Culture

I grew up without the Internet.

When I was young and starting out in the business, I had no Internet, although I did have a computer. It was an Apple IIe. I felt very fancy with it, kind of like Matthew Broderick in "War Games." To me, it was like a big expensive calculator because I only used it to run reports and for record keeping. When it came to photography and the running of a business, I had to obtain information from classes and teachers, and by doing research via those archaic inventions called "books" -- you might have heard of them.

Ever wonder why people in old paintings and photographs generally don't have smiles on their faces? We explored this subject a little back in November 2012, and found that reasons may have included technical limitations, oral hygiene, and the seriousness of formal occasions.

Over at the Public Domain Review, Nicholas Jeeves has written up an in-depth piece on this subject that comes to some different conclusions.

New York City-based photographer Supranav Dash is interested in India's occupations -- not the rich and glamorous ones, but the ones held by those who are lower in the society's Caste System.

For nearly 200 years, certain groups of people were not allowed to deviate far from their family's prescribed occupations. However, in recent years things have started changing. Many of the common age-old tradesmen jobs are rapidly disappearing, and Dash is using his photography to document them before they vanish completely.

Actresses Halle Berry and Jennifer Garner testified before the California Legislature on Tuesday in support of an anti-paparazzi bill that would ban taking pictures of children without their parents' written consent.

Photographs may have become depressingly common in your world, but there are still vast chunks of the globe where images are rare and powerful. A new charity is hoping to fill some of that void by offering portrait sessions and prints in impoverished areas, funded by the sale of prints by noted photographers.

There was a time in the mid to late 90s when Nirvana was all the rage, people wore too much flannel, and the design world was pre-occupied with “grunge.” Ironically, the proliferation of digital design via Aldus Pagemaker led to a decidedly analog look that was epitomized by David Carson’s Ray Gun magazine – a vehement statement against clarity, cleanliness and legibility. Carson even went so far as to lay out an entire magazine piece in Zapf Dingbats because it was “just a really boring article.”

Sure, the vast majority of photos created these days never live beyond a few seconds on an LCD screen. But it's still true that one of the ultimate compliments you can pay to an image is that you'd like to hang it on your wall.

Thinking about that and the steep prices demanded for gallery work, photographer Duncan Wright decided the photography world could use a little more of a sharing ethic. So he created Big Print Marketplace, a Tumblr site that helps photographers trade prints with each other.

Ever had trouble getting a quality smile from a client? Then you might want to think about building a giant replica of a Polaroid camera and plopping it on the sidewalk.

Have you ever covertly taken a photo of an attractive stranger when out and about in public? If you have, then you're no different than 8% of Brits, at least according to a recent survey.

While finding it hard to hit the bars set by Lamar Odom and Kanye West, celebrities and wannabe famous people continue to pioneer new avenues for abusing photographers.

Annoyed at people who have a habit of snapping a quick food photo before every meal? There might be a scientific explanation for why some of them do so: scientists have found that that rituals such as snapping a quick food pic may actually help make eating more pleasurable for the eater.

Dove Canada is getting serious about promoting Real Beauty by going after art directors, graphic designers and photo retouchers -- basically anyone who distorts body image in print. In order to fight those who they feel create an unrealistic representation of what the body actually looks like, they created a "Beautify" action that can be downloaded for free from popular editing sites. The action appears to add a "glowing skin" effect when in reality, it reverts the image back to its original, unretouched state, thus driving home Dove's philosophy that "Real Beauty Isn't Retouched."

I don't know about you, but if I downloaded a skin enhancing action only to find it reverted my image back to the unretouched state, I'd be throwing out all my Dove products in protest.

Certainly there's ample artistic precedent for including a dead animal or two in a still-life. Old Master paintings are rife with images of freshly killed ducks, bunnies and fish awaiting a trip to the dinner table.

Photographer (and certified taxidermist) Kimberly Witham slyly subverts that tradition with "Domestic Arrangements," a series of still-life photographs that combine modern kitchenware and other items of domestic life with birds, squirrels and other animals retrieved from the roadside. All items come from within a short radius around Witham's New Jersey home.

Warning: This post contains somewhat inappropriate viral images of a well-known American talk show host. Reader discretion is advised. Also, please, please look the other way if you're only interested in reading serious articles.

