ability to scan film....

Tech Talk

July 21, 2011

AP Kills Photo Out of North Korea

The Associated Press has issued a kill order for a photo it transmitted showing men walking through a flooded North Korean street. The photo, sourced from the Korean Central News Agency via Korea News Service shows three people standing in water … who are not wet. The Korean Central News Agency is the “news agency” of the North Korean government.

Ethics & Legal

July 21, 2011

Updating Your Contracts for the Modern Area

Writing contracts has risen to a level of art that baffles me. Over on A Photo Editor, there’s a post about a client who hired someone to shoot stills and video. The video was a work-for-hire, the stills were licensed separately. To get around this, the client decided to pull frame grabs from the video there by getting around the...

Business & Industry/Ethics & Legal

July 21, 2011

Nikon-Lion Compatibility Issues

Rob Galbraith has posted a statement from Nikon regarding compatibility issues with the new Mac OS 10.7 (more popularly known as Lion). If you’re a Nikon software user, you may want to hold out on upgrading to the newest Mac OS release until Nikon has finished testing and upgrading their software. One does have to wonder whether they’re aware that...

Tech Talk