Pixeled Pix: May 2006

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Poynter's Neitizen Ken Irby Spraks

Kenny Irby, Director of the Visual Journalism Group at The Poynter Instutue. Photo Ben Russell/NewsU

This is the second query of what will beome a regular feature of this blog. Called "Netizens Speak" I queried Kenneth F. Irby, Visual Journalism Group Leader & Director of Diversity Programs at The Poynter Institute For Media Studies last night, asking, "How do you think people process audio content vs visual? What is power or strength of one over the other?" Eloquent as ever, Kenny just replied.

For me, I think that the web affords media companies a tremendous opportunity to enrich reporting and information delivery. Information consumers now have far more options than every before and journalists must meet these needs to remain competitive in this new age media consumption. Audio is the new hot things for print outlets. Albeit, it is not new really new--- radio has been around for a long time. The authenticity and emotional factors are increased by blending natural sound with still photographs. People are attracted by quality integration of audio and photojournalism. Both audio and still photography are powerful story telling structures, together they are extremely powerful and effective journalistic tools. The combination of a compelling photograph complimented by the natural voice of the individual explaining the context of their situation is arresting.

-Kenny Irby, The Poynter Institute

Weegee: F8 and Be There

Weegee As Blogger?

Reading all the tabloid buzz about the rape and killing of Imette St. Guillen, reminded me of Weegee, the photographer who invented a whole new genre for us photojournalists, even as he photographed murders. If Weegee were alive today he would take to blogging like a fish to water...posting his pix in real time. Instead of smoking cigars while souping his prints in hypo Weegee today would probably be found at the closest Starbuck's with a PC, uploading his pix using wireless.

Weegee, born in Poland in 1899, took the name Arthur Felig when he imigrated to New York with his family at nine. This freelance photographer worked out of the trunk of his car which he used as darkroom through the 30's and 40's as he photographed the daily dish of newsworthy images for tabloids and the wire services. Equipped with a police scanner he roamed the city in search of its darker side...its latest murders, fires or robberies.

In my previous post I briefly mentioned Weegee's pix of people watching movies, Weegee's World: Movie Goers that this consumate voyeur took in theaters using infrared film, his subjects unaware. The Side Photographic Gallery collection of Weegee photographs includes photos in a slideshow, as well, some of which I have never seen before.

Untitled (In the Movie House Watching "Haunting of Hill House")
ca. 1950, Photo Copyright Arthur Felig

"He will take his camera and ride off in search of new evidence that his city, even in her most drunken and disorderly and pathetic moments, is beautiful."

- William McCleery in Naked City

Sammy's Bowery Follies

When I read about Imette's last minutes at the Lower-East Side haunt the Falls, I thought of Weegee's Bowery Follies, where Weegee snapped pix breaks between photographing murders to catch scenes of humanity. The photos taken at Sammy's,

...was the scene of many of Weegee's most lighthearted and humanistic photographs, a great contrast to what was taking place on the street or curb or just outside the front door. The "poor man's Stork Club" became a refuge for Weegee, a safe haven allowing him to escape the blood and guts that his more salable photographs contained.
-Miles Barth

"F8 and Be There"

"F8 and Be There," Weegee was fond of saying. Using guide numbers for his flash he set the aperture on his Speed Graphic 4x5 press camera to insure enough depth of field to keep everything sharp. Stepping back he measured the space between his camera and the subject. Emotional distance was as important for Weegee as were the actual footsteps he had to take to insure that his pictures were properly exposed.

"His spontaneous, witty, and meaningful work went beyond that of a news photographer. He once said that he wished to show that ten and a half million people lived together in a state of total loneliness," Lee Gallery tells us.

As far as education, Weegee made it through the eighth grade. However, the family needed money and Weegee was needed to help work. He worked a lot of odd jobs: he helped his father with a push cart business, he even worked at a candy store for a while. It was when he had his picture taken by a street tintype photographer that he decided that this was what he was meant to do. Weegee often said that he was, 'a natural-born photographer, with hypo in my blood.' He quickly ordered a tintype outfit from a Chicago mail-order house, and after a few months he got his first job as a commercial photographer. After a few years he left the studio, due to a disagreement on what he should be paid. He then bought a second-hand 5x7 view camera and rented a pony from a local stable. He named the pony Hypo, and on the weekends when the kids were in their best clothes, he would walk around town putting kids on his pony and taking their picture. He would then develop the negatives, make prints, and go back to the families of the kids to try to sell them the photos.
Introduction to The Side Photographic Gallery collection of Weegee photographs

The web-site Weegee's World: Life, Death and the Human Drama was created in conjunction with the publication of Weegee's World by Miles Barth an exhibition at the International Center of Photography Midtown that was up from November 21, 1997 through March 8, 1998. It's worthy of a visit and proof that a web-site insures posterity for a " bricks and mortar" exhibition even after its photographs are taken down to make way for the next one.

