Must see, especially if you’re into good design. The Society of Publication Designers and their wonderful blog Grids interviewed The New York Times Magazine’s Design Director Arem Duplessis in December about the magazine’s redesign, which launched last June. As with many people the NYT Mag is a beacon in the industry for me, though I don’t get to see the print edition much abroad. It is great to catch up with their smart presentations and ideas.

(Did you know that their end slug is actually the dot from the “i” in the logo? And Dan Winters does medical illustrations in addition to great photography? Awesome.)

David Walter Banks (previously interviewed) wrote in to tell us about the upcoming Luceo Images and MJR publication and one-night exhibition at 25CPW in New York City. The event will take place Thursday, Janaury 21, 2010, from 6-10pm at 25 Central Park West at the intersection of 62nd Street. The folks at Luceo and MJR are good friends of dva. The groups both have a ton of photo mojo, and it’s great to see their efforts combined. I asked Banks a few questions about the publication and event. His answers are excerpted below:

dvafoto: What got Luceo and MJR together? How long have you been working on this project?

David Walter Banks/Luceo: Various members of LUCEO and MJR have become friends over the past couple years, and had some time to spend together at LUCEO’s last two biannual meetings in NYC and then again at the LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph in Charlottesville. The show and publication have been at least 6 months in the making that I can remember….

Why a publication?

Both groups have strong editorial ties as well as work that leans more toward the fine-art world, so the publication was a mix between the two. The idea was to create something tangible and lasting instead of just a one-night event. It’s also the concept of taking the idea of a magazine, and creating a limited edition collectible art piece out of it. A publication that in our eyes warrants large-scale reproduction and display space on a gallery wall. To this end, the focus is more on the print piece instead of the show itself, but the catch is that you have to attend to receive the publication.

Will we be seeing new work? Whose work will be in the show (all the photographers in each collective or just a selection?)?

The piece and show will feature work from each photographer involved in the two groups, as well as the craftsmanship of the designer and editor we had the good fortune of collaborating with. The show will feature some old work and some new, but certainly all in a different presentation than before.

The release says “Issue One” — will Issue Two also be Luceo and MJR, or is the first issue testing the waters for something bigger? When will we see #2?

We’re not ready to announce anything yet, but the door is open, and this will certainly not be the end of our collaborations with MJR, who have been the driving force behind the publication….

I wouldn’t say the show is just testing the waters, because I do believe it is an end and not just a means, but it is a sign of what’s to come. Both of these groups have similar feelings about collaborating and building bridges within the photographic community and beyond. I believe each group will build from this experience and take that forward into future endeavors.

Luceo is: David Walter Banks, Kendrick Brinson, Matt Eich, Kevin German, Tim Lytvinenko, Daryl Peveto, Matt Slaby
MJR is: Mustafah Abdulaziz, Ying Ang, Matthew Craig, Julius Metoyer, Gareth Phillips, Brandon Thibodeaux

For some cultural perspective on contemporary Haitian culture, 100eyes has a strong presentation of work by Alice Smeets, William Coupon, Edwine Seymour, Rex Curry, Jan Sochor, David Zentz, Aurora Photos, Polaris Images, and Andy Levin. Well worth a look.

By the way: Huffington Post has a huge round-up of ways to help the relief effort in Haiti.

In early 2009, the think tank POLIS together with Oxfam published a report warning that international coverage is likely to decrease under the new public service broadcasting regime being worked out in the U.K. And in 2008, the U.K. tabloid the Daily Mirror said as part of the latest round of job cuts they were abolishing the post of foreign editor altogether. Meanwhile, citizen journalists and NGOs have been rushing to fill the gap. The mainstream media, getting free filmed reports and words, often sees this as a win-win situation. This raises three key issues:

• Do these new entrants to humanitarian reporting mean that we are seeing more diverse stories being told and more diverse voices being heard? Does the fundamental logic of reporting change?
• Are viewers/readers aware of the potential blurring of the lines between aid agencies and the media when NGOs act as reporters?
• How are aid agencies being affected by citizen journalists acting increasingly as watchdogs?