To: Mr. Geraldo Rivera

From: Cheri Frost speaking on behalf of Everyone

Re: Bathroom Selfies

The western world was sent into a brief paranoid frenzy when whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked government information about the surveillance of the National Security Agency (NSA). I say brief, because it seems to have been forgotten by a large number of people; it seemed like it was just more news. The revelations, and more that followed, showed how the NSA record phone calls and data and more controversially; that they use information from emails and social networking sites.

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros are due on stage in 15 minutes and I walk up to the doorstaff ticket in hand. They tear the ticket and ask to look in the camera bag for deodorants and liquids. I'm not too sure why. This is the Trinity Centre in Bristol with a capacity of 650 and normally holds community events.

The doorman tuts and says “Interchangeable lens.” I'm a bit confused. “Tour manager has said no interchangeable lens cameras, sorry.” I returned to my car, out the equipment in the boot and went back to the gig.

Let me say this right at the outset. This is not another high and mighty rant against cell phone cameras, Instagram, "art" filters, Lightroom presets, etc. You’re not about to read another gripe about everything that photography has become in the twenty-first century, even though I was afraid that’s what it would sound like when I started writing this.

Can you trust camera reviews submitted by customers of online retailers? Not entirely, suggests a new academic study, and not for the reasons you might think.

We recently published an article about She & Him enacting an anti-photo policy at a gig. Signs were posted saying “At the request of Matt [Ward] and Zooey [Deschanel], we ask that people not use their cell phones to take pictures and video, but instead enjoy the show they have put together in 3D”.

It reminded me of a story my Father told me about a Frank Zappa concert. Apparently, people were given opaque-lens glasses at the request of Zappa and the band so that, audience-members could more fully experience the music without any visual distractions.

As baby photographers will tell you, there are a lot of props out there on the market for photographing infants. And, as is the nature of portrait photography, many of these props have a life cycle of a couple years and then, it's on to the next Big Thing. Or, since it's babies, Little Thing.

Most years around this time we take a road trip to visit my family in New Jersey. There are always a couple of camera bags in the back seat, as there will be tomorrow night when we saddle up and head south once again. And most years around this time I think back to something that happened on another hot summer night less than two months before the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

For photographers, a lot has changed since then, but we have to remember that most of it started changing well before 9/11. When my students complain about the hassles of trying to make photographs in public places, I tell them that it’s something they’re just going to have to get used to. And then sometimes I tell them this story.

Call it female empowerment; call it friendship; call it bonding... Whatever you call it, the newest trend in boudoir photography involves “getting your boudoir on” with your friends. Yes, according to the Today Show, groups of women are now stripping down to next to nothing with their besties for professional group boudoir photos.

It started with a trip to Hong Kong. That's what got skateboard photographer Jonathan Mehring hooked on travelling. But while there are a lot of photographers that travel the world capturing different cultures, Mehring was more interested in answering the question: "is it even possible to skate some of these places?"

This short interview was put together by The Photographer Series, a site by multimedia storyteller Andrew Norton that dedicates itself to telling the stories behind some of skateboarding's coolest images -- and Mehring has captured some awesome images.

When I was a kid, my school had an end of the year event all students were expected to participate in. They called it "Field and Track Day," which was a fancy way of saying, "Okay kids, we've got to kill a mandatory school day, so we're going to ship you all out to a local park, make you run around in the hot May sun for about 6 hours until you feel like passing out or puking, or both, and then send you home. Have fun!"

Once upon a time, in the days of old, when photographers still used those light sensitive plastic strips in the back of their large black cameras -- cameras with funny names like Hasselblad and Mamiya -- there were photography workshops. They are not a new invention. They've been around for a very long time. But, back in the days of film and cameras with odd names, these workshops were a little different.

I just read the story of everyone's favorite teen idol, Justin Bieber, and his tangle with the paparazzi at a Miami night spot last week. It appears a photographer found disfavor with The Biebs and, as a result, had his camera (and memory card) confiscated by a Bieb Bodyguard.

A few weeks ago, I was perusing my Facebook newsfeed as I usually do first thing in the morning, a cup of hot coffee in one hand, a computer mouse in the other, when I happened upon a post that stopped me dead in my tracks.

