I did a little experiment on Friday to test the camera's White Balance settings against a panel of LED lights. I was happy with the results and will work on the daylight WB over auto White Balance. The control was 400ISO f/6.3 at 60sec. It is interesting to review the histograms on the right and consider the RGB distribution in terms of warm and cool temperatures.
The invisible people project is a study in the contrasts in how people interact. My images attempt to dignify the human condition in small ways - by looking at those both in the center and in the margins of our consciousness. These pictures were produced in Florence, Italy from September - November while I was teaching there.
Invisible people surround us. These are the beggars, street vendors, gypsies,
pickpockets, restaurant waiters, and street performers that occupy the periphery of
our consciousness. The “invisibles” feed us, clean our rooms, park our cars, entertain
and even hustle us. For the past three months, while teaching a college course on
signs and symbols in Florence, Italy, I became interested in the sociological,
psychological, and cultural phenomena of “invisible” people from the perspective of
symbolic interactionism. As a former photojournalist, I documented the
interactions I observed what Erving Goffman called “civic inattention” between the
“invisibles” and the thousands of tourists that flood the plaza around Filippo
Brunelleschi's dome or “Duomo” at the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore in the heart
of the city. I dutifully recorded in my journal notes in my journal such this 12
October 2014. “There’s a gaggle of Japanese tourists marching in unison in front of
the Duomo today as a guide waves a plastic flower wand about like a baton so that
the group doesn’t get lost in a pothole. A gypsy woman prostrates herself on the
sidewalk a block fro the Duomo hoping someone will notice the small plastic cup in
front of her. The cup was still empty an hour later. Later, I watched the interaction
between two German tourists and another gypsy who pressed an empty plastic cup
into their map as she mumbled something unintelligible to them. The tourists
smiled at first, shaking off the advances. After about one minute, one of the tourists
looked down at the woman, turned her head, smiled again, folded the map, and
walked away. In this case, symbolic consciousness can be how we use abstract ideas
or concepts such as charity or compassion to label reality.
Nearly 30 percent of Italy's yearly income comes from tourism - more than 30
billion Euros a year (Not so coincidentally, there are more than 2,000 museums in
Italy and 72 of them are in Florence. The Italy I have come to know is wrapped in
plastic and packaged to sell on street corners by new arrivals from Pakistan or
Africa. Each year more than 30 million tourists from all over the world come to Italy
on vacation. That means one tourist per every two and one half Italians.
Symbolic consciousness refers to how people separate experience from the
meanings they take away from that experience. During the time I spent observing
“the invisibles” in Florence, I began to realize how consciousness appears linked to
other mental processes, particularly cognitive biases. People ignore other people
based on how they interpret the world around them.
After more than a decade of teaching introductory and advanced photography courses in college, I find myself returning to some of the most fundamental concepts that influence how human beings see. Today, with a light snow falling I walked down to the Mount Saint Scholastica cemetery to look for a few images that I could use in my classes. I wanted to focus on the importance of eye movement and specifically framing and composing through the use of light, line, patterns, and shapes.
One of the hardest things to teach students is to be aware of the edges of the frame/viewfinder. Since photography is a process of substraction, everything inside the viewfinder must be their because the photographer intended it that way.
This seems like such a simple composition, and it is. The intention is to draw attention to how the human eye moves about the frame. In this example, the movement is horizontal, which is a very different experience for the viewer than vertical framing.
The lines in this image move the eye both throughout the frame vertically and horizontally.
It's been more than 25 years since I last visited El Salvador and other parts of Central America. Recently, I have rebuilt my website with a section dedicated to images from the region.
It might have all began with Madonna who strutted across the stage "Like a Virgin", and, over the years, along came Lady Gaga dressed in choice cuts of meat, and now Nicki Minaj’s controversial use of historic iconic images.
The perceptions we hold about others are not isolated events. Representations of “Bad boys” and “Good Girls” or vice versa are incessantly feeding our insatiable appetite for primal desires such as control, sex, lust, and love.
Credit: UK Independent
The message performers such as Nicki Minaj and others send to young people is a confusing ideology that capitalizes on a faux-resistance to power and injustice, while constructing a wildly distorted vision of truth and beauty. Minaj’s Nazi-like themes in her recent video, or the likenesses of Malcolm X or the pope represents the latest in a line of “shock pop” divas.
I am not sure staying up to 3 a.m. was the best idea, but the challenge of photographing the eclipse last night was inviting. I experimented with exposures and ended up with 200 ISO at f/5.6 at 1/250th using a 200mm 2.8 with a 2x doubler.