Yahoo Lets Hot Zone Content Simmer

Photo Copyright Kevin Sites

When Yahoo's media group announced last summer their plan to launch media-rich original programming online, digital story-tellers chortled with glee. We rubbed our hands together in keen anticipation of a bright new era for content producers.

Lloyd Braun, the former chief of ABC Entertainment, was the uber-producer behind this ambitious endeavour. With clarion calls blasting, Yahoo's media group announced plans to produce original TV-like programming for the Internet including sitcoms and talk shows. Braun, the newly appointed chief of Yahoo's media group, launched Yahoo's first venture in original programming, "Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone", devoted to the coverage of war and conflict by this exceptionally talented multi-tasking Duracel Bunny who reports as a one-person team in almost real time from the field.

Yahoo's Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone
" Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone" is a model that most of us cross-media producers are dying to replicate...to follow our bliss on great stories, working as what Sites calls " SoJo's", solo journalists, reporting from the field with text, video and photography, within a blog-like context. Last February Kevin Sites won WIRED's Rave Award reported Boing Boing.

You can read Sites' latest cross-media report posted 15 hours ago from Besland, Russia in Chechnya where he reports a stirring tale Grief Without End, in cross-media on on a mother whose son, " Amzat was one of 331 people killed — half were children — after a hostage situation at a Beslan school ended in chaos and tragedy." He includes a photo essay with an eloquent story in text.

How Does Kevin Do it All Alone?
When it was launched, Kevin Sites' venture seemed the logical next step in what has been a slow crawl for venues to develop for SoJos. Those of us trained by VNI/NYTImes TV ten years ago to report alone as videojournalists with Hi-8 cameras were heartened. You can see Sites' photo essay on how a "sojo" (solo journalist) files a live report from the field (or doesn't) here. You can also find Sites' original pre-Yahoo multi-tasked reporting at the blog he created as the first of its kind.

Kevin Sites Multi-Tasking as a Sojo ( solo journalist) Photo Kevin Sites

Lost Mojo @ Yahoo?

The boys in the garage who created Yahoo still have their edge, we thought last Fall while following Sites' multimedia reports. How daring and bold. Yahoo is positioning themselves as pathfinders again, reviving the company's early mojo to create something new, daring and different.

Today's New York Times reports that the company has now decided to scale back their plan to produce original cross-media programming generated by pros. Yahoo now says it will concentrate instead on content acquired from other media companies or generated by users instead. And why not? User generated content is free.

Would 60 Minutes have survived at Yahoo as a start-up?

Not.

Original Content Placed on Back Burner by Yahoo

With Google nipping at his heels, Yahoo Chief Terry S. Siemel has apparently clashed with Lloyd Braun, the head of Yahoo Media, as Braun tried to implement this new business model, " to make the Internet look like television," writes the New York Times. Reports of Braun's demise at Yahoo have been greatly exaggerated says Lloyd Braun who seems to have changed the tone of the tune he was previously singing. See previous post on birds who sing too much The NYT quotes a more chastened Braun now saying, " Original content is the salt and pepper on the meal. It is certainly not the engine driving us. "

Although the public will ultimately suffer as Yahoo decides to dumb down, the company's shareholders will benefit from the projected increase in revenue from advertising. Yahoo says users stay in Yahoo's space longer while creating and sharing their content in sites such as Flickr, devoted to photo-sharing. The longer the company is able to keep users in Yahoo space, the more advertising Yahoo is able to sell.

Yahoo says although it is placing plans to produce original media-rich programming on the back burner for now, it will not cancel "Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone. " Showered with kudos and highly admired by media pros, " Kevin Sites In the Hot Zone" had only 791,000 users in January, what some might say is a respectable audience but
" marginal for Yahoo with more than 400 million users, " writes Saul Hansell.

Today's New York Times quotes Lloyd Braun,

"I now get excited about under-generated content the way I used to get excited about thinking about what television shows would work,"he said.

Mr. Braun insisted that Yahoo would would not abandon its efforts to have original material, but he said it would embark on only a handful of new ventures this year, not the dozens he had been promising last year.

-The New York Times, Saul Hansell, March 2, 2006

How Much longer will Hot Zone Continue?
The header for Kevin Sites In the Hot Zone reads: "One Man. One Year. A World of Conflict."