"Hey, everyone! I need a photographer to take some professional photos of me. I won't pay you, but I have connections, so I'm a good person to have in your court, if you know what I mean. I could definitely open some doors for you." 

...there's no such thing as Flickr Pro, because today, with cameras as pervasive as they are, there is no such thing really as professional photographers, when there's everything is professional photographers. Certainly there is varying levels of skills, but we didn't want to have a Flickr Pro anymore, we wanted everyone to have professional quality photos, space, and sharing." -- Marissa Mayer, Yahoo Event, May 2013

Woah, there, Yahoo cowgirl...let's hold on just a second!

Are you ready for the imagery war -- the war against personal photography and capturing of video? You'd better be.

The title of this piece actually isn't entirely accurate. In some ways, this war isn't just coming, it's already begun. Forces are lining up on both sides, under the radar for most of us so far, but preparing for action. And right now, if I had to place a bet (cash, not bitcoins, please), I'd reluctantly have to predict the anti-imagery folks have the better chance of winning.

You might think that bearded, Carhartt-wearing, ironic dudes riding fixed geared bicycles in Brooklyn are obnoxious, but a different brand of 21st century hipster is helping make photography, er, awesomer. Let’s celebrate the nerdtastic dedication that possesses these photo hipsters.

Mike Rugnetta over on PBS's Idea Channel asked an interesting question in last Wednesday's episode: Is a tagged Instagram photo more than just a photo? Or, if you will, do hashtags add something (context, meaning, the ability to connect to a community) to photographs, thereby transforming the photo as we know it into a "different entity?"

It's hard to fathom the effect that Photoshop and digital retouching has had on our world. Limitations placed on artists and photographers in particular have systematically been stripped away as terms like "'shopped" made their way into our vernacular.

In this short video, PBS Arts examines that effect. From the artist, to the photographer, to the everyday citizen who has something to say, nobody has been left unaltered by Photoshop.

One of the stereotypes that has become associated with Instagram users (and smartphone shooters in general) is that they're obsessed with snapping photos of their food. YouTube channel Hungry decided to see how people would react when this obsession is taken too far. They sent a Instagram photographer to random strangers and had him ask if he could photograph their food. Cameras were placed nearby to document their reactions to the strange request.

Remember how Usain Bolt grabbed a photographer's DSLR last year during the London Olympics and started snapping photos of his fellow athletes? A similar thing happened today in an NBA basketball game between the Chicago Bulls and Toronto Raptors.

Here's a bit of silly humor as we're winding down the workweek: if you're a photography enthusiast who has fond memories of playing Pokemon Snap during the days of the Nintendo 64, then you might enjoy this humorous fake trailer by Gritty Reboots, which takes popular movies, TV shows, video games and turns them into cinematic trailers.

This one imagines what a live-action Pokemon Snap movie would be like.

If you're set to get married soon and are in the process of planning for the big day, here's a tip that might save you from some sadness further down the road: don't go cheap on the photography if you can help it. It turns out that spending too little on photography is one of the biggest regrets brides have after their wedding, while spending too much rarely causes remorse.

For a wedding issue that will soon be hitting newsstands, New York Magazine created an infographic titled "What They Would Have Done Differently." The magazine asked one hundred recent brides about what they'd do differently if they could go back in time.

Here's a startling side-by-side comparison of news photos that has begun floating around on the social web. Both photographs show a large crowd gathered to witness the unveiling of a new pope. The top one was what AP photographer Luca Bruno saw in 2005 when Pope Benedict XVI was introduced, while the bottom one is what AP photographer Michael Sohn witnessed yesterday at the election of Pope Francis.

Tom Carter may have seen more of China, its lands, and its people than any other Westerner on record. The American photographer spent two years backpacking across all 33 provinces of China, traveling over 35,000 miles, seeing 56 different cultures, and shooting over 10,000 portraits of the people he met.

The Harlem Shake meme has taken over the Internet over the past few weeks, and even the world of photography has been invaded. Here's a small roundup of Harlem Shake videos put out by photography and camera enthusiasts.

Bureaucratics is a project by photographer Jan Banning that consists of 50 portraits captured in 8 countries on 5 continents around the world. The goal: to offer a comparative look at the culture, rituals, and symbols of state civil administrations. Basically, Banning wanted to document the face of bureaucracy by capturing portraits of government workers at their posts.