There are several forms of favorable and unfavorable bias affecting public perception of the media in terms of digital manipulation. Here's a chart illustrating the possibilities of explicit and implicit bias in attitudes toward photojournalism.
Faking photos online is hardly news. Although the practice of digitally altering images, whatever the reason, is a major concern for mass media, there doesn't seem to be an easy fix.
As Ricchiardi contends, “With new technology, faking or doctoring photographs has never been simpler, faster or more difficult to detect. Skilled operators truly are like magicians, except they use tools like Photoshop, the leading digital imaging software, to create their illusions.” Moreover, “Digital manipulation technology negatively affects news content and presumably damages credibility” Gladney and Ehrlich (1996).
Since 2006, I’ve been conducting research asking professional and amateur photographers what constitutes digital photo manipulation and how it might affect public confidence in the media.
In 2007, for instance, 87 percent of respondents defined photo digital manipulation as changes to the content of a picture after it is made through electronic means. In 2014, however, more than 95 percent of participants agreed with the definition.
Although these results may not come as a surprise, it is important to clarify how people define the terms they use to describe phenomena. In addition, when asked in 2007 if photo digital manipulation is an increasingly important issue in society today, more than 85 percent agreed that it was.
It should be noted, however, that the sample size of the survey differ significantly, with n=112 this year compared to n= 784 in 2007)
Results from the latest survey (March 2014) of 100 participants suggest the following.
In my survey on digital photo manipulation in 2007 I sought the participation of photojournalists and photographers, professionals and enthusiasts, from around the world to help us understand how attitudes toward digitally altered images may be changing.
Last year, more than 745 respondents participated in the annual survey on digital photo manipulation. Part of the study seeks to clarify how photographers define photo manipulation and another part explores how attitudes toward image altering my be changing over time. The study is part of a long-term evaluation of attitudes people have toward accepting digitally altered images in the media and elsewhere.
For example when asked, "I can tell when a photograph has been digitally altered," 42 percent of respondents (n=738) agreed or strongly agreed that they could tell the difference last year. However, 58 percent either disagreed or were undecided about whether they could tell a picture has been altered. Could it be possible that over time, given advances in image editing software, more people will be unable to tell. The survey encourages the participation of both professionals and amateurs photographers and explores other issues such as if it is okay for images of Hollywood celebrities to be altered but not okay for images of politicians.
In terms of defining what constitutes digital photo manipulation four questions were presented:
1) I define photo digital manipulation as changes to the content of a picture after it is made through electronic means.
2) I define photo digital manipulation as a process that helps to make the picture better aesthetically.
3) I define photo digital manipulation as a process that helps to make the objects in the picture more visually interesting.
4) I define photo digital manipulation as a process that changes the content of a picture by adding or removing visual elements from the original.
Other areas worthy of tracking over a long period of time include how photo digital manipulation is defined and whether the issue remains important in the public sphere.
More than 87 percent of respondents agreed to define photo digital manipulation as changes to the content of an image through electronic means, while 44.9 percent believed it to be process that helps to make the objects in the picture more visually interesting. When asked if photo digital manipulation helps to make the picture better aesthetically, 37. 8 percent disagreed, 23 percent had no opinion, and 38 percent showed agreement. In the last question, "I define photo digital manipulation as a process that changes the content of a picture by adding or removing visual elements from the original," more than 85 percent expressed agreement with the statement.
A satirical campaign image for Milton Wolf, Rep. candidate for Senate, following his controversial use of posting grisly medical X-ray pictures on Facebook.
Kansas Republican Candidate for Senate Milton Wolf's career may end up looking like one of the autopsy images he posted on his Facebook page. Wolf, a radiologist, is being criticized from all sides for posting X-rays of gunshot wounds and other medical injuries on social media. The Topeka Capital Journal reported the Senate hopeful poked fun at the images on his posts.
The first thing that comes to mind when issues such as this come to light is simply, "what was he thinking?" Wolf, has now become the latest in a growing list of politicians that have tanked careers through the misguided use of social media. Wolf's a smart guy, with advanced degrees, yet he seems to have no common sense when it comes to understanding the balance between getting attention for what he thinks is a "good cause" and simply pissing people off.
There's a really nice piece on CBS news Sunday Morning programabout the role of ceramic tiles in Portugese society.
Credit: Positively Portugal: Featuring an Azulejos tile
Portugal's long love affair with ceramic tiles dates back centuries. Loaded with symbolic references to the country's past, the tiles reflect its rich culture. The tiles carrying meaning within a culture through sharing a country's collective history, values, ideals, and social order. We might, then, only see the art in the tiles, but there is much more than meets the eye.
