Everyone’s a photographer now:

Obama’s Burden from Christopher Morris on Vimeo.

You probably already know Christopher Morris‘ work. One of the founding members of VII, his conflict photography is unparalleled and his recent work on American politics, including the book “My America,” has redefined visual coverage of the White House. You might not know that Morris has been making videos in addition to his still coverage of American politics. Emotionally resonant and forceful, these videos look like none others produced in the 5DMarkII-fueled push toward moving images in photojournalism. The videos resemble Morris’ still work, but their use of music, black and white imagery, and tone make them something altogether different.  He’s released four videos, all worth watching:

Christopher Morris recently started a thread on lightstalkers to discuss his videos, and the response was varied. Make sure to read through that thread. The discussion there is interesting and touched on many aspects of Morris’ video work not covered in this interview (if you don’t have a lightstalkers account, email me), and I thought Morris’ videos would be a great subject for one of our periodic interviews here at dvafoto. I was delighted when Morris agreed to the interview. The discussion, conducted over email, is below. Our questions are in bold, followed by Morris’ full responses. If you’re reading on the front page, be sure to click through to the post to see the full interview.

dvafoto: What are you showing us with the videos? When “Dear Leader” first came out, the title (equating Bush with Kim Jong Il) and the tone and the video itself suggested to me a critical portrayal of the previous administration. Now seeing a similar tone in the Obama videos, it strikes me that you aren’t focusing directly on the man in the office, but the office itself and its theater and cultural baggage.

Christopher Morris: I’m showing you what I feel. Each one of these has a very distinct clear meaning for me. As for the viewer? That’s something I’m not quite sure of. This is the beauty of this whole process. They are whatever you want them to be.

I seem to remember you speaking or writing about what would become “My America” as appealing both to the Bush administration’s supporters and detractors. From the same photos, one side saw images of patriotism and strong leadership, while the other saw demagogy, jingoism, and blind, wrong-headed faith in a politician. Have you gotten the same reaction from your videos? From your coverage of Obama? How do you feel about this emotional ambiguity? is it your goal?

Each one of these short films has a distinct meaning for me. I know exactly what I’m trying to convey, what mood and emotion I’m trying to bring out of the viewer in each one of these… The exciting thing about the whole process though… is the emotion that I may want to convey… will actually with some, be the complete opposite or even something that I’ve never even thought of.

Your lightstalkers thread called your videos “experiments,” why are they experiments? Will they become more than an experiment for you? What got you started shooting video? How do you fit in the video shooting with the stills and deadlines? What influenced the style of your videos?

Here I’ll give a short synopsis of each of the Obama works and how they really came about. The first one I did was “The New Leader“. I didn’t wake up and think oh I’m going to make a statement about the Presidency today. It really started as I was sitting in the balcony of Capitol Hill while the President was about to step out to address the Nation on his Health Care Reform. I had been loaned one of the new Canon 7d’ cameras to test the day before. So literally 5 minutes before he came out, I decided to attempt to shoot some video of him at the start. Still images from a balcony 100 feet away of someone walking down the center aisle really do not make for great photography. So why now shoot video instead.. Later the next day when I put the clips into my laptop. I was stunned, with the whole quality and the mood of the images. In the next few day’s the President left for Wall Street to make an address on the Economy in New York. Basically here is a man that is trying to sell the nation on Health Care, the Economy, the War. The urgency of everything. This is what I’ve attempted to convey in “The New Leader” short.

All of this was really just an experiment to test out the 7D. There were and still are many parts that should be edited out. This is why on returning to DC in November, my initial plan was to attempt to record some more clips of the President to re-edit into the film. Then on Veterans Day, Obama was to visit Arlington National Cemetery and deliver a speech. This time using the Canon 5D, I basically shot non-stop from the moment the motorcade left the White House until it returned. Right away during the drive I could sense how visually stunning the motorcade footage was, with the added historical importance of the President’s visit, and that this couldn’t be edited into my earlier video. It would stand on its own ["Obama's Burden"]. What struck me is that roughly 10 cars in front of me is the President in his limousine looking out at the constant and never ending tombstones of our war dead.

And then in December, Obama was to fly to West Point to address the nation on his decision regarding Afghanistan. Hence, “Obama’s War.” The choice of the music here is really interesting. What I do, is while playing one of the clips, I will cycle through some songs to see if anything fits the mood I’m attempting to convey. Having already downloaded some music files from pumpaudio.com, I had something in mind. By mistake I inadvertently played this Russian folklore song called Jolly Talk, by DrevA. For me it was perfect, here was this Russian voice taunting us with her simple words. Taunting us, for now it was our turn to send our young cadets to Afghanistan. The same thing Russian cadets were doing 30 years before. As for the images of the C5A cargo plane, they were shot the same night at an Air Force base near West Point. They are from the window of the helicopter as we taxied for take-off. For me they represented the planes that would carry the young cadets to war. They had almost this coffin like quality to them.
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Dreamlives 2002 - Trent Parke and Narelle Autio

I’m not a big fan of videos of photographers taking pictures, but if it involves two of my favorite photographers talking about their creative process, I won’t complain much. In the video, we see Trent Parke and Narelle Autio (and check out her previous agency Oculi for more down-under goodness) working together and on their own personal projects, as well as a glimpse into Autio’s less-glamorous assignments when she was at the Sydney Morning Herald. It’s a rare look into the way photographers work, and it’s well worth a watch.

