Jake Marsico just wrote in to let us know about his new project “Blue Tram.” The pictures are interesting, and the presentation is especially worth a look. It reminds me a bit of some long photos we’ve featured previously. I asked Jake a bit about the photos and the project.

Jake Marsico: The Alexandria tram system runs the length of this city and is used extensively by the middle and lower classes. I’ve been living in/visiting Alexandria for the past four years and it has become one of my favorite cities on earth. Unlike Cairo, Alexandria is extremely laid back, especially during the winter (I’m guessing the constant sea breeze helps calm people’s nerves).

As for choosing the tram, i feel like it’s a good representation of the city as a whole; it has resisted change (still only about 5 cents a ride) and it’s in a state of a constant, but elegant decay. Most of all, it’s a window into the communal nature of alexandrians: this is a city that lives on the streets – everyone seems to know each other, even when they’ve just met. Unlike the States, it’s perfectly acceptable for an old man to sit next to you and rest his hand on your leg as a father would, and talk to you. There’s one frame in here that i particularly like, it’s of an old man speaking to a younger guy. It looks like a great story and the younger guy seems to be enjoying it greatly.

dvafoto: Why shoot it this way?
Jake Marsico: I had been experimenting with different ways to shoot the tram – from different angles, with natural light, with strobes. I ended up shooting this way for two reasons, for one it was the easiest way to be consistent: straight on, set up the camera and light and just wait for trams to pass. The other reason is that i wanted to present the tram in a unique way online. I’ve been in the process of learning basic html coding and i’ve seen horizontal scrolling before on several of my favorite photo websites, i thought this would be a great way to utilize horizontal scrolling in a unique way. I also like the dirty effect you get when using strobe on moving subjects.

In the end, it’s about getting a shot of someone in their most natural state. Alexandrians are so hospitable that natural, unintrusive street photography is nearly impossible. If they notice a camera is pointing at them, they’ll almost inevitably look straight at the camera and smile, then invite you for tea. It’s such a warm gesture but makes for boring, unnatural photos. These images also show the city’s residents in a rare down time between work life and home life. Most of them are just staring out the window, deep in thought.

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.

I haven’t gotten a chance to look through the site too much, but it looks like The Copyright Corner will be a useful resource. From the site:

As an artist or designer, you are passionate and serious about your work. You should be just as serious about learning about copyright, because copyright allows you to protect your work, or to share it with others, if that is your preference. This site, dedicated to the creative spirit, aims to be a source of accurate information, and a corner for debate and dialogue about copyright and other important intellectual property issues.

File this next to Stanford’s Copyright and Fair Use Information Center, Carolyn E. Wright’s Photo Attorney blog (and see her recent guest post at A Photo Editor on dealing with infringements), The Copyright Zone, and Matt Slaby’s Legal Left, Meet Creative Right column.

A photographer who, last April, invoked California State Shield Law protections revealed one photo and his own name by entering and winning an award in the College Photographer of the Year competition. Alex Welsh, whose work we mentioned previously when it won the Gold Medal in Documentary Photography, photographed a murder scene while working on the Hunters Point story which has been widely recognized this year. Police investigating the crime asked Welsh to hand over images of the crime scene, but Welsh refused to do so, citing protections against releasing journalists’ unpublished material and notes. A San Francisco Superior Court judge sided with the photographer, deciding that Shield Laws applied in this case, and kept the photographer’s name withheld from other media and court documents for the photographer’s safety. The photographer, it turns out, had already released his name and at least one of the images in question to the College Photographer of the Year competition. Now, police again are trying to get Welsh’s cooperation in their investigation. The San Francisco Weekly has more.

Noor Images has just published Jon Lowenstein’s essay from Haiti, titled Aftershock Haiti.

What do you think of this series? Of course, he has photographed in a radically different way than what I have seen before from Haiti, but also the content of the images seems more considered to me. But of course it is a risky thing to photograph a “news” story in such a “limited” way. It has an interesting effect, and I wonder how the photographs will “age” and if they’re viewed as a photo trick or not. I don’t think so, I think it adds something to the scene, but I couldn’t explain how nor really justify myself, and I doubt that I would have done the same in the situation. I’m curious what you all think, please leave a comment.

Furthermore, I think it is very interesting to look at this image in the context of the photo and caption that come before it in the slideshow, where Lowenstein wrote “Haitian National Police gather a group of ‘looters’ or ’salvagers’ and confront them. In some of these instances the looters are shot, but in many cases they are let go, especially when Western media are present.” The effect of the film in this picture, on top of a cameraman, interestingly plays into the role of the media in this scene and in this story. How much of this was due to cameras (an idea we batted around in earlier posts) and is this even a bad thing in this circumstance? Very interesting work.