Here are few sites featuring the Azulejos tiles:
If your are looking to get a great deal of publicity, just stick a half-naked zombie man statue on your lawn, especially if that lawn happens to belong to a prestigious women's college near Boston. Forget flamingos.
To promote the Davis Museum's new exhibit New Gravity by artist Tony Matelli, Wellesley College curators decided to place one of Matelli's life-like pieces on the lawn.
Photo Credit: David L. Ryan/Boston Globe
The uproar over the statue was enough to wake the dead. When interviewed by the Boston Globe, Matelli said, "The sculpture is of a man who is hopelessly lost and out of place." Matelli's metaphor, however, seems to have been lost in the clamor.
It's easy to see how such an image could make some people uncomfortable. At the same time, art is meant to confront our sensibilities and make us think. Maybe there is no such thing as "deeper" meaning in this and that the art is just another shameless assault on the dignity of all men and women.
There's a reason Matelli created "The Sleepwalker" and it's a pretty safe bet to say that he wasn't out to offend women. If anything, the statue seems to be waking a few people up to the fact that the relationship between life and art is relevant to the way we experience the world the today.
Like Andres Serrano's 1987 "Piss Christ", showing a cruxifix submerged in urine, it's important to treat "The Sleepwalker" with reason. Art helps us to negotiate the various realms of meaning in art and in life.
As C.J. Ducase observes, we must think of interpretation as a kind of mental event -- an activity in which consciousness something causes us to become conscious of something else.
Photo Credit: REUTERS/Konstantin Grishin
The image is arresting and saturated with symbolism.
Two lines of make shift crosses and a string of shield-yielding riot police face off like stubborn teenagers.
The crosses installed by anti-government protesters memorialize the dead and missing during three months of protests with Ukrainian police.
The image is dark, brooding, menacing. We do not see the protestors - they have been replaced by one of the most ancient and sacred symbols - the cross.
The protest image – with its moment frozen in time, can at times be persuasive enough to make us feel empathy toward all sides in a conflict. In fact, images of this nature are part of a long legacy depicting conflict and suffering.
Can pictures really change us?
Can images, such as this one, move us enough to understand the ideological tensions brewing across Africa, the Middle East and now in the Ukraine?
Images of protest serve as witnesses to a world out of balance.
Images without words to describe them, however, lack the authority, credibility, capacity, richness and complexity of symbols. Images must be interpreted after we have processed them in our mind -- running them through an incubator of experiences and memories, which require a high-level of consciousness. However, often images that the cross and the guns have the stuff of statistics -- facts used to distort truth and meaning.
Images of suffering shape our thinking on an unconscious level. Perhaps, the juxtaposition of the crosses and the guns will haunt our dreams or appear to us in a state of wakefulness. Maybe the picture can make us more aware of how fortunate we are in the United States not to live under the ruthless thumb of authoritarianism.
Often we fear such pictures and deny their deeper symbolic meaning.
In a world bombarding us with images of need and suffering it is easy to distance ourselves from such truth.
Truth, after all, like justice, compassion, beauty, is just a notion – an idea.
Perhaps we can step into this frame -- into the space, political or not, allowing us to connect with such archetypal symbols as darkness and light, death and rebirth, or hopelessness and despair. Perhaps in this one image, we can find a common ground leading to meaningful discourse and change.
Even in faith apathy and denial appears seem to be pathological.
The Christian attitude toward suffering, Pope Francis explained in a recent homily, is “silence in endurance, silence in patience.” Like St. Maximilan Kolbe, Christians must recognize "the paradox of suffering by offering his own life as a share in the suffering of Christ."
The crosses in this image are not merely signs of protest, but as Annie Dillard writes in "Holy the Firm" reminders that we are victims. Perhaps this image, in the deepest sense, represents or symbolizes the cross we must all carry in life.
People learn from making pictures. Now, The Great Courses company and National Geographic are teaming up to produce a series of videos to help us make better photographs. It seems like a perfect match, especially considering the high standards of both institutions.
Paul Suijk, president of The Great Courses comments, “Our highly engaged customers expect to learn from the world’s greatest instructors, and our library of exceptional industry-leading learning products just got stronger with the addition of this compelling new content."
The first two courses from National Geographic feature magazine photographer Joel Sartore. Appropriately Satore's offering, “Fundamentals of Photography” and “The Art of Travel Photography" should attract a lot of interest from the amatuer and professional photography community.
