As a photographer, I often get asked by friends and other non-professionals which compact camera they should buy. Apart from the top-end compacts, I don’t really keep track of what the latest models are – there are so many and they get replaced so quickly.
So if you get asked to explain the basics, here is a rather useful primer to send to amateurs on what features to look out for and some basic explanations as to photo terminology and technology.
David Campbell, professor of cultural and political geography at Durham University in the UK and associated with the Durham Centre for Advanced Photography Studies, writes one of the smartest analyses I’ve recently read on the future of the media and photography. His essay titled “Revolutions in the media economy” comes in four parts:
1. The Context of Crisis
2. The Changing Structure of Information
3. Photojournalism’s futures
4. Disturbing the University
If you’re mainly interested in the media you can probably skip part 4, but the rest is well worth a read if you want an idea of the issues currently facing journalism, some of the solutions, and particularly are wondering how the hell it’s all going to be paid for.
Bizarre yet strangely impressive stop-motion video from Japan. Watch in full-screen with HQ (High Quality) option clicked for best effect:
“Stop motion with wolf and pig” (YouTube)
[via Wooster Collective, via The Click]
Interesting blog posts by the filmmakers behind Searching for Sonny – a feature film shot entirely on the Canon 5D Mark II camera, discussing the technical details and methods they are using.
As someone who photographed the climax of the Second Liberian Civil War, siege of the capital Monrovia, and downfall into exile of then-president Charles Taylor who is now on trial for war crimes by the Special Court for Sierra Leone sitting at the Hague, I have always been utterly fascinated by Liberia and have watched its progress from bloody civil war to relative peace and economic progress.
I was therefore excited to learn that last year’s World Press Photo winner Tim Hetherington (see interview about his winning photo) has a new photo book coming out shortly which focuses on Tim’s extensive work covering recent Liberian history, entitled Long Story, Bit By Bit
Tim had a unique perspective on that conflict being one of the few journalists, along with James Brabazon (see interview), to cover it primarily from the (geographical) side of the LURD rebels, so I’m very much looking forward to seeing this new publication, which Tim tells me is already printed and will be launched in early June.
His website says the book launch will take place on June 3rd at the Umbrage Gallery in Dumbo, New York, an exhibtion of the work will be on show there from May through to June, and Tim will give a talk about the project in the gallery space on May 16th. The exhibition will then move to the Lincoln Reade Centre in New York to accompany the Human Rights Watch Film festival that runs from June 10th to 29th
If you want to learn more about the fascinating history of Liberia I also highly recommend you watch these two films:
Liberia – America’s Stepchild (PBS documentary on Liberia’s long history, produced before the fall of Charles Taylor)
Liberia – An Uncivil War (documentary by Jonathan Stack, James Brabazon, and Tim Hetherington on the Second Liberian Civil War and fall of Charles Taylor)
Also see this previous post I wrote about an exhibition of Tim’s work in Liberia and a selection of his photos from that exhibition here
…and if you want to see a selection of the photos I took during that conflict go to my photo galleries page and select one of the two galleries entitled “Liberian War”. There’s a brief one of 15 images, and a longer one of 70 images.
UPDATE: Glenna Gordon has an interesting new interview with Tim about the book, conducted while he was recently in Monrovia.
Long Story Bit by Bit – some links
Publishers page
Press Release [PDF, 216kb]
Amazon US pre-order
Amazon UK pre-order
An era almost over…. Richard Nicholson photographs London’s dwindling professional darkrooms.
A great photo-story idea.
[via The Online Photographer]
Interesting article on the brain’s handling of colour perception.
Summary: The colour magenta does not exist and is a pure fabrication of the brain.
Weird.
Update: ArsTechnica argues the colour magenta does exist. Who knows…
[via 1854 blog]
If you use Skype for VOIP calls, you should really upgrade to the recently-released version 4.0 (Windows-only so far). There’s a bunch of interface “improvements” (in my opinion that’s debatable) but the most significant difference is under the hood. Previous versions used Skype’s proprietary audio codec SVOPC but the latest version brings a supposedly much improved new codec called SILK.
Why should you care? Well, they say the new codec achieves almost 50% better audio quality for a given bandwidth, which should mean that all users experience better audio quality, but particularly those with slow or otherwise bad internet connections e.g. in Africa. If you’re running Windows (unfortunately it is the only version that has been upgraded to the SILK codec so far, as usual the Mac version lags behind) then it’s well worth the upgrade.
A few caveats though:
1. Even if you are running v4.0 you’re unlikely to experience the audio improvements unless the person you’re calling is also running v4.0, otherwise it’ll still use the older SVOPC codec. I verified this by calling a Mac user and it indeed still used SVOPC.
2. I’m guessing (but not sure) that the new codec won’t be used for Skype-Out calls to “real” phone numbers, only for Skype-to-Skype calls.
For more explanation of the technical aspects of SILK, take a look here and here.
Personally I still much prefer using SIP for VOIP calls to telephones, largely because it’s an open standard giving you a wide choice of different providers and you can do so many things with it that you just can’t with a proprietary system like Skype, also I just find the audio quality much better… but… it’s hard to ignore the already large user-base that Skype has.
Finally, if you hate the new large window that takes up half your screen, you can switch it back to the old look by going to the View menu and changing “Default view” to “Compact view”.
Dexter Filkins, a staff writer who covered Iraq for The New York Times from 2003 to 2006, looks back on his time there.
UPDATE: Filkins answers questions about the article from readers here and here
I guess it would have been better to have posted this earlier on in the month but if you haven’t been following it, photographer Kevin German has been running a great daily photo blog and commentary from the Olympic Games in Beijing.
He’s spending his time outside the actual events and showing the richness of life in Beijing and all the issues surrounding the games. There’s some really nice work there – well worth a look.
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