I used to be with it, but then they changed what "it" was. Now what I'm with isn't "it", and what's "it" is weird and scary to me.

Kathy Ryan, the Director of Photography for the New York Times Magazine, went pretty above and beyond this week, assigning several things to people I'm not used to seeing a lot of editorial photography from, ie: Tim Davis, Massimo Vitali (both in the Travel mag), and Katherine Wolkoff. Amy Arbus also shot a piece, and Jenny Gage and Tom Betterton did a fashion story. I don't know how you do it, Kathy. Especially the two magazines in one week. You must have Martha Stewart's sleep patterns. And great assistants.


Kathy ALSO put an animal on the cover, for a politics story, no less. Go trend, Go! This image is by Andrew Bettles, and is by far my favorite of all the images in the Magazine this week.







Tim Davis, for a story on Boulder, Colorado... *although I must admit, I LOVE Davis' personal work, but I thought these were just "eh".



Massimo Vitali, for a story on Tyrol:




One of Katherine Wolkoff's images for the article on the Harvard Chastity club:




Amy Arbus shoots Tom Cole, chairman of the Republican Congressional Committee. Love the square.

I arrived home late last night after a delayed flight back from Maine, and I immediately went to the computer to rustle up a copy of Richard Misrach's On The Beach. I've been waiting to buy this book for months; primarily because whenever I stare at it in a store I am either not in a moneyed way, or am far from my house. And that thing is Big and Heavy. This time it was the "far from my house" excuse, as I saw it in Portland at Books, Etc. So home I come, and I ring up a trusty website to make the $85 purchase. Which seems absolutely bargain basement for what you're getting, which is a 16x20 book with 80 pages of staggeringly beautiful photographs.

Dith Pran, the photojournalist who documented murderous Khmer Rouge-era Cambodia for the New York Times in the '70s, died today at age 65. In Cambodia, Mr. Dith worked alongside American journalist Sydney Schanberg, who was eventually forced out of the country, while Dith was taken prisoner and underwent a harrowing, tortuous ordeal. In the meantime, Schanberg accepted a Pulitzer Prize on their behalf, and worked for years to try to help his lost compatriot. From the Times:

"Mr. Schanberg wrote about Mr. Dith in newspaper articles and in The New York Times Magazine, in a 1980 cover article titled "The Death and Life of Dith Pran." (A book by the same title appeared in 1985.) The story became the basis of the movie "The Killing Fields." The film, directed by Roland Joffé, portrayed Mr. Schanberg, played by Sam Waterston, arranging for Mr. Dith's wife and children to be evacuated from Phnom Penh as danger mounted. Mr. Dith, portrayed by Dr. Haing S. Ngor (who won an Academy Award as best supporting actor), insisted on staying in Cambodia with Mr. Schanberg to keep reporting the news."

Despite false reports of his death (one rumor was that he was eaten by an alligator, but that turned out to be his brother (!)), Dith survived and eventually escaped over the Thai border. Schanberg was there to meet him. He became an American citizen in 1986, and worked for the Times for the remainder of his career.

Here are some images from The Times slideshow:


Dith Pran (right) and Sidney Schanberg in the field in Cambodia, 1973


 Shells being fired near Phnom Penh, 1974. Photo by Dith Pran.



Read more about Pran's story. It's truly amazing.

Keep it gay!

Scott Schuman over at The Sartorialist posted a nice picture of Kanye West today. It's refreshing to see a photo of Mr. West that isn't taken at a club by a Wireimage/Getty stringer. Even if he does have a funny face on, he seems easy, breezy and Beautiful! I like the dude to his left, too. He looks right out of The Inimitable Jeeves. Scowly, though. Pip pip!




ps. The Sartorialist will be at the MET this weekend, with Cathy Horyn, no less. He'll talk about fashion, and blogging. Hallo, it's 2008! Throw on your best Hermes scarf and get over there:

The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium at the Museum on Sunday, March 30, 2008 from 3:00-4:45pm.

A friendly soul emailed me today to ask if I knew how to convert her Canon 30D into an infrared camera. I haven't the foggiest, but I'm going to do some reseach. In any case, this got me thinking about camera conversions, which I think could be an interesting regular feature.

Something I HAVE heard about, and has always intrigued me, has been the conversion of  the old Polaroid roll-film cameras into 4x5 rangefinder cameras. The point of this is to effectively create a large format snapshot camera, which is rad.

The camera generally used is the Pathfinder 110A or the Pathfinder 110B.These cameras were produced in the late fifties and early sixties, and originally retailed for about $170. The best thing about them was the fast and sharp lens: the 127mm f/4.7 Rodenstock Ysarex. They are also set to expose the film fully manually, giving the photographer complete control. However, when roll-film went out of production, they were rendered essentially useless.

But a few brave souls started converting these cameras decades ago to accept standard 4x5 film backs, ready-load holders, or Polaroid and Fuji 4x5 pack film adapters. Most notably, perhaps, was William Littman, who started making the Littman 45 Single decades ago. He was profiled in American Photo a few years ago, which had Bruce Weber shoot a few images with the camera. Here's one.


photo by Bruce Weber


Littman is known as a master craftsman, but as with a Cadillac dealer, he charges the big bucks. There are others who can craft these puppies for you, or you could do it yourself, you lazy bum! Or you can go online and geek out about it. Either way, get yourself some Fuji film, because Polaroid pack film is gone baby gone.



Anyone out there have a converted Pathfinder? Send in sample images!