Has Sites and his " Hot Zone" become a little too hot...hot...hot for Yahoo to handle? Will they pull the plug soon? Because this reporter with a soul and passion doesn't report " Bang Bang " stories which consist of familiar stories on the Boys With Big Toys in Iraq. Google his name and check out what conservative bloggers are saying about Kevin Sites. But it will certainly be no surprise for Sites if he wakes up one morning to find that the plug has been pulled.

In April of 2003 Susan Mernit reported at USC's Online Journalism Review, on "CNN's decision to force war correspondent Kevin Sites to stop posting items to the popular blog he created while on assignment in northern Iraq," which touched off "an ongoing debate on blogging as a legitimate form of journalism."

Will Kevin's contract be renewed? I hope so.

Or maybe not, for Kevin's sake. He must be exhausted.

And Kevin, if you are reading this post, please do take care. You are covering a beat where PTS is as endemic for journalists as bullets, buzzards and death. Do stop to consider the sad story of Keith Carter , the South African photojournalist featured in the new short doc, screened at the IDA's DocuNYC on Saturday.

Bon Courage.

( Full disclosure: Although I am a big Kevin Sites fan I did not lift the title for my cross-media project on malaria called "Fever Zone" from him. I chose it two years ago.)

-Stephenie Hollyman, New York City

Typepad Photo Album

Click here to see photo album hosted by Typepad

I am trying out different blog providers having outgrown Blogger. Each has its merits. I will share with you what I discover along the trek...

Here's a photo album I easily created with Typepad, filled with photos I took during the blizzard.

Liberated by Digital Technology

The future of Memories By Dane Howard

At Webmonkey , Dane Howard writes about how shooting digital " disposable photographs" makes us all better photographers, how empowered by instant feedback via the LCD screen, we keep shooting to get a better shot. He says we become liberated.

I tend to agree. I have become a much better photographer since going digital.

Check out his online version of The Future of Memories. He includes free narrative photo templates for slide shows created by different designers. I will be testing these out and posting the results for you to evaluate.

Dane writes at Webmonkey:

When you start shooting with a digital camera, your mentality begins to change. You change from a scarcity mentality to an abundance mentality. You begin to realize that you can shoot hundreds of pictures on a memory card and not worry about wasting film or money. This was very liberating for me — and I have a photography background! I can't say enough about what the digital camera has done for my willingness to take pictures. I found myself using it more often and more liberally. I would experiment with the settings and take advantage of the immediate feedback. If I didn't like the picture I saw, I erased it on the spot.

Dane Howard, The Future of Memories

First Photo From Mars

NASA Photo
Just in from Mars! No joke. NASA gives us the first photo taken on Mars, one day before all our taxes are due. But exactly is this "First Context Camera Image" of Mars? And how much of it is digitally enhanced?

NASA tells us:

04.13.06 This is the first image of Mars taken by the Context Camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The spacecraft began orbiting the red planet on March 10, 2006. During its 10th close approach to Mars, on March 24, it turned its cameras to view the planet's surface. Although the images acquired were about 10 times lower in resolution than will ultimately be obtained when the spacecraft has finished reshaping its orbit for the mission's primary science phase, these test images provide important confirmation of the performance of the cameras and the spacecraft.

This first image by the Context Camera includes some chaotic terrain at the east end of Mars' Valles Marineris, seen along the top (northern) edge of the image. The image has a scale of about 87 meters (285 feet) per pixel, which is 14.5 times lower resolution than will be acquired during the primary science phase. Typical images from the Context Camera acquired during that phase of the mission will have a resolution of 6 meters (20 feet) per pixel, and will cover an area about 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) wide.

Note that, because these are initial, test images, there is some linear striping in the images. This results from incomplete removal of pixel-to-pixel variations in the Context Camera detector by the present calibration software. One use of the test imaging is an opportunity to fine-tune the calibrations before the primary science phase begins.

Moon Walkers Made Into Art

Which reminds me. If you live in New York drop by the hallway of the Hayden Plamatarium at The Museum of Natural History to see an exhibition of images taken by the first men on the moon. An " artist" cropped and reprinted these to make art out of science.

Of Bearded Tugboat Captains and Lighting

Photograph Copyright Stephenie Hollyman 2006

The bane of any photographer's existence is direct flash. Most of us like to shoot natural light during what Jay Meisel calls the "sweetlight" time of day.

But living in an imperfect world, most often we have to pop in a light or two. We then may have to break out lights, softbox, umbrellas and stands.