According to a recent media announcement:
"Under the new partnership, The Great Courses and National Geographic will offer at least a dozen additional courses over the next five years, including titles on the art of videography, photographer-led video expeditions that explore how to photograph some of the world’s most scenic locales, and on-location lectures on science, culture and exploration delivered by the remarkable explorers and experts of the National Geographic Society."
Lately, I have been preoccupied with understanding the influence of symbolic consciousness and the arts.
Spirals can be seen in cave paintings and rock art dating
back to 50,000 years ago.
In an introduction to a recent essay called "The Symbolic Universe" I explain, "Symbols pervade our unconscious and conscious minds. To explore the possibility of a “symbolic universe” - a continuum representing not only what we experience as concrete reality but also what we imagine in the abstract - symbols represent a short hand form of communication. In other words, our brain sees symbols before we make sense of what they represent."
For neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky, “Symbols serve as a simplifying stand-in for something complex. (A rectangle of cloth with stars and stripes represents all of American history and values.) And this is very useful. To see why, start by considering basic language—communication without a lot of symbolic content.”
The idea of iSymbolic is to make images, many of the them quite pedestrian in content, and reduce them down to visual cues (forms such as dots, lines, and shapes) that the mind readible recognizes. Made with an iPhone camera and digitally altered, the images attempt to strip away conditioned or or “mimetic” ways of experiencing the things we see. In the symbolic form, the images are in ways condensed and placed in the negative to emphasize abstractions such as found in a dot, line, or shape. Symbolically, the images in iSymbolic stand in not only for “things” but for “thoughts.” Ultimately, the objects we are accustomed to viewing through a “normal” lens on life will become transformed through states of symbolic consciousness.
The circle is a core building block of symbolic language.
In this image of a chair, the iSymbol reduces a common
sign into the abstract shape representing a circle.
There is a great deal of speculation about the future of photographic technology and how innovation is changing the way in which we not only take pictures but how we see the world. There is no question that the smartphone revolution, combined with social media, has fundamentally altered the landscape of conventional photography.
What's next?
Recently, Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft’s first chief technology officer and the best selling "Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking" was interviewed in The New Yorker about the importance of science and technology in the world. While Myhrvold toyed around making pictures of a muffin with a 41 megapixel Nokia smartphone it seemed clear that his attitude toward photography was different. Myhrvold seems to understand how technology influences a viewer's perspective and experience. He's able to make interesting images becuase understands how things work and that is important to beyond any emotional hangups we might have with antecedent practices and conventions. While making images of the muffin, especially after pulling a flashlight out of his pocket to light the scene, it was clear that Myhrvold appreciates how technology, resourcefulness, and aesthetics comes together in remarkable ways.
Wink. Wink.
Within the next five years, the wearable technology market will be worth more than $51 billion. At the top of the list will most likely be devices such as Google's glass -- a light-weight pair of glasses that are capable of capturing images with the wink of an eye.
Photographer Richard Koci Hernandez wearing Google Glass
Credit: PetaPixel
Giving People what they want
Kimio Maki, the head of Sony’s digital camera division, provides a few clues into the future of photographic technology. Maki, who is a leader in mirrorless full-frame cameras, believes that one of the challenges manufacturers face is the shape of conventional-style cameras, which tend to be clunky and heavy. He notes that consumers want slimmer, lighter cameras, but the industry has been slow in responding. In addition, the second challenge facing the photography industry is in the development of new products for the smartphone market. Part of the problem, Maki notes, is how consumers do not seem to understand the tradeoffs between lightweight mobile technologies and image quality.
There is always a gap between technological innovation and public acceptance of new products. At the same time, it appears that this gap be rapidly closing due to the number of innovations across the board, from medical technologies to social media.
In the world of professional photography, technology is seen as a means to an end. Nevertheless, once an innovation takes hold it can have a major impact on the rest of the market.
The presentation of an over-blown indulgent “self” in a world of Facebook profiles, Instagrams, YouTube videos, selfies, Tweets, and Pinterests, is pushing the increasingly malleable boundaries of societal and cultural norms.
Photo Credit: Michael Harris
A trend in wedding photography called “trash the dress” supports the idea of how images of self convey a form of alienation from ritual and an attempt to redefine symbolic meaning.
Jumping into a swimming pool, riding a motorcycle, or playing in mud, while in a wedding gown may mean more than just having a little fun with tradition customs and rituals. Trashing the dress, in some cases setting the gown on fire, represents a form of symbol morphing, which sets the meaning of one set of symbols against a newer set of symbols. The meaning of any symbol, including the wearing of a white gown, is never fixed. Paying a photographer to record the destruction of a wedding dress, while the bride is still in it, seems to reflect a desire to redefine the symbolic meaning behind formal cultural rituals of initiation in the 21st century.