-Glenda Cooper in When lines between NGO and news organization blur

The Nieman Journalism Lab has recently been publishing an intriguing series of articles exploring the relationship between the media, NGOs, and journalists, especially as more and more international and investigative journalism is produced, funded, and distributed initially or in cooperation with NGOs and charities. There’s much to read here, and I’ve only just started, but it’s a necessary conversation to have as news organizations drop foreign and investigative bureaus and turn to advocacy organizations for reporting. Be sure to check out all the articles:

• NGOs as newsmakers: A new series on the evolving news ecosystem
• Kimberly Abbott: Working together, NGOs and journalists can create stronger international reporting
• Simon Cottle and David Nolan: How the media’s codes and rules influence the ways NGOs work
• Natalie Fenton: Has the Internet changed how NGOs work with established media? Not enough
• Saving us from noise that kills: NGOs as news coordinators in a networked public sphere
• Bringing NGO news into the mainstream: The case of OneWorld.net and Yahoo News
• Glenda Cooper: When lines between NGO and news organization blur

This is a touchy subject, because of the moral ambiguities inherent in partnerships between NGOs (which generally advocate particular agendas/causes) and journalists or journalism organizations (which strive for editorial independence and objectivity). In the past few years mainstream NGOs have been producing some stellar work. Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) has been producing strong photography, for instance, and VII recently partnered with the International Committee of the Red Cross for a compelling global documentary effort. A Developing Story chronicles more journalism produced by NGOs. Ultimately, I think the responsibility for journalistically-sound reporting funded by NGOs will rest on the shoulders of the journalists working with the NGOs, who must make sure that their reporting is a truthful representation of the subject being reported according to long-established rules of journalism ethics.

Incredibly last minute announcement but I will be in New York City next week, December 21st through 23rd, for a quick visit with publications, editors and friends and to continue my project I See A Darkness. I will have new work and portfolios to share, including an under-wraps book project that will begin immediately upon my return to Serbia in January. (Did I even mention that I’m back in Seattle for the holidays? It’s been busy.)

If you are in the City and feel like meeting up to see work, see an exhibition (I’ve got Ballen, Frank, and Mosse on my schedule right now) or grab a beer, be in touch! It’ll be a crazy quick visit but it might be my only one this year.

Bad Contract: We’ve got a number of readers in Australia, and perhaps this is old news to them, but it’s instructive to freelancers everywhere. Reader’s Digest Australia has just foisted a new contract on its contributors, and it’s a doozy. Take a look at this clause:

RDA shall have the exclusive right set out in section 2 herein [exclusive worldwide rights to publish and distribute], for a period of 24 months which shall commence from the date of publication of the photos and thereafter the rights set out in secton 2 shall be read as non -exclusive for an indefinite period.

Lightstalkers (email me or comment here if you need an invitation, by the way) and Kenneth Jarecke have a clause-by-clause analysis of the contract. The best thing to do with contracts like these is to just say “no.” There’s no way to make a living releasing work compensated at normal editorial day rates with such expansive rights being relinquished.

Bad payment practices: Time Warner’s payment vendor, JP Morgan, has unveiled a new payment plan for all suppliers. Essentially a codified 2/10 net 30 payment program, all suppliers are required to pay a fee to Time Warner if they want to be paid on time. Ranging from 4 percent fee for payment within 3 days to a .5 percent fee for payment in 25 days. John Harrington also notes that the fee is for an acceleration of approved payments, rather than an acceleration of payment. So, you’ve still got to wait the 30-90 days for the payment to be approved and then you’ve got to pay a fee if you don’t want to wait another 30 days on top of that. JP Morgan sees this model of payment, that is, exploiting small vendors’ need for cash as a way to make more money, as a “lucrative tool”. From JP Morgan’s explanation:

“There is another large pool of suppliers…the non-strategic suppliers. These suppliers are typically small to mid-size suppliers…they are also the hungriest for cash and much more likely to accept discounts versus strategically sourced suppliers. Understanding your supplier’s need for cash is a key to success.” -JP Morgan article

Gawker’s report, with interesting discussion, points out: “Given how desperate freelancers are to be PAID NOW, largely because companies like Time Inc. never pay them on time, this is a pretty genius idea.” John Harrington’s Photo Business News & Forum has good analysis, as well.

For commiseration: Check out Clients from Hell and ClientCopia, growing collection of client horror stories from designers and other creative professionals, this short about what would happen if the vendor-client relationship occurred in real world situations, and this brilliant exchange between a designer and a client who wants him to work for free (the client in that case is none-too-pleased with it being published and claims it is a hoax, by the way. Others see no reason to believe either side.).