Sometimes we don't even have time for that, like in this picture I took last night of Captain Brian McAllister, standing in front of his company's 105 year old tugboat, the Helen McAllister at the South Street Seaport Museum. A real dynasty, McAllister Towing & Transportation is the only family-owned company remaining in New York harbor.

I used a nifty new gadget on my flash to take this picture.

This Light Sphere II Inverted Dome Diffuser, invented by Gary Fong, which really does a pretty good job.

I was hard at work in my office uploading video when McAllisters director of public relations, Craig Rising, called me from his cell phone, telling me that he and Brian were at the Seaport across the street. " Brian wants you to come down and take a picture of him, before he shaves his beard." Craig told me. Brian's wife, Rosemary, thinks Brian's beard makes him look old.

Brian likes the way his new beard makes him look like his great great grandfather,

James McAllister who arrived from Ireland in 1864 and founded this company with a single sail lighter. Take a look at this photo of James McAllister and decide for yourself.

Brian's a dear old friend and client for whom I have worked off and one over the years a freelance basis, writing and researching a book on his family's five generations in New York harbor. It's finished now, some 250-pages. In a later post I will give you chapters to download in PDF.

Patrick Kennedy

I photographed Patrick Kennedy when he first ran for congressional office in Rhode Island some long time ago... was it 1988? So you can imagine how saddened I was to follow the story of Patrick's latest relapse and accident last week and his confession on Thursday that he was addicted to prescription pain killers. He claimed full responsibility for his actions and decided to bring it out in the open. For those of us who have watched friends suffer as they tried to overcome addictions, Patrick's story is so familiar.

" I struggle every day with this disease, as do millions of Americans, " this six-term Congressional representative from Rhode Island told the press on Thursday.

I immediately flashed back 18 years to the sticky torrid day I was assigned by Marcel Saba, then at Picture Group, to spend a Saturday with Patrick as he campaigned for his first term for the office of Congressional Representative for Rhode Island. Backed with a gurantee from Newsweek (or was it Time?) I followed Patrick in Providence, Rhode Island, while he pressed the flesh with voters accompanied by his father Teddy. I covered Patrick's back-yard birthday party that evening. Patrick told me he has severe back pain that day, and was tired. You can catch a glimpse of it in this photograph I took before he jumped into a public pool, this swimming ritual he performed daily as physical therapy.

Respecting Patrick's privacy I have never told this story except to a few close friends. But I feel it is now the time, after reading Patrick's public confession. He's very much his mother's son.

Patrick Kenndy: 1988

I arrived early at Patrick's house that morning in 1988 and quickly experienced first-hand the Kennedys' renowned ability to make members of the press feel as part of their extended family. Patrick put me at ease and we quickly bonded as we chatted about the gaff-rigged sailing boats we had both once owned called Beetlecats, his back pain, and my recent photographic work covering America's displaced homeless. My book, We the Homeless, Portraits of America's Displaced People ( Philospohical Library 1988)was going to press and I showed Patrick its cover. Patrick's mother Joan soon arrived and we were introduced.

The party that evening was going to be Joan Kennedy's first public appearence since she had ran her car onto a sidewalk while under the influence of alcohol, a few weeks earlier. Senator Kennedy had just announced that their marriage was over and that he was seeking a seperation.

Before the party, in Patrick's small dining room, Joan took me aside and told me that she planned to speak to the press about her problems with alcohol, if they attended Patrick's party. She asked my advice and I told her I really had none to offer other than to " tell it like it is."

Her eyes were clear and she was resolute. She spoke of the support she had received from her friends in the " rooms" to go public. Knowing that was how AA folks refer to their meetings I nodded. I really felt quite out of my league.

She then changed the subject, and asked me about what I had seen in Appalachia while traveling to finish up my book. She told me about her trip through the region with President Kennedy and his deep desire to begin breaking the cycle of poverty endemic to that hilly terrain.

Senator Kenndy Arrives

Senator Kennedy left the room as quickly as he had entered when he saw his soon to be ex-wife was in attendence. We moved out into Patrick's small back yard where his neighbors and other family members gathered.

A small band was playing. It was a strained but civil party. I took some pictures. But whenever Senator Kenndy was within the radious of a 24mm lens of Joan, he quickly moved away.

Joan told me that Patrick had insisted she attend. She looked relieved when no press appeared. She asked me to approach Senator Kennedy on her behalf, to request a family portrait.