(via Two Looks)

Newspapers are dying for a few reasons. Readers don’t want to pay for yesterday’s news, and advertisers follow them. Your iPhone, your laptop is muc more handy than the New York Times on Sunday. …. It’s enough to bury any industry. So, should we rather ask, “Can anything save newspapers?”…We started to redesign [newspapers]…I wanted to make posters, not newspapers….Design can turn your company upside down.” -Jacek Utko on newspaper design

Recent news in the decline of newspapers and magazines reminded me of the above video of Jacek Utko explaining his successes in reinvigorating European newspapers through design. By radically transforming the visual culture of newspapers in Poland, Estonia, Russia, and elsewhere, the newspapers’ circulations jumped between 30 and 100 percent. In Russia, circulation jumped 29%, in Poland 35%, a Bulgarian newspaper saw a 100% jump in circulation just after a visual redesign.

I held off posting this for a few days, because it doesn’t really have anything to do with photography, but I can’t hold off any longer. Someone’s put together a supercut of 100 Greatest Quotes from The Wire. The video makes me want to watch the whole series a third time. So good. But, oddly, it doesn’t include anything from my favorite (and many others’) scene from the show. Watch out, though, there’s NSFW language in the above video and nudity in the one below. The 100 quotes video contains major spoilers in from all 5 seasons of The Wire, the below probably counts as a minor spoiler for the first season.

(via kottke.org)

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.

Beck and Charlotte Gainsbourg have just released a video for the song “Heaven Can Wait.” The video, directed by Keith Schofield, is a montage of disjointed imagery lifted directly from photos that have been popular recently on the internet. The use of internet memes in music videos isn’t new, though Weezer’s video featured the memes with full knowledge (and in some cases cameos) of their progenitors. Gainsbourg’s and Beck’s video, however, has rankled feathers, having used the imagery without permission. A number of William Hundley’s creations were appropriated for the video, and he’s none too pleased. Also making an appearance is a recreation of Emilio Morenatti’s image of lawyer running from tear gas while protesting in Pakistan.

Suggested reading: You Thought We Wouldn’t Notice

(via Bryan Derballa)

I guess I want to say that photography for me isn’t the most charming, unbearably fun thing I could do. But at the same time, I can’t help but find it….a medium and a habit that is…quite seductive.” -Daido Moriyama

I thought I’d posted this a while back. Daido Moriyama’s work makes me want to go out and take pictures like nobody else’s. Do whatever you can to get your hands on a copy of any of his books.

(via The Click)

Mimi Chakarova and the Center for Investigative Reporting - The Price of Sex

It would have been better for me not to be born” -Jenea

Our usual headline, “Worth a look,” seems inadequate here. “Need to look” is more like it. Mimi Chakarova and the Center for Investigative Reporting’s recent project, The Price of Sex, is a harrowing account of human sex trafficking told by those who have lived to tell their story. Combining still photography, video, and nearly six years of investigation, the piece explores the sex trade from the villages where women are abducted or tricked into being trafficked to the clubs in Dubai and streets of Turkey where the women are held captive as sexual slaves. This is a difficult story to watch, much less document, but it needs to be told. The Price of Sex also provides information about how to help fight human trafficking.

The statistics are astounding: there are now 10 times more humans trafficked as slaves than during the peak of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. For more information, watch PBS Frontline’s excellent special, “Sex Slaves,” and read the New Yorker’s profile of countertraffickers, those who fight to rescue victims of the sexual slavery.

While I can’t pretend to know the intricate differences between a jpg and a png, I’ve got an appreciation of the science and mathematics that goes into imaging technology. Every so often a strange new development from MIT’s media lab crosses my radar, as happened a couple weeks ago with Bokode, a barcode hidden and read in out-of-focus areas of a picture which could allow something like physical hyperlinking of data on a webpage to physical objects through photographs made of the image or Nintendo Wii-like interactivity in the classroom or in public areas. Weird stuff with much cool science behind the scenes.

Photosketch, which has since been renamed, is just one such weird academic research project which could radically change the way we interact with photos or, um, decorate our myspace pages. It’s got to be seen to be believed; the video’s at the top of the post. Basically, you make a couple line drawings with labels, and the software automatically grabs images from the internet and relatively seamlessly creates a new image with all of the specified elements. Sounds crazy. Is crazy.

Here’s a layman’s explanation, but really you should just watch the video. There’s some talk that the whole thing’s a hoax, but the paper announcing the demo came from a couple of researchers associated with related image research and Photosketch was presented at a respected graphics technology symposium. The source code was purportedly available at some point, but it’s disappeared since I first read accounts of the technology. I was hoping to illustrate the post with a picture of me photographing a unicorn in a coral reef while a UFO flew by….

Heather Morton has a roundup of perspectives on the tool.

(first spotted on waxy.org)