The imagery is relatively gruesome, capturing the horror of death by firing squad, so I'll invite you to view the images on the project b site instead of posting them here.

Though the images are remarkable as examples of early photojournalism, they aren't newspaper imagery, but postcards.

Project B explains:

In the early 1900s, Kodak introduced roll film cameras enabling everyone to easily make their own photos; the postcard craze was in full swing; and along the U.S. Mexican border the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution was imminent. In 1910, the bloody battles began and scores of amateur photographers crossed the border to photograph the war and turn their negatives into photo postcards for sale.

So the next time someone tells you "That's as pretty as a postcard", you might want to think back to some of the imagery that postcards used to contain.

The article also has an interesting, if not sensational, recounting of the inventor Anatol Josepho’s rags-to-riches biography. "Ten years ago a penniless prisoner of the Bolsheviks; today an American millionaire!"

The social uses of the new technology are also addressed, ranging from the utilitarian to the superficial.

From experience he knew the human being’s craving, among all races and all lands, for a permanent record of his face. Josepho’s photographic life had likewise taught him the constant demand for utilitarian portraits —for identification cards of all kinds, passports, employment records, expression-study, groups, and so on...

...A department for making enlargements is being installed by some of the large department stores in New York City, where the automatic portrait machine is enormously popular, it is said, with buyers of new hats, new furs, and new “bobs” as well as garments.

I've always been intrigued by the photobooth. Mostly because it takes an expressive medium and reduces it to something entirely mechanical and procedural. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, photobooth photos are often extremely expressive. Think of the antics that groups of teenagers get up to when they discover a photobooth. The article even has a series of photos of presidential candidate Al Smith which show remarkable expressiveness and candor.

On the other hand, photobooths can produce neutral or downright dour identification photos as well. You're specifically instructed not to smile for those.

But what's most intriguing is the way that the article identifies the photobooth with american capitalism and values. There's the shots of the cigar chomping presidential candidate, the very picture of a capitalist fat cat. There's a reference to bourgeois vanity photos following the purchase of a new hat, and the inventor is a former prisoner of russian communists.

Kodak's wealth of underutilized innovation and engineering talent has gone largely unsung outside the company, which was one of the first pioneers into the digital realm. For all its inflexibility and inability to remain a leader in digital photography, Kodak was actually the very first to develop and market digital cameras.

First, with the dsc420 in the SLR market, and then with the dc200 in the point and shoot market, Kodak was always at the forefront of digital imaging.

Not only were they among the first to make digital photography a reality for consumers, but they also were the first to explore the possibilities of the technology decades earlier, when they developed a digital camera that recorded digital images to a cassette tape and played them back on a television.

Sasson describes the first reactions to their toaster sized camera and VCR like playback device.

After taking a few pictures of the attendees at the meeting and displaying them on the TV set in the room, the questions started coming. Why would anyone ever want to view his or her pictures on a TV? How would you store these images? What does an electronic photo album look like? When would this type of approach be available to the consumer?

We now know the answers to these questions, and the importance of the internet in providing an outlet for the torrent of imagery created by the widespread adoption of digital photography. At the time, however, the internet was only very recently developed and not particularly graphical.

It saddens me a bit that Kodak, for all of its early innovation and interest in digital photography, has fallen by the wayside, but it does illustrate how dependent innovation is on converging technologies and changes in culture. 10% inspiration, 10% perspiration, and 80% timing.

For further reading on Kodak's engineers, and the company's struggles with bringing their pioneering innovations successfully to market, check out New York Times Article.

I tend to be a pretty laissez faire art director, by which I mean that I hire from a small pool of photographers whose innate sensibilities I trust, who understand both the music and the magazine, and who appreciate the fact that I don't tell them what to do. My belief has always been that we don't pay enough to micromanage shoots (nor had we funds for me to be physically present at shoots, and on those few occasions when I was around I felt singularly useless). And I don't put type on photos, save for the opening spreads and the minimal type placed on the cover. Good photos don't need words to dress them up, and I've been fortunate to work with some terrific photographers over these last years. And it's more fun for me to take their photos and figure out how to work headlines and text around them, than to play it the other way.