Oliver Weber wrote in to tell us about Michael Werner’s interesting interview project, Two-Way Lens. Weber wrote:

 

Two Way Lens is a project of interviews with international, contemporary photographers. Their answers to three simple questions about their career paths, presented in this project, should help, inspire and inform emerging photographers. The tips and advice provided will be of value to every young photographer. A new photographer/ interview is added to the project every month.

The interviews are short and sweet, but have some good information. Among those interviewed: Zoe Strauss, Richard Renaldi, Martin Parr, Lori Nix, Alec Soth, and Amy Stein.

As we get a little further away from the initial shock of Haiti I’m finding more perspectives on the tragedy and the media’s role in reporting on it. Here are a few links I can recommend that have kept us thinking.

First, a few days ago our friend Scott Strazzante published a beautifully honest post on his blog about his feelings of being a newspaper photographer in Chicago looking out on a world of “big stories”. It reflects the inner thoughts almost all photographers have about their place in the industry, the world and the importance of the work they’re producing.

This was echoed by another talented and thoughtful friend on his blog: Chip Litherland lays out his view on the situation and the importance of the photography emerging from this and other events to his relationship to the world. He has one passage that speaks to his optimism on the importance of the still photographs being produced in Haiti right now:

Soon, headlines will start creeping back to normal type and smaller fonts. Photos will run smaller. Media agencies will pull out of the country. One thing I haven’t felt in a while, though, is a renewed sense of the importance of photojournalism and what we do. I had that thought this morning when I realized I never wanted to watch a television news broadcast again. It’s so watered down, so filtered, so crafted and manufactured it makes me sick. I seek refuge in the glowing screen of my computer and photo galleries, newspapers, magazines and blogs which are putting these photos everywhere. The photos are what people are sharing. Twitter posts about journalists’ posts from the ground. Facebook postings with links to photo galleries. Photos. Not video. Not multimedia. Not a talking head in front of rubble waxing poetic about what a producer saw earlier in the day. Not showing up to the airport, setting up a live shot, saying you’re there covering the story and leaving. Photos. Photos that need no text. Just space to breathe and be seen.

This segues to my rant about American television media and a Washington Post article about the rise of reporter-doctors. Many of us have grown increasingly frustrated with the tactics and presentation of the broadcast media and a situation like this brings out the worst in that institution, insofar as them featuring these acts (performances?) in their broadcasts. I’ve been glancing at CNN’s website a few times since the disaster began and I’m almost certain that there has always been at least one self-congratulatory article or link about the good work (“Anderson Cooper saves injured boy”, “CNN vehicle drafted in rescue”) the broadcast team is doing down there. Are they trying to justify their presence? Are they (subconsciously?) covering their backs from criticism of their presence? Or does their viewership hunger for stories of their pretty reporters helping out, thus feeding ratings… and is this then entertainment (are they actors?)? Of course TV News is in the ratings/entertainment business but are they really playing this out with peoples’ lives in such a crisis? I guess so.

Of course, as with the article above, I am quite happy to see journalists helping out whenever they can (see for instance Christopher Anderson in Lebanon), just keep it the hell out of your ledes and headlines. You are not the story. But it seems this exactly is what the broadcast media is aiming for and it is not a good thing. Especially when so many people get their “news” from these sources, perhaps exclusively.

There are also harder questions to ask, for starters whether or not it is appropriate to arrange a workshop on crisis photography in Haiti. 100eyes founder Andy Levin posted on Sunday his plans to arrange a February workshop in Haiti that will in part “transport food and medicine” and “also offer our services to NGOs who are in need of photographs”. duckrabbit beat us to print with a smart and fair post expressing their outrage and bewilderment at the timing and tact of this proposal. Levin responded to the post with some clarifications, but I am with the majority of commentators on duckrabbit that think this is a bad idea presented even more poorly. They also picked up a metafilter post about burden of enthusiastic but untrained volunteers in Sarajevo that Scott linked to in our first commentary on Haiti (“Like moths to a flame – so many cameras in Haiti”). It is an important and informed counter-point (along with many others brought up by duckrabbits’ commentators) to the idea of sending even more photographers, especially untrained and potentially vulnerable ones, to Haiti’s disaster zone.

Our friend Pete Brook at Prison Photography takes up this issue with Levin and many many more topics in the exhaustive post “Staring at Death: Photographing Haiti”. Catch up on the humanitarian and media situation in Haiti, the galleries of images being assembled and the section titled “How many photographers does it take to photograph a humanitarian disaster?” (which runs down the known photographers working there now).

Seriously, visit Brook’s site for the best up-to-date set of links around. We’re indebted.