Senator Kennedy was flushed when I approached him. He embraced me with his arm at first which he quickly dropped when he heard Joan's request. He swore mightily under his breath, "XXXX, she asked that?" breaking away abruptly to storm into Patrick's house. The screen door slammed shot. I looked across the yard and saw Joan quickly turn away from watching. She headed for the electric piano used by the party's band and quickly began playing "Happy Birthday."

Then in a scene only out of Fellini, a cake, Patrick and the Senator emerged from the house. The Senator was all smiles. After the singing died down and the cake was cut the Senator approached me. He put his arm around me again. He was sweaty and his shirt unbuttoned. He apologized for his reaction to Joan's request and said that Patrick had told me all about me. " Patrick told me all about your work with the homeless and even showed me your book. Powerful pictures inside. Terrific work."

There was no book by me in Patrick's Patrick's house. Just one picture from the cover.

Fast Forward

Picture Group began to fall apart for reasons better left alone. I joined Gamma-Liaison. Marcel has already left to start up an agency on his own. I thought Picture Group had returned all my pictures and was completly out of business until I received a message on my answering machine late one Friday afternoon. The William Kennedy-Smith story had just broken and Picture Group told me they had sent the photo of Patrick Kennedy with bath towel to People and several news magazines.

I called them back. They told they had already sent dupes to major publications and were lining up some big guarantees. I said I did not want the photo released as Patrick was not a suspect. This picture with a bath towel could place him in the public's mind on the beach in front of the clan's Palm Beach compound where the alleged rape occurred. I remarked I was puzzled that Picture Group still had the originals on hand.

They reminded me that I was a journalist and I needed to be more objective. I reminded them of my warning upon joing the agency that "I don't do paparazzi". I told them, " You'll just have to call the magazines and tell them the photos are embargoed. "

Career suicide? Perhaps.

Do I regret my action? No way.

Good luck Patrick.

Great Flash Gadget

Gary Fong's Light Dome

I used a nifty new gadget on my flash to take a picture of the president of a 132-year old tugboat company, McAllister Towing. In my last post I showed the first photo I took with this dome, of tugboat kingpin Capt. Brian A. McAllister.

This Light Sphere II Inverted Dome Diffuser, invented by Gary Fong, really does a pretty good job. It just arrived by UPS the day before taking this shot.

I held the Light-Sphere fitted flash to camera left with a remote TTL sensor on my camera's hotshoe. Then I bracketed shutter speeds to get the dramatic look I wanted.

Gary supplies an instructional DVD with every dome. He reccomends that you shoot in manual mode with the flash on TTL so the background doesn't drop out darkly.

Download May Calender

Click here to download a calender for May that can be folded to stand on your desktop like this:

Seal the two yellow flaps to each other with tape.

The calender includes two photos from my ongoing multimedia work in progress on malaria called Fever Zone.

Larry Fink: Beneath the Surface

At the website for Larry Fink's agent, Bill Charles take a look at Fink's Oscar night party pix.
Under The Surface The Stephen Cohen Gallery website also shows some of the photos taken by Larry Fink, whose snooted flash lighting and Dutch tilts transcend the conventions of event photography.

Lurking in the Shadows With Lethal Flash

Photo Larry Fink Copyright 2006

Lurking in the unlit fringe of society functions, Larry Fink captures photographs that can sometimes startle and illuminate. Oh so cruel or just brutally honest?

I leave that for you to decide.

The Stephen Cohen Gallery website describes Fink's work as:

... a thought-provoking social commentary that demonstrates Fink’s ability to reveal the intimate in the most crowded of settings and the flaw in the most perfect of scenes. The images are iconic black-and-white photographs of American VIPs, Hollywood players, boxers, runway models and blue collar workers. In a photo of George Plimpton blowing smoke rings to the amusement of a young Ivanka Trump and her model friends, and in a surreptitiously captured shot of rising starlets just outside the glow of the red carpet, as in all his images, Fink illuminates the private and unexpected moments we would otherwise rarely see. A master of the “snapshot aesthetic,” Larry Fink is in the esteemed ranks of Diane Arbus, Robert Frank and Garry Winogrand.

Fink reflects on his work,“Some people mistake my work for satire. I don’t object because satire is a powerful force, so if the work is seen that way it serves one function. But I don’t agree. The pictures are taken in the spirit of finding myself in the other, or finding the other in myself. They are taken in the spirit of empathy. Emotional, physical, sensual empathy. This work is political, but not polemical. There is potential for the formation of an underlying theme in how the system suppresses and distorts both the rich and the poor, but it is not Marx who chooses the characters in this book; it is lust, attraction, and destiny.”

Pixeled Pix