As this is one of Alden's final descriptions of life at No Depression, the piece, though posted on a blog titled Grant's Rants, is mostly a combination memoir and lament. He issues several apologies:for retouching photos badly, for choosing the wrong images to publish, for hiring photographers and then not using their shots. I've never worked at a magazine, and therefore have no idea how No Depression's editing environment compares to most. But reading Alden's essay, one can dream of a sort of art direction utopia, where photographers and magazine staff work in perfect artistic harmony, and can walk away with the sense that once, fleetingly, it almost, almost happened.

- First up is this awesome photo cuff bracelet from ShanaLogic. Gone are the days when favorite photos must languish in the dark of your wallet - wear your pets / grandkids / portfolio on your wrist! The cuffs actually come in several styles, from manly brown "leather" to ooh shiny! silver glitter.

- I found these this morning, and they are quite possibly the coolest thing I've ever seen: aperture ring bracelets by re:vision. If they weren't rather steep, I'd buy a wristful and wear them like bangles.

- Bright, cheerful, and only $12, this No Star tee will definitely make you "Smile."

- If you prefer your apparel a little edgier, opt for the Ghost Cameras tshirt from Oddica. They won't even ask for your soul. (Probably.)

- Remember when you and six of your giggliest friends squeezed into a photobooth, creating a four-panel strip of boundless joy? Now you can squeeze one of those photos into Fred Flare's photobooth frame necklace and carry happy times with you wherever you go.

- Finally, night comes and you have to put your photo swag back in the jewelry box, or into the laundry hamper. But fear not! You are not doomed to a camera-less night: rest your head on this very cool Rolleiflex pillowcase and dream richly detailed medium format dreams all night long.

I never ever figured that this project would have stuck as it has. It's beautiful. Heart warming. It's turned this big world into something personal and touching... even if it is just one day a week.

I remember the first walk clearly. Sunny. Warm. And I was feeling a bit alone. Even though I had my beautiful daughter keeping me company, and another daughter on the way....I had hoped for peers... photograhers... to share in my passion for finding the sparkle in the daily humdrum. I was new to the area I was living in and everything seemed boring around me. A fellow Utatan told me... stop focusing on the boring... focus on perspective. And that's what motivated me. Perspective is so very important. And then the thought of going for a collaborative walk with my Utatan family came to mind. Capturing the world in all it's beautiful bits and pieces and bringing it back together to make something complete... whole... magnificent... united.

I walked along a four lane road. Traffic. Noise. Bumpy sidewalk. Pushing a stroller. Very pregnant.

But more than that... it was the start to rediscovering my surroundings. Seeing what I had previously not seen. Finding myself all over again.

I ended up at a pond. And stood there dazzled by the reflections the water held. I realized that that pond would reflect something new each day. Something different. The water wouldn't be exactly the same. The sky is ever changing.

I try to look at life like that now. To look for the new, the change, the difference. To find comfort in what you know and learn and cherish the opportunities for change and growth.

I couldn't say any particular Thursday Walk stands out... they are all special... because of what everyone brings to it collectively. The same goes for a particular photo. Each photo is gorgeous in it's own right as it represents a fragment of someone's life being captured. A moment when someone stopped time and gave it to every other Utatan to share. And as a project... well, all together, it's simply magical..

I think the Thursday Walk series has been so popular simply for the fact that it does make the world a wee bit smaller. It does make one feel that they have company. That they are part of something bigger than their own existence. That what they bring to the project matters - because it does.

I am going to participate this week. You bet. I haven't been able to participate in the past as much as I'd like, but I always think of it even if my camera isn't in hand.

Where will I go? I never decide that ahead of time. Half the fun is letting the moment lead you... letting your camera find your path... and just soaking up the beauty as you go.

-Charles M. Schulz

"Maybe if I share the path I walk then a little more of your pain will vanish."

-Unknown

For two years we've been escaping together.

At just after 1 p.m. on a recent weekday, two men recline in one of five SUVs parked on a shoulder west of Spears' home (more vehicles are to the east). Electronica blasts from its open windows. The passenger, thin with bags under his eyes, says they'd been on the job for 20 hours. "We can't really talk," he muttered. "We're too tired."

FBI stakeout? No, it's the paparazzi.

Once known for hiding in bushes and behind fences, today's paparazzo thrives on speed and agression as much as on stealth. In fact, the waiting game may be the only aspect of the job that hasn't changed much. An NPR story follows the followers -- specifically, paparazzi assigned to superstar Britney Spears -- and examines the photographers' lifestyles and business models in the internet age.