What is interesting about self-identity, ritual, and symbolic meaning today is how norms are being pushed in different and unexpected directions through the use of digital technologies and social media. For example, symbolically destroying a wedding gown shortly after marriage would have sent a few grandmothers and great aunts into culture shock. Today, however, such violations of cultural and aesthetic sensibility seem to be celebrated widely on social media, especially YouTube.
Social Psychologist Erving Goffman contends that people present a “face” before others that make “every man his own jailer.” In this context, the social constraint of trashing a bridal gown and the ritualism associated with it may seem like busting out of a jail of culturally imposed restraint.
Credit: Annie Leibovitz/Via Vanity Fair
Just a few months back, Vanity Fair, the quintessential Hollywood star-making magazine, held a contest for the most popular cover. The contest featuring 100 years of covers showed a disproportionate number of white celebs compared to entertainers of color. This lack of diversity has prompted the magazine to reflect on how images shape public opinion.
Ironically, despite the disproportionate number of Vanity Fair covers depicting predominantly white actors and musicians, the recent poll overwhelming picked Michael Jackson as the favorite cover of all time.
Apparently, the magazine got the message. Vanity Fair’s most recent 2014 Hollywood issue is much more inclusive with half of the featured celebrities being non-white. At the same time, in all fairness, Vanity Fair’s covers have always reflected an industry historically more alabaster than ebony.
Turning the lens on an issue as sensitive as cultural and racial identity has prompted some interesting comments from readers.
“I'm Black also and personally. I love the cover. Years ago did we ever think any Black person would be nominated for an Oscar after Hattie Mac Daniel? Never being on the cover of Vanity Fair!,” writes one fan.
Meanwhile, another reader argues, “I am an African American woman and I am highly insulted by the placement of the black women on this cover. They are isolated in the middle of the picture. You have 6 men in this picture and all of them are positioned next to White Women. This is just plain racism and is perpetuating the idea that White women are desirable and Black women are not.”
Raising concerns over Vanity Fair’s attempt to include more African Americans on its covers is suggests a shift in consciousness. However, cultural and racial representations appear on the surface of an even bigger issue – Hollywood’s political economy.
National Public Radio touched briefly on this issue recently.
As always, NPR seeks to address issues in its coverage of major issues such as racial equality fair-mindedly. However, I would like to suggest something that gets often overlooked in our public discourse -- how decisions to include people of color in the media are not only base on cultural, racial, and ethnic sensitivity. Your article, as well thought through and written as it is, fails to address the influence of demographics on a multi-billion dollar industry.
What is missing from the conversation is that cultural and racial representations appear only on the surface of an even bigger issue – the political economy of the entertainment industry. Hollywood is a billion dollar industry and following demographic trends is smart business. According to a 2012 study conducted by the Motion Picture Association of America, the industry is seeing “Increases in the number of frequent moviegoers in nearly every ethnicity and age group, notably in the 40- 49 year old group.”
Considering the political economic power at the box office, Vanity Fair’s decision to include more people of color on it cover is not just about cultural diversity -- it’s about understanding the market – a market that isn’t as white as it used to be.
Getting more African American actors on the cover may placate some, but when digging down to the financial underbelly of how the magazine and the industry makes decisions to sell race and ethnicity, it’s always about where the money is.
There seems to be as many photo apps available these days as there are photographers. Well, obviously a slight exaggeration, there certainly seems to be a paradigm shift happening in how we make, use and share pictures.
Enter onto the stage of cool social media apps Momentage.
Recently, a team from the Momentage led a sold out event to celebrate the 101th anniversary of Grand Central Station in New York City. Participants in The Grand Central Station Photo Walk used the Momentage app, to put together photographs, videos and SoundImages™ marking the occasion.
Available at the Apple App Store, Momentage is according to the company's description, "a community for the new creatives. An easy to use app, you can craft and experience moments through combining photos, videos and SoundImages into a single post to create a vivid storytelling moment on your iPhone. Share your moments with the world or with just your friends."
Suzie Linfield, a professor at New York University, argues in a recent Op-Ed, “The photographs, which document the deaths of some 11,000 detainees, were taken not by the opposition but at the behest of Mr. Assad’s regime. Wouldn’t such a government — wouldn’t any government — want to hide its crimes rather than record them?
