Why magnum needs a blog
Ok, so go read <a href=”http://blog.magnumphotos.com/2009/07/the_future_of_the_magnum_blog.html”>this statement from Magnum Photo’s blog</a>. The gist of it is, they aren’t blogging for the foreseeable future, and might not blog ever again. The reason they give is that blogs aren’t a good platform for quality content. It’s offensive and wrong-headed, to say the least. Even if/when they do come back, if it’s as several blogs or as one feed, if the focus becomes more about dialogue than content, I think they’re missing something big.<br /><br /><span class=”caption” ></span><img src=”https://images.matt.pictures/why_magnum_needs_a_blog/1137/0001.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br />To say that blogs aren’t a good place for quality content is <a href=”http://www.todayandtomorrow.net/“>ignorant</a> <a href=”http://www.americansuburbx.com/“>and</a> <a href=”http://curatedby.jon-kyle.com/“>misinformed</a>. (Links go to rebuttal examples.<a href=”http://www.burnmagazine.org/“>Also this</a>). Those are all blogs, all that I’ve come across recently; there are countless sources of good content on the web, places that have really brilliant content, displayed well. The last one is a community effort, and in fact arose because of a group of people looking for a place. So, to shut down a blog to build a community seems silly. Why not blog the process of making the new site?<br /><br /><span class=”caption” ></span><img src=”https://images.matt.pictures/why_magnum_needs_a_blog/1137/0002.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br />Why aren’t the photographers of Magnum, surely some of the world’s finest visual storytellers, blogging themselves? (With the notable exception of David Allen Harvey, who runs Burn magazine, of course). It’d be the best group blog ever, if they would embrace a little technology; the best eyes in the world, reporting daily what they see. From the perspective of one who does it, who has done it now for going on two years (with a little hiatus between the end of the santa fe blog and the start of this one), it’s not hard at all to knock out a blog post a day, sometimes two or three. Especially if all it consists of are photos with captions. Every other day is even easier; even when I was working full time at a job that had nothing to do with my photography, I still did that.<br /><br /><span class=”caption” ></span><img src=”https://images.matt.pictures/why_magnum_needs_a_blog/1137/0003.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br />I guess part of the problem is that to get a group of photographers to do anything together is something like herding cats; if you’ve ever walked in a city with even four or five of us you know what I’m talking about; it takes two or three times as long to get somewhere (even dinner) because the whole group sort of wanders off after a picture, and then the rest have to wait, and by the time the one gets back someone else has wandered off. Now imagine a group like that, all self-interested, agreeing to do something like a group blog, to share space on the web with anyone else?<br /><br /><span class=”caption” ></span><img src=”https://images.matt.pictures/why_magnum_needs_a_blog/1137/0004.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br />Thinking that way is really wrong-headed. Separate channels for each photographer presume that each one is doing enough to hold a reader’s interest indefinitely, and that readers of one photographer won’t be interested in others. It’s silly. The truth is, group blogs of like minded people (or at least people who are all talking about the same things) usually have more readers and better content than single author blogs. Think <a href=”http://laist.com/“>LAist</a>, <a href=”http://boingboing.net/“>BoingBoing</a>, or blogs like that. The rising tide lifts all boats. And, because there are other people out there doing the same thing in the same space, you’re apt to learn and improve your own content as time goes on.<br /><br /><span class=”caption” ></span><img src=”https://images.matt.pictures/why_magnum_needs_a_blog/1137/0005.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br />Of course, nobody listens to me, or at least nobody at Magnum.
Posted by matt on 2009-07-30T00:00:00Z GMT
leftovers
These are a few random things from before dfest that I like but I didn’t put up the first time for whatever reason. <br /><br /><span class=”caption” >Mom getting ready to do dialysis.</span><img class=”photo” src=”https://images.matt.pictures/leftovers/1139/0001.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br /><br /><span class=”caption” >I actually like this better than the other image of these two that I posted saturday.</span><img class=”photo” src=”https://images.matt.pictures/leftovers/1139/0002.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br /><br /><span class=”caption” >More barcamp. By lunch, everybody needed power.</span><br /><img class=”photo” src=”https://images.matt.pictures/leftovers/1139/0003.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br /><br /><span class=”caption” >Hornbeck does yoyo.</span><img class=”photo” src=”https://images.matt.pictures/leftovers/1139/0004.jpg” alt=”Photos” />
Posted by matt on 2009-07-28T00:00:00Z GMT
Photography as a New Liberal Art