Modern paparazzi follow their targets incessantly -- often with the celebrities' consent -- and do whatever it takes to get the footage and then disseminate it quickly: "When they hit Melrose, where Spears' black Cadillac Escalade made a left hand turn, 10 cars in the Brit Pack ran a red light en masse. Honks and yells came from angry rush hour drivers that paparazzi refer to as 'civilians.'" This is a job that now requires not only high-end camera equipment, but also high-end vehicles. SUVs are popular for their durability (vehicular accidents, unsurprisingly, are common); BMWs are leased because the maintenance on the brakes, quickly worn from stunt-car style driving, is free.

The work is dangerous, the profession is despised by almost everyone outside of it, and -- despite this Guilded Moose column -- can't offer much creative satisfaction. So why do people do it? Well, the money's good, the citizenship requirements are... flexible, and you get to spend time near the beautiful people. Some paparazzi even gain a measure of fame themselves, such as Adnan Ghalib, who actually dated Spears for several months.

An even simpler explanation, perhaps, lies in the basic economic law of supply and demand. Curiosity about the rich and famous never goes away, and people want what the paparazzi are providing.

Spears is shopping with her mother at the Miss Sixty jeans store at the corner of Melrose and Crescent Heights. Twenty-six paparazzi line up against store windows, pointing cameras inside from every possible angle. Catcalls come from passing vehicles: "Get a life!" and "Leave her the (expletive) alone, you idiots!" But also, over and over again, there's the question — the one that stems from the same curiosity keeping glossy celebrity magazines alive: "Who's in there?"

And so the game goes on.

Eureka!

My instinct was to stop and photograph the scene. But they needed help and waved me over. I was always taught to be a human being first, and a photojournalist second. I abandoned any thoughts of a dramatic battle photograph. I lifted the wounded Marine by his right arm; three Marines carried him by his other limbs. As his buddies hauled him inside an abandoned schoolhouse, I remember trying to keep the back of his head from hitting the top step.

As a busy photojournalist, Loomis photographs people on a daily basis, few of whom he's likely to remember five years later. But, he says, "It's the picture I didn't take that has left Austin burned forever in my memory."

Scott Schulman, the Sartorialist's real-world alter-ego, already had a fifteen-year background in the fashion industry when he started his blog in 2005. Because of this work history, Schulman already had a keen eye for style and the knowledge and skills to write about it. The combination of his educated perspective friendly tone quickly made The Sartorialist popular, and within a year Schulman was also writing for such fashion media juggernauts as style.com and GQ. Today The Sartorialist runs ads for some of the world's most high-profile clothing companies (Gucci, for example), and its proprietor finds himself recognized on streets around the world.

In the interview, Schulman not only gives PDN insight into his business success, but also describes his shooting process:

It's pretty quick. If I'm in New York, I will pick a certain area to roam, downtown, or Williamsburg or Harlem, and then head out with a Canon 5D and a 50mm lens. If I spot someone whose outfit I like I will maybe walk a half block behind him or her, and then try and stop him or her in a place that will make a good picture.

Despite this modest description, Schulman takes an excellent photo, well-lit, well-composed, and flattering to his subjects. He's an inspiring example of a man who has taken stock of his own talents and interests and combined them into a unique and very successful venture. And looked extremely snazzy in the process.

Full interview]]> see illustrated entry utata.org http://www.utata.org/ink/2006/20655.php http://www.utata.org/ink/2006/20655.php Mon, 24 Mar 2008 02:44:06 +0000 By: Brittney Bush - From the Smithsonian Photography Initiative comes an exciting and dynamic project: "Click! - Photography Changes Everything." Click! will explore photography not just as an art form, but as an impetus for change in all areas of our lives and work. The first phase of the undertaking, active now, will collect essays and testimonies from one hundred scientists, historians, authors, and other professionals about the way photography has changed their fields of work. Then, beginning this fall, the public will be invited to join the dialogue.

The first essay I read is by Stewart Brand, founder of the Whole Earth Catalog, and connects the first outer space photos of Earth with the growth of environmentalism:

For the first time humanity saw itself from outside. The visible features from space were living blue ocean, living green–brown continents, dazzling polar ice and a busy atmosphere, all set like a delicate jewel in vast immensities of hard–vacuum space. Humanity's habitat looked tiny, fragile and rare. Suddenly humans had a planet to tend to.