I first met Jeremy M. Lange at a lecture we were both attending at ICP in 2006. We’d corresponded by email before, and he somehow recognized me in the crowd. I left New York later that year, and shared my last meal in the city with him. He continued freelancing in the city for a while before moving to North Carolina, producing along the way a strong and varied body of work, ranging from (legal) kidnappers for hire to Mexican presidential politics to barbershops to religious faith. His recent project, “The War At Home” is a wide-ranging piece covering the Iraq and Afghanistan wars from the perspective of those in the US. Do yourself a favor, and spend some time on his site. I asked Lange if he’d be willing to share his perspective on “The War at Home” over email. The discussion is below:

dvafoto: First, for our readers who might not be familiar with your work, where are you based and what publication do you work for? What sort of time on the job do you have to work on personal projects? How open is your publication to your story pitches?

Jeremy M. Lange: I am based in Durham, North Carolina, my hometown, which I returned to in 2007 after 3 years of school, 6 months in Mexico, and 3.5 years in New York City. I have a slightly odd arrangement in that I am a staff, or contract photographer, for the Independent Weekly, an alt weekly that covers the Research Triangle area of NC. I work 6 months a year guaranteed for them, one month on, one month off, and freelance the other 6, but I am able to take freelance jobs for all 12 months of the year, provided that I have all my responsibilities taken care of for the paper on the months I am on. The Indy is great in many ways, but especially in that me and the other photographer have almost complete artistic freedom in how we shoot the stories we are assigned and we get a little more time to invest in denser stories because it is a weekly. Deadlines do build up, but we have the ability to work our schedules out as we please as long as everything is done on time. Also, we can pitch stories at will and with a good argument, they tend to run them, as long as the story fits into the general guidelines of the paper, news, social justice, culture, it is pretty broad. Personal projects are much more easily blended into the paper than in others I have heard of. It can still be hard to find the time, and money, for personal projects, but that is always the case it seems. I think it falls more on you to make that time than anything else.

As a freelancer, I work a lot for the New York Times, who I have been working with since I lived in NYC and ran around for the Metro section, RIP, several days a week. They were the first real paper I worked for and have been great to me over the last few years. Thanks.

Other than that, I fill out my schedule with other editorial jobs, band shoots, portraits, whatever comes down the pipe. I think in smaller markets we are all forced to generalize a bit, but it is fun in that I learn new things from shooting different types of stories all the time. My background is in news and documentary, but I really enjoy shooting just about anything, with a few exceptions. Challenges keep you on your toes and I like the idea of photographing James Taylor one day and Christmas tree farms the next.

What got you started on “War at Home”? When did you know you were on to a bigger story with so many different threads to follow?

I met a soldier named Kristian Hofeller when I lived in Bushwick, Brooklyn in 2006. A package was misdelivered to my apartment and I rode up the street to drop it off at the right house and while speaking to the lady who answered the door, she mentioned that her son had just gotten back from Iraq. I asked if he might want to talk to me about it and take some photos, and I gave her my number and he called me couple of days later. We met at his house and drank some coffee and talked a little but he seemed sort of uncomfortable in his mom’s house so we went out to his truck and he basically broke down the last 5 years of his life to me. 1st responder to the WTC, off to Afghanistan, got in some trouble there, back home, marital problems, divorce, back to Iraq, back home… it blew my mind. He must have talked for over an hour with me just sitting in his truck listening and saying nothing really, I mean what the hell did I know about that? He got in some legal trouble while back in the US and therefore could not get a job, or at least a decent one, so he was considering going back to the military fulltime, he was on Reserve, or with a private contractor. They, the contractors, were offering him big money, he came from a blue collar family, but he did not really want to go. He had lost his wife and friends because of the war, but he really had no other options. We smoked and sat in the truck and he talked and then I went home, saying we would get together soon and shoot some photos. I had no idea what to do with what he told me, so I wrote down as much as I could remember, this is why an art degree can be a disadvantage, I should have taken notes, but I got it down for the most part, I like to listen.

We met again a couple of weeks later and went all the way out in Long Island to shoot some guns with an Army buddy and an older guy from his neighborhood. He would not really let me make any photos of him, but I got a shot of an Osama bin Laden target in a sand pit that has stuck around through all the edits, as well as one of his truck with a backwards “American Hero” emblem in the windshield. So I shot some really cool guns and we talked a lot, Kristian, me and his Army buddy, and then they took me home. We never talked again, he did not return my calls after that, not sure why, but I heard he went back to Iraq not long after. It stuck with me but I was trying to hustle in NYC and that was it for a while.

Not long after I got back to NC I shot a NYT story about a private contractor killed in Iraq, Brent Gray. We went to the grave with his wife and sister and some friends and then to a bar where we met some other guys who had served with him. I was so interested in what they were talking about and how little I knew about it. This is 5 or 6 years after we invaded Afghanistan and 3 after Iraq and I knew next to nothing about what people here were going through. I am not from a military family, but I have always been interested in it, the guns, the adventure and was about one stamp away from Marine basic training after high school. So I started looking around to find stories related to returning soldiers and other aspects of the war’s affects on the country and realized I had a huge pile of ideas.

Your “War at Home” project is pretty far-reaching. What ties it all together? What’s it about?
Read on »

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.