Nick Turpin’s (blog) new magazine, Publication, has just published its first issue. It’s a biannual journal of and about street photography. The initial issue, with the theme “Inspiration”, features essays by Michael David Murphy, David Gibson, Hin Chua and Nick Turpin and the work of photographers including Joel Meyerowitz, Tod Papageorge, Martin Kollar, Trent Parke, Roger Mayne, and others. From announcement to publication, the creation has taken a little over 6 months. The first issue is now available for order.

Not to be missed: Be sure to check out Nick Turpin’s chart of photography, classifying photographers between the three poles of photojournalism, fine art, and street photography. It was created after spending a couple months reviewing work for Publication. I’m especially excited about this chart because it views the genres of photography not separate and exclusive of one another but instead as an easily traversable continuum. The notable exception is photographs as documents, as opposed to “documentary photography.” Mugshots, Abu Ghraib, commemorative lynching postcards, crime scene photography, and the like have no place on this chart. Of course, the chart should be viewed as a description of photography and photographers who intentionally present their work to an audience, but any taxonomy of photography needs to include document photographs. (And fine Art Photography really needs a new name. To me, “fine art” always calls to mind cheesy nudes, bad pictures of waterfalls, and the rest of that sort of dreck.)

(via in-Public)

Jason Eskenazi talks about Wonderland and Title Nation from Habitus A Diaspora Journal on Vimeo.

Thanks to Habitus Magazine for pointing us to their interview with Jason Eskenazi, whose book “Wonderland” (1 used at Amazon for $656.00!) you should know. In the video, Eskenazi discusses the narrative structure of Wonderland, the nature of being a photographer, finding pictures in Grozny, and collaborating with Valerii Nistratov for the portraits in “Title Nation.” The video was produced as part of Habitus‘ Moscow issue.

Before Reese came up with his formula, Demand Media operated in the traditional way. Contributors suggested articles or videos they wanted to create. Editors, trained in the ways of search engine optimization, would approve or deny each while also coming up with their own ideas. The process worked fine. But once it was automated, every algorithm-generated piece of content produced 4.9 times the revenue of the human-created ideas. So Rosenblatt got rid of the editors. Suddenly, profit on each piece was 20 to 25 times what it had been. It turned out that gut instinct and experience were less effective at predicting what readers and viewers wanted — and worse for the company — than a formula.” -from Wired’s “The Answer Factory“

Wired has just published a fascinating look into the inner workings of Demand Media, a company which describes itself as “The Leader of Social Media.” The details are astounding. The goal of the company is to create more than 1 million pieces of content monthly, through outlets as diverse as eHow, Trails.com, GolfLink.com, and Cracked.com (And here’s what Cracked would look like if it were honest about its content.). The articles, videos, photos are all created by a poorly paid army of freelancers. One such freelancer interviewed in the article, Christian Muñoz-Donoso, previously worked as a wildlife videographer in his native Chile and now, instead, spends his days creating countless short instructional video pieces for about USD$20 each. Quantity is the name of the game. The company currently puts out 4,000 videos and articles each day. Especially interesting, the company derives its subject matter and headlines not from human editors but instead uses an algorithm to determine words and phrases that best draw in views and cause viewers to click on ads. The company has been valued at USD$1 billion with expected revenues of USD$200 million this year. If the company reaches its 1 million pieces of content goal, payouts to contributors could reach USD$200 million per year. Lance Armstrong is an investor in the company. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently commissioned the company to supply the newspaper with a number of travel features. Others see the company and its output as a nefarious hijacker of search engine results and the media, replacing well-researched and fact-checked writing with an endless churning of “good enough”

“The photographic vision for the magazine is not one that I can any longer be considered a good fit for. Pictures tend to be used as part of an overall design conceit, not as art in and of itself. I think it’s called modern, which would seem to make me old fashioned.” -outgoing Newsweek director of photography Simon Barnett told PDN

It seemed like only yesterday Newsweek announced a big redesign in hopes of regaining lost market share. Photos got bigger play online after the redesign, but according to recently laid-off director of photography Simon Barnett, photography took a back seat to the overall design of the magazine. This week’s round of layoffs saw four key members of the photo staff shown the door.

Related:

• Paper Cuts, a map of newspaper layoffs. Now over 14,000 newspaper jobs gone in 2009.
• Gawker’s layoffs posts.
• Wikipedia’s results for “magazine layoffs.”
• MediaBistro’s Revolving Door Newsletter and listings.