This project comes among other changes in the Smithsonian's use of its vast photography collection, such as the move towards an easily searchable online archive. This looks to be a very exciting year at SPI.

]]> see illustrated entry utata.org http://www.utata.org/ink/2006/20632.php http://www.utata.org/ink/2006/20632.php Fri, 14 Mar 2008 00:33:15 +0000 By: Brittney Bush - Vacation time is here, and I find myself in the snowy wonderland of Lake Tahoe, admiring the picturesque winter scenes that stretch as far as my eyes can see, and trying to figure out how on earth to photograph them properly - I many of my previous snow photos have turned out either dull grey or blindiing, "no information" white. A little research turned up a very simple but useful tutorial, "Exposing Snow," on nature photography site The Luminous Landscape. They describe three techniques for finding the proper exposure point for snow.

1) Your digital camera expects snow to be 18% gray, and chooses an exposure that will render it thus in your photo. You can use a hand-held incident light meter and meter for something that IS 18% gray - a common choice in a pinch is one's hand. Shooting at this setting will leave the snow "overexposed" from the camera's perspective, and just right from yours.

2) Film shooters, adjust your ISO dial. Set the film speed 1.5-2 times lower than the actual speed, and you will trick the camera into overexposing.

3) Most digital cameras have an exposure compensation tool, usually marked by the symbols "+/-." Set your compensation to something between +1 and +2, shoot, look at your LCD and / or your histograms, and adjust.

The article also notes that in some cases you might find that slightly grey snow offers a better sense of texture and contrast than it would in pure white; if you really want to make sure you get the photo you want, shoot each scene at a several different exposure levels.

]]> see illustrated entry utata.org http://www.utata.org/ink/2006/20582.php http://www.utata.org/ink/2006/20582.php Sat, 09 Feb 2008 06:59:36 +0000 By: Brittney Bush - The March 2008 edition of Vanity Fair is its 14th annual Hollywood Issue. This year the magazine decided to recreate famous scenes from several Alfred Hitchcock movies in photographic form, and a cool behind the scenes article, It’s the Hitch in Hitchcock, details some of the challenges the VF team faced putting the spread together. "Hitchcock was such a stickler about getting things on set exactly the way he wanted them, and everybody working on the Vanity Fair shoots was mindful of making sure the details were correct this time, too. That wasn’t always easy."

Any problem is more easily solved when you have a Vanity Fair-sized budget, though. Haviing an exact replica of Cary Grant's North by Northwest suit made - by the same tailors that created the original - is moderately impressive. Having an entire phone booth built? That's not just Hollywood style, that's Hollywood cash.

Given the lack of phone booths today, it was impossible to find one the right size for the picture inspired by The Birds (with Jodie Foster in the Tippi Hedren role). So senior photography and beauty editor SunHee Grinnell, who oversaw the portfolio, had a 1960s-vintage phone booth built for the occasion.

Photographer Art Streiber and his team paid the daily wages of an entire team of farm workers to be able to shoot in a nearby field. Mark Seliger had a dock built onto a water tank so he could get just the right angle for his shot. Suddenly my Gorillapod doesn't look so sexy... but maybe one day I too will make it to the Big Time.

]]> see illustrated entry utata.org http://www.utata.org/ink/2006/20576.php http://www.utata.org/ink/2006/20576.php Wed, 06 Feb 2008 20:08:23 +0000 By: Brittney Bush - Many of you may be familiar with flickr's "Six Word Story" group, which challenges photographers to tell a story in, yes, six words, and illustrate it with a photo. The concept is ascribed to author Ernest Hemingway: "Hemingway was once prodded to compose a complete story in six words. His answer, personally felt to be his best prose ever, was 'For sale: baby shoes, never used.'" Most of us aren't Hemingways (which is fine I think, because how many Hemingways does one world really need?), but that hasn't stopped Six Word Story's over two thousand members from taking up the challenge. Here, six excellent Six Word Stories that also appear in the Utata pool:

she grinned and grabbed a towel

The Chair Remains Empty For Now

Things are not as they appear.

monsters live up in the ceiling.

Hypnotized, Otherwise Serious Professionals Hula Dance

omit needless words. repeat as necessary.

]]> see illustrated entry utata.org http://www.utata.org/ink/2006/20562.php http://www.utata.org/ink/2006/20562.php Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:40:56 +0000