A friend of mine recently sent this Guardian article on World Press-winning photos of a stoning in Somalia to me. It starts off with a typical Sontag quote, but it’s worth a read. I’m not sure if Colberg’s excellent recent post (on the recently-redesigned Conscientious) Why We Must See is a direct response to the Guardian piece (it does mention the photos in question), but it might as well be:

To say that we want to read, but not see… That just seems like an easy way out. Seeing is not the same as reading. What I read about I can file away, because it is being processed while I take it in. What I see – there is a lot of processing, but there also is the unbearable immediacy. -Jörg M. Colberg, “Why We Must See”

Rob Haggart at APhotoEditor.com has been on a roll lately: Ask Anything – Does a photographer need a rep and do they really get you work?, The Value Of A News Photograph, Ask Anything – Should You Tell Your Clients If You Are Pregnant Or Have A Life Threatening Illness?, the editorial staff’s perspective on Negotiating The Editorial Contract, Ask Anything – How Do You Get Started Photographing Fashion?, Photographers- How To Deal With Infringements, a survey of Commercial Photographer Income, Ad Agency Guide To Photography Usage Terms, Ask Anything – Should Photographers be Unionized?, Ask Anything With Amanda And Suzanne – How Not To Blow The Face To Face Meeting, Ask anything with Amanda and Suzanne – How Much Money Do Commercial Photographers Make?, and especially the most recent post, Stop Accepting $200 Assignments. All well worth a read, discussion in the comments usually is worth a look, too.

The NYT Lens Blog posted today some of the only unembedded conflict photography from Iraq or Afghanistan that I can remember seeing in awhile (can you think of other examples? send them my way). Moises Saman was on assignment for the New York Times in the town of Marja in the aftermath of a recent offensive. It is strong work and provides something of a different view of the conflict there, though quite a few images do feature soldiers in the field. The perspective though, as the photographer is not working with them, is an interesting wrinkle and Saman explains how he got some of the images in the accompanying text.

This piece on Lens is a nice counterpoint to a piece published a few days ago with NYT Photographer Tyler Hicks who was embedded with a US unit which was conducting the operation/offensive in the same town days before Saman arrived. I think it is great that there are two angles on the same story by the same publication, especially from the perspective of being with and outside the military. I hope to see more, especially from the ‘outside’ perspective. I wonder how they played off of each other in the actual editions (online and print) of the paper. Again, anyone know?

I’ve written before about Carolyn Drake and her work about water issues in Central Asia, but Pete Brook on his auxiliary blog Photography Prison just pointed me to a new narrated slideshow Drake has done for Orion Magazine. Have a look at “Return to the Center of the World: Following two storied rivers through Central Asia”

In America’s mass consciousness, Central Asia has transformed from being part of a powerful communist Cold War enemy into a place where the threat of Islamic extremism is imminent—all within the short span of my adult lifetime. Amid the clutter of preformed judgments that surface during the course of this work, it is always a comfort to return to the rivers. No matter how many different names they have been given, or empires have ruled them, or canals have been made from them, I can still see the rivers. Traveling along them offers the closest thing to truth that I can find.

“A Photo Student” James Pomerantz sits down with perennial Dvafoto favorite and inspiration Jason Eskenazi. Probably the best overview of his career and life I have come across outside of conversations with the man himself. I can’t recommend it highly enough. Thanks Jason and James for putting this out there!

Copies of his book Wonderland are still for sale direct from Eskenazi. Must have.

Of all the words and pictures I’ve seen from Haiti over the last week this interview with New York Times Staff Photographer Damon Winter on the NYT’s Lens Blog is the most heartbreaking and provoking. In light of our recent discussions I think this is an important read for context and understanding of important work being done by photographers and news organizations on the ground. Winter is a class act and wonderful photographer, and this situation and what he has seen (as with everyone in Haiti) will likely haunt them for a long time. Important to remember, even as we assess how the world is reacting to and speaking about this disaster. The images are disturbing, but such is this reality.

With all the layoffs we’ve seen in the industry in the past few years, what surprises me most, however, is how common it is for a staff photographer to be “surprised” with the news of their own layoff. They are very often leaving themselves totally unprepared for life as a freelancer. -Grover Sanschagrin/Photoshelter

Photoshelter’s recently posted a useful list of 10 things all staff photographers need to do right now (and also 10 things a recently laid-off photographer needs to do right now), covering the basics of getting ready for life outside a newsroom. It’s some common sense information–get your own gear, grab copies of your clips, establish your freelance rates, decide if freelancing is right for you–but it’s worth repeating. Be sure to watch Photoshelter’s blog; they periodically post practical and useful information and tips for working and aspiring-to-be-working photographers.

Freelance Switch is another great resource for making a freelance business work.