This is not a post about taking photographs, but about looking at them, reading them, and understanding what they are and are not. If you want to know about taking photos, there’s a ton of good literature out there. There is a whole subset of phototographers who think that the techniques of photography (exposure, sharpness, depth, grain/noise, etc) are an end unto themselves, but this is a false path. But the fact that they exist and are there to tell us what the rules are so we can break them effectively is a good thing. <br /><br /><span class=”caption” ></span><img class=”photo” src=”https://images.matt.pictures/photography_as_a_new_liberal_art/1138/0001.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br /><span class=”caption” ></span><img class=”photo” src=”https://images.matt.pictures/photography_as_a_new_liberal_art/1138/0002.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br /><br />The idea of “New Liberal Arts” comes from <a href=”http://snarkmarket.com/“>Snarkmarket</a> and their interesting if incomplete book <a href=”http://snarkmarket.com/nla/“>New Liberal Arts</a>, which is based around the idea that to function intelligently in society today, there is a new skillset outside of the traditional lines of the liberal arts. The main point of learning liberal arts is to learn how to think critically about the world. Since it’s my area, and since the chapter in the book is one of the areas that comes up short, I thought some expansion was called for in the area of thinking critically about photographs. These are all just starting points, ideas, and not rules forever. <br /><br />The first most important consideration when looking at a photograph is the content of the picture. A photo is a two-d simulacra of the 4-d world; It takes a cone of space (the angle of view) and a slice of time (the shutter speed) and reduces that to an image on a piece of paper, or more commonly now, a screen. There are parts in and out of focus, there is a limit to the detail that can be seen (and no software, no matter what CSI tells you, can bring back detail from a pixelated image). There is a perspective, and by this I mean a camera position, high or low, close to the subject or far away. <br /><br /><span class=”caption” ></span><img class=”photo” src=”https://images.matt.pictures/photography_as_a_new_liberal_art/1138/0003.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br /><span class=”caption” ></span><img class=”photo” src=”https://images.matt.pictures/photography_as_a_new_liberal_art/1138/0004.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br /><br />What does this mean to us, the viewer? Any rendering of a scene is only a partial rendering; at any given time there are an infinite number of perspectives and the same infinite gradation of moments that the camera can have, and we are seeing only one. I am categorically opposed to the idea that all of these perspectives are equal (relativism be damned, it’s solipsism with a coat of postmodern paint). Some moments are better than others, and if that weren’t the case, there would be no art in photography. <br /><br /><span class=”caption” ></span><img class=”photo” src=”https://images.matt.pictures/photography_as_a_new_liberal_art/1138/0005.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br /><span class=”caption” ></span><img class=”photo” src=”https://images.matt.pictures/photography_as_a_new_liberal_art/1138/0006.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br /><br />A photo can be evidence, it can tell a (short) story, but through selection of moments and perspectives, the photograph can tell a lie, too. It is impossible to tell by looking at a photograph if it is true or false. The only thing that can be determined is if it has been altered after the fact. This is why people are always so aghast when someone is caught photoshopping news pictures, because it disturbs their questionable belief in the veracity of the medium of photography. It’s a religious belief, one which has no grounding in fact; you’d see similar responses if you went in front of a church congregation and gave them a logical proof of atheism (ask a Jesuit, they really do exist, but reality is not wholly logical anyway). <br /><br /><span class=”caption” ></span><img class=”photo” src=”https://images.matt.pictures/photography_as_a_new_liberal_art/1138/0007.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br /><span class=”caption” ></span><img class=”photo” src=”https://images.matt.pictures/photography_as_a_new_liberal_art/1138/0008.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br /><br />So, a photo can’t be true or false from the perspective of a viewer, and here I’m only talking of candid pictures, not staged or manipulated after the fact. I can walk into a party and make 300 pictures, and just in the selection of what to show, make it look like the best party ever or the worst time anybody has ever had outside of torture chambers. Neither is true. Or they both might be.<br /><br /><span class=”caption” ></span><img class=”photo” src=”https://images.matt.pictures/photography_as_a_new_liberal_art/1138/0009.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br /><span class=”caption” ></span><img class=”photo” src=”https://images.matt.pictures/photography_as_a_new_liberal_art/1138/0010.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br /><br />Ok, that’s all the lesson I have in me today. The important takeaway: a photo is never the whole story. Sometimes it’s enough.<br /><br /><span class=”caption” ></span><img class=”photo” src=”https://images.matt.pictures/photography_as_a_new_liberal_art/1138/0011.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br /><span class=”caption” ></span><img class=”photo” src=”https://images.matt.pictures/photography_as_a_new_liberal_art/1138/0012.jpg” alt=”Photos” />
Posted by matt on 2009-07-28T00:00:00Z GMT
#barcampokc
These are from the morning session of Barcamp OKC. What you don’t see is all the interesting conceptual talk, which is really the cool part and unfortunately doesn’t show up in pictures. <br /><br /><span class=”caption” ></span><img class=”photo” src=”https://images.matt.pictures/#barcampokc/1141/0001.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br /><br /><span class=”caption” ></span><img class=”photo” src=”https://images.matt.pictures/#barcampokc/1141/0002.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br /><br /><span class=”caption” ></span><img class=”photo” src=”https://images.matt.pictures/#barcampokc/1141/0003.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br /><br /><span class=”caption” ></span><img class=”photo” src=”https://images.matt.pictures/#barcampokc/1141/0004.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br /><br /><span class=”caption” ></span><img class=”photo” src=”https://images.matt.pictures/#barcampokc/1141/0005.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br /><br /><span class=”caption” ></span><img class=”photo” src=”https://images.matt.pictures/#barcampokc/1141/0006.jpg” alt=”Photos” />
Posted by matt on 2009-07-25T00:00:00Z GMT
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