UPDATE: Robert Schneider sent in an image, and says: "I just found a 110B that had been modified for pack film by Four Designs.  They're out of the Pola conversion biz, but they used to do a beautiful job. I'm still at the goofing around stage, but it's a wonderful camera to use. The person I bought it from even threw in some Type 665 P/N film -- the holy grail!"

 

Yawn, or Cheer?

photo by Diego Fernandez


I'll be communing with Hebrew National tonight on 26th street. You?


THURSDAY:
Ion Zupcu "New Works on Paper" Clamp Art
W 25 street, 531

"Coney Island of the Heart" at Bond Street Gallery
Brooklyn, Bond street, 29, 6-9pm

Tamy Ben-Tor at Zach Feuer Gallery (LFL)
W 24 street, 530

PEER at DiVA The Digital and Video Art Fair, 2008
West 26th St. Block Party!
Galleries Open Till 10PM Thursday with video, DJs, hot dog stands,
and limousines as bars on the streets of Chelsea.


FRIDAY:
"Whitney After Hours" at Whitney Museum of American Art
Madison avenue, 945, at 75 street, 6-9pm

ICP Museum Store
Book Signing with BARBARA BLOOM
The Collections of Barbara Bloom.


SATURDAY:



Slideluck Potshow
March 29th at the Chelsea Art Museum
Theme: Patterns

Sean Snyder, Wolfgang Tillmans, Andreas Neumeister "The Real World" at Ludlow 38

Vince Aletti "Disco Files" at White Columns
W 13 street, 320, (entrance on Horatio), 8-10pm 

This one's in the California!:

"SHUDDER" The Photographer's Unwavering Eye
Celebrity Portraits to Personal Projects featuring the works of Jeremy & Claire Weiss,
Patrick Fraser, Dan Monick and Michael Lavine.

ISM: gallery at the Koos Art Center
540 East Broadway
Long Beach, California 

Getting this shot.


Wasn't so easy.



Get insurance.

Even Salvador Dali needs more than one take. Or, um, more than twenty-seven.

Philippe Halsman, Dali Atomicus, 1948

Check out the early winners of the NPPA's Best of Photojournalism Contest 2008.

These three images are winners in the "Sports Enterprise" category.


Tomasz Gudzowaty/Yours Gallery

The following are all images that were taken in 1941 and 1942 by Alfred Palmer for the Office of War Information. These are large-format Kodachromes (4x5) that were posed, as studies for recruitment posters, and exhibits (propaganda, my friend). There are hundreds of them in the Library of Congress FSA/OWI archive, which means they are public domain. I found them on Shorpy, which calls itself the 100-Year-Old Photo Blog, and brings many of these public domain images to light, and also offers high-quality archival prints of them here. I have spent many, many hours on this site, and I just can't get enough of it. I mean, these Kodachromes! Can you believe it? Shorpy has caption information and larger versions of these images here.

I mean, I knew about the FSA photographs (mostly b&w) by the likes of Dorothea Lange and Lewis Hine and Walker Evans and others, but I just totally missed these.

I was going to pipe down about this trend, but then a commenter sent me this. But now I'm done, I promise. I think.

Thanks, Davin.

photo by M. Scott Brauer/PhotoShelter

Journalist David W. Dunlap's terrifying article in the Times detailing his attack by poster-scoundrels was an interesting comment on the collision of two often-marginalized factions.

The gist:

"I began photographing the poster operation. After about two minutes, one man asked me why I was taking pictures. "Because what you're doing is illegal," I replied.

He answered, "Breaking cameras is illegal, too, but if you don't stop taking pictures, I'll break your camera." He modified "camera" with an adjective I am not permitted to repeat here. I identified myself as a reporter from The Times. "I'll break your camera," he said, using that adjective again, "and you can print that in your paper."

I distinctly remember thinking, "No, I can't." Then, rather than antagonize him further, I started taking pictures of the poster-covered scaffold pipes across Broadway."

In this case, the corporate posters were not within their rights, while David was. Plus, they broke his camera (and almost his face), which is just rude. It reminded me of a good post the other day on Photojojo, which listed legal rights of photographers. I've re-printed them below, but find additional excellent tips here. Don't let someone break your face!


The Ten Legal Commandments of Photography

I. Anyone in a public place can take pictures of anything they want. Public places include parks, sidewalks, malls, etc. Malls? Yeah. Even though it's technically private property, being open to the public makes it public space.

II. If you are on public property, you can take pictures of private property. If a building, for example, is visible from the sidewalk, it's fair game.

III. If you are on private property and are asked not to take pictures, you are obligated to honor that request. This includes posted signs.

IV. Sensitive government buildings (military bases, nuclear facilities) can prohibit photography if it is deemed a threat to national security.

V. People can be photographed if they are in public (without their consent) unless they have secluded themselves and can expect a reasonable degree of privacy. Kids swimming in a fountain? Okay. Somebody entering their PIN at the ATM? Not okay.

VI. The following can almost always be photographed from public places, despite popular opinion:

    * accident & fire scenes, criminal activities
    * bridges & other infrastructure, transportation facilities (i.e. airports)
    * industrial facilities, Superfund sites
    * public utilities, residential & commercial buildings
    * children, celebrities, law enforcement officers
    * UFOs, the Loch Ness Monster, Chuck Norris

VII. Although "security" is often given as the reason somebody doesn't want you to take photos, it's rarely valid. Taking a photo of a publicly visible subject does not constitute terrorism, nor does it infringe on a company's trade secrets.

VIII. If you are challenged, you do not have to explain why you are taking pictures, nor to you have to disclose your identity (except in some cases when questioned by a law enforcement officer.)