SnapperTalk

The world of multimedia-speak is chock full of buzzwords, often leaving the reader with little idea of what is being talked about. But once you sweep away the jargon there is actually some really interesting potential for new ways of transmitting reportage. I wrote previously about the Magnum photo-agency’s excellent “Magnum in Motion” series of stills-and-audio slideshows. Now they have announced (see press release) the first in a series of podcasts. The debut is a slideshow entitled “Satellites” by 28-year-old photographer Jonas Bendiksen, described as “a surreal journey through the scattered enclaves and isolated communities in the southern borderlands of the former USSR”.

What this actually means to the viewer is that users of iTunes, and other such software, can “bookmark” the Magnum podcast link and have each new multimedia slideshow automatically delivered to their computer as soon as it is posted. The slideshow (with or without audio) can then be played directly in iTunes, or owners of video-capable ipods and other such decices can view them on the ipod itself. The best aspect of podcasting - versus showing content on the web normally - is the convenience afforded by having content delivered automatically rather than the viewer having to seek it out each time. It should be noted that despite the origins of the name, podcasting is not restricted to any single operating system or type of device, and is essentially an open standard.

I view the potential for this as huge… Podcasting has already taken off in a big way in the world of audio e.g. for home-made radio shows, or for music blogs such as the african music blog Benn Loxo du Taccu run by my friend Matt Yanchyshyn.

But until now I hadn’t really considered the potential for photographers. Imagine yourself as a viewer, able to subscribe (freely or paid) to daily photo & audio slideshows from your favourite photographers. Or agencies and newspapers providing customised podcast feeds for those with an interest in e.g. the latest events in Palestine. The viewer wakes up, plugs their iPod into their computer, and on the way to work watches a selection of images, audio, and/or video of the latest world events that he or she is interested in.

Another possible use could be as an efficient method for freelance photographers to get their images seen by newspapers. Imagine a newspaper able to view the “photo feeds” of a hundred different freelance photographers, all delivered automatically to the editor’s desktop for viewing.

Either way this technology creates many new methods for what essentially is the age-old purpose of photojournalism - enabling readers to see the world through the eyes of photographers.

The ever-prolific Sion Touhig has some good new articles:

A first about the “Cruel Sea” exhibition in London of Canary-Island-based Reuters photographer Juan Medina’s series of pictures on the suffering of African illegal migrants who attempt to travel to Europe and often end up drowned.

A second about the death of El Mundo and Ultimas Noticias photographer Jorge Aguirre who was shot in Caracas, Venezuela, on his way to cover an anti-crime demonstration. With obvious respect to the tragedy itself, the truly remarkable aspect of this journalist’s death, is that Jorge was able to take a photograph of his killer fleeing the scene on a motorcycle before he died - see here and here.

And a third, about two phenomena in photojournalism that are sadly on the rise these days - the use of photo-competitions as naked rights-grabs for the sponsors, and the increasing use of anti-terrorist and anti-paedophile terminology as an excuse for prohibiting photography in public places. Both of these phenomena must be challenged and thwarted.

PDNonline has an interesting interview with photographer Lynn Johnson that centres around the concept of photojournalists-as-activists. There’s also an interesting discussion surrounding the article in this LightStalkers thread.

The National Journal has a lengthy article with a number of interviews with prominent photo-editors, about the difficulties photo-editors face in maintaining standards of accuracy and truth in an environment so utterly hostile to free reporting such as Iraq. It raises questions about the use of stringers, the avoidance of staged photos, and the attempts by both U.S. Military and insurgents to use the media for their own purposes.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s troubles continue… Human Rights Watch yesterday published a statement that it believes it has evidence - based on a December 20, 2005 Army Inspector General’s report containing a sworn statement by by Lt. Gen. Randall M. Schmidt - suggesting that Rumsfeld could be criminally liable for the torture of detainee Mohammad al-Qahtani at Guantanamo Bay in late 2002 and early 2003, and calling for the United States to name a special prosecutor to investigate the culpability of Rumsfeld and others in the al-Qahtani case.

The April edition of The Digital Journalist has some good articles worth a read:

There’s a special series of articles in tribute of groundbreaking African-American photographer Gordon Parks, who died March 7 this year.

Also in the April edition is an article by Greg Kelly about the nature of war photographers as people. Greg is one of the producers of the recent CBC television documentary “Beyond Words: Photographers of War“. I haven’t seen the documentary - the website says you can purchase the film but replies asking for further information have gone unanswered - so if anyone has a copy I’d love to get hold of it.

Still on the war theme is a piece by TV producer Ron Steinman from the perspective of those who assign others to go to conflict zones, including some thoughtful comments on what he terms the “big foot” syndrome whereby TV anchors come parachute in from headquarters and steal the story from local correspondents who have been covering the story day in, day out, for years.

And after all that heavy reading, something to watch: Love him or hate him, if you want to relive the powerful speech by British M.P. George Galloway in front of the U.S. Senate which took place almost a year ago in which he oratorically demolishes U.S. Republican Senator Norm Coleman - someone has finally posted a torrent of the full-tv-quality 45-minute testimony, although it’s not being seeded much.

Sion Touhig has a couple of interesting new articles on his blog - One about his recent foray into the world of video-journalism and what it means for a photojournalist, and another about an Iranian photographer/cameraman friend of his Kaveh Golestan, who was killed in Iraq three years ago.

Guardian staff photographer Dan Chung has a new blog. Whilst most photographer-bloggers run blogs independently from their employers, Dan’s is part of a wider Guardian blogging section entitled “Comment is Free”. His old blog remains, but it doesn’t seem like it will continue to be updated.

Magnum’s Martin Fuchs has discontinued his New York Photoblog, but started a new one entitled “Journal of a Photographer”.

If you’d have told me a few years ago I’d be seeing the above image when I booted up the latest Macintosh, I’d have thought you were crazy.

Well, It seems everyone can forget about the previous attempted hacks to boot Windows on an Intel-Mac, as Apple has come out and announced Boot Camp - software that will allow one to pretty seamlessly do just this, just by holding down the option/alt key at startup. At the moment it is a freely downloadable public beta, but will eventually be part of the next iteration of the Mac OS - 10.5 “Leopard” - and is really it marks quite a milestone in Apple’s history.

The main system requirements are:
* Mac OS X Tiger v10.4.6
* The latest Firmware update (check Support Downloads)
* 10GB free hard disk space
* An Intel-based Mac
* A bona fide installation disc for Microsoft Windows XP, Service Pack 2, Home or Professional (No multi-disc, upgrade or Media Center versions.)

MacRumors point out that it is really the firmware upgrade that provides the dual-boot functionality (by providing EFI with BIOS support) - the Boot Camp CD software just provides the necessary mac-specific drivers to support the Mac hardware under Windows XP. What this means is that you should also be able to boot your favourite flavour of Linux, and also Windows Vista when (if?) it ever comes out.

One suggestion I’d make is if you want to be able to read all the files on the OSX partition from Windows, try the incredibly useful “MacDrive” software that enables any Windows user to natively read HFS/HFS+ formatted disks.

Sadly I don’t have an Intel-Mac to test it, and of course this won’t be of any use to owners of G3/G4/G5 PowerPC Macs.

Further coverage here:
Ars Technica Boot Camp notes

MacWorld
MacNN
The Register
Engadget 1
Engadget 2
Engadget 3
MacRumors 1
MacRumors 2
OSX86 Project