Well informed and written primarily from a critical/cultural perspective, Linfield’s position provides a framework for understanding how these recent images are part of a pictorial legacy of shame and moral debasement. Historically, as she points out in her essay, images of suffering, what she calls “torture porn” are not new. In this case, the images may play an important role in the Syrian negotiations as well as in the court of public discourse.
At the same time, more, much more, a conversation considering the relationship between authoritarian regimes and the atrocities they commit, must begin with an understanding of a cultural pathology of pain, apathy, anguish and the collective unconscious.
While observing schizophrenic patients at the Burgholzli psychiatric hospital in 1900, psychoanalyst Carl G. Jung began to develop theories to shine some light on why people act they way they do toward one another.
Jung’s concept of collective unconscious, in the case of photographs such as those made in Iraq, Sierra Leone, or Cambodia in the 1970s, may edify why people being tortured and killed constitute a type of archetypal layer within the human psyche.
In his essay, “The Structure of the Psyche”, Jung observes, “The collective unconscious … appears to consist of mythological motifs or primordial images, for which reason the myths of all nations are its real exponents.” Jung goes on to suggest how the collective unconscious can be examined in two ways, “either in mythology or in the analysis of the individual.”
For Jung, the collective unconscious is comprised of archetypal images - forms or representations manifest in dreams, fantasies, or cultural influences. Jung describes an archetype as a predisposition, which transforms a person’s consciousness through inherited symbolic thought and images. Archetypes such as the shadow, can affect ethical, moral religious and cultural behaviors.
As early as 1870, people have been using photographs to record the spectacle of the shadow archetype. The shadow or “black side” of a personality, in this case the perpetrators of abuse and torture project upon others repressed fantasies such as sexual conquest. Linfield’s use of the term “torture porn” certainly makes this connection. Susan In her book “Regarding the Pain of Others” Susan Sontag observes, “To take a photograph is to participate in another person's mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time's relentless melt.”
In the 1870 hand-tinted postcard depicting the lynching of J. L. Compton and Joseph Wilson in Montana, a group of vigilantes pose dutifully for the photographer. As a symbol of frontier justice, torture and death reveal a form of Jung’s shadow archetype. Even though the lynching picture, as well as all images depicting suffering, demonstrate a dispassionate bearing towards the human condition, the collective unconsciousness irrevocably tied or our “dark side” prevails. Today, the image surfacing from the Syrian situation is considered by many as morally and irrevocably despicable and shameful this may not have been the case in the lynching photographs made throughout the late 1800s and through the mid-1960s.
Another difference between the Syrian images and those of public lynching is symbolic consciousness. Symbols occupy the mental images of the mind and inform attitudes and beliefs. Moreover, symbols have an implicit and explicit influence on self and national identity as well as social order and organization. The authority of pictures depicting torture and death subsume or invalidates a victim’s archetypal sense of self/being and places them in a class often dismissed by the abusers as either incomprehensible or incredulous. For example, Syrian governmental claims pronouncing how the images of brutal beatings and strangulation were digitally manipulated demonstrates both the collective conscious and unconscious state of denial and denouncement.
Illustration: Dennis Dunleavy/Credits:TIME/via Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
The first few sentences in a recent press release for photographer-activist Jo-Anne McArthur's first photography book come straight to the point. McArthur is described as "a "war photographer" in an unseen and often intentionally ignored war on animals we use for food, fashion, science, labor, and for our entertainment."
Photography has a long tradition of crusading for the "little guy" or in this case "animal" rights. Jacob Riis, Lewis Hine, Mary Ellen Mark, Bill Brandt , W. Eugene Smith,Don McCullin, Sebastião Salgado turned their lenses on injustice and inequality in the world. Bringing the wrongs of world to light and within eye sight is a noble cause, but it doesn't always mean we will be moved to act.
We Animals (Lantern Books) is a passionate work of art and activism by a compassionate photographer. Bresson once remarked that we learn most about a photographer by the images they make. McArthur's image of a "woman with a deer head" is emblematic of this elegiac work. In the photograph, the woman, apparently caught off guard by the photographer at an antique shop, peers sharply through oversized amber sunglasses.
The "deer in the headlights" analogy is not to be missed in this image. The woman, with a cell phone cradled under her chin, appears to be embracing the deer head, not with a sense of intimacy, but rather in a way one would carry a bag of groceries or a pile of wood. The deer head is pointed upward toward the woman's face that seems just starting to react to the photographer, but its too late.
The image is interesting in another way.