We’re starting off the new year with a bang here at dvafoto. If you’re reading through the rss feeds, pop on over to the real deal to see the excitement. In addition to some exciting upcoming posts, we’ve completely redesigned the site.

You’ll notice the overall visual changes first. While the old site (image 2 in the slideshow above) was good enough, it was a stock wordpress template and has been popping up all over the place of late. It was cluttered, didn’t utilize the full width of modern computers, and was beginning to look dated. Mostly, I was just tired of it and thought I could do something that fit our visual content better. We also wanted a way to highlight posts from our archive.

Elsewhere on dvafoto - a random selection of links from the archive of dvafoto.com

Blogging is inherently a medium controlled by time, and that prevents old content from being newly discovered, regardless of whether it’s still relevant and interesting. Central to the new design, but hopefully not obtrusive to the site’s core purpose, we’ve added boxes with a random selection of photos and posts from our archive. You’ll see a couple such boxes in the main content flow on the front page, there’s one at the bottom of every individual post page, including this one, and there’s one on our 404 error page.

We’ve also incorporated Lens Blog-inspired image galleries, as you’ll see at the top of this post, in upcoming posts, and in a few in the archive, such as this post of my photos from the Rocky Boy Powwow in Montana. Rather than using a flash solution for the galleries, I integrated a jquery tool called Scrollable to use the customized rewrite of the existing wordpress gallery functionality. The result is a google-friendly sliding photo gallery easily managed in wordpress.
Read on »

• Banjo extraordinaire Danny Barnes (I don’t know his music) has a great essay on “How to Make a Living Playing Music,” and he might as well be writing about making a living taking pictures. He starts “if you are a very materialistic person, skip this article, i don’t think you are going to like what it says.” The article is partly philosophical–don’t gossip, avoid people who talk about gear, “all the trouble in the world is going to come for you in two ways. the things you say, and the things you agree to do. be very careful about these items.”–but mostly practical–”the main business strategy is to build your own audience,” “don’t be afraid to do other things to make money in the short term,” and
  

  “be totally square on your taxes. render unto caesar that which is caesar’s. if you try to fudge on this, it will come back to bite you every time. get receipts for everything, 1099 everyone no matter what, unless they are a corporation.”

  The whole thing’s a fascinating insight into what allows a successful musician to keep doing what he loves, and has many parallels to photographers working on a career.

• Kenneth Jarecke’s “2009 – Year of Transition” has a great analysis of what 2009 meant to many freelancers. He explains why he turned down editorial work (a first for Jarecke), talks about new strategies for distribution, cogently analyzes the havoc caused by editorial layoffs and how it will affect the future, and the stupidity of photographers signing “work for hire” contracts for $1200 a day with big clients.
• PDN talks with the Aftermath Project jurors to find out “What It Takes To Win An Aftermath Project Grant“
• Joerg Colberg’s excellent “We’re all Zapruders now (but that doesn’t make us journalists)” examines what it means when everyone has a camera and how that’s different from journalism.
  

  “I don’t ever recall hearing or seeing anyone describe Abraham Zapruder as a “citizen journalist”. He was seen as what we was: A chance bystander who happened to have a camera (and use it) the moment the American president was shot and killed.”

  The piece ends with strong argument for what society stands to lose by getting rid of professional journalists.

• Magtastic Blogsplosion surveys many perspectives on upcoming tablet devices and what they may mean for magazines in “The revolution to come.”
  

  “The industry also wants to avoid the newspaper dilemma – publishers were so excited to give away their content for free in the early days of the web, that there was no thought to an industry business model – and the toothpaste is proving difficult to push back into the tube.”

  And check out Magtastic’s collection of groups using the newspaper format in innovative ways in “What Newspapers Did Next” and “What Newspapers Did Next (2).”

• The New York Times covers big media companies’ likely plan to begin charging for online content in “Adding Fees and Fences on Media Sites.” Among the problems faced by the old guard,
  

  “It is the established media, with their legacy of high operating costs and outdated technology, that face this problem. Leaner, newer online competitors will continue to be free, avidly picking up the users lost by sites that begin to charge.”

• PDNPulse talks with the Wall Street Journal photo department and examines how the newspaper’s attitude toward visual journalism has changed under Murdoch. PDN reports: “The good news for photography is that our editor, Robert Thomson, is a very visual person,” says Jack Van Antwerp, the paper’s photography director. And while you’re at it, check out the Wall Street Journal’s 2009 Year in Photos, which includes many friends.

From Boogie: another simple website* full of themed photos – SketchySantas.com. Right in time for Christmas! Kind of reminds me of the Santa at the local mall during my childhood… turned out he was a child molester.

* check out My Parents Were Awesome for another cool example.