For years, I have instructed my students not be taxidermists. That is not that make things that are alive and moving appear dead and lifeless. The deer head is an artifact -- a trophy that in this instance has been separated from its original context. Perhaps the woman bought the head for a bargain, a prize, or a steal. In any case, what the picture makes clear is how easy it is to distance ourselves from things we perceive to be less significant on this planet than we are. In this sense, the deer head becomes a passing fancy or a conversation starter in the man cave.
McArthur's resolve in "We Animals" is clear -- to bring some sanity into what she sees as a world of excess, neglect, and hubris -- a world where other living creatures are exploited in cruel and heartless ways.
McArthur is a sensitive and thoughtful photographer with a keen eye for breaking down our apathy and ignorance -- for making others see the world as she does.
Rolling Stone Magazine has never had a problem identifying the hottest "pop" culture properties bouncing around the mediasphere. For the first time, however, editors have bent a bit backward (from left to right) in promoting Catholicism's latest pontiff. Why? He looks great in white? He's got a great smile?
Nope.
According to Rolling Stone's Mark Binelli the magazine's cover story was selected because "Pope Francis is making a noticeable break from Vatican tradition, facing political issues head on and presenting a more all-inclusive attitude toward human rights – and that Catholics are appreciative."
At first glance, the choice of featuring Pope Francis on the cover may seem a bit odd given the magazine's primary interest in the entertainment industry.
The current cover, however, suggests there is more to life than obsessing over bling, glitz, and the latest hotties in the world.
The "Stone" brings the new Pope into what appears to be it's sidebar approach to pop-culture branding. In a way Rolling Stone is validating the pope's popularity outside of Catholicism. At the same time, Pope Francis has unwittingly joined a rather dubious cast of characters on the "Stone" face including such notables as convicted serial killer Charles Manson, Islamic militant and 9/11 muscle Khalid Skaikh Mohammed, and Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Given such auspicious company, the appearance of Pope Francis' warm and slightly bemused smile seems welcomed, inviting and certainly timely.
Last light along Hwy 73 in rural NE Kansas.
Maggie Doyle during a lighting demonstration in Photography class.
Danish photographer Peter Funch on the banks of the Missouri River working on his latest conceptual photography art piece.
Funch photographing a large fish pulled from the Missouri.
Fr. Dennis Mead smiles during a picnic hosted by the Benedictine Monks in Atchison, Kan. recently. Fr. Mead joined in 1953.
Photography is all about emotion. Pictures that compel us to feel and think carry great significance in our society.
The USPS launched a new panel of stamps this week dedicated to industrial workers. Lewis Hine -- a social reform photographer of the early 1900s, made all but one of the images on the stamp panels. It was Hine's photographs of children working in sweat shops, from the textile mills to coal mines, that helped to reform America's education system.
However, the focus of the "Made in America ~ Building a Nation" stamp theme features Hine's photography from the building of the Empire State Building to airplane manufacturing. The ideological message behind the release of the stamps represents not only a celebration of an era of unprecedented industrial growth and world dominance economically, but also the work of a great and important photographer.
For decades the Postal Service has released stamps with historical significance and collectors love them. According to a press release, the "Made in America" stamps honor “the workers who were essential to the growth of the modern United States."
In one way, the use of Hine's images in this context only shows half of the story. Hine was both documentarian and crusader.
What we see in this collection are images commemorating the "working man" and some women, when not in the kitchen, as a legacy of industry and capitalism. As is the case with many iconic images used out of context there is a feeling of appropriation and exploitation in that the stamps use the images to tell what is perceived as an idealized America. Sure, a picture is worth a thousand words, but whose words are they?
While we can look upon Hine's images as nostalgic social and cultural artifacts, there is also a sense of no turning back.
Ideologically, while we celebrate the American worker through Hine's pictures, so many of the products we consume today such as smart phones, televisions, clothing and other goods are made abroad in sweat shops not so dissimilar than those Hine made to raise awareness of gross social injustices.
Parenting can be hard work. There's laundry, shuttling children to activities, meals, shopping, and all sorts of stuff to deal with. Throughout the day, there just doesn't seem to be any time to carry around a camera and capture candid moments. Most family pictures are "snapshots" because they are posed and often poorly exposed and composed. In addition, many people have the mindset that this sort of image is the way pictures should be made -- snapshot seem normal to us because we have seen them all our lives. In so many ways, even though the snapshot plays an important role in remembering events, the image seems so unnatural and contrived. The posed image of people staring into the camera offers just one perspective - it speaks to the relationship between the photographer mostly and the subject. Visual storytelling moments refer to a photojournalistic or documentary approach to making images of the things we find most important and interesting to us in our daily lives.
Recently, in between all the busy things I have to do as a parent, I started carrying my camera around with my children -- going to the library, store, park, or wherever. The images have been so rewarding and I've learned things about my children that I've never really noticed before. Taking time out to carry a camera and making storytelling images of your children is a tradeoff. I certainly wouldn't suggest that making a picture is more important than caring for a child's needs, but there are moments when they are at play, eating, or even sleeping that present themselves in wonderful ways.
Here are a few images from this summer's experiment in family photography.
Sophie, 8, jumping hay bales. I think it's important to allow for spontaniety.
Liam, 13, with a few days worth of books from the library. What's important from a storytelling approach is to let the image speak to the essence of the child.
Even a posed image doesn't need to be a snapshot. Knowing where the best light is and how to use it to emphasize the beauty of a child's world seems to be the key to successful storytelling moments.
Trying to decide the right path to take on the way to becoming a professional photographer is confusing and often tedious. In addition, some programs emphasize technique while others focus on aesthetics. There are so many programs available and there are no "one-size-fits all" answers to what works best for individuals. In many ways, photography is both vocational as well as an art and it's important to discern the direction of a possible career before investing a lot of money into an education.
Now there's an online resource to help sort it all out. The website offers easy to access to dozens of colleges and technical schools offering photography degrees, scholarship opportunities, and career advice. According to the website, photographydegree.com, is a "comprehensive resource for students considering a career in photography."Recently, the site created a handy and well-designed infographic on some of the most common technical issues developing photographers face, including aperture, shutter speed and ISO settings. The piece is well done and will help draw readers to the site.
Creativity is good for the soul and we all should have more than one passion in life. For a while now I've thought of bringing my love for cooking and photography together in my own way.
Braised Mustard Pork with red potatoes, mushrooms, and glazed carrots.
This is a hearty dish that I felt appropriate as the climate in Kansas this year has been fickle. The inspiration for this dish comes from some pretty cool days and some snow into May. Pork is always a good bet for a filling meal. Add potatoes, carrots and mushrooms and it gets even better. I'll give my recipe below, but first the shot.
I arranged the plate on a hand-painted canvas background with cooler colors to offset the dark browns and amber tones of the meat and potatoes. I like being able to paint backgrounds that add something unique to the picture. Food sitting on a plate withouth a frame to bring the eye back in doesn't always work.
I used natural light with the shadows from the window frame to add dimension and contrast. The key is to find the focal point in the image. In this case, I wanted the viewer to focus on the pok chops. I probably loaded the plate a little too much with potatoes and mushrooms, but otherwise I think the image conveys a rustic and hearty feel.
Braised Pork:
Marinate two thick pork chops in yellow mustard overnight.
Heat about two tablespoons of vegetable oil in a heavy skillet or dutch oven (my choice). Let the oil get really hot.
Add the pork and let each side brown until a crust forms.
Turn the heat down to low and add the potatoes and mushrooms. Let this simmer for about 30 minutes. Add carrots after the potatoes are soft. Remove the pork and let the carrots slightly cook in the pan. Season with salt, pepper and parsley.
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 3- - 40 minutes.
Tax Day by Dennis Dunleavy 2010
For the past few years, students in Dr. Paul Lester's Visual Communication class have been writing to me asking about this picture. As part of their studies students are asked to analyze an image and this is one up for review. I am flattered by the attention, but I've never really considered this image or anything I've made to be worthy of such analysis.
For me, a picture is like a quote from a longer narrative on life. The image stands out and speaks to us in so many ways because it demands attention in some way.
At the same time, the image cannot stand alone -- it needs a context and the words to explain it. As a visual narrative the image lives in the world of words, shared meaning, feelings and memory. Above all else, the image requires context -- something the viewer can relate to beyond the aesthetic experience.
I think part of the gift of being a photographer is to tell stories visually by allowing the viewer to fill in the blank with their own words. The viewer must learn to see the symbolism in the image and to question its relationship to the "real" world.
For me, the irony in this image has always been the fact this woman, a part-time temp worker at minimum wage - dressed as the Statue of Liberty -- who probably doesn't make enough money to file a tax return. There is also the appropriation of the symbol and ideal of freedom here that is most striking to me. The woman's pose juxtaposed against an empty city street suggests a tension that is hard to describe.
In all honesty, none of these things occurred to me when making the image. It is only upon reflection that ideas take shape. I think I saw the image as interesting. I am a storyteller that likes to tell "real" stories about people and their work. I think this image exemplifies a very modern condition humanity faces today. It shows how stuck we are in our day-to-day battle to survive and the impositions placed on us by others.